The Decade In Pop

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

My enormous Pitchfork piece on "The Decade In Pop" is up: http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/7703-the-decade-in-pop/

Spotify playlist to go with it here: http://open.spotify.com/user/freakytrigger/playlist/6cudPLlniOyOrpX5M5Dnnz

Comments

[koganbot]

I've never heard the "pop mix" of "You Belong With Me," but from Tom's description it sounds more like a rock mix, which may mean it's aimed at Disney. I've given up on Radio Disney, so I wouldn't know. The mix Disney played a couple of years ago of "Teardrops On My Guitar" had a bit more guitar and some extra vocal stuff tracked in, but wasn't fundamentally different from the original.

I don't see how the country "You Belong With Me" could be made any more pop than it already is anyway. Seems to be that on Fearless Taylor only barely goes through the motions of trad country instrumentation, and - unless I'm forgetting something (haven't listened to the alb in several months) - there's nothing in the lyrics that suggests pickup trucks and diners and a rural, working-class setting. But this hasn't hurt her with the country audience at all. (Compare to the beatdown given LeAnn and Faith earlier in the decade.) I think this is because she's so powerfully and distinctly Taylor that there's immediate recognition of her, a girl that everyone likes going through the romance wringer that anyone can identify with. And since the country listeners have already accepted her as the gawky kid sister who's keeping the genre relevant to the kids, the boundary patrol leaves her alone. The genre doesn't want to expel her.

Domestic melodrama has been at the core of a lot of country anyway, and in this decade the women usually are given more sonic freedom than the men in their exploration of it. Toby's still going for the country growls, whereas Taylor Swift and Jamie O'Neal can explore textures and timbres without anyone thinking of them as not country. (I hope.) (Not that Toby doesn't have plenty of timbre. Chuck to thread to tell me about all the male orchestral lushness I've totally overlooked. Country guys have been singing blue-eyed soul for decades without anyone raising an objection. Maybe all I'm reflecting is how really pissed I am at this year's Rodney Atkins' album, where an excellent narrative story teller has reduced himself to flinging audience-pleasing signifiers. And so I'm projecting my disappointment with that onto the gender as a whole. But it's been my impression for a while that country women get more sonic freedom than men, though I've never systematically tested this idea.) (By the way, did anyone other than Moggy listen to the Jamie O'Neal that's in the current best of 2001 heat?) What got LeAnn and Faith in trouble was for going for Flashdance-era dance-oriented rock (LeAnn) and MOR world-dance like reggae and stuff (Faith), which specifically registered as Not Country. Big & Rich got away with defiantly Not Country elements like funk and hip-hop by pairing them with super-hick country banjos and acoustic guitars and daring you not to call it country.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Don't necessarily disagree that women country singers have been able to stretch more into certain pop and dance production areas; just don't think the equation is as unbalanced as Frank suggests -- certainly Phil Vassar, Toby, Alan Jackson (Like Red On A Rose), Brooks & Dunn (one song by whom Frank compared to Londonbeat!), Tim McGraw, Colin Raye, etc, have recorded songs or even entire albums that veered anywhere from smooth-jazz quiet storm to new wavey '80s dance-flirting AOR (John Waite's "Missing You" actually seems to be a fairly frequent sonic signpost in '00s country, and everybody thought Waite in turn wanted to sound like the Police at the time) to (obviously) old-school hard rock. So nah, come to think of it, I'm not sure I agree with Frank at all here.

As for Rodney Atkins' album, I admittedly overrated it when it came out (or at least right now I think I did, since all three singles have irritated me more than grabbing me on the radio), but when I first listened to it (and liked it quite a bit, on first couple listens, at least), I (maybe willfully, who know?) heard as much early '80s Night Ranger-style proto-hair-metal and Cougar-style Stones rips as audience pandering. (Though who also knows, maybe by now those sounds are audience pandering. Though I get the idea that Frank is referring to the lyrics here, more than the music. Favorite track, either way: "Chasing Girls.")

[koganbot]

Yeah, I was referring to the lyrics on the Rodney, but the music didn't grab me nearly as much as his previous music did either, though I don't think that was owing to stylistic choices so much as not pulling the music for best impact (not that I've got anything useful to say about where the music goes wrong for me). I certainly didn't think the music was bad. Did like the song where he goes fishing and meets the G.I. on leave. And "worst 15 minutes of my life" does make me smile when I think of it.

I myself referred to Toby's "That's Not How It Is" as "quiet storm" in my "Quiet Desert Storm" piece. I think even as I was writing my post it was unraveling in my mind, but I decided to keep it anyway and let you come along and contradict it. I do remember on one of my country ballot comments making a crack about LeAnn and Faith roaming the world while Toby tended the home fires, but then LeAnn and Faith were the ones beaten down for it, so this doesn't exactly help my thesis.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Well, Toby's certainly got songs where he doesn't tend to the home fires, or maybe he tends to fires in somebody else's home ("Stays In Mexico," "Time For Me To Ride," "Brand New Bow," "Who's Your Daddy" -- as I said in my Voice piece last year, for a supposedly happily married guy, he's certainly not afraid of one-night-stand songs), and there's also guys like Dierks Bentley whose whole persona is about roaming the road and not staying tied to one place. So again (which I guess you're sort of acknowledging), the dichotomy's not as simple as one might think.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It's similar to the various global iterations of Shania Twain's big album - the original country version for the US, a "pop" version for Euro markets (with obvious country signifiers taken out and dodgy electro beats put in), and...a third version, which I can't remember right now, but it may have been something MENTAL like salsa versions for the Latin market.

Anyway yeah it's because record companies are stupid and think Britishers are terrified of country and hip-hop signifiers *stabs something*

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Actually, though, the '00s country sonic gender difference may well stem to something as simple as how, in the '90s, Shania's mega-hits maybe tended to lean slightly more toward borderline-dancey post-Cars/post-Abba Europop, and Garth's mega-hits tended to learn slightly more toward AOR and hair-metal and heartland medium-hard rock. So the women and men who came later just followed suit. Still not sure, though, how one of those options is more Not Country than other (and I honestly don't hear how Toby is any more of a country purist than Taylor or Jamie or Faith.)