Something said in the pub

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

by thenipper:

"I think Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse have killed Xenomania style pop, in the same way Britpop killed off Take That."

(I paraphrase)

Let's talk about....THE ZEITGEIST of BRITISH POP.

Comments

[pot80.livejournal.com]

Well, when you say Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse, you really mean Mark Ronson, right? And that would support the case -- he's also had a huge UK hit with "Stop Me," and ha, three is a trend!

I would think that this is a fairly right-on observation, but it'll have to wait a bit til we see how many people try to mimic that sound.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yeah soundwise but it's not JUST Mark Ronson. The current Allen vs Cheryl Cole 'spat' that's taking up the papers is kind of also about ways of being and acting too.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

he may be right. Allen and Winehouse get to proclaim themselves 'not boring' like Tunstall and co, 'not plastic' like Girls Aloud and co - and they're feistier/mouthier than anyone else in British pop at the mo which counts for a lot (press coverage etc.).

it's a shame (for me) that with such relatively strong personalities that their music has to be so retro.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Is there a link between the strength and the retro-ness tho? Do they draw strength FROM the retro-ness (I'd argue yes!)

[pot80.livejournal.com]

Another thing you should note is that Allen and especially Winehouse have enjoyed success in the United States. They translate fairly well over here, whereas you can't even hope to find Girls Aloud et al in even the best import bins.

Winehouse is really blowing up over here! It's kinda cool actually. (Tunstall has had a few hits too, but she's in another realm, what we'd call AAA/Adult pop.)

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Tunstall is not boring. Take that back! She may not get into bitch rants about fellow pop stars (actually, she did slate Dido a couple of years back), but she has an interesting background (living with an adoptive family in the Scottish highlands), and she gives interesting interviews - I know, I've interviewed her, on subjects ranging from disability to growing up in the outdoors (without television or even music) to American boarding schools (she attended one). She also regularly talks proudly and publicly about her large lesbian following.

I will not tolerate any Tunstall-bashing in this community. If you must bash female pop singers, pick on Joss Stone or Corinne Bailey Rae!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

my pre-thought response (based on only a scattered hearing of POP NOW) is

Take That (one-dimensional)* vs Britpop (seemed at the time multi-dimensional)**, so Britpop WON (then became one-dimensional)

Xenomania (multi-dimensional) vs LilyAmy (one-dimensionalish)*** = LilyAmy not in a good place to WIN in the first place

[there are a LOT OF QUESTIONS BEGGED and VULENRABLE CLAIMS in this response]

*This is how i hear em -- compared to eg the Spicers, they have a narrow sound and identity
**ooh controversial -- but I think in the early 90s this argument could be made, that Britpop was offering an OPENING UP not a SHUTTING DOWN (i wz NOT LISTENING AT THE TIME)
***Still not sured if I've heard ANYTHING by la winehouse

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

what i mean by "dimensionality" is i think something like "extent of adaptive resources"

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Thing is that while Xenomania themselves may well be adaptive I dunno how adaptive the performers they work with are seen to be (or are)?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Did Britpop really kill off Take That? My memory is of early Britpop coexisting quite happily with TT, who killed themselves off at the height of their popularity.

And I'm not sure how viable "Xenomania-style pop" ever has been. I mean...other than 'Round Round' have they actually made any massive pop hits without Girls Aloud? Even if Allen and Winehouse didn't exist, I think it'd be apparent that Xenomania's work outside of GA has been fairly moribund. Killing "Richard X style pop" might be a better qn as that looked like it was going to be a fairly viable model for lots of popstars, inc the second-tier, rather than one group's fairly unique sound.

But anyway, I think what Allen and Winehouse have done is completely erased the tension between "Take That music" and "Britpop music" - they satisfy people looking for both, they're acceptable as "fun pop stars" and as "authentic artists" without being "too naff" or "too serious".

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think in the heat of pub discourse Xenomania was standing in for the whole early-mid 00s* clever electropopjustice thing.

*as Carsmile remarked the other day, OMG ITS THE LATE 00s.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

...ie I think Xenomania have actually subsumed themselves, not very successfully, into "Allen/Winehouse music" - their career arc shows a definite tightening in recent years, an increasing tendency to be conservative, to try and bandwagon on the current taste for catchy guitar music. To the detriment of all involved tbh.

Dunno if the Cheryl/Lily feud is really significant of anything - Allen's had a feud/rumoured feud with just about everyone and I can't see this sort of thing dividing fans of either group (or if it does it's in a Blur/Oasis way where they're still in under the same umbrella-ella-ella-ay-ay-ay) (and thank the lord Rihanna is not holding this particular one).

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Britpop fairly directly killed Take That by offering Robbie a way out of the band, and then by revealing the then irrelevance of a Robbie-less TT.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I don't think the two events are similar enough in magnitude - Britpop may have killed off Take That but boy/girlbands in general were still continuing on after Britpop left the building, with much success! Even discounting the Spicers you still had Boyzone, Steps, Another Level, 5ive... Lily and Amy are having a much bigger impact across a whole genre whereas Britpop killed off just one band (and that was because of Robbie's fault). Similar method yes, but much greater consequences this time round!

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I agree with Kat, although I'm looking at it from the other end: LilyAmyRonson is not a great comparator to 90s Britpop. But if you can and want to lump in Blunt, Powter, Snow Patrol and The Fray with LilyAmy, THEN thenipper might be on to something.

The other thing that nobody's mentioned so far is the appropriation of shiny electropop by indie (the French Justice league in particular). I blame Goldfrapp.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think the Take That analogy is the weakest part of the argt, actually.

Wonder how much class is playing a part - is there a big socio-economic difference between the type of girls who aspire to be like Cheryl and the type of girls who aspire to be like Lily (and the type of boys who want to sleep with either) (and the type of boys who want to be either etc etc)

I'd guess yes!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

yes that seems pretty clear. i often enjoy it when you get class-based beefs in the pop charts tho. this was the most if not only fun thing about Blur v Oasis (Jarvis as ref) after all. seeing that kind of thing played out ten+ years later with female pop artists tho hmmmm, is it really progress?

Re: Question:

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

their new album 'Chinese Democracy' is finally being released sometime in the future.

Another way of looking at it

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

The style of music we're talking about here died out in America a good five years ago. So maybe we shouldn't look at this as lallen "killing off" Xenomania, but as that style having extended itself admirably beyond its natural lifespan by being unusually good and inventive, but it's just reached the end of its life cycle. Arguably it would've died out earlier if there had been a counterbalance strong enough, but nothing was good/pop enough to really take its place. I think Winehouse & Allen are just filling a void, and Allen's kicking the nearest thing to her cause she wants to be Damon or something.

(I don't think Allen's retro though.)

dear livejournal

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i hate compressed threads.

actually i hate forking threads. i came up with a brilliant theorem to prove that forking threads are dud using just algebra. it boiled down to POINT OF FORKING IS ONLY RETROSPECTIVELY KNOWN. cocks

equations

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

just like KAISER CHIEFS = SHED 7 i expect to see ranks of neatly lined up 90s/00s equations in this thread

Re: equations

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

THE KLAXONS = THE ALARM

A U.S. Perspective

[koganbot]

Lily too idiosyncratic to be indicative of anything, and she's not trad (unless home-made goofy calypso is a tradition I don't know about), I think Cheryl started the most recent spat by saying that Lily had a penis (so Cheryl's the one being trad), this guy confuses everything by blogging and raving about Lily and listing her in his music interests, Brits on the teenpop thread claim that new Aly & A.J. vocoder pop is in Xenomania style (for those of you who don't know, Aly & A.J. are earnest American chimpanzees singer-songwriter teens), so perhaps Xenomania will produce the next Alanis album, Brit charts since January seem to have American r&b and Brit indie dominance while Winehouse barely went top 20 this year, Brit indie not in competition with Girls Aloud but r&b is.

Re: A U.S. Perspective

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

i) home-grown calypso kind of is a tradition, though not one I know much about
ii) Lily started it by dissing Cheryl's husbands and bandmates (inc calling Nicola Roberts "ugly") - Cheryl's "chick w/ dick" comment not even from her own lips (Gordon Ramsay said it, Cheryl nodded agreement before remembering she was on TV)
iii) I'm personally not 100% convinced that Xenomania are the right comparisons for 'The Potential Breakup Song' but I don't know what is yet
iv) The second and third singles off the Winehouse album haven't gone top 10 but the album has been No 1, on and off, all year, and I think 'Rehab' is STILL in the top 75 about three decades after its release
v) Brit indie not in competition with Girls Aloud but r&b is = v pertinent point

IMO

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Bad production killed the Xenomania style pop. 'Chemistry' sounded so, so hollow and dated and tinny and cheap in comparison to either of its predecessors and what I've heard of the Frank album was the same.

And then Timbaland and possibly also Mr Ronson came along and made it sound even tinnier.

Re: IMO

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

But Timbaland was around pre-Xenomania - and new Timbaland actually sounds hollow in comparison to old Timbaland in a kind of similar way to nu-Xeno/old-Xeno...because it's not Timbaland really.