This shouldn't come as a surprise.
That is basically the definition of "pop" music.
It's not necessarily "good" in terms of the musicians talent or creativity, complexity, refinement, lyrics, or even dancibility - it is defined by being popular. People listen to it because its what's being played on the pop station.

They didn't need a study to figure this out. If you just ASK, a large percentage of people who actually listen mostly to pop will tell you - they listen to it, they like it, because its popular.

The reason Mother Jones allows a blog on pop culture, is that pop culture has become a product of the Corporate State...and Mother Jones knows who the enemy is. With major corporations in control of the vast majority of media, we receive what the Corps decide will make them money, and it has nothing to do with quality, art, culture or any other redeeming social value. Even Rap music, a social rebellion of minorities, was turned into filth and trash by the dominance of Corp dollars., just as was "protest" and "psychedelic" and "punk" and all the other counter-culture trends of the last few decades. By assimilation, the movements are neutered and turned to the service of the Corporate Culture (an oxymoron if I've ever heard one). That principal extends to political coverage. How much did you hear about Dennis Kucinich this election, or Chris Dodd, or Bill Richardson, or... Get it? And, I may need to remind you since the media will not, the sale of our media to Corporate America was instigated by the Clinton administration before it was expanded by the Bush2 admin. Who are you voting for?

I never thought I would say this, but after watching the video of Celine DIon's "lunacy" I have fallen in love with her! Pitty she sings such sticky gooey stuff. Yikes!

Where does Beethoven, Mozart
and Shubert fit in this?

Give me Celine Dion over any rap "artist" any day!

Pretty good indeed.

I think this political radical will just continue along with her musically reactionary ways. Classical and jazz for me, please. Not much after the rock and roll era. Maybe the Beatles, the Doors, a few folk singers here and there. That's it.

As unfashionable as it is to say, I think more complex music develops and encourages more complex thinking abilities. Perhaps part of the reason people are such idiots in this country is that mindless, repetitive music seems to reinforce mindless, repetitive thinking and vice versa. Works well for the right wing, don't you think?

Each new generation of teenagers has the duty of shocking their parents with music they will hate. Some get lucky with some pretty good outlandish stuff and then others get stuck with rap or headbanger garbage.

I think there's a lot of good music available today - Amy Winehouse, Ingrid Michaelson, Leslie Feist, and Kate Nash to name the most recent crop of singer songwriters, as has been the case for quite awhile now, all females. And if you want more energy there's the White Stripes.

I generally reserve comment when it comes to stupid topics such as these, but I swear if I see another one of these pseudo intellectual 'How can anyone not love Korn' articles without responding to it, I think I may explode! Listen, if you make the argument that most people like a certain type of music because they're sheep, and you're super-cool because you like some new-wave hippie bullshit, you are a hypocritical asshole. Thank you. If you're argument is that everyone's an unoriginal idiot because they don't like what you like - ask yourself the question "If everyone was as enlightened as me, and only liked what I like, wouldn't they just be unoriginal idiots?" You should re-watch Napoleon Dynamite dude -- because that weird dip-shit in the back of the room (drawing ridiculous cartoon characters), yeah - that's you.
The reason people don't listen to the shit you listen to, is because it S-U-C-K-S!!! There is no mystery. Pop-music sells because it sounds like MUSIC - not a goddamned science experiment gone wrong.
In short - Get a life jerk-off!

Even people who think they are discriminating critics don't realize that what they hear as "style," whether someone is cool or tacky, is really superficial. Remember "Red Red Wine" by UB40 from the 80s? Remember "Solitary Man" by Chris Isaak from the 90s? Those songs were written by Neil Diamond, who has been called uncool for decades.

No, I'm not a Neil Diamond fan. I'm pointing this out to show that the structure of a song is independent of production details and the way an artist's image is created and marketed. Musicians know this. That's how Ozzy Osbourne and Pat Boone can admire each other's music.

Many non-musicians judge music by the genre it's been stuffed into and the packaging around the artist rather than by whether the songs are written, played, and sung well. Record companies know this, so they give us mediocre artists who look cool.

You're not a Neil Diamond fan?!?!!! What's wrong with you?