pop-as-sound vs pop-as-ethos

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

This is something which came up a) between Gareth and I last night at Lovelife, and b) in the comments box of the last post in the wake of Sweden's first round upset/The Knife's dominance of the pie thingy.

It's been noticeable recently (over the past year or so definitely) that the ahem 'online pro-pop community' seems to have collectively decided that 'pop' is a fixed sonic genre: synth-based, very gay (large elements of androgyny and burlesque), very white (a deliberate move away from turn-of-the-century r&b-influenced pop eg Britney, Xtina), and Swedish for preference. I don't like much of this stuff as I find it all very bloodless - those I approve of (Annie, The Knife) often have a harder electro edge, but for the most part it's incredibly unimaginative and wimpy (Bodies Without Organs, those terrible people whose entire career seems to be based on covering the Pet Shop Boys) - and as we all know, WIMPY = INDIE.

But surely the entire point of 'pop', the point of music made with commercial impact in mind, is that it can never be rooted in any particular sound: it's anything and everything which cannibalises anything and everything else, leading to sonic results all over the musical map. It's an ethos rather than a genre - I think the scattergun Xenomania approach typifies it quite well - which means that the pop umbrella can cover everything it or you or the public wants it to.

How do you view pop? And what's your view on the trend towards wimpy, bloodless Scandinavians being held up as some sort of ULTIMO-POP?

Comments

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

lj ate a long comment on the poptimism version of this thread, but here is an abbreviation:

pop is not what you listen to, but how you listen.

i.e. fanboys with ljs enthusing about Robyn = indie.

hearing Robyn on radio 1 = pop.

And I totally think that Robyn in Sweden = pop, in UK = indie.

(at the moment, she could become pop in UK (unlikely) or stop being pop in either place)

This means that pop cannot be used as shorthand for 'good' because the c***ing arctic monkeys have obviously released a pop album. (and a lot of 'pop' at the moment, has the sonic ingredients of 'indie' (if by that you mean guitars played by chin-stroking post-punk gubbling tw*nts).

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

yes I wondered on the other thread whether pop was an ethos of listening or of creating - I think it's people who want it to be the latter who get excited about the stylisation of eg BWO, but really it is the former? Oddly the most stylised music I like is heavily styled indie - The Kills, YYYs, Interpol - because it seems to contradict their indie-ness.

btw I have ONLY JUST worked out who you are! duh.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I shine my bushel under a light.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

i don't know, i sort of agree but i still hear 'Crash And Burn Girl' or 'Be Mine' and just immediately think 'wow what a great pop song'.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I have never quite bought the lj fanboys = indie argument, not because I am not a fanboy or not indie, but because I think it needs its own term, it's too different from the communities surrounding indie, which tend to be quite strongly based in gigging and actually making music. (OK you could argue that clubbing and remixing replace this I suppose).

I think things like 'pro-pop blogs' and nights like Poptimism and so on - and here! - are like artificial pop micro-climates, like a botanic garden or a zoo, in which a huge amount of effort is expended to create an environment friendly to 'pop' which is largely cut off from whatever is declining or thriving out in the wider musical ecosystem.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

but do you have Gorillaz in this zoo?

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Fair call: 'indie' is my shorthand for 'intensive and analytical' as opposed to 'intensive and obsessional' (teen listening) and 'open and unreflective' (pop) (but obviously pop listening IS reflective, but just in different ways), as soon as pop = unreflective it becomes a non-achievable ideal or limit case, which perhaps isn't a bad thing. i.e. everything is pop, there is no pop, only more-or-less pop ways of listening to things. 'indie' in the male teen bonding and snarling at girls who don't love them sense is actually much more 'pop' than lj analysis, but I call lj fandom 'indie' 'cos I don't want it thinking it's achieved 'pop'.