Let's talk PERFECT POP!

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

So! Perfect Pop! A genre with the propensity to irk even more than 'indie'! So why is this? And who MAKES perfect pop? Surely one of the KINGS of perfect pop is IAN BROUDIE from the Lightning Seeds. Ooh, say it with me! Production values! Record sales!

But also Perfect Pop has been used for the Beach Boys (production-focused attitudes = PRESENT), the erm High Llamas (I can well believe) - Swedish indie popsters get this tag a lot. What irks? Is it the attitude behind calling a song 'perfect' from the start? I like an awful lot of 'perfect pop'? Bear in mind that most 'perfect pop' falls into the 'pop' genre as much as Marit Larsen. Beyoncé might make perfect pop (according to the Lex :)) but she's not 'perfect pop'.

I like an awful lot of 'perfect pop' - to the point where I am considering that Lightning Seeds best-of - so what do YOU chaps think? Is it just indie in major keys and nothing more to it? Help me out here cos there sure aint a page for wikipedia on it and I want to write it! What IRKS you? Wot is GRATE? And who makes 'perfect pop'? And do you like it? If not is it because YOU HATE FUN?

Then again I am still bitter that they deleted my page for Sean's Show *mutter grumble*

Comments

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

Surely this is a term only ever used by people who spend more time listening to Arab Strap than Abba?

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I've seen the tag applied to Trevor Horn... then again!! Abba Strap. Oh no MIND GOING TO BAD PLACES involving DRAG.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

s/Arab Strap/Belle And Sebastian/ and you would be nearer the mark.

I really dislike the concept of Perfect Pop, but I am too ruddy busy to get into a full breakdown of why right now. Will try and write some more about it later.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

(are you too busy to buy tickets to the LAST EVER ARAB STRAP GIG IN LONDON, that i've just remembered i haven't told you about!!!

http://www.scala-london.co.uk/scala/event.php?id=512

Wednesday 8 Nov, hankies at the ready :(((((

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Noes!

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

goods :)

i have booked for me and mypete obv ;)

[infov0re.livejournal.com]

So *that* made a good impromtpu birthday present for me. Thanks, steve!

(though i'd have killed to have seen them at King Tut's on the final night of the tour. with a big bottle of buckfast)

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

oh, they'll be back in five years anyway ;)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I was MARSHALLING my thoughts on this very topic last night cos the ARCHIES are coming up and they get this kind of tag a lot, as does most 60s bubblegum.

I think the problem with it is that - cf its close comrade "pure pop" - there's a potential suggestion that it's pop with all the impure or complicating elements removed, that it's nothing but the tunes and hooks. But if you find pop exciting partly because of all its complicating impulses and contexts then this putting it in a 'bubble' can be annoying.

(Of course going too far in the OTHER direction can be very irritating too - i.e. oh weren't ABBA rub when it was all DUM DUM DIDDLE and they only got good when the horrible DIVORCES started and the music got as dark as the long swedish night etc etc.)

Starry you should dl the MELODY CLUB song I put up cos it's quite Lightning Seeds-y. As you know I have plenty of time for the Seeds!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I am always a bit surprised that Kate the SAINT loves the Archies and hates the Abba.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

"coming up" on Popular obv. not in a HOT NEW THING sense. Or a bilious sense.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

I mean the same thing with 'perfect' and 'pure' pop - I think the more NINDIE of the lot, eg the Llamas and so on get 'pure' pop, and I don't know if this is particularly 'cleansing' an attitude or something! Yes, I was listening to the Archies the other day too, on a fab Disky compilation called apropriately 'Poptastic'! There should def be a Poptastic Disky canon, I thought of doing one but then my poll overkill kicked in.

Where is this Melody Club song?

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

there "Electric" is a closer candidate for broudie-esque "perfect pop" i reckon.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It is on poptimists hidden beneath the friends lock! (from this morning)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Do the Lightning Seeds count as Perfect Brit-Pop?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

pop with all the impure or complicating elements removed

I always got the sense of it as exactly this, but different in that the complications were added. Kind of - it took as its starting point that chart pop could be good, but wasn't good because it wasn't honest, the lyrics were simplistic clichés, and it was too image-driven. 'Perfect pop' takes chart pop, removes the more synthetic production (and adds production values of its own), adds clever/complex/honest lyrics, adds real musicianship (er in the sense that they play their own instruments, not that they play them well).

I do not like 'perfect pop' as a concept, though I like the occasional band who might fall into its ambit (Black Box Recorder, Saint Etienne).

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think what this discussion is illuminating is that there is no very good definition of 'pp'.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

I had never ever made the link between Melody Club and the Lightning Seeds before. It's kind of obvious now. I was going to say that MC might not have put out a single as good as LS's "Change" but then I remembered both "Electric" and "Wildhearts" which are in fact far better than anything Broudie ever wrote. And MC's strike rate is much higher too - "Palace Station", "Baby", "Boys In The Girls Room", all k-lassic.

I liked the Lightning Seeds. I have a soft spot for artistes who, despite being lauded for their songwriting, end up having the biggest hit of their career with AN COVER.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

How come nobody ever talks about 'perfect rock' or 'perfect indie' or 'perfect hip-hop'? ;)

Is 'Israelites' a perfect pop song or 'just' a perfect reggae song? or both? or neither?

the qualities that make 'Sugar Sugar' great (cute simple memorable melodies and lyrics mainly - is that really all it takes?) can be applied to so much else. but moreover it seems wrong to restrict definition of perfect pop to that. a more complicated production like 'Good Vibrations' may well be deemed just as perfect.

then consider a Supremes song or some of the Spector greats. perfect pop? with Abba it seems synonomous too, as much as with the Jacksons. Buggles. then with synths a new breed of perfect pop became tangible. 'The Model', other usual suspects (Soft Cell, PSBs, HL, DM, Eurythmics). Madonna. MADONNA! in parallel with 'retrograde' steps like 'Come On Eileen' and later 'Chain Reaction' or 'You Win Again' - big #1 singles fighting it out with tracks like 'Pump Up The Volume' - another planet's idea of the perfect pop song? Novelty hits - what price the perfection of 'Star Trekkin' indeed?

Perhaps perfect pop always keeps one eye on the future and the other in the past. And as the wind keeps changing it stays that way!

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

In my day, the term was associated A LOT with Scritti Politti - especially Scritti circa 1984, about which we will be Jopping shortly no doubt, i.e. even BEFORE Green released a song called "Perfect Way". Back then, I think PP had to include a well-crafted song with a great hook as well as glossy production values (technology used in the service of aesthetics, that sorta thing) and honeyed vocals (PP could never be edgy).

It has, it's true, become associated since the 80s with earnest white men with Beatles or Beach Boys/Van Dyke Parks obsessions. Whereas its true spiritual heirs are probably to be found in, I dunno, microhouse or something.

Tom - I'd stay well clear of refs to PP in your Archies piece. "Sugar Sugar" is kinda perfect in my own mind, but it's fairly unique in the bubblegum canon, most of which is determinedly lowest common denominator pop, the dumber the better - which is not IMHO what PP is about.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

how does 'Sugar Sugar' dodge dumbness?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I didn't say it did! But look past the chorus and it's hella sophisticated.

(I'll say more on Popular after Tom's piece goes up, no doubt)

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

There's something dismissive about it - the reason it's not applied to rock, soul and so on is that those are rich and complex things that can't be perfected, unlike pop, which clever indie people can master alongside their fearsome indie skills.

Many of the things I've seen described as perfect pop don't strike me as remotely perfect or, often, even good pop.

[koganbot]

Maybe this is just my ignorance, but I don't think the term ever crossed the Atlantic. In any event, to confuse the issue I'll point out that the 1910 Fruitgum Company's "Simple Simon Says" and the Velvet Underground's "I Heard Her Call My Name" have pretty much the same chorus, though with different lyrics. And that "Leader of the Pack" - which was rife with blatant social issues - was co-written by Jeff Barry, who also co-wrote "Sugar Sugar." From my reading of this thread, "Perfect Pop" designates two fairly different things: (1) old stuff that was widely popular that people later are taking to be perfect pop (is something like "Walk Away Renee" mentioned here)? I don't think "Sugar Sugar" was trying to be "perfect pop" any more than "The Hamster Dance" and Crazy Frog are trying to be perfect pop; (2) later stuff that may or may not be popular but that is trying to be "perfect pop" in a formalist kind of way.

[koganbot]

U.S. number ones, 1969: I Heard It through the Grapevine Marvin Gaye; Crimson and Clover Tommy James & the Shondells; Everyday People Sly & the Family Stone; Everyday People Sly & the Family Stone; Dizzy Tommy Roe; Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In The Fifth Dimension; Get Back The Beatles with Billy Preston; Love Theme From Romeo and Juliet Henry Mancini; In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus) Zager and Evans; Honky Tonk Women The Rolling Stones; Sugar, Sugar The Archies; I Can't Get Next to You The Temptations; Suspicious Minds Elvis Presley; Wedding Bell Blues The Fifth Dimension; Come Together / Something The Beatles; Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye Steam; Leaving on a Jet Plane Peter, Paul and Mary; Someday We'll Be Together Diana Ross & The Supremes

(Not exactly sure what my point is in printing this, except to note the strangeness of extracting the Archies from this list as the one that represents perfect pop. Maybe "Crimson and Clover" and "Dizzy" would count as well, since they were perceived as bubblegum. But they both have psychedelic overtones. Are Steam and the Temptations too soul? Is "Heard It Through the Grapevine?" too, um, good, to be perfect pop? Too passionate?)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think Steam would count. "Dizzy" too probably.

The "perfect pop" Archies thing comes partly from talking to Kate St Claire. I think reading your first post that you're right though - two different things, one of which serves as a possible role model for the other. So when I say the Archies "get this tag a lot", the taggers I would be talking about would be people with an interest in making (or celebrating) "perfect pop". The people behind the Archies had an interest in making a record that sold a lot in whatever style was needed to do the job.

David Smay's essay on them in Bubblegum Music Is The Naked Truth captures a certain critical mood:

"They had one job and one job only: create the absolutely irresistible pop song. Again and again and again. Together the Archies isolated the genetic strand of the perfect pop hit and replicated it like a honey-dipped virus."

[koganbot]

Except that "Heard It Through the Grapevine" is way more irresistible to my ears (and to many others'; I'll wager that the song has gotten far more plays over the years than "Sugar Sugar"). And stuff in a different mood - Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You," the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction," Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" - were pop hits, as I recall. What's the perfection in "Sugar Sugar" that's somehow lacking in "Because of You"? I suspect that you'll agree with the point I'm making. How are the other pop HITS of the day imperfect pop compared to "Sugar Sugar"'s perfect pop? The trouble with the phrase "perfect pop" is that it's trying to act as an explanation as well as a designation. E.g., "Sugar Sugar" hit because it's perfect pop, but what differentiates perfect pop from the other songs that also hit isn't that it hit (for whatever reason) but because it's, you know, perfect pop.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

heh heh, I was re-reading that Smay essay on the tube this morning. It's great but he does exaggerate his position for effect a LOT in the piece. All part I think of an ongoing corrective to the "folkie stab at a false authenticity" strand of pop criticism that Smay and Cooper refer to in their introducion to the book.

And even if Smay is reflecting a wider strand of opinion, the problem with the passage you quote is that there's only about 3 or 4 songs in The Archies' catalogue (enjoyable though nearly all of it is) that come even remotely close to matching "Sugar Sugar".

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I hate the phrase 'perfect pop', and indeed the first time I ever pitched an article to the student newspaper (as opposed to writing half-hearted reviews) was a column objecting to peacon's use of the phrase to describe The Lightning Seeds. Because his article was written under a pseudonym I didn't realise I was having a go at the editor of the paper. I think I suggested that great pop was never pure and rarely simple (i.e. reversing the L Seeds' title 'pure and simple' for anyone not familiar with their work) and advised readers to check out Pram, Laika and Disco Inferno. I still think my argument stands up, even if my taste was at fault.

I think what I hate about the phrase is what Frank describes as the second use of it, which for me taints the first, by implying a kind of walled-off nostalgic recreation of the past, which somehow derives some value from its isolation: 'perfect pop' never means "Straight Out of Compton", does it?

perfect pop for me

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

= dad arriving late from london at the house we were staying in on holiday in wales, bringing "sgt pepper" with him for mum's b'day, and sistrah becky (5) and me (7) discovering it had CUT-OUT CARDBOARD MOUSTACHES AND GLASSES in it and so cutting them out obv, and putting them on and running round the old appletree in the garden all afternoon on a lovely hot july day

no one has recaptured this, not even crazy frog -- and the appletree blew down years ago and and and... :(

BUT the DOWNLOADABLE CUT-OUT CARDBOARD MOUSTACHE! this would not be hard, oh future svengalis...