Poptimists Demographics

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

HI DERE POPTIMISTS AND LURKERS

Could you fill this in please? I've made it viewable-to-none in case some of you don't want to give yr age. If you can't think of 3 years in the second question, give 2 or 1, but do answer it if you can as it might provide VITAL SCIENCE EVIDENCE about when people's interest in pop hits/peaks/recurs etc.

EDIT: Sorry, can you give calendar years in question two?

[Poll #742894]

Comments

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

1999, 2004, 2005, then!

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

People should think about/comment on whether their enthusiasm was the result of the broader pop universe, or whether they cite a particular year just because it was "The Year of Kylie" or whatever.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

1985, 1989 and 2004 for me!

but then i was REALLY enthusiastic about certain subgenres in the 90s inc. ardkore, jungle etc. - but thought it best to separate that from Pop for sake of argument.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

For me:
1979 = year I got my first radio
1988 = year of pop / hip hop / house crossover(s)
2001 = year I discovered the internet

Combination of good pop & lifestage

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

1989: The year I really got into pop music and buying lots of stuff (well, and borrowing stuff from the library and copying it - was this the 80s version of illegal downloading?). Plus as well as my personal lifestage, it was also a time of great SAW stuff, the year dance music exploded, Madonna's best album, and the UK finally producing a great R&B album (Soul II Soul's first).

1999: Falling in love, finally earning enough to buy lots of music = happy memories. Plus it's the era of great Max Martin pop, a new astonishing R&B classic every week and lots of cheesy euro-trance type stuff in the clubs (which I love).

2005: Becoming single, belatedly discovering the possibilities that music blogs and communities and stuff opened up, and falling on love with a wider range of music than ever before - although probably less chart-focused than the other two

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

1985 - buying Smash Hits every week, listening to the charts every week, sitting in a friend's bedroom inventing our own charts of what SHOULD be #1, etc.

2002 - the sheer dizzying variety of multinational pop reaches an amazing personal peak.

2003 - as before, slightly less so but I was paying attention and things were going well personally and so on. This is the most marginal - could easily have been 00 or 01 or 04.

There were other times I was as much/more into music but not 'pop' specifically.

[fathands.livejournal.com]

I made mine up.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

1986 -- first discovery of pop music; got a radio for my birthday.
1998 -- after years of metal, indie, dance, hip-hop: belated enthusiasm for pop qua pop.
2001 -- centre of three years or so when pop seems really exciting, although I couldn't say for sure when this period started or ended.

At the moment I feel very out of touch with pop.

[spittake.livejournal.com]

I gave the years I was abroad. It seemed easier to pay attention to popular music than back home.

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have answered the question according to how old I was rather than what year it was. That'd be 1992, 1995 and 2002 then.

[zenith.livejournal.com]

How are we defining "pop music" in the second question? I put 2002, 2003 and 1995, but the things I was enthusiastic about in 1995 often neither self-identified as pop - quite the opposite - or would be accepted as such by certain LexesPoptimists. My enthusiasm for them was all about them getting into/high in the charts, though.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

1992: YEAR O BOSH DISCOVERY FOR YOUNG KAT
1994: CONSUMER KAT LET LOOSE IN OUR PRICE FOR FIRST TIME
2006: KAT OBSESSED WITH HITS!TV AND ALMOST BOUGHT LL COOL J SINGLE IN HMV JUST NOW

[koganbot]

The question is highly ambiguous. I think you mean "name the three years that you were most excited by the music that was popular at the time" (as opposed to, say, name the three years that you now think were the best and most exciting for popular music, whether or not you felt the excitement yourself at the time); but you could also mean, "name the three years of the current pop era - say from Spice Girls on - that are the most exciting" (this is how I originally interpreted the question, until I realized that my interpretation didn't quite make sense).

Anyhow, the three years I was most excited by music that was popular at the time, and by popular I mean really really popular in the U.S. so not the Sex Pistols unfortunately: 1967, 1969*, 1999. (* = I was no longer listening to Top 40 but was listening to the new "progressive rock" FM stations, and if you're not willing to count that as popular music despite its being extremely popular then I guess I could substitute 1988 for freestyle and hair metal or 2003 for crunk and Fiddy or 2005 for teenpop but all three of those years not to mention all others I could potentially list also involved discovery and excavation of previous work in the "genre" and neither of those years encompasses "Top 40 as a whole," in fact Denver can't really support a Top 40 station since the formats are really "niche market with a lot of crossover" and the most recent Top 40 station threw in the towel last year and switched to reggaeton/latin pop and its ratings immediately doubled!)

Most exciting years for pop music whether or not for me: 1966, 1977, 1999. 1988 was good as well, leading me to believe that either we go in eleven year cycles (keep your ears open for 2010) or we have fab years when they end in repeat digits (2000 was good too, the year of Eminem!), so keep your ears open for 2011!

The three years of the modern pop era that excited me most: 1999, 2003, 2005.

(And the three years when I was most excited by music whether the music was current or not or popular or not would be 1973 for the Dolls and Stooges and Mean Streets and the retrospective discovery of Shangri-Las etc., and 1978 for the Clash and Contortions and X Ray Spex etc. etc. etc. and 1989 for freestyle and the Disco Tex essay.)

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

of course britpop counts ;)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

All of the above.

(I do think I should have put 'current at the time' but LJ won't let you edit polls)

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i am this +-1 year in each case

[zenith.livejournal.com]

Was 2002-2003 when pop "won"?

[(Anonymous)]

25;

1989
1991
1997

hkm

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

1986 - lots of power ballads
1992 - grunge
1999 - There was some pop I liked.

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

these years were the first that i started to really think and listen to what was out of the radio, and comment on it in any real way. 2006 has been a year for country, and in many ways ive felt ive backslid, which is odd isnt it?

[darkpigeon.livejournal.com]

I've recognised the last couple of Now canons but generally it was my sixth form years that i was mostly (secretly) into pop. Which probably correlates with when i actually listened to the radio

[(Anonymous)]

LJ won't let me fill out the poll, so... i'm 28, and i'd say:

1995: jungle, britpop and trip hop rising overground, i'm able to hear it all on Radio 1 via satellite, and read all about it in the Melody Maker which is hitting its 90s poptimist peak... and i'm quite sure i'll never ever immerse myself in an album like it happened with Dubstar's "Disgraceful"

2000 - the golden age of 2step and R&B, plus NAPSTER! also: Avalanches coming up, Dooms Night, europoptrance going strong (SANDSTORM!!!)

2003 - the best year for singles of 00s so far! R&B and hip hop still delivering poppy bangers on weekly basis, avrilette rock on the rise, Junior Jack ruling summer house

lurkin' Mind Taker

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

1979 = first year at college, bought a little teenytiny battery operated radio bcz i am PUNKY and only switched it off to sleep -- part of the ideology was that POP sounded better on lo-fi, which this particular year seemed totally to be true
1982 = year between college and moving to london, i was in a band and on the dole! it
was NEW POP but also c91 aftermath and lots of sweet reggae and soul that year
2001 = ILM starburst of new friends to rediscover pop-as-community