Formula

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

What's wrong (or right) with formula in pop? It seems to go hand in hand with the apparent 'disposability' of pop, really. I'm all for it: from Motown to, well, Lu Cont, I guess. On the other hand, I'm listening to the Coldplay remix and though I like it well enough, I do worry that JLC's just caning the same tried and tested formula again and again.

So, what do youse think? About formula? I'm sure Tom will have some stuff to say, what with all the 60s pop he's listening to for Popular. :)

Comments

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

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?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

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

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

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.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

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

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

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.