poptimists | New Pop

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).

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

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).

Sorry - point to that being, that I came in "late" - or felt like it - and probably spent a good three years listening to back catalogs before I found myself paying much attention to new releases.

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)

Those are two pretty good albums for yr parents to own!

Oh yes - I'm not complaining. Just rather odd that they managed to buy two great albums and then nothing else before or after. And that despite that they ended up with two utterly pop-obsessed kids.

Mine were similar, in that they had between them Sgt Pep, Dylan G Hits 1 (denounced by my mother as sexist and never played), and my Dad had a tape of John Barleycorn Must Die by Traffic!

I mean similar in quantity not quality (tho I am no foe of Beatle or Bob)

Hmm. Beatles & Bob both fall into that 'pop history' trap i mentioned above earlier - i feel like i should go back and explore pop history more but I find it hard to relate to unlike anything that has ever been current for me. Except for Sly Stone, oddly.

I know quite a few major pop fans who have uninterested parents. I wonder if that is classic rebelling v parents; or just the fact that uninterested parents means the kids get to dominate the radio and therefore form their own tastes unhindered by parents.

The latter is a big factor - I was allowed to have the radio to myself from 5-7 on a Sunday evening and never got any comments, positive or negative.

Likewise. Apart from getting punched by my big sister when I recorded 'Seven Tears' by the Goombay Dance Band over 'You're So Vain'

She had good critical faculties for a 9 year old, and I learnt a valuable lesson that day.

New Pop

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