View from the other side

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

(re-posted from byebyepride, apols if you see this twice!)

Interview with Sasha Frere-Jones on the New Yorker site. Interesting to see what an outsider makes of the British pop scene at the moment, but I'm not sure he's got it all right -- what do you reckon? The bum notes for me were struck with the supposed British love for the Mavericks (really?); the suggestion that British bands dress better than Americans (really?); and overlooking the small fact that the Rachel Stevens album flunked out (don't believe everything Mr PJ tells you!).

Comments

[koganbot]

Maybe you have to take Frere-Jones like Simon Reynolds: he'll make whatever ridicuulous generalization seems to feel good at the moment, then you have to keep reading to figure out what might really be on his mind - which means if this q&a had been six times as long he might have gotten somewhere.

Anyway, since I don't know the Brit scene, what ring false for me in particular aren't the claims about Britain but the claims about America. We like our Brits happy like the Beatles? Um, what about Rolling Stones, Animals, Zeppelin, Sabbath. (And the Beatles weren't 100% all happy all the time anyway.) We do like our darkness but only when it's personal like goth, not social? Well, even granting that goth is more personal than social (which I wouldn't), what about hip-hop, what about gangsta, what about crunk, what about screw? And if we generally want our Brits happy, why do we reject Eurofroth? He's right that we do, and I wish we didn't, but my guess is just that Richard X and crew aren't strong enough in the r&b, and the somewhat r&b-leaning Sugababes aren't r&b enough either. I don't know if I'd call the Spice Girls more r&b than the Sugababes, but they were somewhat r&b, more so than Annie or Kylie. Also, in the past America has produced fizz and froth of its own - disco, freestyle - which Europop drew on in the first place.

Also, seems to me that Tunstall and Dido and Tashbed do quite well here, are doing better than the Toris and Fionas and Alanises and Sheryls, at the moment (which may bode well for Marit).