JUDGE POP is back

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Another week, another case for JUDGE POP. This time he's investigating an outbreak of TWEE on the streets of MEGA CITY POP. The good Judge has his suspects - Belle And Sebastian, ten-year indie pop veterans who regularly turn up high on the Poptimists last.fm charts. Are they a credit to pop - or a menace?

[Poll #965057]

If Belle And Sebastian are cubed, they will join PATRICK WOLF, who was narrowly found guilty last time the good Judge's services were called upon.

Comments

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I own two records by B&S - Tigermilk and the "I'm A Cuckoo" CD single.

I wouldn't part with them (or with "Lazy Line Painter Jane" if I owned that, which I don't). But I still voted to send them down. They have no place on Poptimists. Confine them to indieguilt innit.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Why not?

[zenith.livejournal.com]

Crazy talk! In what sense is something like 'Step Into My Office' not pop?

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

Absolutely - if anything they've gone more pop as time has gone on.

Jonathan David - one of the great lost pop hits of our time - channels the uber-pop spirit of The Kinks, and it's not even a Murdoch song! It's punchy pop underdog Stevie Jackson who turns the singles out, I reckon.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

My problem with the non-Murdoch songs isn't the songwriting so much as the singing. On Jonathan David for instance there's that wretched quavering "you're still kiiiing" bit that always always throws me out of the song. Murdoch seems to have a much better idea of what his voice can and can't successfully achieve.

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

He sounds like Ray Davies to me, and so the quavering is sublime. But I can understand the opposition.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Most pop is neither wimpy nor shy. B&S use wimpiness and shyness as a selling point. I hate wimpiness and shyness! Lack of social skills more like.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Time to get Lex into Frazier Chorus!

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

Really? I think that ideas of wimpiness or shyness are projected onto the band rather than inherent in their music, which is more often than not passionate and flirty. Introspective? I'd certainly accept that but not as a criticism. Coyness is a fair accusation, but I bet Mr Murdoch would be the first to quote back Morrissey on that...

I think if you went back over the singles they've put out, that none of them are remotely wimpy or shy but nearly all of them are pop. They are NINDIE, which many find confusing.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think something B&S capture very well sometimes is the flare of passion, or undercurrent of passion, in an apparently repressed life.

I've been trying to think why their recent stuff has left me so unmoved: I wonder if they worry too much about good taste.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

no, it's because it all sounds the same.

unlike their old stuff which sounded a better all the same.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

actually i think their could be a taste issue, a lot of the last alBUM is kind of hipster jazzfunk nonce-sense. i blame StuD for leaving (and smelling of wee), when it was him and Struan writing it was effectively a different band to struan and stevie...

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

I don't think they're all that repressed at all, there at least one song about people AT IT on their earlier albums, and their best single (Lazy Line Painter Jane), is gleefully carnal (but not filthy). I think this was part of the thing, that they were hardcore twee, but acknowledged that even the type of people who've been listening to this sort of thing since (EG) The Wedding Present did occasionally play football and kiss girls and stuff.

I would also suggest that being Scottish helped sell them down south as a slightly wilder type of indiebods, but I might just be being racist there :)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Is NINDIE distinct from mere INDIE, and in what way? I am unfailiar with either but I suspect that while the latter is an umbrella covering a few things I like, the former is NOT.

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

I'm using it to describe poppy and possibly a bit jangly guitar music. There's probably a big sixties and soul influence. There is nothing that will frighten your gran.

eg Slint are indie but they are not nindie.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

yes, NINDIE seems to be a synonym here for REAL ACTUAL PROPER INDIE, ie postcard/cherry red/sarah influenced, jangly/acoustical gtr. stuff.

distinct again from PROPER INDIE which is early 90s post-baggy, non-grunge uk gtr pop (eg tfc, boo radleys etcetc)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

a Venn Diagram might be helpful* at this point

*on indieguilt where I can't see it, not here obv

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Hmm I think I hate both of those.

What sort of indie are PJ Harvey, YYYs, The Knife, The Gossip, LCD Soundsystem et al, ie the music I like which makes people accuse me of being indie?

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

MODERN INDIE

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

Ha ha! They are ROCK!

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

I think there's a good point to put forward HAIRCUT INDIE again m'lud (but not Peej!!)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I didn't say they weren't pop. Of course they're pop. But that does not give you a free pass into poptimists. We have standards. :)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

also B&S-fan baiting is FUN