The Pop Open Group E: RESULTS

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Here are the results for the violence group - I'm putting them all up at once because I may be summoned away from my PC (or I may equally faff about on it all day long).

First Place: Motor - "Black Powder" (Track 1, 8 1st place votes, 30% of total points) - katstevens wins.

Second Place: Pizzicato Five - "One Two Three etc Barbie Dolls" (Track 5, 4 1st place votes, 23% of total points) - skillextric qualifies.

Third Place: Loretta Lynn - "Fist City" (Track 2, 5 1st place votes, 21% of total points) - lisa_go_blind qualifies.

Fourth Place: Speedy J - "Patterns (Remix)" (Track 4, 4 1st place votes, 19% of total points) - freakytigger is OUT.

Fifth Place: James Kochalka Superstar - "Monkey Vs Robot" (Track 3, 2 1st place votes, 9% of total points) - jel_bugle is OUT.

Congratulations to Kat, who gets to pick which group she is in for round 2 - there are still - IIRC - places in 50s and Before, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. She also gets to pick which lisa_go_blind lands in, and then skillextric's fate is determined by the Randomiser.

Thanks to all voters, especially those discerning individuals who voted for track four.

This week's group is RELIGION, and is up tomorrow with results next week. Then the Pop Open goes on vacation until mid-September, giving the 24 players in Round Two a month to get their tracks in (and me a chance to go on holiday myself!). We'll fill the orgafun gap in some yet-to-be-determined way. I'll also put up a special post of POPOCRYPHA - the tracks people sent in for Round One but then changed their minds on.

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I don't hear P5's 'aping' in the same way as I would a British band doing the same thing: I think their J-ness is a bit more impt than their approach to whatever they think Pop is? I remember you once telling me about this Japanese girl whose fashion style was total punk, or something, band T-shirts and everything, but she'd never heard of it or any of the bands? I think I misremember slightly. But there's that J thing of magpieing rather than aping, the disregard for what their loving recreation means, ie it's not trying to signify 'authenticity' or 'realness' whatever, just...the surface.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

How true is that actually, though - my problem is that my impression of 'fashion and pop culture in Japan' is very unfortunately influenced by the twitchings of Momus' ballsack and the theories he spins to legitimise them.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I basically pretend that Momus doesn't exist outside of the ILM archives. I don't believe he's a popstar or a 'celebrity', I don't believe he's made music, he's just some appalling internet character. I have a similar reaction to a lot of J-pop to you - though I actually expect it to suddenly click one day! - so everything I know is from Cis. Which is nicer than having it from Momus.

[cis.livejournal.com]

Well, that's a nice mental image, isn't it.

I've known quite a few people who have a similar line about Japan as does Momus, you know, and tempting as the yellow-fever argument is I think it is more... aesthetic? It's a delightful image to have of Japan, of this amazing pick'n'mix culture that just doesn't care for your authenticity, that practices syncretism in everything it does, that has retreated from the horrors of the modern world into a careful cocoon of caring very deeply about very unimportant things and nothing else, where things are more exquisitely done. And I'm sure some of it's true, too: but mostly it is just very, very appealing, and once you've started reading it into Japan - no matter whether your 'in' to the country was women or shib-k or manga or whatever - it's tempting never to stop. Especially when the Japanese are spinning it just as hard back at you!

[cis.livejournal.com]

Which also is to say -- having hitched your wagon to 'things Japanese' you are rather stuck if you turn around and say '...which aren't really so different from things elsewhere in the world' because the question then becomes: so why aren't you focusing on elsewhere in the world? Obviously i for example have the perfect comeback in 'nowhere else in the world did peasants express dissatisfaction by breaking into rich people's homes to dance' but the fact remains that if i'm so up on peasants there were plenty in europe to concern myself with. It's in my best interests to maintain that Japan is special: I can know this consciously and fight against it, but I also know this unconsciously and have built its barricades deep inside my brain.

(my impression of 'fashion and pop culture in japan' is kind of tragically indebted to marxy, whose thesis is rather more pessimistic than that of the mome, i believe.)