The History Of Jop Part 5 aka The Kid Is Not My Son

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

A delay in the poll caused by my having some work, but finally the ship of retrospective metapop criticism sails into the waters of 1983 - Jackson the winner, Culture Club getting some serious vote-splitting, and this year the P&J poll included a BEST VIDEO section for the first time, which we might well discuss in a separate YouTube-enabled poll later (I can't get YouTube at work).

Procedural Note: I've excised "Back On The Chain Gang" by the Pretenders as it featured last time.

You only get EIGHT votes this time - use them wisely.


[Poll #819820]


The Joptimists Poll Remix for 1982:

1. Don't You Want Me (49 votes)
2. 1999 (46 votes)
3. The Message (43 votes)
4. Temptation (37 votes)
5. The Look Of Love (36 votes)
6=. Mickey (31 votes)
6=. Sexual Healing (31 votes)
8. Planet Rock (28 votes)
9. Rock The Casbah (26 votes)
10. Pass The Dutchie (24 votes)

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Did you not read the Justin thread! Lots of massive massive cunts (jess, blount, jed and so on) getting on my back because I'd never heard of what'shisname from Talking Heads. The only time I have ever properly LOST IT on the internet.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

David Byrne. You'd never heard of David Byrne? ARGH.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

AAARGH I got really angry with people on the thread for this!!!!!! why the FUCK should I have heard of him?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

He did vocals on that X-press 2 song "Lazy".

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

This was explained to me. I hate that song and especially the vocals.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I didn't like it much either. Talking Heads don't get played much in pop clubs these days so I'm not surprised you haven't heard them, but "Once In A Lifetime" got played ALL THE FECKING TIME on Capital when I was a nipper. You would probably recognise it if you heard it, but I wouldn't blame you at all for not knowing who it was by esp when there are bands with similar names (e.g. Talk Talk) from the same(ish) era to be confused with.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I have heard of Talk Talk and have 0 idea what they sound like either.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

You know Its My Life by No Doubt? Talk Talk's most famous song is the original of that, and I know for a fact you've heard it at a party.

Also JLC's favouritest ever record.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Before all of this I was actually vaguely curious to hear all these bands but now with every comment I just want to dig my heels in and actively avoid hearing them for the rest of my life.

I like that No Doubt song.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

as i said on that thread surely you know this song via the Tiga version?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I don't, at all, I have never heard this Tiga song.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

oh it's on 'Sexor' which i thought u had heard.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I haven't, I heard the single but apparently the album was shit.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

i've not heard all of the album but i don't think anything on it is as good as 'Move My Body'. his cover of 'Burnin Down The House' actually sounds v cool, slick 4/4 electropop altho as ever his vocals grate a bit.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I have the album. It is indeed shit.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

actually what I really got angry with were people a) accusing me of faking ignorance b) accusing me of being ignorant and incurious just because I don't have an encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure 80s popstars and c) claiming that they wouldn't mind if I wasn't a music writer as if it made any difference whatsoever to my scribblings about Ellen Allien and Teairra Marí, both of whom I bet some of those people have never heard of.

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

Dude, DUDE...listen to me. David Byrne was on the cover of Time Magazine in '86, '87 (can't remember). With some exceptions, they only do this for the safest of safe bets in pop, people with OMG WTF marquee value. (The fact that the Wynton Marsalis cover was the worst-selling issue ever, apparently, is the exception that proves the rule, whatever that means.) Hence, NOT OBSCURE. I'm not saying great, I'm not saying loveable, but Byrne is just NOT OBSCURE.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I WAS FOUR OR FIVE. I WAS NOT READING TIME MAGAZINE.

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

You being a child when Byrne made the cover is very much besides the point, Lex. I offered the Time Magazine cover as a benchmark of name & face recognition you might understand, not as an event I expect you to remember.

A parallel example: if I said "It is a fact that the name and face of Salmon P. Chase was put on the American $10,000 bill in 1928," I would expect that one of the things you *could* deduce from this would be that Salmon P. Chase must've been somebody sorta important to America, even if you didn't know who he was or weren't alive in 1928.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

My 'argh' was partly self-directed, I don't like being reminded that it's possible for someone (even a focussed neophile like yourself) to be ignorant of one of my favourite popstars. I'm startled to find that most of the rest of my arguments are solid rockism - "You don't have to like the canon, you don't even have to have heard the canon, but you have to have heard of the canon, that's what it's for!" and so on.

Also it sets you up for hypocrises: if someone heard Placebo's cover of "Running Up That Hill" (which you dislike on principle rather than aesthetic grounds, right?) and enjoyed it but had never heard of the Kate Bush version, you'd be pretty incensed, right?

(Also you're defining 'obscure' to mean "I haven't heard it" AGAIN)

I agree with you on the writing, more or less - I have more of a problem when you don't know why other people like music than when you don't know the music they like.

It's not quite so surprising that someone wouldn't have heard of your two examples - they haven't been played on radio constantly for the last two decades.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I would be incensed if anyone enjoyed the Placebo cover regardless of whether they'd heard K8 or not! And I wouldn't care if they hadn't heard RUTH, though not having heard of k8 herself would be odd given that she had a number 1 single and acres of coverage last year. though it appears that being unaware ('ignorant' even) of current pop radio hits is acceptable while being unaware of popstars who had the bulk of their career when you were two years old is not.

they haven't been played on radio constantly for the last two decades

neither have Talking Heads in the past decade!

I mean, before this fiasco I had an interest in hearing them, others have recommended them to me, but I find myself not wanting to care about them any more.

Fact-check

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

(She didn't have a number one single last year. She and David Byrne have both had 1 top 5 single in the last 5 years.)

Re: Fact-check

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

what'shisname didn't get the acres of coverage K8 got! She was on the front cover of, like, everything, and in all the tabloids too. I still don't know what he looks like.

Re: Fact-check

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yeah I do think Kate is better known now, but I still think you could easily have missed her re-emergence last year, and so it wouldn't be astonishing to have not have heard of her.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Also I have to be back at work now, so reply away but I'll be awhile before replying.