Keep On Moving

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Two things said by the Lex on the Poptimists chart thread:

"Gareth and I were talking last night about how a lot of the pro-pop people appear to have collectively decided that pop is a sonic genre rather than...anything and everything which cannibalises anything and everything else with an eye on the charts and sonic results all over the map, which is how I would want to define and approve of pop."

"I think my view of pop is the, the pure poppist view! the "pop-is-not-a-sound-but-an-ethos" argument which means that anything from Avril Lavigne to Stardust can be pop if it wants but that any attempt to define pop on strict sonic boundaries, or to make music based on these definitions (as many of these Swedes seem to do), is itself r*ck*sm or even worse INDIE"

Worth more discussion I reckons. Maybe we should ignore the whole qn of indie as I honestly think it's a side issue, and let's also try and leave rock1sm out of this until we know what it means, but yeah, is pop a sound or an ethos, or a sound that epitomises an ethos, or WHAT?

(If yr starving for actual YSI fun I will have some goodies for you tonight, including Bosh of the Week)

(Meanwhile for full on comments box madness scroll back to the Now 18 poll and look at the bottom - EEK)

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

"Flat Beat" - wider cultural context, as you say, was it even a success in a techno context?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Concur. "Enjoyable" video and danceable beat = pop experience.

808 State otoh I would not classify as pop although I enjoy that song muchly and it makes me smile.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Maybe a minor-moderate success. I think people like Timo Maas and Basement Jaxx did play it in their sets both before and after it was a hit. It was actually too slow for most Techno DJs at that time, but too hard and minimal for the Housists - maybe it didn't really make an impact among Dance Purists for that reason as much as it's commercial success.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

This means we have to find out how successful a record was in what contexts to judge whether it's pop. Surely we can tell if something is techno by how it sounds. I have no objection to something being pop as well, but I can't see how chart sales can stop it being techno.