Pop isn't "pop" anymore where everyone hears the same top 40 list and that's it. There is pop sales, pop radio airplay, pop for different demographics. People I know stream spotify, they don't listen to radio, so they can choose what kind of "pop" they want to listen to. It's all pop artists, but what my kids listen to is much different than what they play on local top 40 radio. Radio Top 40 is much more rap influence, derivative, monotonous. Dark harmonies, mindless lyrics, really low crap, imo. I was surprised to not hear any of what I would consider "mainstream pop" (happy music for kids) in the hour or so I listened today, before replying here. You know the famous pop stars with new albums out, like Lady Gaga, Adele, etc. Are they old news?
My wife listened to Pandora until recently. She had it trained pretty well to play her Meghan Trainor station. Then she unassumingly "liked" a rollingstones song (on meghan trainor station) and now it's all fucked up with 70s classic rock bullshit. No way to undo a "like" and restore your previous algorithm. So she dumped Pandora in frustration and subscribed to Spotify so she can play Meghan Trainor and Taylor Swift and whoever the hell she wants by name. People want control and they can get it by downloading a different free app.
She also stopped advertising on local radio and uses Pandora now. A friend in radio biz says it's getting tough.
I was glad to see Justin Bieber and Katy Perry drain the swamp in 2010 after 2 decades of rap domination, but that seems to have been one of those charmed innovative periods in music history that come along every once in a while. Now we're back into a boring derivative period, it seems. But there are new records out from big pop stars that I want to hear that aren't on the radio much.