Can Classical Music Be Considered Superior to Pop Music?
The question of whether classical music ranks above pop music surfaces in everyday conversation, shapes decisions about public funding, and fuels ongoing debates in the philosophy of music. This article lays out a general structure for evaluating music and argues that, under specific conditions, classical music does hold an advantage over pop music. The argument rests on four central claims:
- Musical works, styles, and genres can be compared if we first identify a purpose that listening to the music serves.
- A musical work better suits a given purpose than another work because of its own musical features and the characteristics of the listener.
- One purpose of listening is to see one’s own personality reflected in the music. For this purpose, classical music is more suitable than pop music.
- Classical music works well for this purpose because it is sufficiently complex and is best listened to with focused attention.
Outside academic circles, many people assume that no objective differences in quality exist between musical works. Yet this view sits uneasily with real-world practice, where critics and audiences regularly debate the merits of pieces or performers. Schools and conservatories across Europe devote their curricula almost entirely to Western art music from roughly 1700 to 1900, and instrumental instruction follows the same pattern. For years this focus rested on a broad social consensus about the value of classical music, a consensus that has since eroded. Meanwhile, philosophers of music continue to wrestle with the nature of musical value. The debate remains unsettled.
This article pursues two goals. First, it sets out a general framework that permits comparative evaluation of musical works. Second, it demonstrates that classical works are generally superior to pop works when the listener’s aim is deeper self-understanding and personal development.
Recent work in music philosophy bears directly on this topic. James O. Young (2016) claims that classical music possesses greater expressive resources, largely because of its complex and functional harmony, and he grounds this claim empirically. That expressive richness gives classical music a psychological depth that pop rarely attains. Stephen Davies (1999) revisits a dispute between Bruce Baugh and James O. Young; Baugh argued that rock and classical music each need their own evaluative criteria, while Davies arrived at the opposite conclusion. Young’s view of classical music’s greater expressiveness is persuasive, and the approach taken here builds on that insight by making explicit the instrumental logic of musical evaluation that Young merely suggests. At the same time, this approach agrees with Baugh that evaluative criteria should vary across styles and genres, but it pushes back against Baugh by outlining a higher-level structure for comparing works from any tradition.
The question also touches on the broader “evaluation of music” debate. Jerrold Levinson (1996) holds that listening can have intrinsic value, assessing the quality of the experience along three dimensions: the reward of tracking formal structures, the reward of expressive content, and the reward of the link between structure and expression. Stephen Davies (2005) argues that evaluating music is ultimately about recommending which works to learn, perform, or hear; he adopts an instrumentalist stance where music serves the end of hedonic pleasure. Davies insists we should approach music with aesthetic interest, understanding works as individual solutions to the formal problems posed by genres such as the symphony or concerto. Quality, then, depends on how uniquely a work solves those formal challenges. Theodore Gracyk (2011) defends purely aesthetic evaluation: works are a means to aesthetic reward with intrinsic value. Though he surveys various evaluative principles, he dismisses them as only heuristic. Alan Goldman (2011) likewise ascribes intrinsic value to musical listening, valuing formal structure, logical development, and expressiveness rather than therapeutic or community purposes.
The position taken here matches these authors in insisting that musical works must be compared rather than judged against an ideal. But it Parts ways sharply by rejecting the assumption of intrinsic value, whether in the music or in the listening experience, and by not treating music solely as a vehicle for aesthetic pleasure or reward. Instead, it advocates an instrumentalist framework: musical works are means to extra-musical ends, whether dancing, therapeutic relaxation, or deeper self-knowledge.
Classical music and pop music defined
“Classical music” here refers to the Western art-music canon from the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Impressionist periods—in other words, masterpieces by Palestrina, Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, Mahler, Debussy, and their peers. Medieval music and twentieth-century modernist music are excluded for simplicity. “Pop music” denotes widely disseminated music created from roughly the 1950s onward, in genres including rock and roll, beat, rock, folk, funk, reggae, punk, metal, hip hop, house, techno, and their offshoots. Jazz and non-Western traditions are left out of this discussion, following Young (2016).
When asking whether classical music is superior, the real question is whether a specific classical work stands above a specific pop work. The method here treats any musical work as a means to an end; quality thus equals suitability for that end. That end is always extra-musical, never a form of aesthetic reward. The structure of evaluation looks like this:
Musical work m̄
m1 is more suitable for purpose z for listener with properties p𓁙 l than musical work m2.
An example from military music makes this clear. The traditional Dessauer Marsch is more effective for motivating soldiers to march than Ed Sheeran’s song “Shape of You.” Why? The march has a clear rhythm at 100 beats per minute, a steady eight-beat pattern throughout, instrumentation for a military band, a major key, and an emphasis on strong beats in the melody. The listener is a soldier who is tired, unmotivated, and lacking combative spirit; the purpose is to awaken that combative spirit, instill a triumphant feeling, keep the troops in step, and make the marching tempo felt. In contrast, the Ed Sheeran song has a slightly faster tempo at 110 beats per minute, a major key, sparse instrumentation (acoustic guitar, piano, calm vocals), and a syncopated melody wholly unsuited to marching. This comparison is no surprise, but it illustrates exactly how musical features (p m1 and p m2) render one work fitting and another unfitting for a specified purpose. Similar examples could be drawn from commercial jingles, dance music, film scores, or dinner-party ambience.
A few clarifications: Comparisons may sometimes involve whole genres or epochs rather than individual works—a restaurant owner choosing between funk and house music for a champagne reception is really comparing stylistic blocks. The properties of a work include everything from melody, harmony, rhythm, tempo, and instrumentation to voicings, beats, riffs, and digital production techniques. In practice, music is often listened to in groups, so suitability may depend on the purposes of all listeners together; for simplicity, the analytical formula treats “listener” as a stand-in for any single or collective listener. The word “properties,” when used of the listener, covers a wide range: psychological states like feelings, fears, desires, or goals, as well as physical condition, age, gender, or relationship status. Finally, purposes need not be explicit or chosen by the listener; they can be imposed by others, as in military runs or supermarket background music. Context (car radio, stadium, kitchen) is folded into the purpose variable.
When classical music mirrors the self
Applying purpose-oriented evaluation to functional music is straightforward. But can it work for art music, which does not claim a direct function? Yes, because listeners do bring purposes to art music, whether they realize it or not. Depending on which ends someone wishes to achieve, different hierarchies of musical value emerge. For many dance styles, pop music obviously suits better. But classical music wins out for at least one goal: allowing us to see ourselves in the music.
The idea is this: People can use music as a mirror, reflecting parts of their personality—enduring cognitive and emotional patterns such as longings, fears, goals, and ideals, much as psychologists define personality (Larsen & Buss 2018; Schütz, Rüdiger, & Rentzsch 2016). Roughly, we tend to enjoy music that echoes our traits or lets us feel them. An aggressive person may naturally favor aggressive music; a serene person, serene music. Yet the idea is not narrow: even reserved introverts may love high-energy music if they long to break free from their composure. Three everyday phenomena support this link.
Judgment of taste is deeply personal. If Agamemnon declares at a party that Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” is terrible, and his friend Clytemnestra, who adores it, exclaims indignantly that it is her favorite piece, her reaction is likely fierce because the critique targets something tied to her personality. The same critique about a spaghetti Bolognese recipe would cause far less distress. Musical taste thus touches the core of who we are.
Liking as an event. Whether we like a piece often feels involuntary; it simply happens. A piece can grab hold of us on a summer evening by mirroring and amplifying the atmosphere. Other pieces remain beloved for decades, maturing with repeated listening because they attach to memories or to an evolving sense of self. Music that mirrors personality traits—especially traits we consciously or unconsciously long for—creates a palpable feeling of pleasure. For instance, Wagner’s music can give us the experiential sense of heroic striving; someone who longs for meaning in a mundane daily life then finds real pleasure in that. This experience, ineffable as it may be, cannot easily be reduced to weighing aesthetic reasons (contra Alex King 2022, who attempts such a rationally utilitarian model).
The purpose of increased self-understanding by mirroring can be pursued with any music a person endures over the long term. A dedicated Rammstein fan named Diomedes may find those tracks reflecting his own longings for a certain archaic masculinity. No one denies that pop music can serve that aim. The claim is, however, that classical music is generally better equipped to fulfill that task.
Three arguments for classical music’s advantage follow.
(3) Music as a language of psychological shading. People routinely call music a “language of emotions,” yet this phrase is too narrow. Music conveys not just emotions but atmospheres, attitudes, actions, and psychological or physical movements. The vocabulary listeners use bears this out: music can be aggressive, gentle, serious, joyful, athletic, moving, strict, dramatic, rational, boring, unsteady, torn, calm, restrained, hectic, heavy—and so many more. Even purely instrumental music can carry this rich expressive content. It cannot express fully fledged narrative statements—“Medea is an aggressive person threatening Jason with a knife”—but it can risk present aggression and threat itself, letting the listener feel those forces directly. This is true to the abundant expressive and structural variation across centuries of art music, namely chord progressions inspired richly. Great emotional texts will play among many contexts setting precisely nuanced moods whose specificity ties listener inward reflection powerful. That happens effortlessly in something by the Western traditions.
Some, like Roger Scruton (1997), argue approach is equally suited both to viewing it as music having content expressively and opening possibilities more for focusing while noticing power.
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Classical music is frequently not composed for utilitarian purposes. And even when a particular work was created with a specific function—Bach’s Passions come to mind—it is seldom heard today as purely functional music. This is possible because the music is not bound to its original role. Atheists or adherents of other faiths can also derive reward from listening to Bach’s Passions. The reason lies in the expressive depth of classical works. The content of such pieces is often so profound that they can readily be divorced from their original functional context and enjoyed as “art music.” This is much less true of popular music. Pop is often designed to recede into the background, whether on a car radio or as house music in a club. Its content is less deep due to its function; as background music, for instance, it ought not to monopolize the listener’s attention, leaving room for other social or solitary activities, or it aims to communicate plain feelings without ambiguity. For this reason, the depth and richness of classical music generally suits it better to mirroring the listener’s personality than pop does.
(4) Complexity
A formal reason for the depth and richness of many classical works lies in their complexity. This can be shown across multiple musical dimensions: harmony, rhythm, dynamics, polyphony, form (including the musical period, sonata form, rondo, symphony, and concerto), melody (such as thematic transformation), and instrumentation. Young (2016) demonstrates this in detail, especially with harmony, then more briefly regarding tempo, meter, and rhythm. There are counterexamples in each dimension: individual pop pieces that exceed classical ones in one or another area. Even so, it is likely uncontroversial that classical music as a whole is far more complex than popular music. The fact that the development of a classical work is harder to predict than a pop piece also adds to its complexity. This intricacy opens up many possible expressive routes. Personalities, too, are remarkably complex entities. Mirroring aspects of the self in a musical work is likelier to succeed if that work has a comparable or higher degree of complexity. I am not claiming that a single piece mirrors the whole personality—only some facets. The more surface-level aspects of our character may be captured by a pop song, while profounder ones call for more intricate pieces with subtle expressive powers.
(5) Listening Attitude
The historically evolved approach to listening in classical music differs from that in other musical genres. Ideally, listeners sit perfectly still before performers such as an orchestra or string quartet, not conversing, eating, or carrying on other activities during the performance. These rules are intended to allow full concentration on the music as an individual, without distraction.
First, concentrated listening: classical music’s complexity requires that one engage with it alone; any secondary occupation results in failing to grasp that intricacy. The fact that such an ideal has been established indicates that apprehending this complexity is not only for specialists but is seen as central to listening successfully.
This ideal of listening has enabled composers to create complex works, and audiences to expect to engage with them on that level.
Second, individual engagement: you encounter classical works alone as an individual. If this description of the classical reception ideal is correct, then whether you attend a concert by yourself or with others is irrelevant—the engagement remains personal. Many other types of music can only be properly experienced in a group. Dance music of various forms is experienced as a couple, an organized group, or an unruly crowd. Pop is frequently listened to as background, and pop concerts have always been mass events where audiences move, speak, scream, or sing along instead of sitting quietly.
To sum up, we can complete the variables of the evaluation structure:
Classical music — with the properties of expressive depth and high complexity — is more suitable for a listener l whose listening is concentrated and whose purpose is to mirror l’s personality than popular music is, since the latter offers clear feelings and lower complexity.
Objections
Aesthetic Relativism
The instrumental evaluation of musical works conflicts with Kant’s famous idea that aesthetic perception is “disinterested” (Kant 1974: 117). More recent philosophers speak of an “aesthetic interest” to be distinguished from all other “profane” interests (Davies 2005: 206). Stephen Davies opposes an instrumentalist approach that posits many equally legitimate purposes. His argument goes like this: assume an evaluation can be made only relative to certain aims. Then work m1 might be suited for aim p1, and m2 for p2, but if two listeners differ, they can agree only if they share a single aim. This, Davies says, is an unfortunate situation that forces us to designate a particular aim as essential, namely “aesthetic interest.” Moreover, instrumentalism supposedly leads to radical aesthetic relativism or subjectivism, wiping out any rational basis for evaluation (Davies 2005: 198). In six points below, I argue that a multiplicity of value hierarchies is harmless and that we can drop the assumption of a vague “aesthetic interest.”
(1) We usually agree on what goal we are pursuing with a piece. When we do not, many disagreements or conflicts about value can still be resolved by highlighting the conflicting purposes being pursued.
(2) In real life, musical works are only put to a handful of ends: dancing, marching, relaxing, distracting, or creating a convivial atmosphere. Radical relativism or subjectivism does not appear in everyday practice—the worry seems strictly theoretical.
(3) To arrange works into one unified ranking, we would need to assign different values to purposes or activities—e.g., rowing vs. dancing—which is not obviously possible. We might separate activities where music serves other ends from ones where listening is central. But even then, it is unclear why dancing to music would be any less valuable than concentrated listening.
(4) We should also think about the function of music evaluation itself. With comparative judgments (Davies 2005: 196) we frequently offer recommendations tied to specific purposes—“When I run, I put on Metallica” or “Chet Baker is perfect for dinner.” Yet we also sometimes say, “Chopin’s Nocturne No. 1 is my favorite piece” as though no purpose were involved. Such generic judgments are best understood as elliptical: the purpose is simply left unsaid. In many cases that is mundane—relaxation or improving one’s mood—not necessarily aesthetic interest or mirroring one’s personality.
(5) Incommensurable value hierarchies need different handling in aesthetics than in morality. Ethics sometimes requires unified values to resolve conflicts violently: for example, the fetus’s right to life vs. the mother’s right to self-determination for abortion yields exclusive choices. In aesthetic taste conflicts, we can almost always choose which piece to listen to. The neighbor’s loud music may be a problem, but the quarrel is rarely about musical quality—it is about noise.
(6) The approach does not mean evaluating music “merely subjectively” while remaining rational. We can argue vigorously and rationally about quality, yet it allows for “rational dissent.” Two parties can disagree rationally because they assume different purposes. But even when they share the same purpose, different weightings of musical properties—say, in mirroring one’s personality—continue to allow rational disagreement, since we have dissimilar personalities.
Subjectivism
Philosophical discussion on music evaluation largely agrees that evaluations are possible—a stark contrast with the common view that they are wholly “subjective.” I address this objection by showing how the present account does justice to both subjectivist and objectivist “intuitions.”
Subjectivists sense three meanings: (1) evaluation cannot be justified in a generally comprehensible manner; (2) evaluations vary from person to person; (3) musical taste is something deeply personal. The present approach rejects (1) but accommodates (2) and (3). Variable evaluations are no reason to foreclose rational criteria, and the personal nature of sound judgment follows precisely because one objective of engaging music may be mirroring one’s self.
Objectivist intuitions hold (1) that generally comprehensible evaluative statements are possible—not purely random—and (2) that evaluation depends on a musical work’s features, i.e., it is object-oriented. This approach complies with both. It affords rationally justifiable evaluation, but refers back to selected purposes—which remain subjectively determined—while also depending on specific features of the work (e.g., a march needs an appropriate tempo, dynamics, key, and instrumentation to serve its end effectively).
It also clarifies why we can recognize good music without liking it: we may value form, historical importance, or the match between technical means and expression, yet not feel moved. This occurs because structural judgments follow rational justification, but a piece may leave our concerns untouched—it fails to act as a mirror for our personality.
Intrinsic Value
Roger Scruton takes music listening as intrinsic: “We speak of aesthetic value because there is aesthetic experience – the experience which arises when we attend to appearances ‘for their own sake’” (Scruton 1997: 374). Interestingly, he also ties music to the self: art offers a way to project one’s emotions outward but also to encounter oneself in them (Scruton 1997: 348); works act as icons of “our felt potential” that help us bring clarity to our interior lives (Scruton 1997: 352).
These remarks hint at instrumentalism, which Scruton rejects, drawing on friendship: a genuine friend is valuable in itself, not for one’s own gain; yet friendship is indeed beneficial (support in trouble) (Scruton 1997: 375). He distinguishes function from purpose—a friend may functionally benefit you, but benefitting you should not be your purpose.
Analogies merely illustrate, never prove; they need to be justified independently on both sides. Scruton uses his simply as illustration (1997: 375). And the analogy has faults: if one “friend” only seeks advantage, it is not true friendship—but listening to music reflected personality offers a legitimate aim. In the case of mirroring, consciously pursuing it makes improvement more probable than passively steering through material.
Success at receiving classical music surely demands experience, often education—hours of attentive study to comprehend Beethoven’s expressive depth in his piano sonatas. Perhaps focusing first on subjects rather than self-knowledge yields better results; our cognitive resources are fixed. But it is uncertain that improved self-knowledge requires renouncing its pursuit as one’s aim altogether.
Scruton also worries about politics: instrumentalism could be exploited (Scruton 1997: 374), a concern made real by totalitarian cultural policies. But this throws out the baby with the bathwater—mirroring personality is apolitical, and multiply instrumentalities do not inherently lead to political manipulation.
That urge to insist on an intrinsic value plausibly echoes a Cold War worldview: free societies possessed free art for its own sake, whereas socialism subordinated culture to political writ.
Formalism
The aim of mirroring one’s personality assumes music carries expressive qualities—an expressivist view that is contested by formalism, discussed since Hanslick. Our model risks picking one side. To show that it is compatible with both positions, we can treat them as attitudes toward listening—not as fixed essentials that determine musical reception. The formalist holds that music has no emotional content; it is play of structures. An expressivist thinks otherwise: music conveys inner states, able even to fine-traverse condition.
Both are permitted. Mirror-the purposes: in expressivism, the function is obvious: if feeling is revealed, introverts discover themselves behind panels. Formal rendering: in that situation formal captures equally valid – formal receives may glimpse coherent self structure abstract yet it design impression of inner shape in unspecific generality – likely incomprehensive known only.
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Not everyone enjoys this mode of listening equally, even when they possess the requisite knowledge and a well-trained ear. We have already hinted at one explanation for this variation. Music we come to love over the long term reflects our personality, and this reflection is the very source of our enjoyment. Individuals who take particular pleasure in a formalistic listening style likely have an inclination toward rationality, combinatorial puzzles, intricate thought structures, and the like. These traits are undeniably part of their personalities, and those parts are mirrored in the music. The formalistic approach to listening thus fits perfectly with the purpose of self-mirroring, while also clarifying why people derive satisfaction from such abstract formal games.
Self-knowledge
It is a plain fact that we return to musical works again and again, often across years or an entire lifetime, continually finding enjoyment that may even deepen after decades. Earlier I explained this phenomenon through the tight bond between our personality and the music we admire. Yet this raises a counter-argument. Suppose that listening to music in order to see one's own personality results in a kind of self-knowledge, expressible in propositional statements. If Patroclus listens to Wagner, he might articulate the outcome as follows: “I have a longing for heroism with deep meaning.”
But here a problem arises. Research or knowledge-gathering are often finite processes. Once Patroclus has discovered and formulated this insight, he could discard Wagner's music entirely. That, however, contradicts the observed fact that we replay treasured works over and over (Goldman 2011: 158). Four points can be made in reply.
(1) Unlike some other domains of knowledge, self-knowledge does not seem to be finite. One reason is our constant change, and listening to music plays a part in that transformation. By engaging with music, we not only recognize our personalities but also develop and reshape them. Through Wagner, Patroclus can experience what it feels like to achieve great deeds in a meaningful cause, noting its similarities and differences to related emotions such as profound responsibility.
(2) The interpretation of musical works is an unending process. Like other artworks, a piece's meaning can be approached hermeneutically but never pinned down definitively.
(3) The propositions articulated after listening should be viewed as hypotheses. Patroclus should say, “I notice that I like Wagner. Maybe this is because the music conveys a feeling of heroic effort for a deeply meaningful cause; perhaps I feel a longing for such a feeling.”
(4) Most musical works do not remain favorites forever, only occupying us for a time. This holds true for classical music as well as pop, and for masterpieces as much as trivial pieces. Sometimes a work has told us everything that interests us after a few hearings; we learn a bit about ourselves but realize the connection is only superficial. Sometimes we change so greatly that the mirroring of our personality stops altogether, and we wonder how we once prized that work so highly. In such cases, we do – and should – stop listening further.
Identity
Pop music is generally more famous for creating a sense of identity (Identitätsstiftung) than classical. Classical listeners rarely dress in fan merchandise or form comprehensive subcultures.
Metal fans, by contrast, have long constituted a subculture; more recently, Taylor Swift fans define themselves in a similarly subcultural fashion. Identifying with a musical style and building a lifestyle around it is a hallmark of youth culture as it emerged with pop music, traceable back to Elvis Presley and the Beatles (Wicke 2017). The idea that music mirrors personality is compatible with this, yet classical music seems to play only a minor role at first glance. I address this objection in two points.
(1) Mirroring one's personality differs from forming an identity through music. Identity formation primarily aims at creating belonging. Music then serves less as self-knowledge than as a tool for establishing social connection, community, or distinction from others, such as one's parents. Even so, personality mirroring can play a role in the formation of belonging; people who do not like metal will hardly decide to join the metal community.
(2) The purpose of mirroring one's own personality can also be pursued through pop music. An ardent listener of Manowar's Warriors of the World likely harbors a tendency or longing for militarism and its associated traits. Nevertheless, I argus that classical music is generally more suited to this aim. Classical music's depth of expression and the special listening attitude demanded are key. Pop music, on the other hand, is often built around conveying clear messages through simple means or functioning as background music. It is typically not heard contemplatively but in a group or crowd; singing and dancing along are expected, both normatively and descriptively.