Jop Tournament Round 3.1

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Into the last 16!


[Poll #927757]


Reason, recoil, and repent in the comments.

Comments

Re: Hmmm

[koganbot]

I understand what you're saying, but "well-known" and "canonical" aren't synonyms, and I think it's the former rather than the latter that's influencing votes. Also, "The Canon" isn't a self-explanatory term. (Think of movies. Is Star Wars in the canon? Whose canon?) Among critics, Madonna's place is not secure, and "Vogue" was her only single to get anywhere near the top of the Pazz & Jop lists. But she's probably in the Poptimist canon, if there is such at thing. But the fact that "Get Into The Groove" and "Papa Don't Preach" did well here and "Holiday" and "Everybody" are nonexistent has a lot to do with the two former having been bigger hits. Eric B. And Rakim's "I Know You Got Soul" is probably as canonical as any song ever among hip-hop heads, but it didn't make it into the charts and got meager ticking here, the meagerness due not to your not considering it canonical but to a lot of you not having heard it at all, in some cases not having heard of it. I think "Set It Off" and "Square Biz" (to name a couple that got something like three ticks in their respective History Of Jops) might be competing in this round if more than six of us here had heard them. 'Tis pretty obvious why you wee'uns would vote for songs that you didn't hear when released but that continue to get radio and dancefloor play, as opposed to ones that you didn't hear upon initial release that don't continue to get radio and dancefloor play. Of course, voting old over new might mean something canonical is going on, except "Toxic" is as solidly in the Poptimist canon as anything could be (assuming that there is such a thing as "Poptimist canon") and Britney's something of a polemical touchstone amongst Poptimist types (but it turns out the love for her songs may not be so strong as expected) whereas "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" has never gotten much comment and attention in these parts, while silently racking up the votes here. I think old over new might be a peculiarity of today's choices.

Re: Hmmm

[koganbot]

Er, xpost; while I was typing away many others were saying the same thing.

Re: Hmmm

[cis.livejournal.com]

I think... hmm. I do think Star Wars is in the canon - although it's not in some artfilm-style The Canon. Maybe I should call it the pop canon: it's the canon of popular culture, and it's formed of all the films that mass popular media assumes you've already seen (and if you haven't seen them you should), all of the records that mass popular media assumes you've already heard (but might need a reminder of). It's not quite a canon of critical consensus, it's a canon of 'things everyone just knows': the stuff people would call any of us out for not knowing about.

I dislike the idea of calling it 'the poptimist canon' because to me the poptimist canon is this thing we're creating here, now, out of fites and polls and tickyboxes and shared mp3s and clubnights, something specific to a certain social group, to us. There are certain things which are held-in-common important to a lot of us, whose importance I've never really felt outside this group - the love of saint etienne that turned out to pervade ilm, for example. 'year 3000' is busted's best-loved song among other people I know, it gets a reaction like no other, but I don't think of it as the best-loved in the pmists lj community?

Re: Hmmm

[cis.livejournal.com]

sorry this is rather skeletal but i have to run.

Re: Hmmm

[koganbot]

When you get back, tell me what you think of the Jonas Brothers' "Year 3000" (got mawled pretty badly - and unfairly - on the Stylus Jukebox).