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

[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".