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

[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.

[avv.livejournal.com]

I have also never heard of David Byrne and have no idea how "Burning down the House" goes.

But I have heard of Phil Collins. WHERE IS THE JUSTICE?
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