Who needs Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, they're not our music, they're out of date

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Jaysis I'm ruined.

The pop quiz was somewhat of a triumph - £330 in the kitty for charity, pretty good result, bigger things expected of the auction on Friday tho. Nobody got the Bradford fire question; nobody got Chernenko; I think one team got Chumbawamba; nobody got I'd Rather Jack; almost nobody got ABBA; EVERYBODY got Busted, hurrah.

Does anyone want more bits and pieces questions?

Here is a question that's been floating around my brain a bit: is pop music a good medium for self-expression? When I think of records which have some kind of confessional or soul-baring component to them I tend to be thinking of records I think are a BIG BAG OF SH1TE. "Self-expression" isn't exactly the right words here, maybe with conversation I can work towards a better way of phrasing this...

Comments

[catsgomiaow.livejournal.com]

I think the self-expression thing is why I ONLY like upbeat pop songs and HATE ALL BALLADS (and therefore entire recorded output of Westlife).

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Well there's no self-expression in Westlife really (or is there??), actually something I'm interested in with the boyband/girl group format is whether the expressive value of a song is diluted by having multiple singers. With Diana Ross and the Supremes, say, Mary and Flo are the friendslist to Diana's LJ, so the illusion(?) of self-expression is still there. But with Westlife trading lines off each other you're asked to believe in a great big gestalt "I" which might be any or none of them and therefore might also be YOU.

Great pop music often gives you a way to express YOURSELF in other words, not that Westlife are great but you know.

(This is the 'theme' of Popular I reckon.)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i think the thing i like abt lennon/plastic ono is that it's on the borderline between utter confessional and high-end craft: you see the bad side being morphed into the good side, or failing to be so morphed, or something

(for example: on one hand, an outpouring of unshaped ME ME ME; on the other, it's all double-tracked -- ie his voice is sent thru some kind of slight reverb to "chorus" it, which is a weirdly "anti-authentic" device to reach for)

(also: there's ringo on drums behind him)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Well isn't he saying, yes I am a pop star (even if I hate it) and this SHOULD be part of the business of being a pop star.

(OK maybe 'could' instead of 'should').

I guess I wouldn't want it removed from the armoury of pop completely because as Jeff and Alex suggest there are things that can be done with it. But surely there are better ways to get something off yr chest than writing a song about it.

(I think I phrased this as "Blogging killed indie for me" once)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

lennon's famous massive two-part interview w.jann wenner in the stone at this same moment (ie of plastic ono band) is the virtual INSTALLATION of rockism ordinaire -- not to mention the rock'n'roll CANON -- in the critical discussion

so i think his WRONGNESS was part of a reactive project against "it has all gone horribly wrong"

(of course you also have to factor in the sheer topsyturvy HORRIBLENESS of 68-69 out in the world, when EVERYONE totally lost their bearings) (so i am interested in this record as a marker of that side of lennon -- as bellwether for the topical -- as much as using it as a tour-guide round the inside of a man's whiny heart)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Pop music that lets the singer express themself = Soul music. Totally different kettle of beans.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yeah as ever I am including everything in my big "pop music" basket.

Soul music is a rum cove.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

but soul music is delivered on a base of high technical craft (cf skidmore's excellent FT piece); it operates at this edge between intense formal rules and sometimes quite fubsy conventions

(also very often the singers are NOT SINGING SONGS THEY WROTE)

the "fear of collectivity" (ie that to make the nice noise you need contributions from several ppl who presumably DIDN'T all go through the thing yr singin abt) (eg RINGO) seems to be a part of what's goin on here

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Singing songs they wrote = helpful but not essential for expressing oneself. See George Michael doing Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me at Freddie Tribute Concert. I would class that a soul song because, well, he put his soul into it.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I always think soul music is as close as a performer gets to what listening to music feels like.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I agree -- isn't the most interesting thing about westlife the extent to which there is no self-expression. And who would want it? Even the tweenage fans aren't buying into the soul of the performer, they WANT a bland screen on which to project their fantasies. Forgetting this was of course Charlie Busted's mistake, when he wanted to get 'real' (and obviously emotional). Actually, the trouble with 'self-expression' is that it conjures up either 'emotional sincerity' or 'innate creativity'. But surely Axl Rose is expressing fear and confusion and anger and hurt and rejection and desire in 'Welcome To The Jungle' -- which is probably a more 'expressive' song than 'Sweet Child Of Mine'. And even a song which says basically 'I'm a horny rockstar and I want to fuck chicks' is expressing something.