New Pop

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

If you haven't voted in the Poptimists demographic survey, please do!

It makes interesting reading (FOR ME!) so far - we have a couple of years clearly in front as far as pan-generational excitement goes, and the agegroup distribution patterns are intriguing too - more detail on all this when I've got more votes in. The agegroup distribution is shaping up as expected - the majority of Poptimists (about 2/3) are in their twenties, with a handful under and a chunk over.

Something which does interest me in terms of the results - very few votes so far* for the early 80s, 80-83, the years of New Pop. New Pop has been repeatedly invoked - often by people who wouldn't consider themselves 'poptimists' I grant you - as a kind of pop ideal. Certainly as far as this - hugely unrepresentative - community goes, though, the number of people who remember it as exciting is dwindling. To recall New Pop as a critical moment you need to be 35 or more, I'd guess - even to remember it clearly as a pop moment you'd need to have hit 30. At some point New Pop is going to shift from being a beacon of inspiration to a stick to beat the kids with - perhaps that point has already passed...?

*(it's v.unscientific of me to mention this as there may now be a spike).

Comments

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

I remember the tracks and artists that comprised new pop being around, but being born in 1975 wasn't at all aware of its newness. It was just pop. I suppose a kind of new pop as default setting theory could be used to explain some of my deep rooted pop preferences, though I can't think of any supporting examples off the top of my head.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

shakin stevens, obv.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

The Welsh Elvis is *not* one of my deep rooted pop preferences!

Edward Jenner to thread!

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

OTOH maybe early exposure to that weakened strain of Elvisry is responsible for my later lack of interest in the original.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

Same here. I was born in 1974, so most of my early musical memories are of that period, so I only appreciate it for its newness in retrospect knowing what I know about pop history.

But while I was too young to vote for it as one of my favourite pop years, it is the only period of pop 'history' (i.e. any music that came out before I started buying and actively consuming music) that I have made made regular attempts to explore and listen to.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

As well as the much-promised "poptimists' attitudes to the unfamiliar" debate, I want to have a big conversation at some point about attitudes to oldness.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

so what yr saying tom is "community needs more old giffers"?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Haha no, I like being among the older giffers here!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

When I say "beat the kids" I probably more accurately mean "beat current pop".

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Did any of the Dissensians use it against MIA in the endless fites of last year? I can't recall if they did or not, but it strikes me as exactly the sort of thing that might have happened in the heat of battle, esp given S.Reynolds' participation.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Dude, the ILM threads on MIA were bad enough, you don't think I went near the Dissensus ones?

It's possible, anyway. I've held up New Pop as an ideal plenty of times, I'm really noticing it lately as a trope among some 40something critics* - the demise of Smash Hits was a particular spark to the tinderbox. It's harmless enough, except for seemingly leading to people overrating Goldfrapp. I suppose my question wd be, if you don't remember New Pop, does its use as a referent annoy/baffle/excite you or what?

*and the Nipper!

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

I have been using it as a stick to beat young'uns with for some time now!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're the young end of this worrying trend!

[(Anonymous)]

"I suppose my question wd be, if you don't remember New Pop, does its use as a referent annoy/baffle/excite you or what?"

1980, year that god made me n'shit: EVERY referent to the past used in the sloppy 'everything in 1981 was new pop'/'everything in 1991 was ardkore' way annoys me. and i can remember the charts in '91.

new pop is more baffling than ardkore cos it looks thinner on the chart ground. it's maybe more exciting, because i probably would have liked it at the time, while i wouldn't have been a owusay "cheesy quaver" (liked the tunes but not the other stuff).

hkm

[cis.livejournal.com]

Greg and I were talking bout New Pop the other day! We decided it was the last time that indie people had tried to make pop records and actually made pop, rather than trying to make pop and still coming up with indie.

I like New Pop well enough I suppose, but I think of it as simultaneously being pop and not-pop, it's somehow disqualified from being er 'real pop'. I don't know whether this is because I was born in the early eighties so it had already passed into a series of canons before I could start thinking about it? The first time I came across ABC, Culture Club, etc was in the pages on Q magazine, after all. It's kind of... acceptable, credible, in a way that e.g. the Bay City Rollers or whatever aren't.

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

I have for a while been formulating the theory that the best pop has ALWAYS been made by formerly indie people: from the Beatles'n'Stones through Bowie, ABBA, New Pop, PSBs, Baxendale, Xenomania etc etc

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

What's Xenomania's indie past? Were they in Spirez X or something! (Please let it be so)

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i am so ignorant. i have never heard of this era's name of which you speak. however it was great.</oldgiffer>

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Yes, I too am somewhat fuzzy on what the "new pop" canon would constitute, although Adam Ant is somehow coming to mind. Is there a Rough Guide to New Pop out there?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

1. New Pop didn't exist o/s the pages of NME.

2. I tentatively considered mentioning 1981 as one of my 3 years, but then I remembered being very annoyed by a lot of what actually got in the charts that year. For every 1x "Tainted Love", "Favourite Shirts" "Prince Charming" or "Don't You Want Me" (not to mention all the great pop that wasn't yet ready to cross over from Peel-land: Pigbag, Grandmaster Flash, Altered Images) there seemed to be 10x "Birdie Song", Shakey, Julio Iglesias and Stars on 45-type medley records. (Checking everyhit.com I find this to be Not Actually True, but that's how it felt at the time.)

Age isn't everything

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Do not discount the influence of the Older Sibling on one's pop makeup! Were it not for graciousviv a) playing me all her rekkids as soon as she bought them b) leaving behind said rekkids upon departure from nest I would not have half the pop knollidge I do now. PEPSI AND SHIRLEY WHO etc.

Re: Age isn't everything

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Yes, this can be quite important. I was the oldest sibling, and moreover my parents had only a handful of bad MOR jazz and virtually no pop. While not discounting the eventual influence of friends, et al, my early musical discoveries were all down to me (and the radio, although my really my entry point was Beatles Beatles Beatles).

Re: Age isn't everything

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

Yes! My older sister (4 years older) was responsible for about 95% of my listening from the ages 5 to 12 as my parents had but two albums (ABBA's Voulez-Vous and Boney M's Nightflight to Venus).

Although now we're dead old and she's had kids and has little time for wasting time in places like this or buying records so I am now returning the favour by feeding her all the best poptimist-type music (much to the annoyance of my indie brother-in-law)

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

My gran dressing me up as Adam Ant was the closest I got to the new pop.

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

But belatedly discovering that era of pop (ie when I wasn't five) made me realise I loved pop as well as indie in the first place!