"writing about pop should feel like pop"

Tom posts this in quotes as his hed, gives his response, including this:

It's a cry which goes up vs boring writing sometimes but it's a standard nothing else I can think of gets held to. Writing about film should feel like a film, writing about sports should feel like sports, writing about memes should LOL W/EV, writing about dance etc etc

I've never seen anyone promulgate this standard for writing about pop, not stated like that, anyway. (Was it on some blog last week?) Probably never saw it stated like that — as a requirement — about any music, actually. But I certainly felt it when writing about rock 'n' roll back in my young days. That someone might have said it about current pop makes me happy, despite my nondesire to make my writing feel like Bruno Mars. Maybe someone feels about pop the way people once felt about rock 'n' roll! Feels that it makes demands on its adherents, that it has a promise that you need live up to.

So, writing about pop should be as _________ as pop is! What can go in the blank? Many things? If pop is setting a standard, what is that standard?

I can't believe that Tom and the 24 people who clicked "like" have no idea why writing about pop or about rock 'n' roll or about disco or rave or jazz (as opposed to sports or film) might be subject to a vision or standard or ideal that pop or rock 'n' roll or disco or rave or jazz itself sets.*

Tom again:

You certainly don't need writing about pop to feel like pop when there's such an insane deluge of pop around

Why are you so certain?

Dave quoted me quoting Meltzer (mid 1970s) saying "I'd write like Bo Diddley rather than about him," which is Meltzer misrepresenting himself a bit. I'm sure Meltzer disbelieves in the like/about dichotomy. He's not a dichotomy kind of guy. But I did pose a question to myself, when I first read it: If Bo Diddley is already being Bo Diddley, why do we need Meltzer to write like Bo Diddley? There are some potentially interesting answers. You've got to be willing to ask the question. I gave something of an answer near the end of "Presentation Of Self," though I don't have a copy of Real Punks handy so I can't quote it. My review of A Whore Just Like The Rest may give a smatter of what I think were Meltzer's reasons. ("Meltzer also... aspired to the mind of rock 'n' roll, chose rock 'n' roll as his intellectual activity.... And if the rock 'n' roll mind had gone dead in the music — pertinence now seemed to stay where it was told — pertinence could still be anywhere he wanted on his page.") And I tossed a few half-articulate ideas on Dave's comment thread: "What might be at stake is that where criticism and analysis go, Bo Diddley isn't welcome, even among readers who are delighted to hear Bo Diddley on the player. Also implies, though, that criticism and analysis can travel where music can't."

*Not that I have to accept the vision, standard, ideal, etc. The judgment's mine to make, not the genre's. But if T-ara is making interesting demands, I'd like to think I might try to live up to them.

[UPDATE: The word "feel" in "writing like pop should feel like pop" isn't the most interesting word in the world. "Pop" isn't either, actually. In any event, K-pop, rock, rave, dancehall etc. do a lot more than just make people feel things.]

[UPDATE: Commenter suspects that this post by Neil Kulkarni might be what inspired Tom's post.]