Sinister: Talk about... pop music

[Heather Marie Propes]

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 at 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?
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