Pop Music, Bonnaroo, and the Power of the Everyday

At this moment tens of thousands of people are heading to Tennessee for Bonnaroo, one of the country’s most beloved music festivals. Over four days, on a farm outside of Manchester, they’ll dance to headliners, discover new artists, and feel that mix of freedom and connection that live music delivers.

But while the festival is packed with lights, crowds, and spectacle, the real magic of music is that often it finds inspiration in the everyday.

Since the very beginning, pop has found its strength not in grandiosity, but in simplicity. The Beatles’ first single, Love Me Do, wasn’t a sweeping political anthem or a bold reinvention of genre. It was a plainspoken, almost shy request for affection. Early pop made gold from common feelings and familiar scenes: first loves, missed calls, street corners. These weren’t high-concept songs. They were lived songs.

And it stuck. Across decades, artists like Joni Mitchell, The Kinks, and later The Smiths built cult followings by giving the mundane a melody. A laundromat became a lyric. A rainy sidewalk turned into metaphor. They showed us that there’s rhythm in the routine and meaning in the moment.

Fast-forward to now, and the tradition continues. Artists like Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, and SZA don’t chase pop perfection. They document the awkward, the emotional, the messy. A text left unread. A drive through the suburbs. A moment of spiraling self-doubt at 1 a.m. These songs go viral because they’re extraordinary at tapping into the ordinary and the everyday. They’re deeply familiar in their honesty and that honesty moves people.

In a marketing landscape cluttered with bluster and sameness, the work that feels most meaningful isn’t always the flashiest. It’s the work that sees people. That finds the big in the real. That through understanding what it is like to live in real America, doesn’t mimic their reality but meets it with meaning.

So, as Bonnaroo kicks off in Tennessee, I’m reminded of this: big things don’t always come from big moments. Sometimes, they start in quiet ones. In a verse that sounds like your own thoughts. In a gesture that feels like home. In a message that impresses you simply because it understands you.