too cool to pop?

I thought it was exactly the opposite? Rock dies 30 years ago, "pop" as popular music cannot, by definition, die. SO QOTSA Cherry Valance and Fu Manchu = "ironic"; Destiny's Child = "cool". And rock is cool only to the extent that it interfaces w/pop - rejecting pop strategies or embracing them (i.e. Fu Manchu resoLUTEly unpop, therefore overweeningly "influenced" by pop by way of avoidance).

maybe this is subjective, but I would call Pop ironic when thinking of bands like the Kinks. Rock is cool,"look at me" you know Oasis? Indie-pop is probably the last stand of pop irony, but rock, in general, even punk is more concerned about cool, and having a cool "world-view". (exception to the punk rule would be the Ramones who were the only punk ironists, I know of.) But really if you are an ironist, who cares what your "worldview" is? You're an indie-pop wierdo, deal with it. To further bolster my arguments and hopefully draw further responses I have put the link to my blog.

Surely a sense of detached irony is an important part of what 'cool' is?

Check out Cool Rules; Anatomy Of An Attitude by Diavid Robbins and Dick Pountain.

As ever, a stimulating rush of ideas, James. Not sure I agree with them all, but I see the central argument, though if I had to pinpoint a moment where The Who lost irony and went self-righteous almost proto-stadium rock, it'd be the overrated "I Can See For Miles" (OK, they made good records after that, but the descent from the very British irony of their early singles to that drugged-up dreck always saddens me).

I'm always amazed at how easily people can draw such lines in the sand between pop and rock - a lot of the pop I like most is rock, and a great deal of the rock I love is also pop. And aren't irony and cool on the same side of the fence, detachment and distance as opposed to wild-ass telling-it-like-you-mean-it ?

Pop, in the sense Tom wrote about in the article, was not ironic, was the point, and now, if not ironic, is at least self-aware. So sez Tom E. As for james, I think he means that he can only appreciate pop on an ironic level, and thus by implication, this is the only way at all to appreciate such music. Furthermore, as I said waybackwhen, I disagree with Tom that pop's self awareness is a death knell. Perhaps this heightened awareness in fact is a recognition of the already-evident death of pop. And as I said earlier, this is due to pop = faceless interchangability vs. chart longlivity = artistic development, differentiation.

Discussions like this are moot.But anyways I think pop music has become less melodic and less pleasant ever since Elvis. WHo knows where it will all lead: metal machine music? The stereo has become an instrument of noise pollution and menace. Pop? Rock? Who knows what they are. It changes all the time.

"Europeans (who no longer have any concept of cool) do irony best, while Americans (who are only now learning how to dissemble with aplomb) are best at cool." Dave Hickey from a column in Art Issues '99.

Example: again from Hickey with my inserts "They are both modes of deniable disclosure, each enables us to speak our minds while maintaining a small margin for disclaimer. When we use irony we suppress what we mean (read Momus?), when we resort to cool, we suppress the urgency we attach to that meaning" (read Beck?). It seems with the Plastic pop world we live in we need to be able to differentiate betwixt the two modes of operation, adding more tools in the toolbox of criticism.

MTV's 20yr special on Pop Music was brilliant and had me near tears at points. At the same time it felt like the exact same thing Tom was speaking to -- the move from in the moment to behind the music feeling nearly complete. Simultaneously, VH-1 aired its special on Tiffany. Today was very very good.

'Pop' is where every gesture counts while in 'rock', everything is gratuitous. Which is more 'like life'? Depends on your worldview.