Canon to the left of them

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yesterday's Now poll spawned an interesting subthread w/Lex, Cis and Stevem discussing the emergent 'Poptimist canon' coming out of these Now votes, esp. with reference to trip-hop, and the pendulum swing between the Big Hit eurodance singles which get a ton of votes and the lesser-known ones which suddenly get zero votes.

The trip-hop thing doesn't entirely surprise me because there was a point at which EVERYBODY I knew liked Portishead (and then totally forgot about them by the time the second alb came out), but then I'm a good 5 years older than the people who were discussing it and they were quite a student-friendly band in many ways. I have been a little surprised by the shape of the Now winners, because I simply didn't think there was THAT much affection for big 90s dance-pop hits - again this is an age thing, they were so despised by a lot of people I knew at the time.

The weird skew on europop though is simply down to most of the voters not really thinking of Culture Beat, Corona etc as more than one-hit wonders, for whatever reason I think a lot of people aren't motivated to check out other tracks by someone who did a massive dancepop hit they loved.

I remember saying to Mark S in the pub a few weeks back that it'll be interesting to see at what point the canon really starts breaking down, when the nostalgia effect wears off. I'm not totally sure I can articulate what I mean by that though.

Not about NOW Polls:

The Official List Of Things "Teenage Life" By Daz Sampson Has Reminded Tom Of

Pink Floyd - "Another Brick In The Wall Part 2"
Coolio - "Gangsta's Paradise"
ARSE Weapons - "Hey World"
Denim - "It Fell Off The Back Of A Lorry"

It's ONE WEEK to the pop quiz!

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Not really cos I don't get the impression there's much considered reflection prompting the current votes.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

Certainly bugger all on my part - thirty seconds is all I spend on voting for which ones I think are any good at all. Spending longer on it would only affect the results if I had the relevant tracks to hand to listen to again, and the ones where I do I tend not to need to.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

haha will the canon ever really break down tho? I'm sure many here have stories to go with forthcoming hits by Spice Girls, Pulp, All Saints, Missy etc.

and surely it's only a matter of time before carsmilesteve pops up on a NOW! poll thread to say something like "I remember playing this before its official release at Poptimists".