poptimists | Pop and the idea of bands

Pop and the idea of bands

I don't really listen to bands or groups. I think poptimists has something to do with this - I certainly don't see many bands featured here, and I think they still get a bad press even among those who have rehabilitated pop to themselves? Maybe even rightly!

Do you? I feel these days like having more than one focus distracts and confuses the focus of music, making it weaker - but then I'll make exceptions for moments like golden-age Girls Aloud, when it sounded like 5 solo artists all recording at once, leading and pulling in different, exciting directions. Or at the very least - you knew who they were.

What do people think?

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Destiny's Child lead the way once again, with MOP, So Solid Crew, Mis-teeq and Daft Punk (http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/707211.html) :)

I don't think we're allergic to the concept, but then it is a backward-looking poll.

Yeah - I guess a thing about groups these polls are making me realize is how much more consensus-friendly they are than solo artists! Which is a pretty obvious pop truth, come to think about it.

there was a thread on ILM recently about how music industry trends have been veering away from groups in any case over the past half decade - very few pop-orientated groups have emerged since, say, the Pussycat Dolls, and even fewer have had any success.

personally, obviously it's not a hard-and-fast rule, but I tend to prefer solo artists (or duos) anyway, maybe b/c I think talent and charisma is embodied in the individual. but then this year two of my favourite albums are by Electrik Red and Yeah Yeah Yeahs...

Why do you think this is?

Solo artists are cheaper? Boy bands and girl groups perceived as naff, with more and more pop gaining some sort of credibility? No idea really. It's the Pussycat Dolls/Lady Gaga thread on ILM.

Another thing that's happened is that - compared to 90s pop - nobody seems willing to put the marketing in to give the various members different identities. Electrik Red are awesome but they come on as a gestalt not a group w/conflicting or contrasting attributes. Yeah Yeah Yeahs are clearly a band but they feel like a vehicle for one woman's personality and concerns.

Do you think that might be a consequence of pop culture's current panoptic state and simultaneous demand for some sort of authenticity? Victoria Beckham would never have got away with calling herself Posh Spice if the Spice Girls had emerged this year.

YYYs don't really fit into this taxonomy anyway, though actually I think they're much less a conduit for one individual's ideas than most other indie bands - both the drums and the guitars have always been as distinct as the vocals, and as important to the sound. Even I could recognise Nick Zinner and Brian Chase's styles a mile off, and I know 0 about guitars or drumming.

My favourite early spice girls memory, incidentally, is the interweb rumour that the line "Easy V doesn't come for free, she's a real lady" was a coded reference to Posh's supposed past as a high class escort. There is a good chance that this was started by ILX's Ally.

I'd have thought the panopticon effect would have made the 'pick favourites' strategy easier not harder. If you were launching the Spicers today you'd make sure all five of em had separate Twitter accounts, fan pages, etc. and were always chatting to each other.

lol, and "MC who likes it on an E" a not-so-coded reference to Mel C's past as a raver, I guess.

Thinking about it, I guess one real industry sea-change is that acts now need to have a big hit right away, and if they don't they get dropped. This really mitigates against groups - Spice Girls were really quite anomalous in that they arrived with pre-formed personae and were immediately hugely successful. I definitely remember a period of time with Take That, All Saints, even Destiny's Child where I didn't know who was who - the distinct personae took time to emerge (say a few singles, or one album campaign). Whereas with a solo artist it's so much easier to imprint one persona on the public consciousness - cf Lady Gaga.

Which might be why expecting Electrik Red or The Saturdays to be as immediately distinct as the Spice Girls were might be too much of a stretch - if either hang around for the long haul, I'm sure distinct personae will emerge unbidden.

The Spice Girls was about five totally distinct and different, larger-than-life personalities right from the start. They were like five different manifestations of the Lady Gaga idea of image.

Girls Aloud, on the other hand, won't, ditto Destiny's Child. Electrik Red and The Saturdays are similar in the way that they may or may not emerge as different personalities, depending on how they play in the tabloids and celeb mags, mostly.

Girls Aloud probably prove my point - they were an interchangeable gestalt at first but with time have become pretty distinct in most people's minds.

There's been a fair bit of discussion about Electrik Red of late?

But in terms of UK pop there have just been fewer bands generally - cf the big industry focus on female solo artists at the mo. I'm not intrinsically against the idea of bands at all - but the only UK pop band I am currently interested in monitoring the progress of is JLS (and to a lesser extent Girls Can't Catch/Saturdays but that's mainly car-crash viewing).

Also as great as Electrik Red are, they're also completely flopping in the US. And Richgirl are doing even worse.

Wonder if one problem outside pop is how much people in bands have internalised scripts of "being in a band" and so the real interesting exciting tensions in there get routed down very well-worn tracks.

I think I hardly listen to any solo acts! I like bands because there is more possibility for entertaining personality clashes. Also idk there are more people for me to look at in music videos? Solo acts tend to be a bit self-conscious currently; certainly I prefer collabs to solo songs for the most part.

THINGS WOT I HAVE LISTENED TO TODAY:
-Mastodon (IT IS POP)
-Pussycat Dolls
-Sugababes 2.0
-Brandy
-Sugababes 3.0
-Fall Out Boy
-McFly
-Elektrik Red
-Kylie
-Roots Manuva
-Err, Brand New

V GOOD, TICK. Idk, maybe I am a huge freak. Oh wait, do Eels count as a group? They probably don't count as pop either way.

i. Create a gang you want to be in.
ii. Create a package that's more interesting than the sum of its parts.

That's about it, except ii can encompass everything from power-trio improv to the Spice Girls to divorce-drama pop so it's pretty broad.

Or in the case of McFly/Spicers, create the gang that THEY want you to be in!

The internalised 'being in a band' thing you mention before - I dunno - couldn't that just as easily apply to a solo artist? What with focus on individuals in reality pop shows/BGT etc (yeah okay there are some groups but I think the main focus is on Plucky Individuals and great emphasis placed on overcoming odds by themselves - wvs). Stuff like Going On Tour has it's "bands" ethos (band picking itself apart on tour buses) and "solo artist" ethos (solo artist going insane/engulfed by entourage)...

Also how many solo acts are reeeeally solo aside from producers/collaborators and indeed my dere, scenesters? (I believe some people call 'em "hipsters")...

Well the structure of reality shows is like a GIANT BAND who all have to pretend to like each other and then the prize is a solo career ;)

I think the pre-scripted thing totes applies to solo acts too, I was just thinking of people like The Kooks or whoever where I suspect being in a band makes them EVEN MORE BORING than they might be separately.

So boring people become more boring but someone by themselves remains as themselves and thus = authenticity!!

Oh god this has reminded me - the other day when I was looking up the Kid British single, I assumed that Kid British was a solo dude (Kid is singular!) and was v surprised to find that not only were they a band, they were a band that wanted very badly to be a BAND rather than a crew - i.e. not just lots of individual rappers pulled together by a single beat/motivation like So Solid or Wu Tang always seemed to be (altho obv that worked out very well for SSC and WTC!). I think the missing quality for 'band' status Kid British didn't manage was the feeling that all members of the band were absolutely necessary for the song to work. That's on the basis of one song tho - I dunno if they pull it off properly on their album.

(btw if anyone is wondering, I'm going to do a post on the Mercury nominations/Lex 20p indie prize tomorrow)

Is a band more of an investment for the listener, as well as the label? I am thinking of the hours spent memorizing the members of kat-tun - it takes far more time than making up a contrarian view for a solo artist?

(Or at least there's a dichotomy - single artist: "I don't want to learn too much and ruin the magic", group: "Knowing more about the dynamic opens new pleasures in the music")

Possibly and possibly that's why I think of myself as liking more bands, cus I'm more invested.

I do also have a thing for layered vocals tho so bands tend to work well towards me aesthetic.

I don't know if it's that it takes more time -- for me it's more that it takes more emotional energy. I mean, it took me about the same amount of time (but much more work!) to learn Every Single Thing about Kara DioGuardi as it did to learn Every Single Thing about Fleetwood Mac, yet being a fan of Kara feels far simpler (and a little less special). With a single artist, you're only invested in one person / point of view. With a band, you're invested in the band as a group, as well as each member as an individual -- you have a relationship with four or five people, as well as a relationship with their relationships.

I wonder if The Kids get more of their gang mentality fix from tv/film characters these days - i.e. its easier to write slashfic about fictional groups who already have a clear (or not so clear) narrative? McFly are kind of the exception here in that they seem to unwittingly generate narratives by just existing. I would be very surprised to hear that someone had written a fan comic called 'The Saturdays Go Mad In Somerset' or similar.

*gets crayons*

We should totally do this in the pub. There must be highlighters to steal around here...

I'm not going to pub - not because of this comment! - but do knock yrself out :)

Fleetwood Mac are interesting, though, because (like Abba I guess!) a lot of the energy is directed inwards - you need an interior listening position to pick up on it? Isn't that fairly rare, though? Like, N'Sync are a bad, Radiohead are a band, but I'm not sure that's true of either - but maybe it's a continuum!

I dunno - memorising members or memorising tracklists/producers? Not sure how many legs are on that one. kat-tun and the whole fanservice thing adds a huge element of their relationships with each other and the whole johnnyverse to love too (and I guess to some extent all bands do) - whereas solo artists are more on the "my individual talent is so immense"! but... as I said above, which single artists are really entirely individual all the time anyway? hmm.

I was memorizing members! It was very difficult for me, my memory isn't very good and also they wear lots of makeup, being able to say "that is Jin!" re: a magazine photo took a lot of time. Possibly other people find this easier - I know some people can recognise Girls Aloud's voices on the songs for instance!

heh - no I didn't mean that quite! I meant - memorising members versus (with single artists) memorising tracklists, producers... like that sort of list making fandom is easily do-able whether there's one or six or a billion! (the more people there are the less interesting they get, there's a definite curve going on with optimum amount of ppl who can be interesting together, whether it's the polyphonic spree or hey say jump who are both equal on zzzzzz)...

i am a terrible poptimist but i still forget the name of the gurls aloud who are not sarah or cheryl or nicola-if-she's-the-ginger-one. Who are the others?! i don't think girls aloud are massively exciting as a mix of people (but as individuals they can be quite fun).

Kimberley is a primary school teacher, she finds London a bit daunting! It is the same kids everywhere, but the men here are different, she's not sure she trusts them. Sarah is boring. Nicola is the ginger one! She loves going to Portobello market. Isn't London exciting? Nadia and Cheryl are both v.pretty - Cheryl thrives in London but Nadia doesn't, she is a bit too influenced by Cheryl and ends up heartbroken, pining for the boy she left back home.

All albums after WWTNS are not canon obv.

Also I think "which single artists are really entirely individual all the time anyway" is a total red herring! It's not like there aren't other people on Bright Eyes records, in fact Bright Eyes is technically a band! The point is that I don't listen to the bass part and learn more about Bright Eyes The Band or about Mike; I listen and think I'm learning more about Conor, rightly or wrongly. And the same with Britney, I think!

Why 'technically' a band?! They *are* a band! There's always been other people! And whilst you may not, I am sure there are people who do (identifying majorly with one person in a band over 'the boring one' happens all the time, whether the appeal is looks, personality or HORRENDOUS EMO THAT COULD SINK SHIPS)...

It may be a bit of a red herring yes fair enough... but...

Hmm but but! I mean when Tanaka raps there are elements of 'This is an expression of Tanaka' and elements of 'This is an expression of kat-tun', I reckon about half half. The drum parts in Bright Eyes are like 90% 'THIS IS HOW I FEEL, LIKE THE SURFACE OF THE MOOOON' even though C.O. doesn't actually play them! I dunno, isn't a big part of the pleasure of pop pretending that Sophie Ellie Bextor is modern and sophicated but fun too, why, just listen to that synth line?

Band occurs where band had not previously:

78violet.

(So far I think this is an utterly terrible idea, though maybe it's an attempt to rebrand.)

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