Pop music as a genre has dominated the music industry. The songs produced are catchy, fun, and make for some serious earworms. Rap, country and R&B are all pretty big genres, but only one of them takes the place of number one in my book.

At the bottom of this list is country music. I’ve listened to a handful of songs produced by the genre, and none of them really resonate with me. The song that pops into my head when I think about a country sound is “Cruise” by Florida Georgia Line. While the lyrics can feel meaningful and bittersweet, the instrumentals are what drive me away. In some songs like “Baby’s Gotten Good at Goodbye”, there’s a really big emphasis on having a spouse divorce the singer, and it’s really not my style. Every time I hear a country song, it just makes me really sad. Although I do like the voice of Kip Moore, his genre is just not my favorite.

R&B is next up and I don’t know where to put it. I feel like it should be in the hip-hop spot, but then I wouldn’t know where to put that one. I love the lyricism of R&B and the sound is truly immaculate. The rhythm is always engaging and I like listening to it with my family. The lyrics also are kind of like Blues which I think is pretty neat. They have that timeless charm to them. Some of the most used sounds on TikTok now are old r&b songs. I like the style of artists like Aaliyah, Ashanti and Mary J. Blige. One of my favorite songs is the latter’s “Mary Jane”. It is overall a really solid genre, and I enjoy it.

So now we have rap music and I’m a pretty big fan of this genre. I really like the lyrics in most songs, but I also sometimes dislike them. I don’t want to be one of those people but I lean more towards old-school rap some of the time, like Eminem. His songs “Rap God” and “8 mile” have my favorite rhyme scheme of any other song. I don’t think that the lyrics in new rap songs are bad, it’s just some of them that don’t sound very good. Smaller rappers seem to be throwing words together that rhyme and hoping it sounds good. It takes away from the individuality of these artists. People like Megan Thee Stallion and Lil Nas X are some of my favorite artists today because of their personal sounds. “INDUSTRY BABY” is a great song and the emotion behind its creation added the bang that it needed.

At the top of my list is Pop music. I just really love how catchy and in-your-face it sounds. Every time I hear Ariana Grande on the radio I just feel like I have to sing along. The lyrics are sometimes not that great or thought through but I don’t think it really matters in pop. A few of the most popular artists in this genre today had really awful debut songs but make super fun songs today. Like Grande’s song “Put Your Hearts Up”; it’s a fun and uplifting song, but I think it’s a terrible representation of her sound. The line “We can do anything if we try/ Can’t resurrect Gandhi” feels silly to sing along with.

At the end of the day, music is subjective and its style changes from person to person. Each genre out there has its own really unique flair and sound. Artists from each corner of the musical world will make music that’s just right for everyone to enjoy.