Isn't "Pop" Supposed To Be Short For "Popular?"

Went to the kidlet's school tonight for the annual High School Pops Concert. Back in olden days at my high school, Pops happened in the spring, and involved just the band doing numbers from musicals, with the bandies themselves trying out never before used singing voices and dancing feet. It was invariably filled with lyric changes to mention the band director, and was salted with re-enacted Monty Python sketches.

Nowadays, the youngsters do it differently.

With only two months of practice, there was a definite lack of musical crispness to the presentation, which incorporated all the choirs, the orchestra, and about five different jazz bands. each musical unit had its own electric guitars/pianos/bass as well as the more traditional instruments.

Oddest of all, to me at least, was the selection of music. It's just kind of hard to believe that something is really "pops" if it was written before I was born--I just doubt it has a lot of currency among the actual performers. Sure, there is nothing wrong with "In The Mood" and "Night Train"--they are timeless and classy pieces--but I wouldn't necessarily call them "pops." And really, there is no call for resurrecting "25 or 6 to 4" and inflicting it on a previously unscarred generation.

Probably the worst choices--IMHO, of course--were the choir pieces. Many of them were the kind of songs that, in their original form, really aren't about the vocals at all. "Funkytown" for example. It's gotten a new lease on life somehow, but even so, it's not really the sort of song that lends itself to a male chorus. "Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto" is just unexplainable. The senior women did a nice job with "Come On Over" as originally performed by Christina Aguilara, complete with simple and effective choreography--but again, not really the sort of music that calls out to be rendered in harmony.

It's not that I'm dying to hear high school students performing the latest by Chingy or Outkast; and I think we're all glad we aren't hearing these kids performing the Oscar winning "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp." But surely there are some more effective choices? Music that was--oh, maybe written for multiple voices? I hear there's this mythical land, called Broadway, and that occasionally they have a tune or two in their shows...