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the headline is:

"Listen to ‘Popcast’ A conversation about the Weeknd’s new album and making big tent pop in an age of the micro."

I googled big tent and the definition seems not to fit in context and by add the pop it or more confusing, what is the definition of big tent pop?

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The first definition I found for big tent was

a widely inclusive composition or character that allows people of differing backgrounds, opinions, and interests to be members of a group or organization

I would interpret the phrase big tent pop as meaning something like "popular music which appeals to a broad range of people".

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  • I'm not familiar with the usage, but it looks to me like a more specifically AmE expression with much the same implications as broad church in BrE - things that appeal to (or accommodate / tolerate) a wide variety of different people). I kinda doubt it, but there could be some "literal" implications here though, in which case I suppose the most likely kind of music you'd hear in big tents would be gospel / evangelist music (the only other kind of mass gatherings likely to happen in big tents being political rallies, but they don't really have their own characteristic type of music).
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jan 19, 2022 at 17:49
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    It's quite possible that it is mostly AmE. You don't usually see it applied to music - it's more normally a politics kind of thing, like "a big tent coalition" - so I tend to think it's "music, for a big tent", rather than "tent music, which is big".
    – stangdon
    Commented Jan 19, 2022 at 18:47
  • After some confusion, a close read of the NYTimes article linked by Lambie has me convinced that this is the right meaning. "In an era of microtargeting and niches that explode into ubiquity, he is choosing a far less assured top-down path." Broad paraphrase: In the 80s, pop was crafted to appeal to everybody. These days people hope to "blow up" after targeting niche demographics. Tesfaye offers "a light reimagining" of what such a "please everybody" attitude would look like in today's "find your audience" climate.
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jan 19, 2022 at 22:06
  • @AndyBonner Close reading or not. You do not explain big tent. The type of music played in big tents in the US was revival music.
    – Lambie
    Commented Jan 21, 2022 at 18:40
  • It says: make big tent pop. Could just be noisy like revival music. But maybe it does mean that appeals to everyone. Not very well expressed.
    – Lambie
    Commented Jan 21, 2022 at 18:42
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“Dawn FM,” his fifth major-label album, is sleek and vigorous and also, again, a light reimagining of what big-tent music might sound like now, in an era when most global stars have abandoned the concept. NEW YORK TIMES, that means evangelical-type music. With broad appeal.

big tent music

to make big tent [music] pop means: to make big tent-type music stand out or sound great. OR: to make music with broad appeal.

[I added the broad appeal after reading the MW definition]

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  • Great source, but the 8 (arguably 9) uses of "pop" in it as a noun (genre-related usages) suggest that we should also parse "big tent pop" as a three-word noun phrase. (Also, I find it frustrating—*as a musician*, mind you—that even this article leaves me unable to define "big-tent" in a musical context.)
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jan 19, 2022 at 21:55
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    Also n.b. this has nothing to do with "big tent" revivals of evangelical Christianity (even though there's a Christian band called "Big Tent Revival," except insofar as I suppose the generalized term "big tent" might have originated with them.
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jan 19, 2022 at 22:02
  • the album [by Weeknd] loosely follows a concept by introducing 103.5 Dawn FM. An evangelical radio station hosted by Jim Carrey guides listeners to the light. Straight from the get-go, as Carrey exclaims on the opener “Dawn FM”: (“You’ve been in the dark for way too long, it’s time to walk into the light and accept your fate with open arms”). medium.com/modern-music-analysis/…
    – Lambie
    Commented Jan 19, 2022 at 22:05
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    Ah, good find. Still, to describe it as "evangelical music" might be misleading; what we have here is an extended (rather trippy!) metaphoric-narrative concept for the album. (It's also about "the transition from purgatory to heaven," but that doesn't make it 14th-century Italian epic poetry!)
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jan 19, 2022 at 22:09
  • @AndyBonner I think you have made your point.
    – Lambie
    Commented Jan 19, 2022 at 22:10

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