Pop and the idea of bands

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

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?

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

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.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

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.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

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.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

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.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

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.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

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.