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

Re: & another question

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Yes yes yes. This is totally possible. I can't think of examples. Possible example = Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division, which has gone 'pop' (i.e. up against Angels for song of the millenium or whatever); or R&B definitely goes 'pop'. Some pop stays pop (Slade) while other pop stops being pop (The Sweet?) (Mott the Hoople, apart from All The Young Dudes?). Am I going to propose some daft man on the Clapham omnibus test?

Re: & another question

[(Anonymous)]

"La Traviata" is no longer pop. "Carmen" is still pop. "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" has become pop.

He Who Is Not Yet Driving A Semi

Re: & another question

[dorsalstop.livejournal.com]

The Sweet?

I was just thinking yesterday how 2 Sweet songs epitomise two of pop's main incarnations:
-Pure Bubblegum (Funny Funny)
-Wailing Teenage Opera (Ballroom Blitz)