Can popular music ever truly be unplugged?

Without a doubt, technology shapes the music which we listen to and are exposed to, as Paul Theberge recognised in 2001, when he said that "without electric technology, popular music in the 21st century is unthinkable." This is true, as without technology, there would no such thing as popular music, just music made up from singing and non-amplified instruments.

Without the technology we have, popular music simply could not exist, due to the lack of promotion, recording and, also the ability to play concerts would be lost because of the technology required to amplify and play to a large crowd. 

This leads to the popular MTV Unplugged specials actually not being unplugged because of the microphones and recording technology used, rather than just being wrongly thought of as 'unplugged' due to the acoustic instruments used. It could also be argued that the famous house gigs that The Libertines hosted were unplugged, however the internet promotion for the gig overrides this fact. 

What is popular music?

Over the years, the definition of 'popular' has changed drastically. Different eras define what music is seen as popular, usually looking to what's fashionable at the given time. It can mean all sorts when applied to music, music snobs and indie kids tend to turn their noses up at the 'popular' and delve deeper into the more obscure and unknown. 

I used to be one of those people.

I absolutely hated it if a band I felt like i had discovered alone became popular and well known, I felt as if they were my band, and nobody could EVER appreciate them the way I did. So for a while, for me, the term 'popular' was definitely a negative.

Then I grew up, and began to appreciate music more and see that what was popular was not always bad. I grew to like things I would have previously scorned, e.g. Lady GaGa and Beyonce, and almost was happy if a band I liked became popular as I realised they should get the recognition they deserved (except Kings of Leon, because they became crap with popularity...) 

To be honest, one person's popular music isn't another person's popular music, and it could be sen as a positive or a negative. And perhaps the only real way of defining pop music is to look to the charts, as they should probably hold the answers.