That would be a canonical matter

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

No canon today as my list is at work and I am not - instead, a question:

Is there an artist or group that suddenly springs to mind when you think of 'pop'? What about 'indie'? Or 'emo'? Do you think there can be 'defining songs' for a genre?

In other words - are there canonical artists/songs in pop? How changeable are they over time?

Comments

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

There are probably a fair number of (better) examples of this, but what springs to mind when you ask this question is the example of Simple Minds, who were really kind of proggy new wave for the first six or so years of their career. Then came "Don't You (Forget About Me)" and some soppy albums and they became pop/AOR and are probably mostly remembered that way. Consequently I think that canons have to shift, as well.

Twenty years ago The Primitives were indie, right? They may still "be" indie, but no one would think of them as defining the genre. (Ok, maybe not the best example, but you get what I mean, I trust.) Although the Carpenters were pop in 1970, who would think of them now as definitive?

[damnspynovels.livejournal.com]

Interesting that you mention The Primitives, because it instantly makes me think of Uptight by The Darling Buds. It's odd that at the time it defined indie almost to a tee, but it wouldn't be anything of the sort now. It'd be more pop than indie now, but in 1986 something like Red Box or Curiosity Killed The Cat would've been typical pop.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think the idea of "indie-pop" has developed, and the DBs would fit into that - cf the Pipettes

[damnspynovels.livejournal.com]

The term was already coined way back when for such a purpose, but I always felt it was unfair. It was like the DBs couldn't ever be just pop, so they had to be indiepop. And yet it's more pop than many other things legitimately called as such.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Well for their target market being indiepop was better than being pop! (And indeed indiepop was "more pop" than pop)

I'm happy for almost everything to be pop, though - I don't see "indiepop" as any harsher a qualifier than "teenpop", it's just a useful connotative label for a particular flavour of the whole.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Have we had the "pop is an attribute not a genre" war on poptimists yet?