(188 comments)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The recent Now polls have been total blockbusters in terms of comments - and lots of votes too. This runs us up against the technical limits of LJ, i.e. that an over-50 comments thread is a chore to read, and a 2-page one requires particular dedication even beyond that. Not much we can do about that, other than pass the thematic ball forward more often (i.e. start new threads).

So why's it happening? Well Poptimists is bigger now, and this is a period we all remember, and a lot of us were online then and fighting various crucial ideological pop battles (ahem) and so there's an urge to either defend territory hard-won - or complicate history by asking questions which Pop Fervour made us less likely to pose at the time.

It's interesting* that there's a definite hard kernel of a 00s Pop Canon there - after poll after poll with winning scores in the 70s, Britney, Kylie, S Club, Destiny's all post scores of 90%-ish, and I can think of a few more tracks that are likely to do similar. (Obviously a lot of this is a quirk of demographics - we've set up a community where ppl who like that sort of thing can wander in.)

*especially cos of the relative lack of majority-votes and high-scorers for the current month polls stevem runs - has pop got worse, or just more diverse?

Comments

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I think pop IS worse at the moment, actually: or at least pop defined as 'what's in the charts / on radio 1' where with a few exceptions Koganesque teenpop is largely absent. I also think this was a predictable development, and I don't think it will necessarily last.

Reasons: more and more, increasingly narrow niche markets develop, with own systems of distribution, and critical forums. Hence the centre ground is evacuated and becomes full of lowest common denominator, allowing gatekeepers (BBC, mainly) who have learnt to adapt and ride the repetitions of the pop marketplace, to have a stranglehold. LCD at moment = indie; rock; some urban crossover, but not half as much as say 2000-3. The space for novelty records is still there, but they depend on Radio 1 approval e.g. Elton John and Leo Sayer revivals. There seems to be a strict rationing of how many banging trance / house hits get in the charts, presumably related to rationing of slots on various radio playlists.

Not sure why I think it won't last -- probably lingering belief in dialectics.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Haha this sums up in one paragraph a lot of the confused thoughts I have been having re the charts for the past year now - the whys and wherefores etc. Centre ground being evacuated the key concept.

My vague ray of hope for the current state of play not lasting has to do with how exciting and forward-thinking dance music has been for the past few years - when this starts to filter into pop (a process which always takes a few years with dance, because there's no chart-hunger in the genre at all) (and it arguably is already: I hear 'Body Language' by Booka Shade all the time these days in the most unexpected places; Body Language by Kylie was the first minimal house/pop crossover album; even hip-hop is going minimal, stuff like the new LL/J-Lo is virtually minimal techno) - anyway yes, when this starts to flter into pop in the same way that 2-step infected pop to the extent that Liberty X scored unexpected No 1s by using it as a template, then things will Get Good again.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I like the theory - unfortunately Body Language was rubbish. :(

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Which one, Booka Shade or Kylie?! The Kylie album is not great but no Kylie album is - the singles were all ace though.

My other reason for thinking this = Madonna. Confessions is a flawed album BUT the people and the scene she's aligning herself with are incredibly significant. At a time when house and techno are seen as completely irrelevant to pop in two major pop markets - the US, where hip-hop has taken dance's place, and the UK, where sadly indie has - the world's biggest pop star, one of the few pop stars who can afford to buck trends, has chosen to align herself with neither of those genres but with dance.

And with some pretty fucking leftfield dance producers too - eg choosing Tiefschwarz and James Holden to remix her new single. As ever Madge is not the one creating the forward-thinking sounds but she is taking them to the mainstream in a way that eg GA, Rachel cannot - and where Madge leads (and also succeeds) others will follow.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Oh the Kylie I meant, I like what Booka Shade I've heard though I couldn't say it thrills me in the unnatural headphone environment I've put it.

re. the forward-thinkingness of Madonna - hmmm, thing is her biggest smash for a grillion years is founded on an, erm, ABBA SAMPLE.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

An Abba sample thrust into a massive pounding house environment! And the next single basically rips off Booka Shade's 'Mandarine Girl', and stuff like 'Let It Will Be' and 'Push' and 'Like It Or Not' all work is this kind of purée of where electrohouse and its associated bobbins have been at for the past few years - ie it has massive commercial possibilities, but due to the lack of impetus within the scene needs pop stars to do the legwork.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

But "an [x] sample thrust into a massive pounding house environment" is the definition of eurobosh/eurotrance/tacky high street filterdisco, and sure we all loved Eric Prydz but I didn't see any evidence that he was going to Save Pop.

(Though as my tickys this month indicate he sort of did for me)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

This is where dance can get snobby and stuff but there are different kinds of massive pounding house environments - stuff like LMC is LCD-dance, the kind of cheesy boshing thing which will always have the occasional top 5 hit regardless of the vagaries of fashion. It can be fun but compared to eg Tiefschwarz, Tomas Andersson etc, it's cheaper-sounding and isn't going to fuck with your head (and also it's played in different clubs - meat markets and so on). Madonna isn't aligning herself with that - though actually JLC's genius is in taking what it does well and marrying it to what the darker, more minimal dudes do well. I guess it's not just what Madonna's current singles sound like as the scene, the individuals, she's using.

Also the Eric Prydzs and Shapeshifters of this world aren't pop stars in the way Madonna is!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

But if the difference between them is detectable largely by the dance snob's ears and not the general public ears, how likely is a significant level of crossover? I'm not saying, oh Shapeshifers are better than Tiefschwarz (though judging from what I've heard I like them more!), I'm saying, this is a pop niche that is already being filled.

I think as you mentioned before "Slow" and the Kylie album were much more of a pointer to an unfilled niche - that got a lot of stuff right, it just didn't have many or any good hooks, and the settings exposed Kylie's voice as kind of awful.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think the key is the fact that a proper bona fide Pop Star is doing dance stuff - the occasional dance hit by an artist unlikely to trouble the charts again has always happened, it kind of pootles along every so often regardless of the prevailing winds. Also all the examples of this sort of stuff that we've talked about are actually quite old! I think this recent move away from dance in the charts is still pretty recent, I mean as recently as 2004 'The Show' was a massive hit and it was basically Vitalic on pink wine.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Just from the most recent stevem poll I'd point you to Beatfreakz and Sunblock - these tracks aren't getting to #1 right now but that's more cos it's not summer!

(And 'being in touch with the dancefloors' has nearly always been part of Madonna's thing, so she's kind of a special case.)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Plus the whole marketing theme of Confessions was "Madonna goes back to her disco roots, is this her last album?" etc. - so it's been pitched and sold as a return to/update of disco, not - unlike Music - as Madonna The Trendmistress. Judging by the reactions of my 20something officemates, a lot of the people who bought Confessions on those terms were disappointed by the trackier/newer-sounding JLC stuff on the rest of the album.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Bah i thought I replied to this earlier before WORK took over my AFTERNOON but apparently not. It was along the lines of "the 'back to disco roots' line is a v consumer-friendly one and she's banged in a massive Abba sample to make it obvious but what she is doing simultaneously is basically the total awesomeness of selling minimal house and fucked-up techno AS disco, which is apt because it IS nu-disco, and by plastering her album in it she is getting the public's ears used to this so that when other popstrels look and learn and maybe get people to write better songs for them, people aren't going to reject them because they're not going to be TOO new-sounding and so what Madge is doing is in fact using STEALTH to KILL ROCK which is ENTIRELY COMMENDABLE and I WUV HER!!!!111"

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I guess my argument boils down to:

- the difference between boshing high street house and trendy minimal house is small enough to be entirely erased in the transition overground, so prepare for disappointment!

(I think househeads sometimes overestimate the potential for micro-shifts in underground house to somehow change the face of mainstream dance music, which isn't to say it CAN'T happen but I don't think the Madonna record will have had much to do with it)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think her album will be more important in the long run in the US actually, where to my knowledge they don't have high street house at all, or any kind of dance presence on radio/the charts. Selling ANY dance to America = impressive feat indeed.

Over here it's kind of a two-pronged attack because it's coming up through the indie as well - Justice, Ed Banger, Feadz and our old friend Mr Oizo are quite rock-based, and with various indie groups (eg Test Icicles) working closely with them who knows what will result? And Uffie's 'Ready To Uff' is exactly the kind of novelty white-girl hip-hop I can imagine gatecrashing the charts..

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think I heard that Uffie record - it was horrible! Exactly the kind of thing I'd imagine would totally enrage you, Lex.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Uffie and Lily Allen are good/evil flipsides of the same coin, yes. But it's a lot more fun to dance to Uffie, and she isn't as up herself as Allen (well she is but not musically), and I can't resist that whole stutter effect on "I - I, I, I - I'm ready to fuck!"

'Pop The Glock' also OK but would be better if it sampled 'Sweet Dreams' outright rather than puttering around the riff.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

> new LL/J-Lo is virtually minimal techno

This is why I like it!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

You'll love Milian's 'So Amazin' as well then!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

agree with all this

trouble a-brewin!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

How are lowest common denominators formed, though? i.e. why has the LCD ended up at boring this rather than lovely that?

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

a lot of hard effort by misguided fewls at Radio 1/NME axis of indie?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

People who were at the height of their pop-loving years (school/uni) during Britpop now in positions of authority in the media?

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Because L-C-D is by definition boring i.e. law of diminishing returns sets in on the pop production line -- this is why there will have to be some new infusion of energy. This is why things like L**y A***n will do well and very quickly be forgotten, because it sounds like something new when it fact it isn't; the new has to sound strange, so can't be instantly acceptable. The likelier cross-fertilisations will come from 'dance' or 'urban' I'd guess, both of which 'experts' seem to think are in phases of intense inward experiment, which will then tend towards looking outwards and be open for cross-fertilisation again at some point.

I haven't heard the Madonna apart from the first single, which was excellent until she starts singing. My particular gripe is that she crams every bit of space with her rubbish voice and idiot lyrics.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

heh, Lowest Common Denominator Soundsystem. How apt ;)