When Britain refused to listen

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

'Not heard it' is one of the more common comments read when the Top 40 polls are posted. Which is perhaps the most unsatisfying answer that can be given. Lots of people can say they've heard every single in the Top 40, provided they'd listened to JK & Joel that particular week. Although they may not necessarily remember all of them the next day...

But, if you 'haven't heard it', bloody why not?! I personally stopped listening to the Top 40 countdown in full around the same time as I started University - some ten years ago now. As you grow up it seems life gets more and more in the way, preventing you from having the same ease of control you may have previously enjoyed when it comes to making choices as a young viewer or listener. So far so obvious, and it seems this is the real reason why the Poptimists electorate are often at a loss to decide whether a recent Top 40 hit is good or bad based on how it sounds. There are other factors too such as the nature in which media has changed since then - dedicated music video channels, t'internet (esp. portals/filters/resources such as youtube and itunes) and downloading facilities...all things intended to make the pursuit of hearing music easier. But, it's not really working that well is it? At least, not for 'people old enough to know better' who seem to be ageing faster than the technology is progressing, and that's pretty terrifyingly fast. It's all too much. But, really, aren't these just excuses? Is this sort of reasoning good enough? Should we take it as a given that the charts are reasonably constant in terms of quality (regardless of the ebb and flow of sales figures)? Should a Poptimist be putting more effort in? It's not meant to be a chore after all.

I'm interested in any serious views people may have about the whole thing, so the question(s) be as follows:

What is your current attitude to pop (however you define it) and new music? Are you keen to hear as much of it as you can or do you prefer to revel in nostalgia (or perhaps some healthy balance of both)? Where do you turn to, specifically, now to find out about new music anyway? If you DO know every song in the top 40 any given week does this just make you a Chart Geek rather than a Pop Lover now? Do you even care about music or are you just one of those disgusting poll-fetishists I've heard about?

EH?

Comments

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

"but I take poptimism to be as applicable to someone who only listens to 70s prog rock or only likes hair metal and Mozart"

I don't know if I agree. I can see that having some sort of devotion of indeed fanaticism like that fits with notions of Poptimism...but 70s prog rock, hair metal or Mozart are Niche aren't they? And restricting yourself to a niche - worse, an OLD niche, seems to go against my own notion of Poptimism as it stands.

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding though! But what makes the niche fanatic a Poptimist or popist? Surely Poptimism can't/shouldn't be 'I only love this' but more 'I love everything (ha ha), BUT some things more than others'? If it's wrong to try and dictate the manifesto/ethos in this way, why work under a banner like Poptimists/ism at all?

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I think of poptimism as more being about 'I don't care what YOU think about what I like'. Or even better 'I have no criteria by which I decide in advance whether or not I will like something'. In the case of someone living in prog-rock world, my example was chosen to suggest that they are not in a 'trendy' (defensive) niche but something more like the 'land that time / taste forgot', and I guess I was assuming that this is not a case of a deliberate rejection (I will ONLY listen to X) but one of circumstances (I HAPPEN to only listen to X). With 'at the moment' understood: liking one thing but not ruling out having the socks knocked off you by whatever you might happen to hear next. Which puts you under no obligation to go out and FIND something else to listen to IN ORDER THAT it can knock your socks off.

That banner in full!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This is a community for people who believe that pop music is a good thing.

The definition of 'pop music' is left up to you, but it probably includes at least some stuff that gets in the charts.

I am still quite happy with this blurb.

Re: That banner in full!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I should also clarify that when I say poptimism I probably mean something different from poptimists the community, and that in general I refuse all banners and manifestoes. I also have a particular dislike of whatever the plural of ethos is. I am as happy to define it in ways that irritate poptimists as in ways that please them. < /kogan >

Re: That banner in full!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

That should probably be manifestos, but I like the idea of manifest-toes.

PAGIN MR NIETZSCHE

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

plural of ethos = ethics

Re: That banner in full!

[cis.livejournal.com]

ethoi?

(i think i might disagree with you in almost every way! and yet may well end up at the same place.)

Re: That banner in full!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

You mean you don't like the idea of manifest-toes ;-)

Re: That banner in full!

[cis.livejournal.com]

horrible wriggly things.

Re: That banner in full!

[koganbot]

'I don't care what YOU think about what I like'.

Seems to be the opposite of how my mind works. (See WMS vols. 1 thru 13, ILX from Spring 2001 on.)

Re: That banner in full!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

It was the irritant within the poptimist wagon circle that made me think of you (c.f. some of yr descriptions of yr aims on ILM) rather than the bit you quote. That's just me trying to figure out what I was saying to stevem.

Re: That banner in full!

[koganbot]

Oh, I didn't think the "I don't care what YOU think..." remark was related to your mention of me (I'm not that self-centered), just was noting how different it is from the way I tend to do things. Also, looking again, is there some irony in the way you stated it? The all caps "YOU" seems to be deliberately self-contradictory (i.e., it's your way of pointing out that the speaker wouldn't be so emphatic about saying he didn't care unless he did care). In any event, I'd think that the people attracted to the Poptimists site would be likely to think that the use of music as a social marker and the constant comparing of tastes and attitudes are things that enrich the music and are intextricable from the music - in fact that's what I'd expect you in particular to think.

Re: That banner in full!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I agree in general -- but the YOU here would be directed from prog-rock guy to people who might say he's somehow stuck in the past (because their criteria for greatness = 'Now-ness' (by which they think they mean something like public approval but actually mean something more like hipster-critical consensus)). As opposed to all the other Yous who don't have such exclusive criteria (I like what I like, you like what you like). So yes, it's social. BUT: is it social at the point where guy is living in his sound-world, and before someone comes up and tells him 'dude the seventies are so over'? I guess so, but in a kind of latent way, which is sort of activated when someone challenges / questions him.