Is it easy to make a pop song?

the only way to find out if it is easy david, is to try it yourself

Remember the writers are usually a lot more musically skilled and experienced than the performers.

It's hard because there's a kernel of "experimentation" wrapped up in just writing a good pop song -- a really difficult negotiation between wanting to use enjoyable pop conventions but present them in some way that actually sounds new.

Also there's a level on which it's easy, sure: "here are three chords, now start a band." But even that mode just equates with the "conceptual" mode of experimental stuff, because it's hit or miss: some days you can sit down, play three major chords and make up a melody, and it's spot-on perfect; some days you can put every ounce of energy and thought you can muster into it and it still just sounds like three stupid chords and a half-assed melody. It's easy to produce something that sounds like a pop song, sure, but it's pretty easy to produce a noise record, too: the question is what spark in there actually makes one good.

Jim is absolutely right about finding that spark accidentally.

Also: everyone always says computers have made it very "easy" to make music. This is sort of true: computers have made it much easier to produce music that sounds decent enough to release. But just because you can throw two loops together and have them sound nice does not make a song; computers will never make the music move right. And even with all those fancy tools it still takes loads of work to make something sound the way you want -- often more work, in my experience, than recording a rock band.

(ans. yes)

(but no)

Sometimes they are. Other times, both the performer and the writer suck at performance, but the producer is good at programming Autotune.

Doing your own original thing and having it be poppy enough to sell millions is pretty rare.

However, if you have no soul or artistic integrity, but somehow still manage to be able to write and arrange songs, knowing well that you are only doing it for the money, writing a pop song might be easier.

I think putting together a success-bound boy band or teenage pop diva might be a lot easier than writing a pop song. It depends how in you are with the Red Guy.