Um, are there still any pop stars?

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@emcee
Yeah - and the latter artists you mentioned aren't probably going to have their music analyzed in reviews. Even if the former ones didn't always get favorable reviews - I heard Jackson's compositions praised and Madonna's quite the opposite way. And this points out to something I think is important - technical criterion creating a difference between bad and good pop music. As Olof Björn Dreijer said: we don't know how to call it, so we call it pop.

[emcee]

yeah.. Any clotheshorse can learn to sing, or vocals fed into a computer to sound palletable. I can even plead guilty to having an awful "singing in the car to the radio" voice, but for my songs that I record to give to my talented female vocalist as a guide, process the s**t out of my vocal guide.
As to popstars though - my take is that they sell enough records (or marketing speak - "shift enough units"), have a defined persona and not afraid to redefine their image. In the last few years Gaga is the only one that really springs to mind and can actually sing (yes, I'm looking at you Britney). Bey is good, but is she really doing anything different to what she was 5-6 years ago?
Pop = popular, star = shining light.
Sadly there aren't as many as there were 10-20 years ago.
To quote a recent movie:
Conner's music may not be what I listen to in my free time, but it seems to make so many people money.