The R*ckist's Guide To Pop

second tier contenders: TLC's "FanMail", Mya's "Fear Of Flying", Sugababes' "One Touch", Britney's "Oops... I Did It Again" and the last two Destiny's Child albums - all have amazing songs but don't work well as albums.

(remember i am not 102% sane on the matter of number)

Tim maybe I should include Pink but I've never heard the whole thing.

I never replied to your self promotion email either but I think it's a good idea.

(but what abt sterl's terrific reading of survivor as concept alb?)

You'd immediatley lose the Indie crowd with that 'un (concept albums confusing and pompous etc.)

Btw, Tom, do you think that the Pop albums you own are good as "coherent artistical statements", or are they good in the "accidental" way that 50's Rock & Roll and 60's R&B records were good (i.e. the artist was much more interested in making great singles than killer albums, but just had such an amount of talent that the supposed "filler" still sounds pretty damn great regardless?)

or for GRATE songs which fit, and/or vary, the mood/theme of the record

I'm sorry, but all the choices so far are horribly horribly horribly horribly horribly rockist.

My question wasn't snarky actually - it was a genuine enquiry. I know the lists we've seen are predictable, if that's what you mean. In some ways that proves that sub-genre canon-forming is inevitable whatever happens. In other ways it's following Mark S' 'anti-rockist' quote about the test of time - it means albums stay available longer and are easier to find, great!

I think the article will just be about 'the pop album' using examples and recommendations I have to hand, I'll try to avoid 'best' cause there are a lot I've not heard.

In other words a rockist would when discussing pop privilege Atomic Kitten, 21st Century Girls, B*Witched (those last 2 have proven disposability!!), and the Powerpuff Girls' "Love Makes The World Go Round". :)

(this proves again the occasional uselessness of the word)

I meant the canon thing.

then we wd all put our little metal heads on one side and, as we seemed to sigh (actually a final outlet of electric smoke), be still

'excuse' for 'Sirens' = Ulysses

(nb: i have never heard them.)

graham, it's just as easy to talk about yr beloved atomic kitten or sugababes in the context of post-swing r&b as "pure pop." maybe easier.

We forgot "Northern Star" by Melanie C. We can prolly also add The N*E*R*D* album now they are popstars in their own right.

Idea 2: The qualities that define pop and make it good can be found in other genres, and the qualities that make those genres good can be found in pop.

These ideas aren't contradictory, and I tend to emphasise one or the other - this article will be emphasising idea#2.

Anyway, I was clutching for dear life, the wrong end of Mark's stick. It was exciting.

howevah i do not know what happens to three-month old nyplm pieces

The same point - giving people more reasons to listen to and like good music.

!!!!!!!

>>> 'artistic statements' provide a ready-made excuse for filler, or duff songs which happen to fit the mood/theme of the record)

or for GRATE songs which fit, and/or vary, the mood/theme of the record

-- the pinefox (pinefox@hotmail.com), September 10th, 2002.

i'm with the pinefox. But anyway, chart-pop acts almost always do not have this ability, for a number of reasons.

"lowest common denominator" = snooty way of saying "lots of people like it, probably for a variety of different reasons"

The chartpop listed on this thread mostly bears little more than a casual relation to hip-hop. All I'm saying is that it's a good idea to treat chartpop as a genre in its own right and it's also a good idea to point out the ways in which it does the same things other genres do. (You can say this about any genre, not just chartpop).

SEE?! No Hip-Hop!

sure... *

but if i could, i'd nominate:

Outkast - The Whole World

m.

Of course the key point about the sixties & fifties was it was all pop. Pop was the type of music, which in the late sixties developed sub-genres and then the sub genres took over leaving pop a bit out in the cold. The term survived as a way of the older generation understanding the music - but is it a label that musicians (until in a reactionary or ironic way recently) have used themselves in the last twenty years?

"Of course the key point about the sixties & fifties was it was all pop."

Surely not ALL of it? Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock would have a word to say about that...

I'd also argue that there was a bit of a fight between Rock & Roll(savage, strongly influenced by "hillbilly" and "race" music) and Pop (tame, "sophisticated", no big R&B influence, no C&W influence whatsoever except when used as novelty ) in the late 50's, tho you could argue that this was more of a "Rock & Roll Vs. Adult Contemporary" thing, since Tab Hunter and Kay Starr were tolerated by the grown-ups and Gene Vincent obviously wasn't.

What makes some european countries so cool is that you RILLY DO get this music at a small scale as well.

But back to the point: Eve's Scorpion is pop, but not uniformly good. Jay-Z's Vol. 2, however, is both. I like Tim's suggestions but the Sugababes really MUST be a-listed, as should Black And Blue (hello? boys are in pop groups too!) and perhaps the Dixie Chicks.

" Chartpop, I think, is a funny thing because it exists but is defined by exclusion -- it is that thing on the charts which ISN'T nu-metal or grunge or rock or rap or this or that"

I agree. But then, how can this be used for Eve, Jay-Z and The Dixie Chicks? I've never heard anyone but the most thick headed musical elitist deny that the first two are Rap and the last one is Country. And I wouldn't have any trouble imagining them performing on a smaller scale...

like I said above, in many cases they are not the best of a given genre, but not always. And also, the charts are technically pretty diverse (or used to be anyway) and so a lot of stuff gets on there that isn't really aiming for it.

Elvis is great, sure, but was he the best rockabilly artist? I think a lot of hard core rockabilly fans would dispute this. Was he the best rocknroller (or were the beatles/stones the best) - a lot of room for disagreement. I can't argue with motown's peak being the best of soul/r&b though. But say during the brief time that new wave made a significant chart impact I think it's pretty clear that the best did not hit the charts. Or else there would have been less duran duran or Culture club in the top ten and more Go-Betweens or say Soft Boys.

B-b-but......?????!!!!

M.Matos - single-artist I think. My advice to anyone liking pop would be to make your own NOW CDs after a combination of judicious and random downloading, but that's not what this article is about (not that I know exactly what it's about).

Five - "Invincible"

I think you're right in that most stuff in the charts is similar to stuff that isn't in the charts but I dispute that 'dilution' is the right word for something that has mass appeal. It works more like cross-breeding. A pop-rap Missy hit, say, is Hip Hop crossed with pop to produce something that is both. But if almost everything in the charts is a product of this cross-breeding then "pop" exists only as an inference.

I was under the impression that most of the second half of "Black & Blue" wasn't v. good. Granted some fabulous songs on there.

I think the main counter-argument I'd put (without wanting to completely spoil the thing I'm writing) is that in the old days of chartpop singles were profitable and now they're not as much and albums are more where the money is. So it's in a record company's interest to make sure its chartpop acts put out saleable albums. The market for these albums are susceptible to marketing perhaps but they're not complete mugs and word about a crap record will get around fast. So there's actually very little 'filler' in the sense of obvious crap on teenpop albums, mostly it's a collection of singles and could-be-singles (also most tracks on a big teenpop album are likely to end up singles *somewhere*). That doesnt mean to say you or anyone else who didn't like chartpop would enjoy the albums, natch.

Actually Dare was very much an artistic statement - it was a very conscious attempt by Phil Oakey and co. to make a classic, glamourous modern pop album. It has its rubbish bits but they're nothing to do with not approaching a record as a whole I think.

i think graham's quite right, this is where the safe-bet filler material in charts comes from, when it's there (eg UK Top Ten this week has *no* filler => even the P.Weller song has a role to play)

Also, beware, if you consider it a turn-off - it's got TERRIBLE lyrics. One of the guys (Rich Cronin) wrote them all in his own bid for artistic whatever, and they're a bewildering mish-mash of silly cliches, loads of uhh-now-let's-see-what-rhymes-with moments that put Noel Gallagher to shame (Rich is especially keen on the word "creep":
"You're not real but fad/ I got a real good mom/ I got a real good dad/ I'm a creep/ But I sleep/ just fine"..."She asked me/ What are you, some kind of creep/ I told her no, I guess I just feel your vibe is kinda deep"), and tons of completely unnecesary celebrity references, at times barely making sense ("Wore black leather on a Harley/ In Jamaica, like Bob Marley" EH???????)

Anyway, my favourite couplet:

"Somewhere in Lafayette
On my way to anywhere
A woman named Beatrice serves me coffee
And she smiled as if she cares
It reminds me of this painting
That I think I've often seen
The king's behind the counter
Serving coffee to James Dean"

(plus an M.O.P. guest spot on the same track!!!)

In short, it's a terrifically fun record, very VERY silly, and at times also strangely poign...
...er, I mean, that LFO record is alright.

Also, I'll second the A*Teens recommendation. Actually, only about half of "Teen Spirit" is great (if only all tracks were as good as "Upside Down" and "Halfway Round The World", it'd be the best album ever!), but it's got trax that are not singles but definitely not filler either, so it might perhaps suit your purpose.

So maybe the point is that these days pop has picked up where the Beatles left it off, and is making consistent albums, but this isn't being recognised? And you would like to show, Tom, that pop today is like later Beatles, not early Beatles? Aye?

Unless you are saying that no albums ever have had filler. I mean, are you trying to show that pop albums have gotton better, or that pop albums never should have gotten a bad rep? I am sure their rep is deserved, assuming that the best 60s pop bands would have made albums as good as the early beatles, and therefore lots of filler.

I am not trying to say that rock albums should have gotten a good rep, by the way. I agree with whoever said that a unified album provides the most excuse for filler.

See, 'filler' is so useful.

Also consider touring bands - they have a certain amount of time to fill and have to fill it, but you don't hear live material being described as 'filler' - why not?

There isn't a sort of filler where bands are trying too hard, is there?

even if not very much space sometimes

*sigh*

Which it does. Or are country-pop and pop-punk a different category than rap-pop and R&b-pop (what you'd call Pop)?

Tom you're freaking me out now.

this would explain the rockist tendency to generally avoid buying chart pop (rockists do not buy records for pleasure, they build libraries for the future!) because they recognize that, no matter how much they love it, it will be - by its very nature - dated within years.

this could also be why you always read interviews with pop stars justifying the 'difficult' track on their third album by saying, naively: "call me crazy, but i find that the songs you love the most on first blush are the ones that have the least long-term appeal!"

if music = sex
then pop = dirty one night stands

which means rockists = devout catholics (the dirty rendezvous consigned to the bedroom with the safe, sanctioned partner)

of fuck it is, isn't it.

look, i'm a newbie. if we've crashed this car before, show me the dent in the tree

yes but doesn't our relationship change with it upon resurrection?

"Somewhere in Lafayette
On my way to anywhere
A woman named Beatrice serves me coffee
And she smiled as if she cares
It reminds me of this painting
That I think I've often seen
The king's behind the counter
Serving coffee to James Dean"

Don McLean lives!

Concept albums include NO filler, obviously.