POPFITES! 13, 14, 15 and 16!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Because I was too busy to do a POPFITE yesterday you get FOUR clashes today, to finish off the first round. In previous fites JARVIS won a convincing victory over CHRIS LOWE, and MICK JAGGER won out against HANK WILLIAMS.

As for today's fights, words cannot do them justice (i.e. I am starving and need to upload this and go get a sammich).


[Poll #780065]


TICK POWER!

Comments

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

How can you not see that the Killers are pretty much pop through and through?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

They kind of vary though.

"Mr Brightside" = pop.
Remixes of Mr Brightside = great pop.
"Somebody Told Me" = pop (tho not very good).
"Smile Like You Mean It" = dadrock/indie
"All These Things That I Have Done" = stadium rock.

Don't know any others.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

The first single was "Jenny Was A Friend of Mine," wasn't it? Or was that the last one? Not very pop.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Somebody Told Me/Let's Dance mash-up = good pop ;)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

first principle: pop is diametrically opposed to indie

indie is traditionally boys-wiv-guitars
killers are boys-wiv-guitars
=> killers are indie and thus diametrically opposed to pop

pop is traditionally pretty girl poppet singing over fun-and-futuristic production done by backroom boys
this is what ciara is
=> ciara is POP!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Since when has pop EVER been primarily about what sounds are on the records??

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

OK remove the bit about production. Indie is BOYS making SERIOUS music - Killers. Pop is GIRLS making FUN music - Ciara.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

But pop is also girls swooning over boys' seriousness (cos pouting is cute!). And it's also girls seizing seriousness for themselves. And and and.

If you want to do it by gender then do it by AUDIENCE gender. No, actually, don't.

Rock = audiences approving of seriousness.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

is there a marketing term that takes in the distinction between a "products" innate characteristics (or what the creators want to give it) and what its found audience brings to that product?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

indie = the boy lex being VERY VERY HARDWORKING AND EARNEST abt the SERIOUSNESS OF SERIOUS ESSENTIALIST DEFINITION in validating pop!

[cis.livejournal.com]

The Killers' music is not serious! 'somebody told me that you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend that i had in february of last year it's not confidential i've got potential a rushing-a-rushing around' is a silly, stupid, fun line that is satisfying to sing along to, not a grand statement of epic proportions nor a whispered confession of one's truest inner feelings.

indie-disco indie, indie for BOYS of the kind of you hate most, is a lot about getting beered up and having a good time and having fun, and not serious at all.

The kind of indie you like - cat power, smog, etc - is, however, very often serious; that I will grant.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying I accept that, but we can let it slide as your statement of principles.

But, how good can she be if so many people haven't heard, or worse, don't remember the song? Either you have to admit she's not actually that good, or that you are actually a POPIST!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Well clearly in the WIDER WORLD many people remember and love the song!

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Tho not as much as your average Coldplay hit.

And you are projecting 'love' there.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

'But, how good can she be if so many people haven't heard, or worse, don't remember the song?'

personally i think it's because these people are all very indie.

and i worry about people's memories!

[zenith.livejournal.com]

first principle: pop is diametrically opposed to indie

No.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Pop is what indie has a (sometimes unacknowledged) crush on.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

IE = indie itself (on its stag night (glimpsed in a mirror))

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yes! This is a first and v fundamental principle.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It's simply not true. Most pop BARELY CARES ABOUT indie. Some indie DESPISES pop, or affects to, other indie more openly COURTS it, but the relationship such as it is springs from indie attitudes not pop.

(Which is of course why you care so much about it!)

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Lex's next christmas present:

[cis.livejournal.com]

Lex it is very frustrating how you are so wrong all the time!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

but I am right, fundamentally right!

Pop is all about not playing your own instruments, too! And the Killers do and Ciara doesn't.

[cis.livejournal.com]

No, you're not. You're saying the musical-genre equivalent of "a guava is all round fruit and vice versa!", ignoring the fact that there is lots of round fruit that is not a guava, and in fact the guava is not a majority round fruit, and isn't always very round either.

[cis.livejournal.com]

Indie is not an important genre, it's not a big genre: it's, if you like, a vocal-minority of a genre, because the kind of people who want to talk culture-critically about popular music usually come from some form of indie background. When people say 'indie' they are referring to one of several definitions, some of which are mutually contradictory. It's important to know which one is being used at any given time because they all have different connotations and can't be used interchangeably.

Maybe you have to have actually been through a period of immersion in indie culture to get this? It's hard to explain because it's very internalised, for me, so that I understand without it needing to be said what it means when someone calls Keane (who are very popular) indie, as opposed to what it means when someone calls Smog (who has a different kind of popularity) indie.

You're being far, far too binary: you've invented a definition of indie (which isn't even workable) and are now saying 'pop is all the things which what-i-call-indie isn't': essentially, you're denying pop the right to be itself, and to have its own rules. Pop is not some creative reimagining of rockist criteria so that all that was once considered bad may now be thought good: pop music is a lot more than that.

What's yr difference between pop and r&b?