Pop Solipsism

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Even for me this is a nebulous thort so bear with me:

I was talking on another blog about vocals, specifically Bobby Gillespie's vocals, and I said:

"Bobby G is kind of a unique case because he - perhaps creditably* - tries to make his voice go along with a whole BUNCH of old-timey stylistic tropes: rawk vocals, psych hippie vocals (as here), even GOSPEL at times. And IMO he really doesn't have the voice for any of them - it's just too thin.

*though I don't think so: I think it's a symptom of a (very British?) punk overhang where the will to do something became more important than the ability to do it. So "This is our Stones track" was enough to make a track "their Stones track". "There's always been a dance element to our music" and "We're gonna be the biggest band in the world" and such statements (not by Primal Scream necessarily) are other examples. It's an extension of a solipsism which came in with New Pop, I think, and which made that particular scene so vibrant but has really not helped British music since."

Now I think I have a kernel of a point here, though "will to do something" isn't exactly it, and I don't think it's specifically British either: I remember reading some Kogan stuff about the idea of something standing in for the reality in re. 80s US punkers and indie guys, except he phrased it slightly differently.

And it ties in with Lex's recent complaints about how Lady GaGa seems to operate by saying "I am original and artistic" as often as possible until people believe it.

The New Pop reference is to the idea that in 1980-82 a load of bands said "Right, we are making Pop Music and we intend that the charts reflect that", and by luck and timing and judgement it WORKED and they actually did rush into the charts and take over (a bit). But since then it's more often been the declaration rather than the realization that's won people over.

This all boils down to "When is it bad to declare your ambition?"

Comments

[koganbot]

But a point I was making over on Lex's Animal Collective thread was that among fans of a band there's always an engagement, usually quite visceral, with the sound; and presumably, unless the band is cynical, it is as engaged as its fans. And they'd likely believe in whatever symbols there were, and I'd say that they'd feel the symbols to be true. A band doesn't have to explicitly state its ambitions. If a band plays a certain kind of rock and dresses in a particular way, that in itself becomes a statement of ambition in regard to the show or the CD etc. Given that it's impossible for a rock band not to play a certain kind of rock and dress in a particular way, the band doesn't have any choice but to state ambitions.