This will indeed disentegrate into a semantic arguement, with your permission or course, Martin. In my experience D.J-ing for college radio (UCLA for two years, University of Chicago radio for one), musical genres were broken up in a very quantitative, dry way - Kraut-rock, glam rock, punk, and pop, wham bam thank you ma'am. Each could be appreciated as a movement", a seperate sphere with its own little set of followers, each its own seperate foreground in a historical vacuum. I think I know what you are getting at with your account of historical "pop" as the music of the past that was light, fun, and taken for granted as fluff, and I can appreciate your recognition of this genre in it's many forms and diguises throughout the decades. I agree that it has a genealogy that encompasses the Beach Boys, Turtles, Alex Chilton, Roxy Music, the Shangi_Las, and Heaven 17. I also agree that "pop" by any other name (New Wave, Girl Groups, surfer music) was always pop. Yet, I also believe that the pop of today is more crystallized. It is indeed a movement, a marketing campaign, with all the accoutrements (cardigan sweaters, trips to England and small recording labels) of such a subculture. Bands may have been recording catchy 4 minute songs about love and boredom for the past four decades, Martin, but you don't really HAVE to know that to be a part of todays "pop" scene. Ciao, http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/asbuch/index.htm#hometop Heather Marie Propes asbuch@midway.uchicago.edu On Fri, 4 Dec 1998, Martin Horsfield wrote:
Oh my god,
I've always enjoyed Heather's posts, but never in my life have I heard pop music described as being a 'movement'? Liking pop music is like enjoying chocolate - you know you shouldn't, but it works for you every time.
In Britain, at least, we boys were always meant to be ashamed of pop. It was for girls and, of course 'puffs'. We boys were meant to like Prog/the Sex Pistols/Iron Maiden/Tortoise/Sterophonics (delete according to your generation and whether you had a state or private education).
However, I dare say if any of us on this list thought back to the first music that genuinely moved them, it would be POP! It sure as hell wouldn't have been Faust. So many people live in denial of this fact because they are swept along by the peer group pressure of liking 'real' music and only really rediscover the POP! instinct when they start dancing, getting off with the opposite sex, taking Es, going to 70s nights, gay clubs, whatever. And of course, once they discover the joys of hedonism and having their hearts filled with music, they realise that its just as much fun to dance to Dionosaur Jr as it is to ABC because its all pop; musicians (with the possible exceptions of Luke Haines and Roger Waters) want you to play their music loud, evangelise about it, dance to it, buy it and make it popular. Why wouldn't they?
I've always thought that all the greatest pop songs are essentially TRUTHS, whether that's Reach Out.. I'll Be There, Supersonic ("you've got to be yourself..."), So Far Away (Carole King, not Dire Straits), I Should Be So Lucky, Wake Up Boo, Do You Remember The First Time?, Too Many Broken Hearts, A Design For Life, Becoming More Like Alfie, Comfortably Numb, Even Men With Hearts Of Steel Love To See A Dog On The Pitch, Might Be Stars, Cruel Summer, So Much Love So Little Time, Kiss Me, Broken Heart, Can't Get Out Of Bed, Walk On By, A Summer Wasting or Stars Of Track And Field.
(This partly explains why, in the words of Edwyn Collins, visiting US grunge bands playing in the middle of the bill at Reading "wonder why we can't connect/to the ritual of the trashed guitar")
I know this might degenerate into a semantic argument, or worse still a petty regional one but to us Britons, calling pop a 'genre' is like us calling your Pop a sex offender.
Martin Horsfield
PS/To the person who asked, Pete Wylie's basically been charged with making threatening phone calls to his ex-wife (she's going out with an old mucker of his). According to my man at the Hope & Anchor, poor old Pete (who's coined the best song title of the year - 'Heart As Big As Liverpool) has been 'off his head' for about a year now. Sinful, eh? +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" +---+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" +---+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+