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

[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...