OK, I shouldn't have projected my own negative connotations of "indie" onto what you were saying. But I don't see how P5 are not part of the sound of today (well, the sound of the 1990s, which is when I'm guessing this track was recorded). "Alien to the sound of today" may well be the sound of a particular day, if a lot of people are playing styles that signify "alien to the sound of today." But I don't feel that that captures P5 either: the whole copy, refer to, sample-the-sound-of-the-past thing was a part of international club music during the time of the band's existence. Plus (I just checked this to make sure) P5 were best sellers in Japan in the '90s, which makes them the sound of today [their day] whether they want to be or not. And actually I still believe that my examples are more apropos than one might think. That is, only by hitting big did Backstreet Boys, Rolling Stones, Muddy Waters get to be the sound of their day. Your phrase "loving recreation of a fiction" might pinpoint the different sensibility. But then, with the Stones and Dylan and several others, there wasn't a sound of the day that they were integrating into; it was a sound that was created by their success.
By the way, I'm not trying to knock down your idea. I feel that it's heading in the right direction. "Indie" might be the wrong word for P5, and P5 may be not so relevant to "indie pop" or "indie dance," not because of P5's commercial success but because its natural home would seem to be in the dance clubs. (Whereas indie dance's home would be in the indie clubs. This is assuming I know what I mean by indie dance, which I probably don't.) Am I wrong about that? That's where I imagined Arling & Cameron, whose music was sometimes called "club pop." There is something bohemian-sounding about P5, so maybe "indie" is appropriate, but I don't think I'd want to label the bohemian wing of dance "indie."
I think what I'm balking at is the idea that what P5 were doing necessarily makes them not pop. It might make them cold or overstudied or irritating (all of which are adjectives I've applied to them in the past, but I might be willing to rethink P5), but why can't there be pop that's cold and overstudied and irritating? And I don't see why a band like that couldn't have a Rolling Stones-like impact on popular music. (More likely to be a Rolling Stones-like impact than a Backstreet Boys-like impact, because it's more likely to appeal to hipsters.)
[It's also hard to argue that indie isn't to some extent the sound of today, and isn't to some extent pop. But I can understand why someone here might want to resist calling The Automatic "pop." So I seem to be talking myself in circles.]
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 02:25 am (UTC)By the way, I'm not trying to knock down your idea. I feel that it's heading in the right direction. "Indie" might be the wrong word for P5, and P5 may be not so relevant to "indie pop" or "indie dance," not because of P5's commercial success but because its natural home would seem to be in the dance clubs. (Whereas indie dance's home would be in the indie clubs. This is assuming I know what I mean by indie dance, which I probably don't.) Am I wrong about that? That's where I imagined Arling & Cameron, whose music was sometimes called "club pop." There is something bohemian-sounding about P5, so maybe "indie" is appropriate, but I don't think I'd want to label the bohemian wing of dance "indie."
I think what I'm balking at is the idea that what P5 were doing necessarily makes them not pop. It might make them cold or overstudied or irritating (all of which are adjectives I've applied to them in the past, but I might be willing to rethink P5), but why can't there be pop that's cold and overstudied and irritating? And I don't see why a band like that couldn't have a Rolling Stones-like impact on popular music. (More likely to be a Rolling Stones-like impact than a Backstreet Boys-like impact, because it's more likely to appeal to hipsters.)
[It's also hard to argue that indie isn't to some extent the sound of today, and isn't to some extent pop. But I can understand why someone here might want to resist calling The Automatic "pop." So I seem to be talking myself in circles.]