Sinister: kids toda

[Sandra Duric]

Ooops, sorry, pretty damn long - apologies!

Hello all,

Now, this is a lot more interesting than my morning woes of ripping apart our company web site and begging the internet service provider to tell me why I can't FTP!

Is "pop" a movement?  What is a movement? How do you define "pop"?  And whether or not "kids today" have anything to rebel against?  And can you even really call Belle & Sebastian pop? (my question - where do they file B&S in YOUR record shops?)

Anastasia wrote:

"I think something we need to decide before we discuss this any further is this: is 'pop", as heather called it, a 'movement'? it certainly is *not* a movement, I think, in the same way the mods..."

Personally, I don't think a movement has to be about rebellion/politics.  It can just be a group of people quietly affecting the world in small, but significant ways.  I mean, if you think about Belle & Sebastian's lyrics, they are critiquing society's values as we live it today.  Granted, the sweetness of the music doesn't immediately make you aware of the implications of what they are really saying - for example, Seymour Stein - isn't that a tongue in cheek criticism of the major label industry?  And "Century of Fakers"??  The title says it all!  Now, I'm not saying Belle & Sebastian are a movement - you need more than one band to do that; you need a whole bunch who fall into the same ideals and beliefs as them.  I can't think of any as my mind is mired in HTML thoughts, but I've had the impression for the last 2 years that a certain honesty and thoughtfulness prevails in most of the "indie" music I listen to.  It reminds me of the classic folk songs of the 60s that we all know but don't really remember the bands or the titles, like Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel and the Moody Blues.

So, is there a change, a movement?  I personally think so.  Although, we'll know when commercial radio finally catches on and that may not happen for quite a while.

As for what is "pop" and are Belle & Sebastian considered pop?  Hmm, I don't think labels are all that important, unless you work at HMV or Virgin, and even then, I always thought alphabetizing the entire RockPopIndieSoul section would make my life a hell of a lot easier!    

Anastasia wrote:

The thing is, to me it seems that kids these days don't have much to rebel against, and therefore the 'movements' (if you can call them that) that they 'subscribe' to don't tend to 'embody' their whole lives or styles or lifestyles.  When you were a mod your were a MOD, it's who you were and it was what you were about.

Maybe we don't have much to rebel against, or maybe we have so much we're overwhelmed and have decided to focus on being "individuals".  True, there's been nothing like the MOD thing, the impact, the cultural significance, in the 90s, that I can think of.  There was that entire new wave Duran Duran haircut deal happening in the 80s (and still happening today, what with Grosse Pointe Blank sending them all into fits of nostalgia).  But if you look around as you're walking to the nearest tube/subway station and really see all the poverty, rather than rushing on to your job or your class, you'll realize that there are things to still rebel against.  We just know that shouting and organizing ourselves into activist groups isn't always the best way.  Music, quiet or loud, clever or not, has a more far-reaching on the younger generation that a riot on the streets of New York does - that's only really important to the New Yorkers/Americans.  Belle and Sebastian have seriously touched people on every single continent, if the members on this list are any indication.

Enough said - B&S say it way better than I can.

Sandra - pseudo-intellectual mood today....

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