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

I BLAME THE ABSENCE OF POPTIMISM

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

no regular fix. no radio listen. popworld rub. top of the pops on the weekend. bah

i have a huge massive giant deferral problem...

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

... i horde stuff to listen/view/engage with LATER but "my" response = ALWAYS requires a scan of and triangulation against the "general" responses pro and con

I AM HEGEL IT SUX :(

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

My answer to this is twofold really:

- since working in an office where we have the radio on my urge to chase down and hear new chartpop has dwindled, because I hear a lot anyway but (as I keep saying) the fvcking DJs never tell you what anything is nowadays.

- WRT video channels, youtube etc, I am a very non-visual person I think, for whatever reason I just don't pay much attention to videos. I don't think I've ever followed a link to a video, I just wait for the MP3 instead. This makes me a very non-typical pop consumer, even more so than age/gender/buying habits might.

more dialectical mentalism

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

one of the "good" fx of ysi being seven days only = i do actually DL w/i livin memory of everyone else doin so BUT i kinda hate this and often don't listen while i DL and just file away in itunes and wait on it popping up at random on PARTYMIX

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

I don't enjoy Radio One any more since Mark and Lard left so have moved to Radio 2, where new pop singles take longer to filter through to the playlist. Also, I don't know where you folks get hold of your music - it took me weeks to hear the new Nelly Furtado song you were all raving about months ago, and it's only just got to the A-list on pop radio stations. Also, I am busy discovering the joyful back catalogue of pop at the moment, after having steadfastly listened to new stuff throughout my younger years. But I'm sorry, and please stop shouting at me!

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

There's a disconnect between "fans of new music" and the charts partly because you can hear + download leaked stuff so much far in advance of release dates that the actual release and chart performance becomes a brief coda to the music's life, rather than the whole drama - as it once was.

Also, I guess, a lot of poptimists listens to tonnes'o exciting new music - from microhouse to indie to folk or whatever - that never gets within a sniff of the charts.

Also the freeview pop channels - Ver Hits and TMF - seem to present a pretty skewed view of what is actually in the charts. I imagine they are both heavily riddled w/payola. (Actually E4 music may be the best - but it seems to have been replaced for live streaming of BB).

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Also, I guess, a lot of poptimists listens to tonnes'o exciting new music - from microhouse to indie to folk or whatever - that never gets within a sniff of the charts.

Ding ding ding!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

- no music channels or indeed TV
- no internet

Those are the basic reasons, as they're the places where I used to be able to keep up (I never listen to the radio anyway). BUT ever since the top 40 went completely irrelevant (which I trace back to Will S stopping the top 40 columns - also the internationalism of the jukebox hasn't helped) it's become quite hard to track what actually gets in it and mop up any interesting-looking ones which had passed me by.

The reasons which have cropped up in the past few months which probably mean that even with internet and TV I'd find it hard to keep up with the charts:

- spending all the time I do allocate to tracking stuff down on hott new electrohouse bobbins
- am on more and more PR mailing lists and even cursory listens to new stuff are hard to fit in
- since CD singles became more or less irrelevant it seems that the amount of interesting-looking stuff in the charts has also diminished somewhat
- also since the Britrock revival

Narrow playlists

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

On TV in particular, the increase in number of music channels makes it harder to keep up to date - they all have a narrow genre-focus and hence a much smaller playlist, so you'd need to constantly flick between all of them to keep up to date, whereas in the days of The Box vs MTV you could get to hear most songs that way.

Radio stations don't have huge playlists either so unless you listen lots you'll miss out too.

Plus - the interwebs have made it much easier to listen to all kinds of new music from all over the world, much of which never gets anywhere near the chart. Thanks to that I feel like I'm in the rather off position of listening to more new music now than I ever have done in my life and yet still end up knowing less of the chart than ever - and it's not that my tastes are significantly less pop, just that UK chart pop is a decreasing proportion of the total pop I get to hear.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Listening to the radio a lot doesn't currently fit into my routine -- I often try and listen to the charts and catch some or all of it, but while doing something else. I don't feel particularly upset if I haven't heard some current 'hit' record: I listen to radio 1 often enough that the really good things (or really irritating things) stand out. I check the interweb most at work, and briefly; whereas in the past I would have been able to dl something someone had raved about instantly (unless they YSI it), now I'm likely to forget about it and it will take a while for something to register as an 'essential' listen. All this might change if for example I start working from home a bit more over the summer.

My notion of poptimism does not revolve around a slavish devotion to fashion, and I have a deeply conflicted position with regard to contemporary opinion and popular culture -- I tend to react against it, while being aware that it's not exactly wrong. I will not apologise for it, since this seems to me to replicate patterns of response to something like the public realm of chatter found in almost all of the modern (i.e. post-romantic, i.e. post-Rousseau) intellectuals I admire.

I don't watch much TV and we only have free video channels and I hate adverts so tend to turn them off; I often see videos on MTV in the gym but I would rather listen to my ipod there so can't always connect music to pictures (this happened with the Fallout Boy single).

I think the idea -- which I think you're half joking about -- that we all ought to be obliged to spend 'enough' time chasing the cultural forth of capital is insane and deeply unpleasant; I'm repeating myself I know, but I take poptimism to be as applicable to someone who only listens to 70s prog rock or only likes hair metal and Mozart, as it is to someone who gets all indie about the charts. The cult of the new, the attempt to be 'with it', 'up with the latest trends', 'down with the scene' etc. seems to me a bit wearing. One of the good things about the web communities I've interacted with is the way they generate their own cultural world based on a combination of new and old things. The polls presumably build in to this, but I see them more as an excuse for a natter than anything in themselves. (Heresy! I've never been as into lists and formulae as freakytigger for example...)

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

re: DJs not identifying tracks - perhaps they are all in cahoots with Shazam (http://www.shazam.com/music/portal/)?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes, the polls are good mostly cos they regularly generate huge clouds of chat - which occasionally brings up other interesting issues that might have lain fallow or been phrased vaguely if they hadn't emerged from a specific context.

Once we finish the Now polls I'm toying with using the format for Virgin's "Best...Ever" albums which would allow us windows onto more specific genres.

Re: I BLAME THE ABSENCE OF POPTIMISM

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

but we don't NEEEED TV or radio no more innit!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

you can always just listen to the audio from the video whilst looking at something else tho ;)

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

Actually the different nation's charts on that site are weirdly fascinating.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I dont know, it's still really distracting.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I guess with Nelly it was a case of word-of-mouth via blogs. If you're regularly reading certain blogs you can be up on new pop quiet quickly as the bloggers are usually getting the promo CDs well in advance, what with many bloggers being pro critics.

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

Haha, years ago I said something on ILM about FT popism being "text"-obsessed to the detriment of the any visual element to pop and you told me I was talking bollox!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

yeh the download/release conflict is a good point, altho in a way this should mean people are more familiar with the songs when they do chart.

i guess the charts reflect something a little different to the ethos behind poptimists i.e. there's a lot of indie-rock about at the moment. of course in practice poptimists is more partial to this than it may like to admit but you know, reputation to uphold and all that...

Re: I BLAME THE ABSENCE OF POPTIMISM

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

WE MUST HAVE GATEKEEPERS!!! we are old and not able to cope with this modern young people's world.

i blame MILBURN entirely for this state of affairs, i used to pay attention when bands had good names.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Rumbled! In terms of "FT popism" tho I was probably hoping that my collaborators wd make up for my own shortcomings.

Actually it's just moving video that distracts me - sleeves, photos, fonts, logos etc. all add to the buzz. Though not so much as for a lot of people - I'm very comfortable with the disembodied MP3.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

i think that's a bit unfair, it's OLD indie-rock we like, not this modern stuff (except lex obv).

L4M4CQ CAN SVCK MY C0CK TILL I CVM BL00D

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

haha i have a "shameful" confession to make wrt radio one but so far the margin has been too small ect ect

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

I think with download kulcha, it's self-selecting, you have to actively choose to hear new things + you're less likely to hear interesting stuff by accident. I guess I occasionally d/l things blind on the rec. of Popjustice.

Re: Narrow playlists

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

"and it's not that my tastes are significantly less pop, just that UK chart pop is a decreasing proportion of the total pop I get to hear."


very good point. the Uk charts ARE still reasonably diverse i think, but we're all more aware now of the broader range of stuff out there and it's commercial potential (or potential in other areas?).