Sinister: Rock and pop?

[Stuart Gardiner]

On Sun, 30 Nov 1997, Jamie Huxley wrote:

> "The closest thing to heaven is rock 'n' roll" 
> 
> Discuss
> 
Rock 'n' roll is surely by definition happy, upbeat music. It is designed
to cheer people up. That's why it was named after sex; it's a joyful
occasion, a brief moment of euphoria, something that makes your life a
more enjoyable thing to inhabit. That's why I have problems with refering
to pop music generally as rock 'n' roll. Good music needn't be cheerful -
indeed it can cheer you up without being cheerful in itself - but then it
comes under another category. So rock 'n' roll is what the writer of the
song thinks heaven should be like, eternal happiness and all that; but it
won't transport you to heaven in the first place.

The problem I think is that there are so many different (and usually
contradictory) labels for the same music. Maybe this is just a British
thing, the desire to find a name for every conceivable type of music, but
when the different genres inevitably merge, what do you call it then? So I
don't think it is possible to differentiate between rock and pop (ie
popular) music. However I do think you can differentiate between rock and
POP! (ie deliberately populist) music. That's why B&S would say they had
rock influences, because they have never written music purely because they
think it will be popular (as people like the Spice Girls or Wet Wet Wet
do); they write it because they like it, it does something for them. There
seems to be a great confusion over what pop means, because someone like
Radiohead are popular without being populist. Similarly Bon Jovi produce
populist rock, whereas Iron Maiden simply produce popular rock. There are
no clearcut definitions, no exact opposites; which is why whenever you
hear somebody slagging off a band for being pop or whatever, you have to
be very careful what they mean.

Forgive my ramblings, forgive me if I appear to have contradicted myself,
but I think things like this are very hard to put into words; music is all
about feelings, which by their very nature are hard to describe. I just
think it's worth trying.

Stuart G

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