  This actually may be all I have to say for now (I didn't mean to get so carried away! ): ...Lap-pop, on the other hand, approaches song composition from a fundamentally electronic perspective. Meaning that even when organic elements like guitars are central to the mix, they are treated no differently from the computer-generated pops and clicks. Each sound is a discrete texture -- the composers job is to arrange the textures in such a way where they can all breathe. This, in a nutshell, is IDM: Squarepusher playing around with jazz guitar on messy, breakbeat-riddled tracks; Aphex Twin prettying it up with pizzicato strings. Where lap-pop goes IDM one further is in taking one of these typical sonic landscapes, finding a hook, smoothing out the edges, and opening itself up for a pop vocal line. Hence, vocal IDM. But sometimes so pop its more like New Wave with better technology: if there were gently skittering beats in 1982, wouldnt Spandau Ballet have used them? 
