Cleverness In Pop

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Do you appreciate what I'm going to call 'cleverness' - wordplay, allusion, non-standard structures, etc. - in pop music? Is it something you look for? Who does it well?

Do you think there's an opposition between cleverness and directness (in emotional or physical impact)? Should pop be cleverer?

(Qn arising from today's Popular entry)

Comments

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I shall save my detailed personal response to 10cc for the Popular comments box, although in my view they are one band who did 'clever' very well.

I think one big thing in their favour was that the subject matter of their songs was often surprising - and this offset the smartarse wordplay nicely. It took me so long to get my head round the idea that someone would write a song about prison riot-control or plane crashes or blackmail or a revenge-of-the-nerds-style fantasy or voodoo or arms-smuggling or white guys in trouble with the locals in Jamaica or whatever that, by the time I realised I don't know what the right pop vocabulary is for that sort of song, I also realised that 10cc's would do as well as any.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I can sympathise with this. I remember when I was a big Pixies fan I would get very cross with people who preferred Pixies songs about death and lust and the Bible rather than acrostics spelling "Surfer" or space colonisation or Californian settlement patterns or what birds dream about. The latter seemed a lot more enthusiastic and heartfelt to me.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's the motive behind the song that's an important factor. Is the artist desperately trying to impress the listener with how 'clever' they are (Coldplay)? Is this what they would be bibbling on about anyway (Kate Bush)? Is the song completely ridiculous at first glance but in fact it's gone over most people's unclever heads and is actually a work of genius (Fergie)?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I have to say that when I think of a band who alienate the listeners with cleverness I wd not pick Coldplay!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

But exactly! They THINK they are being clever which is one of the least clever things one can do as a pop group...

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Heh, the thing with the Pixies was that it never even occurred to me to think of them as a clever band. They were silly and exciting and thrilling and weird and kind of dopey sometimes, but whatever cleverness there was going on didn't register as 'cleverness' at all.