Donkeyboy, or defending pop

Donkeyboy is a five-piece Norwegian pop band, and I feel compelled to say that plainly, without apology. Pop gets treated like it’s somehow beneath discussion, like anyone with actual taste would be elsewhere—guitar bands, electronic things, whatever the sanctioned sound is supposed to be this year. It’s reflexive now. The moment something becomes melodic and popular and refuses to hide about it, the entire apparatus of music criticism shows up to explain why it doesn’t matter.

The mechanics of making pop are easier to describe than to dismiss. You take some competent beats, a melody that hooks, words that sound good sung loud, and you have a template. That’s how the industry manufactures its interchangeable stars, why every generation produces bodies built to be famous for six months and then forgotten. The form gets ruined by people who learned the technique without understanding what makes the technique worth preserving.

But there’s pop that survives that. Pop that doesn’t apologize, that understands melody and rhythm as things worth getting right. Alphabeat had it. Little Boots and La Roux had it. They knew the genre wasn’t a shortcut to success—it was harder than most people thought, because you can’t hide behind difficulty. Everything has to actually work. Donkeyboy showed up with that same confidence, the kind that usually gets mistaken for arrogance. Five guys making pop music that sounds inevitable, which means it probably cost them something to get there.

I think everything I genuinely like gets treated this way. Anything accessible, anything with a hook, anything that doesn’t perform being difficult automatically gets disqualified. It’s cowardice wearing a taste hat. You’re not allowed to just listen to something because it sounds good; you have to justify why you’re permitted to like it. Donkeyboy doesn’t care about that equation. They made pop music that works, plain enough that while you’re listening to it, you stop thinking about whether you’re allowed to like it.