"Manufactured pop" is a pejorative for a type of music created by cynical and greedy music labels for no other reason than to keep 150% of all profits made from legions of young (sometimes older) impressionable and gullible LCD-type fans who have no taste (the extra 50% is debt owed by the stars that can never realistically be paid back and is a constantly moving goal line). The pop stars are often no more than paid actors who can moderately dance and sing a few notes with the help of Auto-Tune in the studio and a recording of someone who can sing ok on live tours. They essentially sell their lives/souls to these corporations for the desperate chance that they'll "make it big" one day (see: "It's a trap!"). Which of course they never can do on their own, not without the money of Big Music behind them. Every aspect of their lives is decided by a board of directors or a soulless cutthroat marketing team. They decide, from a formula decided early on, who the star(s) can marry, when they get the bitter divorce, if and when they can get preggers, when to have the break down, when to enter rehab and when to write their "tell-all" novel or star in their bio-pic that subliminally hawks other corporate properties. The Walt Disney Corporation is known for doing this and many of their manufactured pop stars are alumni of the Mickey Mouse Club. Other record companies are known to do this as well.
by thePenciler August 10, 2010