Who needs Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, they're not our music, they're out of date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

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

While I'm figuring out my own very important views on this question, could we have some more bits & pieces questions?

(I think my views are "how are you supposed to be able to tell?")

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I wonder whether it matters if you can tell or not? I think *evaluating* pop on self-expression would be a disaster; in fact if you can tell that someone is trying to 'express themself' perhaps we could say that it has failed to become 'pop' successfully.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

but isn't the "TALE OF THE STAR" part of the "work"? i actually think something is being missed here bcz of tom's intital generalisation, which is that pop has a concrete history of styles and manners and shticks and tricks, and also that audiences do: ie they "express" the story of their own lives - cf SEVEN AGES OF POP LIFE theory - in reference to specific releases at particular ages

(and if you happen on the release out of sequence, and try and slot it into the mode where it did once work, in ref.its FIRST audience, it can SPECTACULARLY not work --- but this is not the only mode available...)