What happens to music if N'Sync make a brilliant left field record?

i'm not sure my system of judging music would change. the argument can be made that something of the sort is happening now anyway. and the fact that something is corporate doesn't necessarily have any bearing on whether it is aesthetically compelling in my view.

i apologise for the brevity of this answer (bit snowed under at work), and will try and come back to this later in more detail. although, by that time i'm sure Tim Finney will have come along and said exactly what i would want to say on this.

Isn't that "Dirty Dirty Pop" song already NSync's "Porpoise Song"?

("Porpoise Song" - traditionally, the porpoise only sings once in it's entire lifetime - at the moment of death. )

(oops - sp., "its")

Apparently, by direct evidence, the answer is that *most people wouldn't notice*.

I agree with Gareth, I see no reason why what they're doing now is so 'uncompelling' and why they would want a committee of magazine editors to produce them according to what the 'cool' canon of influences is at the moment. This is exactly why the new Tortoise album is so appallingly useless, they're attempting (and failing) to solve musical problems that pop acts merrily wrapped up and moved on from years ago.

No. of aesthetically compelling left-field electronica albums the world already has: not many, but some at least.

No. of aesthetically compelling boy band albums the world already has: none that I've found despite flashes of singles brilliance.

What I would prefer therefore is for N'Sync to release a really great N'Sync album. But I'm not really arsed to be honest - being a good singles band (which N'Sync aren't really) is a higher calling in my book.

Wouldn't be ace if the new N'Sync record had the political sentiments, openly and eruditely expressed, of Rage Against The Machine or Billy Bragg?

Or a new *manufactured* band did super-slick harmony-drenched R&B about the evils of globalisation, the WTO and Bush. Would be superb.

*NSync would still ruin the tracks with their over-produced power vocals and harmonies. Just listen to the Neptunes produced Girlfriend, on their new album.

Anyone remember when 'New Kids' attempted a similar coup? They shortened their name to NKOTB, tried to produce a tougher sound, and did a video featuring a rape fantasy. Innovation clearly missed...

That was plenty long enough gareth, no worries. If they did make such an album, they would be less Popular. See Beach Boys and "Pet Sounds".

But they would still have the same voices and the same lyrics? I might never ever be able to get past that, no matter how clever the idea of it all. It would be much more interesting to me if the boys were to hire other musicians (sort of like the way The Monkees began or The Partridge Family) to do the music and maybe even impersonate them. It would be fun to have, say, Sonic Youth or Kraftwerk or The Slits reunite and try to be a boy band--even utter failure would be amusing, especially if it were corporate-sponsored. Oh, I'm just being silly. Reminds me of The Village People going New Romantic.

Ai. It's questions like these that make me want to slap myself. I know very well what I'd do. If I loved the music, I'd love it and never admit it.

Anyone remember when 'New Kids' attempted a similar coup?

No: almost every straightforward popster from the early 90's (MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice), attempted to "toughen up" lyrically as the times changed; however, the music was just a blurry photocopy of the gangsta rap sound. Not what I would consider an attempt at the avant.

I would say that N'Sync are at least attempting an avant sound right here and now with their collaboration w/the Neptunes; how successful they are with it is really another matter -- N'Sync just don't have a knack for great pop. Even if their new album proved to be a work of staggering genius, a lot of the answers here have confirmed my suspicion that it would go unnoticed due to some preconceived notions and prejuidices about what constitutes avant.

Obviously, such a thing would necessarily rearrange a person's concept of the music industry, but that's such a tautology, because the music industry would have to be hugely different to allow such a thing to happen in the first place. Which leads me to another tautology: that just couldn't happen. With all of that money to be made on pop -- maybe Neptunes-inflected "avant-garde" pop pop, but teeny dancing posing pop pop nonetheless -- why would anyone involved let the group do such a thing? They know what would happen: people would be confused and then stop paying attention.

'N Sync: The New Radiohead.

Totally agree w/ Nitsuh. However, if it did happen I think it would immediately cast a different light on Autechre/Kid A/Pet Sounds. Meaning those that wanted to be avant garde would suddenly have to find a different way of doing it, since 'N Sync are by definition not avant and by the time something gets incorporated into their sound it's going to be seen as no longer innovative. So maybe Autechre make chart pop and 'N Sync make EP8. It's all about context.

'N Sync: The New Radiohead. Totally agree w/ Nitsuh. However, if it did happen I think it would immediately cast a different light on Autechre/Kid A/Pet Sounds. Meaning those that wanted to be avant garde would suddenly have to find a different way of doing it, since 'N Sync are by definition not avant and by the time something gets incorporated into their sound it's going to be seen as no longer innovative. So maybe Autechre make chart pop and 'N Sync make EP8. It's all about context.

-- tha chzza (chzza@yahoo.com), July 30, 2001.

You just won the cigar Chazza!!!

And this is exactly the issue I was trying to address. What if everything that we found comfortably hip was suddenly appropriated by one of the largest corporate boy bands on the planet. What would that do to our sense of what is cool and left-field?

what do you mean 'we'?

Michael: What would mostly happen is that pop fans would say to themselves, "Wait, *this* is what all those hipsters like? Ick!"

But even assuming those pop fans suddenly started thinking of themselves as hipsters, that would probably be a very good thing. For empirical evidence, just look at what happened to U.S. indie stuff post-Nirvana. A scene that was already degenerating into loads of uninspiring guitar bands got a sudden kick in the pants based on a need to offer up something new and as-yet-not-appropriated, and I'd personally say that the result was a pretty great period of music. Tortoise or Stereolab or what-have-you -- would these bands have come into the light if not for major labels putting the nail in the coffin of the American "alternative" guitar band, and indie fans looking around to find something new and exciting to follow?

I think that this is the right track -- any cool musical work would be dismissed as appropriation (cf. Radiohead's blowback over Kid A). On the other hand, would this lead to a new musical explosion in the underground? Certainly a new direction (tho leftfield electronica is only a shard of the underground as is) but a new explosion of talent? If grunge didn't "break" would the scene have stagnated? Methinks it might have continued to chug along and innovate, just in dif'rent ways.

Seems to me that, in "Tearing Up My Heart" and "Bye Bye Bye," Justin Timberlake was taking Michael Jackson as his model but pushing his voice more into Latin freestyle territory, reminding me of TKA, Lisette Melendez, The Cover Girls, Cynthia - a Spanish-Latino way of sliding notes mournfully, and the Swedes were writing music to match. I don't know if this was a deliberate synthesis (though the Spanish touches on "Bye Bye Bye" seem blatant). This is just the way I hear it. My point is that 'N Sync might well be more innovative if they simply extend what they do rather than to copy someone else's idea of "innovative." And this might have more influence on music in the long run, and might be better music, too. (The recent single doesn't bode well, of course.)

And Michael, like Ethan I question your use of the first-person plural.

Why can't I all just be friends?

I'd say N'Sync are already trying too hard to extend their aesthetic/artistic range into experimental territory, if "Pop" is anything to go by.

The underlying difficulty with a hypothesis like this - and it's one that's been touched on a number of times already - is that pop is being defined by its conventionality: the idea seems to be that pop fans buy music based on the expected familiarity of the music (leaving aside brand name pull for a moment). Corresponsingly, avant-leftfield electronica - ie. the 'unfamiliar' - is supposed to be musically diametrically opposed to pop, like two ends on a stylistic spectrum.

But types of music aren't differentiated on a two-dimensional spectrum. Focusing on the familiarity of pop music (a thoroughly questionable concept in itself) ignores all the other reasons one might enjoy pop - an emotional attachment to the music, a shared social context, the way the groove works in a club, and so on. Similarly avant-garde electronica doesn't operate solely by being unconventional or unfamiliar - on the contrary, this sort of music tends to be (in my experience) more enjoyable the more context the listener brings to the table. There's other factors such as the existence of a dialogue between the avant-garde and the non-avant-garde, the inter-relation between avant-garde scenes; a theoretical understanding of aims and objectives, etc (the relative validity of these counter-factors on both sides is a whole 'nother issue).

So, while musically Destiny's Child's "Perfect Man" is separated from Mouse On Mars by only a hair's breadth, their modus operandi, for want of a better term, is poles apart.

To answer the question: I think it would fail as pop music, as "Pop" largely fails, because it would likely fail to satisfy those other criteria that the best pop at any stage in history effortlessly fulfills regardless of its inventiveness. Would it sell? Probably - a band like N'Sync get a lot of pre-orders.

What would happen? The same thing that happened when the Beastie Boys did it: Reduced sales, increased cred.

Pop != failed pop music. Proof? MTV's TRL charts. The little girls, they understand.