"If you write songs and if you write music that's very sincere and very honest, it's pop music, but it is pop music with a lot of honesty and a lot of heart"
About this Quote
Secada is quietly trying to rescue “pop” from its own bad PR. The line hinges on a reframing: pop isn’t the opposite of authenticity; it’s the delivery system for it. By repeating “very sincere and very honest,” he’s not just stressing values, he’s anticipating the eye-roll that often greets mainstream music as manufactured. The insistence feels defensive in the best way: an artist arguing that mass appeal doesn’t automatically mean moral compromise.
The interesting subtext is how he defines pop less as a sound than as a social outcome. If the writing is honest and it lands widely, then it becomes pop almost by accident. That’s a musician’s way of dodging the usual binary where “real” artists make niche work and “pop” artists chase hooks. Secada’s version suggests the hook can be the truth, not a distraction from it.
Context matters here: Secada emerged in the early ’90s, when glossy adult contemporary and Latin crossover hits were often treated as product first, artistry second. He’s lived inside the industry’s machinery - radio formats, label expectations, bilingual markets - and still wants to claim authorship. The phrase “with a lot of heart” is doing cultural labor: it argues that emotional directness is not a lesser craft but the whole point. Pop, in this framing, is a high-stakes empathy exercise: make it singable, make it communal, keep it human.
The interesting subtext is how he defines pop less as a sound than as a social outcome. If the writing is honest and it lands widely, then it becomes pop almost by accident. That’s a musician’s way of dodging the usual binary where “real” artists make niche work and “pop” artists chase hooks. Secada’s version suggests the hook can be the truth, not a distraction from it.
Context matters here: Secada emerged in the early ’90s, when glossy adult contemporary and Latin crossover hits were often treated as product first, artistry second. He’s lived inside the industry’s machinery - radio formats, label expectations, bilingual markets - and still wants to claim authorship. The phrase “with a lot of heart” is doing cultural labor: it argues that emotional directness is not a lesser craft but the whole point. Pop, in this framing, is a high-stakes empathy exercise: make it singable, make it communal, keep it human.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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