I am a great lover of Indie music, and if I’m not careful I can tend towards being one of those insufferable people who thinks that if something is mainstream then it is pandering to the least common denominator and can’t possibly be any good, which of course is shear nonsense. I do enjoy knowing about bands before they hit it big if they ever even hit it big at all. For one thing it makes their concert tickets actually affordable, but there’s also that smug feeling of thinking I’m smarter than you because I found this band before you did. Not pretty I know, but hey it feels good. I do draw the line at the hipster mentality of, well now that everyone else knows about this band they can’t possibly be any good any more. That’s just ridiculous and drives me bonkers. Half the fun of music is being able to share it with other people, which is what makes pop music so great.

There is a lot of not very good pop music out there, but the one thing about pop music is that it’s catchy. Even pop music that you hate can get stuck in your head for days on end.  I was just actually contemplating the other day if people who write really obnoxious pop songs that become big hits ever regret it. Specifically I was wondering if Maroon 5 regrets writing “Moves Like Jagger” because now they are stuck singing it all the time, and really that song is annoying. Some pop music on the hand is catchy in a good way and can easily brighten your mood every time you hear it. Thus today, on a Monday at the beginning of a long dreary February week I bring you three pop songs that are currently brightening my days. I do say currently because the other unfortunate thing about pop songs is that they get played so much that even if you once liked them you often begin to hate them after awhile. So far I haven’t reached my saturation point for these songs yet though.

First up is Flo Rida’s Good Feeling. This song has a great beat and an awesome hook. Rap is the one genre of music I tend to shy away from because I really like to be able to sing along with my music and I just can’t do that with rap. All the rap songs I have ever liked have a more song-like chorus as does this song. I thinking it’s probably classified more as hip-hop than hard core rap, but you get what I mean and I’m not really sure where one is supposed to draw the line between those two genres.

The second song is Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger. I think this is actually the first Kelly Clarkson song I have ever actually liked. It’s just a really great song though, and if I was someone who had recently gone through a break-up (which thankfully I’m not) I would totally adopt this song as my anthem.

Finally the oldest of the three songs is Rihanna’s We Found Love. I have loved this song for months, and I still listen to it every time it comes on the radio. It has definitely passed the great pop song test in that I have heard it just about everywhere at this point and it hasn’t reached the point where I am entirely sick of it. And speaking of great beats, this song certainly has one. NPR Music named it as one of the 100 Favorite Songs of 2011, which surprised me because I don’t feel like it’s something they would normally go for but I certainly can’t disagree with them.