Poptimists Review of 2006: Genre Of The Year

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

What was the sound of 2006? That's what we're asking in the second of our end of year polls, discussing the genre of the year. Contenders - drawn from your nominations - include...

Teenpop: Teen confessional and pop narrative (a la High School Musical) drove the genre on in '06 - more teen than ever.
R&B: From Bouncy's hi-gloss dramas through Ciara and Justin's takes on the Prince legacy to Cassie's minimal precision.
Electro: Still the sound of the clubs in 06 (like I'd know) and with big high street traction too.
Emo: The comment box's friend and the parent's foe - whatever it is, it's selling.
Nu Rave: A shot in the arm for indie or a lame NME concoction? 2006's most enigmatic genre.

(A special note: I didn't put "POP" in cos it's all pop, innit. I went for Teenpop as a more specific option, and one picked by as many people.)

[Poll #891678]

You can still vote in yesterday's poll - and still nominate in the remaining 8 categories. Final results collated in the new year!

Tomorrow I'm at home, with YouTube access, which means it's a good day to do the Video Of the Year poll.

Comments

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

how come we're not discussing the death of rap?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

because it's not dead? both pop and rock sectors of the music press may have decided to ignore it but it's been responsible for just as much brilliance as ever this year - TI, Chamillionaire, Lupe Fiasco, Rasheeda, the whole hyphy thing, Kanye and Fiddy permanently up to something or other...

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

loads of great Southern rap, that clicky stuff, lots of great records generally and all sorts of interesting things happening - it's right up there with R&B for me. I was tempted by the teenpop option, but an uncertainty as to whether Marit Larsen really belongs in that category made me ignore it (plus quiet years for major favourites like GA, Sugababes). Electro I like, nu rave is rubbish so far, emo is consistently appalling.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

ok of course i didn't mean it quite so literally. and i meant talking about 'the "death" of hiphop/rap' rly i suppose. the whole grammy nominations thing spawned a few articles, and there was some discussion end of last year i recall about its general decline in the way it dominates music culture esp in the us. jsl

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

There's been some talk over the fact that there hasn't been any monster selling rap albums, too - mind you there haven't been many monster selling ANYTHING albums.

[koganbot]

But hip-hop for so long was seen (at least by me) as the engine, the forward motion, of a whole hunk of modern music, and when r&b was really coming across as contemporary it was hitching itself to hip-hop. I don't know. That last statement is an exaggeration, and maybe Destiny's Child was considered as contemporary as anything. But now it feels as if to hit, hip-hop has to hitch itself to r&b. This doesn't mean that there are no interesting directions in hip-hop, just that hip-hop doesn't seem nearly as dominant. Another interesting trend is some material that's clearly r&b (JoJo, Rihanna) doing better on the Top 40 stations than on the hip-hop/r&b stations.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Haha I always thought of it in reverse - at least starting from the late 90s, when the Timbaland/Neptunes juggernaut (plus Shek'spere, Rodney Jerkins and so on) was primarily manifested in r&b hits rather than hip-hop hits - and at some point, maybe when crunk hit the mainstream, it switched, with virtually every r&b hit now featuring a guest rapper, with its themes leaning more towards the gangsta than ever before.