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

[(Anonymous)]

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).