poptimists | Formula

Don't mean to turn this in hipster-'dance'-corner but counter example: Superpitchers got a real 'formula' for his remixes too and I never get tired of that.

Dull answer, really: if you like the formula, youll never get tired of it.

Me and my rub questions!

A lot of 60s pop only sounds like formula now, back then it probably didn't.

Also a lot of 'formula' comes out of quite a compacted scene working through the same ideas at the same time, Merseybeat for instance gave me a real "oh god all this stuff sounds the same" feeling listening through but there was a reason for that.

Do you think it makes a difference if the formula is one a particular creator has established themselves over time by preferring some choices to others? Or if 'the formula' is something established by others that a creator sets out to follow - i.e. "I'm going to make a Motown pastiche now", or "I'm going to make some power pop".

That's a good question! Certainly it would be in the latter case where you would use the word 'formulaic' in the common derogatory sense. It seems lazy in that respect. But also maybe that is the one only time one is aware of following a formula rather than, as you say, a Joe Meek character following an obsession? In that case formula seems to emerge with hindsight.

Do I mean that formula works when its blazing a trail [0], but otherwise doesn't?

[0] though I'm not even sure if Motown/Wall of Sound/whatever was trail blazing?

Did you like it? I tend to think music 'all sounds the same' if I don't really like: Travis and Athlete etc.

Yes, exactly, formula is something you mainly perceive from a distance, I look at other people's playlists and think "christ don't you get bored?" but when it's a 'formula' you like the style becomes a comfy guarantee of quality and you start noticing the differences more.

yes I've noticed how a lot of things which I don't perceive as formulaic at all could be/are seen as such by others who don't listen to that type of music at all - eg house and the 4/4 beat, which I barely notice as a recurring quality but which is also possibly its most noticeable characteristic for people who don't listen to it much.

Also the question of generic R&B voices - I remember a thread where Tim and I couldn't think of a single R&B singer other than Ashanti who we characterised as dull and generic, and virtually everyone else disagreed.

There was a good ILM thread/post on house and partic the 4/4 beat.

'Good'.

Nah, I dont much like the JLC Coldplay. Even the hi-hats sound lazy.

It sounded INCREDIBLE on my ipod and then kind of weak on my home stereo. He has a lot less to work with, vocal-wise, than on some of his other remixes.

Madonna? Killers fella? !!!

The best vocalist he's worked with is Gwen.

It just made me want to listen to Computer Love.

The main thing the various Killers remixes have done is to convince me that Brandon Flowers actually has a great pop voice.

Madonna, yeah, not the best but she sings with more conviction than Chris M.

CM sings with too much conviction. Or with the conviction that he has conviction.

He doesn't on "Talk" - the original "Talk" is such a mess anyway though.

Actually CM's chief distinctive quality as a vocalist (and what makes him the $$$) is how he combines dull Buckley-standard "soaring" with quavering private doubt.

Actually, that's interesting. How the Buckley thing has becomes so formulaic, where once, I presume, it was sold as goosebumps-up-yr-neck distinctive.

I havent heard any Jeff Buckley.

Buckley himself is kinda distinctive to all who followed in his footsteps - it was technically quite breathtaking and hampered only by his lack of songwriting ability (it was very rarely used in conjunction with an actual melody). Whereas people like C Martin combine the most irritating aspects of the Buckley voice with too many technical limitations to pull it off.

I have heard "Hallelujah" and it was completely ghastly.

Gwen can't sing though! At all! The best vocalist he's worked with is probably Juliet.

I thought JLC's Royksopp remix was kind of retreading old ground - I still love it but it loses a bit of the thrill of previous stuff (cf Rachel Stevens' 'So Good': at the time I said something along the lines of watching a fantastically put together film but already knowing the ending) because it's precisely what is expected of him. I suspect that if I dislike the Coldplay remix it will be more because of the elements of Coldplay left in rather than JLC's own additions.

Gwen has a great pop voice!

Like Marilyn Monroe's in Some Like it Hot. Like jelly. Hiccupy. Pouty.

But not incorporating the ability to sing very many notes.

It;s an asset for her, tho - she sounds like she's become a pop star through force of will. It also makes her more like the old pre-singing-lessons Madonna.

Yes I completely agree with this - Gwen's voice is fantastically suited to what she does. But it is not a great voice in the sense of being able to sing!

I remember last week someone on ILM took umbrage when I said that Cat Power had a limited voice - like, I love what she does too, but she has a range of three notes at most!

I have never heard any Cat Power.

I think you might like 'Free'.

Cat Power's alright.

I saw that thread, Lex. People are silly. I prefer Fiona Apple.

I prefer Fiona too! And Fiona gets much more kneejerk bad press because she was erroneously lumped in with Alanis Morissette at the start of her career.

Yeah, I've never understood that either. When the Pawn... is a wonderful album far more interesting (sonically, alone, tho the lyrics are great too.) than anything AM has done.

AM is just gash.

Yeah, Fiona's always been fascinating sonically - the blend of jazz and hip hop and cabaret long before people like Nellie McKay happened. And of course she was Jon Brion's protege LONG before he got indie cred by doing soundtracks to boring films...(which is why I find people who suddenly like Extraordinary Machine but not When The Pawn or even Tidal quite suspicious).

Yeah, agreed.

I found an old NME review of New Order's Power, Corruption and Lies in a vinyl copy of the same once. The reviewer was raving about the whoops on Age of Consent and The Village and, yeah, i really enjoy vocals like that--perhaps not technically perfect (tho theres a place for that) but they hold the power to thrill you in a different way; a way in which surprise plays a larger part.

Apropos of the Specials YSI the other day, I think Terry Hall is a great vocalist.

The best JLC remix is the Richard X remix of Cool. DO you see! I made a joke! About formula! Hurrah!

A note or two on the Motown formula: firstly it was to a degree a set of formulas, the HDH one not identical to the Strong/Whitfield or Smokey formula. But even so, there were the famous rules such as followed their determining how long DJs liked to talk over the start of records, and tailoring their intros to closely match that. Also, there were elements of the formula that were consequences of the period, the production tools, the time demands and so on. Nonetheless, I defy anyone to claim that The Tracks of My Tears sounds like I Heard It Through The Grapevine or Stop In The Name Of Love, for instance.

We also have what is surely the first meta-song about a pop formula, in the Four Tops' (or Holland-Dozier-Holland's) 'Same Old Song', which was both a song about how words mean something different now their love has ended AND an explicit and open response to critics saying that their songs are all the same.

also the shape of the soul orchestration, at least prior to the 70s = they had a house band (or rather, each producer had their own favoured band), so what was played couldn't move out beyond what was available in-house

(this "limitation" is not unique to motown, or any black indie label: but the majors -- w.pop acts -- left it to the producer to put together the orchtration, so he might, if budget allowed, say, i'd like 10 trombones and a tomtom plz)

I've often wondered about house bands. The guitar figure that opens Just My Imagination by the Temptations is one of my favourite guitar parts ever.

Martin makes some good points. The Motown formula is more a series of interconnected personal visions/obsessions?

i'm not sure how "personal" they were -- i think management were very clear about limits of possible variation (label boss berry gordy wrote and produced the earliest songs and wz VERY interventionist and controlling)

i think it's more like here are your tools (the various house-band musicains); here are the rules (big long list of don'ts): now do what you like

Presumably BG's control loosened a little later on though - OK he rejected What's Going On (must-fight-jerking-knee) but he let through all the Norman Whitfield psychedelic soul stuff in the later 60s.

yes being at work i couldn't remember the dates of whitfield's extravaganzas but like everyone else in the known universe, the sgt pepper effect -- ie that there were NO RULES ANYMORE -- hit black chart-pop also

more complicatedly, from the "other side" == the dawn of funk blah blah -- j.brown used strings often (a 50s hangover but radicalised brown-style); and sly wz also an black-"prog" ecletician (tho also a beatles fan) (g.clinton ditto, even more so) -- what could nay SHOULD be done put pressure on BG to move beyond his own formula (plus also it fell from adult favour via early-doors rockism, and the "pop=kidstuff" ideology)

finally there wz the struggle from the singers-turned-auteurs: stevie wonder stayed in-house; gaye left -- this wz partly abt artistic control but also abt personal history i think

Also he loosened the restraints simply because Motown grew and was immensely successful, and running a big business doesn't leave you so much time to deal with the factory floor; and by the mid-60s he could hardly have felt that Smokey or HDH or Strong-Whitfield needed watching closely.

We also have what is surely the first meta-song about a pop formula, in the Four Tops' (or Holland-Dozier-Holland's) 'Same Old Song', which was both a song about how words mean something different now their love has ended AND an explicit and open response to critics saying that their songs are all the same.

Don't know if this is relevant to the discussion, but the Stones' "Under My Thumb" swipes the riff from "Same Old Song," with a very different meaning, obviously. But then in 4 Tops discography you can hear exactly when Levi Stubbs first started mimicking Dylan's enunciation and of course when he and HDH returned the Stones' favor (or vice versa) by recording "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadows of Love." And neither 4 Tops nor Stones made any effort to actually convey the other's sensibility. I think the Stones' "formula" would be their sound more than their songwriting styles (just as my formula is the use of parentheses).

Er, forgot to append my name to the previous post, but you can tell who it is anyway by my formulaic reference to the Rolling Stones.

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Formula

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A PROUD BOAST

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