Ask Dr Pop

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I have a fairly tedious set of data-entry-based work to do this afternoon and want to break it up with conversation. So I decided it was time for "Dr Pop" to re-emerge: submit your pop questions and dilemmas and I will try my best to answer them. I've made the poll viewable to all, so if I can't answer them, perhaps someone else can.

[Poll #947872]

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

glamwhorebunni: I fear B*Witched may be victims of Pop's life cycles, where nothing is as unloved as that which is 7-10 years old. There was a thread about them on ILM recently and they do still have some fans.

As for singles - surely Amazon Marketplace? Maybe I'm being naive tho.

katstevens: I think you should! I wonder if the Any Good At All format is the right one though. Maybe there needs to be a way of asking about the year 'as a whole' too.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I think you're right. It needs something better than just random ticky. I will see how many years are left (we did a fair number!) and have a think.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I am over half way through! Blimey.

Now there is less Jop ticky about, an "old songs" poll might be less monotonous - there is always the trouble of tick fatigue, esp in the 80s/90s. However the later we get, the less the charts seem to correspond with critical consensus! cf Westloife...

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Maybe an nominate and poll style thing?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

How do you mean? What would be nominated?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

"old songs"! Thinking more broadly than just #1s I suppose!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Golden Oldies... hmm maybe.

The completist in me does sort of want to get the #1s finished though. I guess it really all depends on how much work I've got on...

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

jeff_worrell - I have actually forgotten the format of Judge Pop!

boof_boy - Everyone reforms sooner or later, so they might as well get it over with. I'm not sure if it'll be commercially desirable though - the Take That reunion was a hit because the boys very cleverly saw that Blunt, Powter etc. were doing well, thought "We can do this better, plus there's four of us, plus we're loveable (well, Mark is)" - they found a real niche for a group who would do that kind of stuff. (They've made an older boy band actually viable, which is some kind of genius - whether or not it's viable for anyone other than them, I don't know).

What could the Spices do that's comparable?

As for who to work with - cutting-edge production was never central to their appeal, look at how badly the Rodney Jerkins stuff went down. So getting the songwriting team right would be more important - and there's a lot of good pop and pop/rock songwriters around at the moment. It's the image and feel they need to get right, not the material.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Judge Pop is just "classic or dud" rebranded and in the form of a poll innit. I liked it because if you wanted to take part in the poll you had to take one side or the other. No third way.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

byebyepride: If they are a pop group, it's not the most important or interesting thing they are. But they definitely had moments - "Immigrant Song" works very well as pop (short, hooky, gimmicky, good at karaoke). "When The Levee Breaks" and "Black Dog" and "The Battle Of Evermore" (reaching here for the famous ones I know) are all good but the elements in them I respond to as 'pop' aren't the most compelling things about them.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Not that I disagree with you, but this is begs the question - what is a pop group, if you know that Led Zeppelin isn't one?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Where did I say they weren't?