pop with all the impure or complicating elements removed
I always got the sense of it as exactly this, but different in that the complications were added. Kind of - it took as its starting point that chart pop could be good, but wasn't good because it wasn't honest, the lyrics were simplistic clichés, and it was too image-driven. 'Perfect pop' takes chart pop, removes the more synthetic production (and adds production values of its own), adds clever/complex/honest lyrics, adds real musicianship (er in the sense that they play their own instruments, not that they play them well).
I do not like 'perfect pop' as a concept, though I like the occasional band who might fall into its ambit (Black Box Recorder, Saint Etienne).
no subject
I always got the sense of it as exactly this, but different in that the complications were added. Kind of - it took as its starting point that chart pop could be good, but wasn't good because it wasn't honest, the lyrics were simplistic clichés, and it was too image-driven. 'Perfect pop' takes chart pop, removes the more synthetic production (and adds production values of its own), adds clever/complex/honest lyrics, adds real musicianship (er in the sense that they play their own instruments, not that they play them well).
I do not like 'perfect pop' as a concept, though I like the occasional band who might fall into its ambit (Black Box Recorder, Saint Etienne).