Pop has been SO BAD recently, that I...

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

...have been listening to Neil Young.

Does anyone have a more shameful confession?

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

But surely even indieists share knowledge with each other, rare b-sides and all of that malarkey.

I don't know how accurate my intuitive paradigm of "pop = when listening you imagine that the best setting for Song X is with other people, indie = when listening you imagine that the best setting for Song X is in your bedroom" is.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It's the "with each other" that's the clincher though - also I guess there's a pop and an un-pop way of treating people who have arrived late to the knowledge. (Though in this sense maybe NOBODY is 'pop' - I guess there's always a lot of jealousy and hierarchy among fans of big teenypop bands as to who is the biggest fan, who's more of a fan etc)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

to be fair, i think this has evolved along with the emo-isation of indie

thebopkids esp.will (rightly) note existence of a actual real live danbcing till dawn community who believed that what constituted indie in (say) 1984 was the same as and would again soon be pop's idea of pop

and koganbot will (rightly) note that modern pop exists because of the eruption into the mainstream of of all manner of small-label R&B (50s defn)

[cis.livejournal.com]

I don't think this intuitive paradigm is right at all - or at least it isn't right if we're using your man-in-street defs of pop and indie! For one, there's the gig, which is often assumed among indie-ists as being the best setting for song X, which is a lot about communal experience. Indie for indie-discos isn't for sitting in yr bedroom but for hanging out and dancing with yr mates.

Also people seriously INDIE EVANGELISM, it is strong and it is there, the difference I think is that indie sharing of musical knowledge etc is more hierarchical - the granting of information, the educating of others in what is the 'right' music, the recognition of other gatekeeper types by certain codewords and handshakes - whereas pop sharing of musical fu is more a dissemination, more taken for granted, somehow more egalitarian.