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]

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!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

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.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

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".

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

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

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

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

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

Madonna? Killers fella? !!!

The best vocalist he's worked with is Gwen.

It just made me want to listen to Computer Love.

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

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

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

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.

[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?

[(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).

[(Anonymous)]

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.

Anonymous