2002 - Predictions

Chemical Brothers are going to be everywhere. duh. If I could hear Stanton Warriors or Plump DJs albums right now I'd say for sure, but if they meet expectations then they'll have a big impact. I've no idea about anything else. Primal Screams new album will be fantastic and they will show the White Stripes and their annoying cronies what the real meaning of noise is. raaaaaaaawk!

Escapism. Dance. Hedonism. Pop.

Judging from the Stanton live show I'm not holding my breath Ronan. Unless all the really uninventive tracks = poor choice of 3rd party material, it seems that they've bowed to pressure to just go straight breakbeat. I can't imagine them doing anything as exciting as, say, "Determined" again.

Judging by the Chems MP3s I've heard your first sentence is a bit off too Ronan.

thanks guys! for fuck sake : ) When I saw the Stantons live it was basically the Stanton Sessions cd so it was great. I'm sure if it's just breakbeat *I'll* probably like it anyway. I resisted the temptation to download any Chemicals stuff, but I just really love Starguitar. I dunno, I'd probably like whatever they release.

But even if the chems is shite it will still be everywhere anyway. i wish i hadnt stuck my neck out in hindsight.

Mmm, my crystal ball is only showing some Footie of the Gods that Real Madrid are going to play this year. ;)

So without that artifact I'd say something like:

The return of, like good, jungle (no really this time ;)

Madonna's glitch album.

Shoegazer revival of course.

Another overpriced Velvet Underground bootleg recorded from the toilets at Andy's.

Guns & Roses return and we will rock like it's motherfuhhhhkin' 1989 again.

The summer smash will be Armand Van Helden's blinding "Actualite Mix" of MIMEO's "Hands of Caravaggio."

Rest easy Ronan, I think the Chems stuff is quite good and shows that theyve had a few ideas (leaving aside it began in afrikakakaka) but I dont think those ideas are ones the rec. buy. pub. are going to take to.

I dont know what's going to happen this year - brightness, synthetics, simplicity, maybe a bit of politics. Those would be nice things to hear. New personality-types in pop, too.

Shiny, happy, socially positive singer/songwriters. May I be the first to say "UGH!"

Doesn't something need to happen the NAM. Well, not need to happen, I hope it dies a death, but something will happen it as a reaction to the Strokes/Hives/White Stripes etc. Perhaps?

NAM? Vietnam? That ended a while ago... I can't see how radically different the Chemical Brothers could be, TBH. Though I've not heard any new stuff.

I was more talking about who's going to rule, rather than being nu or the next big thing. I'm very excited about the Chemical Brothers new album but more excited about Lambchops new one. Also the Prodigy if they don't put it back another 6 months.

Anything that is played on radio 2. Seriously. Sorry to be cynical but its true - if more of the (british) nation listens to r2 than to any other station, and they do play new records, I think this makes sense. Oh, and the strokes go dance-rock ;)

'i wish i hadnt stuck my neck out in hindsight' = chorus of 'don't look back in anger' in another, better universe.

I get to be Noel in another better universe?

Pessimism. As the 'war' drags on and the economy weakens, people are going to want to comiserate. The jig is up for the happy-go-lucky TRL bands... Make way for lament and/or anger.

More conscious hip-hop, listen to Nas' What Goes Around. Common, The Roots, Talib Kweli and Mos Def's band Blackjack Johnson to release new albums. Common's Electric Circus, by the way, is supposed to be influenced by Air, Stereolab and Radiohead. Who knows what that's going to sound like.

Also, I think there's some new pop sound emerging which makes me write Outkast, No Doubt, Garbage and Pink in one sentence. A good thing, methinks.

Prediction? Pain.

I'm agog for The Streets' album.

Also, I think there's some new pop sound emerging which makes me write Outkast, No Doubt, Garbage and Pink in one sentence.

you may be on to something there. i don't know whether this is a good thing or not.

I'd say NOT (yay for sticking neck out early). No Doubt + Garbage = some kind of badly bleached horror.

I predicte a funk revival. Could be very good, or could be very bad.

Pessimism. As the 'war' drags on and the economy weakens, people are going to want to comiserate. The jig is up for the happy-go-lucky TRL bands... Make way for lament and/or anger.

If this is the case then angry, real punk rock may make another comeback...

The problem with angst and real punk rock 'coming back' etc etc is that its never been away - it's always been around as an option with a more-or-less thriving scene which lessens the sense of 'discovery' and newness which accompanies eg the current electropop revival. Also given that the scene is thriving it's likely to resist co-option more.

Besides I think the idea that war and recession leads to unhappy music isn't that solid anyway.

Pessimism. As the 'war' drags on and the economy weakens, people are going to want to comiserate. The jig is up for the happy-go-lucky TRL bands... Make way for lament and/or anger.

nothing like wartime to whet the public's appetite for angry laments like "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B" and "The Chatanooga Choo Choo".

Madonna will perform Arabic-tinged songs while wearing a see-through American flag outfit.

Tom, is there a thriving punk scene? I dunno anymore. I'm in the US, in the Reagan 80s, US political punk was born, there was a recession in the early 80s, and there was widespread pessimism throughout the decade because the recovery did not really reach everyone. More of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. I figure a similar situation could occor in the 00's with a Geo. W. in office. I'm not an expert on this sort of thing by any means.

as for mainstream music predictions, i'm a bit out of touch with the mainstream, but my prediciton is that todays crop of bubblegum artists (Backstreet Boys, NSync, Britney, et al) will begin to try to exert artistic control ver their careers, they will start to write their own songs, etc. At which point everyone will lose interest in them.

we'll have more bands in the Strokes/White Stripes canon...

japanese underground acts are also going to be huge (in indie terms)

as for the mainstream... boh, I can't really make predictions. I only hope there will be more Timbaland-produced hits...

If 2002 is going to be all Chemical Brothers, Prodigy and PRiMaL SCReaM... wake me when it's over. How depressing are those three?
+ I want punk to GO! AWAYYYYYY! Please!

Cure for the common cold. (And I've been waiting for that "funk revival" for a while now- sounds nice.)

>>> What's going to rule in 2002? What is the 'next-big-thing'? Which sounds and styles are going to dominate the end-of-year polls?

Bad music that I don't like.

Am I the only one who thinks Simon Reynolds has been very very OTM with his prediction about rock turning more into jazz - where bands burnish their little subgenres and gain sizable if not massive audiences who appreciate these little eddies of rock history done well? prototypical example = the Stray Cats, though they did it as a novelty and reaction to 80s synthpop, rap, and metal, and because they had a leadman obsessed with that sound. Now the White Stripes, Strokes youknowthedrill, are defiantly NOT novelties, they're keepers of flames. On the other side you've got kids buying perfect replicas of a mom-friendly bubblegum punk that never quite existed but seems as though it must have. "Eating its own dead flesh" is I think how SR put it about rock, and it seems about right to me.

I think you want this, Tracer (and I quote):

Rock is like a fallen tree. Dead and rotting, it will sustain whole microecosystems of bugs, toads, fungi, mosses, for decades to come--teeming populations of minuscule critters living off its moribund tissue, its necrotic myth-flesh of gesture and expression. Sure you can focus on a specific fungus-patch or toad-clutch (e.g. thrash/death/black metal or emocore) and perceive virulent vitality. But the tree, the overarching macro-myth, is still dead.

toad-clutch will be the next big thing

in another better universe i am kym marsh and i am dating kim AND kelley deal, but of course neither of them knows abt the other

Do keepers of punk's/grunge's eternal flame actually sit around praying for Republican governments and economic downturns?

Oddly enough I'm looking forward to The Streets' album more than any other, although the single is only 'very good' and not mindblowing for me. The scant advance press has suggested a three-way alliance between UK hip hop, UK garage and UK indie... which is basically the exact thing I've been waiting for. Let's hope he doesn't stuff it up.

I've been a bit burnt by the failed prediction that the new hip-house sound in US rap would take off (it didn't really) but I still hold out hope for it in the coming year.

punk/grunge?

Huh?

I'm not equating punk with grunge, but fans of both often seem to come up with these whack theories about how economic downturn = great music.

"Also, I think there's some new pop sound emerging which makes me write Outkast, No Doubt, Garbage and Pink in one sentence. A good thing, methinks."

hmmm. something about an eccentric rap group, a neo-ska unit, an "edgy" pop femme and a bunch of producers plus a goth chick all working on the same pop page seems very early 80's to me. definitely a good thing!

punk/grunge?

Punge.

gunk.

Job, your list (Pink, No Doubt, Outkast etc.) seems to identify a trend towards big acts and artists who are taking a very loose approach to the idea of a sonic signature. All these artists seem to be moving in and out of one or many specific styles while at the same time flirting with accessible pop shininess in a sort of dialogue between vaguely "real" style-specific roots and rampant chart-bound commercialism ("Get This Party Started", "Hey Baby" and "The Whole World" are all hard to slot into any particular genre except pop). At its extreme this tack approaches a polymorphous perversity quite at odds to the triumph of genres that has occurred over the last few years (few Madonna-like "stars" but heaps of genre-based performers that take their respective sound (R&B, Hip hop, trance, house etc.) to the top of the charts). Possibly ties in with my own half-formed theory that we might now be returning to a focus on personalities in pop, where the sonic advances of the last few years are used in the service of some vague (and possibly ultimately empty) "artistic" mystique, as opposed to being the primary focus.

What, and Outkast AREN'T doing that?

Tim, that's an extremely interesting post. Would you call boy bands personality-based or not? I'd say "no," that groups sort of obliterate the pop-idol audience-performer dynamic in the absence of a single charismatic leader and therefore wind up living or dying on the strength of the songs/productions, but what do you think? (A signifigant objection to the groups-aren't-idols argument is the Beatles, of course, but that's about it, I think: even the Stones are/were Mick Jagger's Band to everybody except a demographically slight group of music-bookworms.)

I don't see how the rock-is-dead argument is bolstered by pointing out that it is a derivative and traditional form. It always has been, since the Pistols, since Elvis, since Charley Patton, since somebody banged somebody else over the head with a rock and though it sounded nice.

As with all music, one can always point out the precedents which make a particular movement possible. Saying that The Strokes and The White Stripes are not doing anything particularly new doesn't constitute much of an argument for the death of rock n roll.

"thought is sounded good", not "though it sounded good"

but Tracer's reference to Reynold's point about rock becoming like jazz is, I think, more about its shift from a position of cultural dominance to a museum exhibit maintained by hep-cats with out-of-date tastes. And that seems entirely possible, but it won't happen over night.

Josh: of course they are, but a) they're doing it *more* now, and b) they've been getting more popular, right??? When I say this process is starting, I mean that it's starting to gain prominence. Outkast demonstrated Pere Ubu-like prescience, that's all.

John: I think that pop groups like The Backstreet Boys do have a personality of sorts, but it's one that's very closely related to each song they release ie. the material defines their personalities. A better example in this sense might be Destiny's Child, whose image as manhating consumerist ice queens arises almost solely from the songs themselves. On the whole "pop groups" are supposed to work like this, particularly the Spector-like industry pop groups of the last few years. In comparison, Pink's new image (to use one example) seems to float independently from her new music; if anything it pre-dates the music, shaping her new songs into contours of its own choosing.

I'm not saying that one approach is better than the other, by the way.

(people might say here: but what about Britney? Surely her image is a separate force from her music? Is she then new maverick personality-pop-star? My answer is no: my position is that the attempt to locate the mystique of Britney in her person and not her songs has been one of the biggest ongoing red herrings in pop criticism).

has anyone who is freaking out about pink actually heard the rest of her latest album? it's not all focused on getting the party started, you know. there are (too many) parts that are downright meredith brooks-esque.

and 'beautifulgarbage' was one of the hugest dud records of 2001 - if anything on it was being rewritten, it was the idea of that band making music that could be construed as fun in any way.

"I think that pop groups like The Backstreet Boys do have a personality of sorts, but it's one that's very closely related to each song they release ie. the material defines their personalities." Right right: more song-based than idol-based, or, if ultimately iconographic, having a much tighter connection between the icon (the Backstreet Boys) and its product ("I Want It That Way") than in other pop icon configurations. Compare this to Madonna, whose productions, were they not brand-named By Madonna, would sound/seem/feel very different. Ditto David Bowie. (I'd say Bjork figures in here, too, but I think I'm alone in that.) Do you think an auteur-oriented approach is laying in wait behind all this?

having a much tighter connection between the icon (the Backstreet Boys) and its product ("I Want It That Way") than in other pop icon configurations

Tim, I'm not sure if I'm following this the way you're intending it to be read. Is this it:

producer-controlled groups (eg Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, The Shangri La's, Spector groups, movie soundtrack Elvis, post-Rotten Sex Pistols) DON'T write their own material and are therefore more defined by the persona imposed by the individual song than artists who DO write (or at least choose) their own material and can then present a body of work from a consistent yet evolving viewpoint, therefore producer-controlled groups personas are generally more constructed and autonomous artists are more human?

Maura: I've heard some of Pink's album tracks and was ambivalent about them, but for the purposes of my theory the quality of the music is largely irrelevant (in fact of all the artists listed I would only say that Outkast are actually excellent at what they are doing; it's the fact that they're doing it which is important).

John: I don't know if there's an auteur-approach waiting in the wings behind it. It depends on whether said auteur-status might improve the iconic nature of the artist/band. Of course there might just be a flow-on effect - I remember reading some article that suggested that Madonna's success with Like A Virgin actually paved the way for Kate Bush's success with The Hounds Of Love because she stoked audiences' interests in the idea of shape-shifting women-as-pop-icons (who knows if that's true?!).

Fritz: In this situation, as in many, the question of who wrote the material is another red herring. The greater distinction with industry pop groups is the tight strictures they're under imagewise - they're told what to wear, how to behave, how to talk to fans etc. It's a sort of anti-sensationalism that goes to the heart of a lot of the rock-vs-pop debates (notice how that now The Backstreet Boys includes an alcoholic they suddenly seem much more RAWK!). Without the sort of strongly personalised identification hooks that an artist's image provides, fans of industry pop groups are compelled to invent a lot of the group's personas from the songs themselves - the fact that the group didn't write the songs in question is beside the point.

You're rocking the thread, Tim: I was about to point out something similar, something about how when you see "pop" chart stars interviewed or appearing in public, they very much seem to be working, such that even if the persona you observe isn't really "false," it's ingratiating ... they lay bare the reality that they are our employees and we are their supervisors and they are making sure to seem neutral and likeable in our presence, a concept that reaches its absolute meta-peak in these MTV programs during which Britney or Destiny's Child actually take you behind the scenes of video creation and talk on and on about their long hours and their stressful choreography sessions and their dedication to quality product for You the Listener, repeatedly pointing out that pop music is not all fun and games but is, in fact, very hard work.

Which is true, and arguments can be made that the guitar bands with chart hits who try for this "We just do what we like to do and if anyone likes it that's just a bonus" attitude are actually being more false and dishonest than the glitzy pop bands. But surely We the Listeners crave personality from at least some of our pop stars, and the best way to deliver that is to combine We Are Serious Musicians and We Are Entertainers the way Outkast do -- hearing something that is very pop but very unique communicates a lot more idiosyncratic "personality" than hearing something that is just unique. This is the trick that got indie through its Golden Age, I think -- an age of basically pop guitar bands who nevertheless had a few key things that were boldly surprising about them. (The shining example here being the Sugarcubes.)

Obviously I'm suspicious of claims of "authenticity" in either approach but that doesn't mean they can't be enjoyable if done well. And just because Britney "works" an interview doesn't mean she can't be terribly entertaining (case in point: that recent Q interview where she manages to be polite and affectionate even when the interviewer asks her how virginity is going - something like, "Sweetie, I think our time's up!").

I think we're basically on the same wavelength here Nitsuh in terms of it being what the listeners crave at the time that is important as opposed to trying to identify one inherently superior approach - but even accepting that, it is still possible to identify which artists work their chosen schtick well (eg. Outkast) and which ones do less of a bang-up job.

I think the thing with someone like Outkast is that they themselves reflect the attitude of the music they're making. Whether this is contrived or not I'm not sure. And the old indie staple "we just do what we do etc" has become an attitude and an image in itself to lots of people, what with all the paranoia re "manufactured pop". In fact it's become a bit of a safety ring for indie bands who are neither critically acclaimed nor hugely popular, but I mean it's kind of sad that it's been appropriated by these sort of stubborn idiot bands. It's the sort of thing you associate more with kind of pop rock bands to be honest.

For some reason I keep thinking of New Order as having what this "we do what we do" image was meant to have started out as. But then perhaps they're appropriating it too since it doesn't come through in their music (thank god). I'm rambling now, but isn't it kind of a horrible thought to think a band don't have some kind of idea of what they're aiming for commercially or musically. the "we do what we do" thing seems so dull to me.

fans of industry pop groups are compelled to invent a lot of the group's personas from the songs themselves - the fact that the group didn't write the songs in question is beside the point.

This is a really interesting idea. But remember that individual members of pop acts do have vaguely defined personas (along the lines of the beatles' "the cute one", "the quiet one", etc..) And AJ was "the wild one" before the drinking - did the persona consume the man, or was it based on his own personality? but I think you're entirely right that the pop idols real personalities are kept as blank and malleable as possible in order for their fans to freely project their own desired characteristics onto them. (I still might be entirely misreading your argument, but you're definitely bringing up some really interesting points).

Note: I actually don't think indie has the "we do what we do" attitude, these days, so much as it has a "we do what is important" attitude -- if pop stars are vocal about the work that goes into entertaining, your avant-indie "stars" are equally vocal about the work that goes into Pushing Boundaries or Doing Something New or whatever. I think what I mean is that oddball pop can often come across as way more personally idiosyncratic, in the sense that its goal is still "let us entertain you" but it's doing it in a left- field way that seems more like a trademark than an experiment.

Peter Murphy said something in the late eighties about "alternative" referring to people who tried to make pop music but had it all come out wrong (albeit wrong in a way that was more interesting than if they'd done it right). I think Murphy was wrong and probably kidding, but it's an interesting thing to think about. When someone makes pop but it comes out odd and interesting and idiosyncratic -- when they make something that's "ours" but it comes out quite obviously "theirs" -- it sometimes looks as if we've learned what's really different about them rather than what they've invented as a diffference. Perhaps what I'm saying is that the "differences" of avant-type indie are beginning to seem a bit too calculated, as opposed to the gleeful natural-seeming weirdness of my Sugarcubes example.

And of course the odd thing was that Peter had himself a pop hit with "Cuts You Up" -- and a good hit it was too. But "Hit Song" should have been the chart topper. ;-)

I suppose when I said indie I was more referring to kind of middling shite bands like Coldplay or OCS and their ilk. I have been told my definition of indie is a little warped before, so perhaps.

No, Ronan, it's mostly just the ongoing UK-type "indie = middling guitar-pop bands" vs. the American "indie = marginally-to-very inventive undergroundish left-field stuff of various sorts" thing. Another way of putting that is that the UK definition of "indie" is a static genre that sounds a certain way, whereas the US definition of "indie" is whatever indie-type listeners tend to listen to, which is why it's a lot easier to pick on indie in the UK.

I just got a list of the year's top-selling records at Chicago's big main central-type indie store, and while it was obviously predictable (I mean, it's a sales chart), I think it reflected pretty well on indie listeners not just listening to indie. And that despite the fact that the list should skew entirely to indie-rock, seeing as how everyone there could buy mostly from far-flung genres but if they all buy a copy of a particular Big New Indie release, that's the one that'll make the list. (I.e., they could all buy mostly not indie-rock of various sorts, but indie-rock is what they have in common.) I think the top five were something like Bjork, Strokes, Radiohead, Alkaline Trio (WTF???), Aphex Twin.

Oh, and Ronan, my "UK" there wasn't meant to imply that I don't realize you're Irish or don't recognize a difference, just that typing "UK and Ireland and English-language discourse on the continent" would have been unweildy. I don't really know anything about how Irish music discourse deviates from English music discourse, actually, assuming it does. Does it?

I think my perception of indie may be altered slightly since "indie" is synonymous with "alternative" in Ireland in the worst possible way. This is to say that "indie" nights play the Pixies, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, and perhaps terrible bands from the local "scene".

As a result I tend to discuss things under the terms of the UK scene, but I fear I'm only guessing what that scene actually is like. I suppose the only way in which music discourse differs over here is that theres less er......enlightened discourse so to speak. I mean, the sort of articles like "you can keep your dance" and "rap, whats the point" that might never see the light of day in other countries are perfectly acceptable here. Perhaps this is the case everywhere. It's hard for me to point out differences really but these are the things I imagine to be different. There is also a sort of desperation in reviewing Irish cds which results in any young band with half a tune being praised to the skys in the perpetual search for "the next U2". I'm not sure if part of this praise is due to the kind of armchair patriotism stuff common enough in Irish people as a result of our history.

But where the music discourse is of a good quality it tends to be similar enough to anything I've read from the UK.

I suppose I'm only further describing the scene itself when I point out that there seems to be a particular liking for new acoustic stuff and americana, and an apparent dislike for British music in general I have horrible suspicions this might be due to prejudices re:Britain but perhaps I'm being paranoid. In fact this trend is reflected in the local bands also who are far closer to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Blink 182, REM, than they are to any British bands I can think of. It's all quite interesting, but I think I'd need some frame of reference to tackle it properly

I noticed that nobody said anything about the 80 revival. I wonder if its going to get bigger and problably hit the charts or its gonna be a 2001 thing. New Genre Name: Nu Wave or Nu New Wave

We've already had the 'New Wave of New Wave' god help us. 'IDM' politicised, energised, and pulverised (aka punk-ified), with deep- bass, and a dash of dance-hall madness, would be my wish for 2002.

Ha! I have been thinking and writing a lot recently about a new new wave -- except one that has the ethic of the old new wave rather than the actual sound. On Friday, I was sitting around with some folks at work trying to formulate a genre tag for it. I liked "newer wave."

My favorite genre tag right now is "post-pop" -- a tag that existed in theory as soon as "post-rock" gained currency, but doesn't actually apply to any extant music. It's an amazing sign of the strength of music criticism when people can think up a genre and then sit around waiting for some musicians to actually invent it.

Mmm, new + new = old wave? Yeah? Okay not very helpful I admit (at least better that Really Newer Than New Wave Of New Wave). ;)