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

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

I think the main difference between a Will Young acoustic ballad and a Sufjan Stevens one is the singer - they have different voices and styles of singing, and also they are known to be pop or indie so that influences our responses to them. If Will had sung Heartbeats instead of José, as he fairly feasibly could have, it surely would have been considered pop. If José had sung Leave Right Now, that in turn would probably have been called indie.

You make a good point about some of the best pop songs not being extravagant - perhaps extravagant was not really the word I was looking for, it's very difficult to think of one which sums up exactly what I meant by it. There's just something instant about pop music that grabs you - most pop songs aren't growers, you don't have to ease into or get used to them, although there are some great exceptions.

It seems like the pop and indie work ethics have mixed so much with producers like Xenomania, that music like electro-pop is difficult to categorise as either pop or indie. I don't think there has to be two definite categories though - most music seems to be inbetween, either more or less poppy.

Gone (the world cup song) is by far the weakest BWO song. Perhaps I should post some of their others so you & other Poptimists who don't like/get them from what you hear in Gone can get a better idea of what they're really like.