A pop epiphany

I think every genre yo-yos for me - I go off it for a while, then there's an epiphany, then it starts to drop off again. Pop, though...

I started off listening to pop, I suppose - loving Abba. I remember being on holiday in Wales and "Lay All Your Love On Me" coming on and just thinking, this is amazing.

Then when I went all rock in my early teens it was the Pet Shop Boys who reminded me what pop could do, with that string of No.1s they had in 87/88, and the Actually and Introspective albums.

Since then I've pretty much liked pop full-time. Britney's "...Baby One More Time", though, as I've said here before, was the track which really made me think that pop was brilliant/where it's at/the big thing currently - made me realise that I *loved* pop rather than just loving the charts.

I'm interested in the idea of "growing up reviling chart pop on whatever principle..", Melissa. Surely you were exposed to chart music before non-chart/alternative/whatever? Or maybe you didn't like music at all until you first heard some "indie"? No, that can't be right as you refer to disliking chart pop on principle(s). Just curious. My first exposure to pop was through my parents playing The Beatles etc in the late 60s. The first pop of my *own* would be TOTP circa 1971 when aged 10- Mungo Jerry was at number one the first time I remember sitting down to watch it. Not having older siblings I wasn't really aware that there was *anything else* except for the charts for a couple of years until the usual friends' older brothers' Jethro Tull album experiences. Right up until punk I loved pop and the charts, and even then me and my friends, although in the face of it punks, were listening to Donna Summer, Heatwave(!), Parliament, The Bee Gees, Abba and Chic alongside our Desperate Bicycles 7 inchers. Living in a small Northern town a long way from Ladbroke Grove, no- one told us it wasn't allowed, you see.

University saw a swing towards indie/rock although ABC and The Human League happily co-habited with Motorhead and Throbbing Gristle on my shelves. Anyway, like Tom, I've drifted back and forth ever since, but never totally shunned either 'chart' or 'alternative'. One's no good without the other if you ask me.

Records which have swung me back towards pop over the years would include ABC - "Tears are not Enough", A-Ha - "Take on Me" and countless others.

Count me in with the swing in&out pop-club. Probably liked a lot of popmusic as a child but I'll give the moment of epiphany to ABBA's 'Chiquitita', although it is tied with memories of childhood bliss (therefor not included on my ballot for ILM top100 list - it's beyond bloody lists). Recent interest in pop: 'Baby One More Time', certainly, together with Ace of Base's 'Life is a Flower'. Also like Darude's 'Sandstorm' as a 'Crocket's Theme' for 2000.

I think I've always liked pop. Back in the '80s I remember loving 'I Should Be So Lucky' by Kylie Minogue and many Bananarama hits. Even though cheesey chart music is not the main music I like, I will always enjoy a good pop song.

However, while the bright spots shine so bright, I really do think that in the world of chart music the ratio of cool to stool is wayyyy lower than in other genres. just take Kylie - a long, long career, but only one good song. Britney looks like repeating that.

Take That doing "Back For Good" on the Brits - my DARK SECRET love for the That (starting around "It Only Takes A Minute") suddenly leapt full blown from my heart and would NOT go back in again. "Hang on", i thought, "this really IS bloody GRATE - why should i deny it a moment longer?" So i didn't, and i haven't since.

What realization? I grew up on top forty. The first trick was discovering music not played on the radio, the second realizing there was no sin in liking both stuff not played and stuff played. After that it's all up to you. 'Dissonant and weird' is always going to be where you find it.

After I received a stereo for x-mas 1976 I realized I had no albums and no interest in music. Being the proud son of a hard working funeral director I refused to let it go to waste and began poking around older siblings record collections. They had all the late 60's and 70's records so I could pick and choose what I liked at my leisure.

Here were the three pop epiphanys: The Guess Who, The Dave Clark 5, and The Beach Boys.

I seriously think I choose those bands because of the reverb on those albums (although at the time I knew nothing about "reverb"). Sound coupled with songs=pop epiphany.

"Destiny's Child seemed much more willing to be dissonant and weird than a whole lot of 'alternative' music."

With all due respect, this ridiculous assertion strongly suggests that *YOU NEED TO GET OUT MORE OFTEN, MELISSA!*

I've been posting long & hard here lately on the ILM boards about my abject hatred for the seemingly ubiquitous Destiny's Child, and my mind is still boggled by how many folks here whose opinions I otherwise heartily respect are apparently duped into appreciating them. I'm not sure where everyone else here lives, but here in the States, Destiny's Child are literally saturating the market place with the vile presence (all over VH1, MTV, on every magazine cover, in 1- 800-COLLECT commercials, etc.) and put simply, THEIR MUSIC IS SIMPLY NOT THAT EXCEPTIONAL!

Beyond the fact that they seem to have loathesome personalties fueled in equal parts by self-styled "diva" entitlement and sanctimonious uber-Christian righteousness, I can't hear why anyone would choose their mundane, workaday, oversung, glossed-out r'n'n cheeze-whiz over, say, En Vogue's! DC's lyrics are at best banal and at worst hackneyed. If a male pop group put out this many complaint songs about women, they'd be tarred with the epithet "misogynist" and burnt at a stake.

Their current single, the cloying "Survivor" not only mines an obvious opportunity to cash-in on the "reality"-based show of the same name (let alone appropriating Gloria Gaynor's signature tune to uncredited effect), but is in acutally JUST THE RE-HASHED MIDDLE-EIGHT OF THEIR LAST BIG SINGLE, "Say My Name." Why doesn't that bug more people like it bugs the beJesus outta me?!?!?!

Extra points against DC that have nothing to do with their music: - Beyonce is currently starring in a "hip-hopera" based on "Carmen." If the ludicrous conceit of that alone doesn't make your skin crawl right off your bones, then we clearly have to agree to vehemently disagree. - Perpetual DC second-fiddle Kelly Whatshername must be a replicant, as all the midriff-exposing photographs of her suggest that she simply has no navel, merely a quease-inducingly concave abdominal indentation that suggests the inner-workings of a labratory-created cyborg.

SHUN THEM!

Am I the only person who is increasingly cagey about how the machine- pop orthodoxy that's developing (which I've had a part in creating, sure) is all about how weird/dissonant/sonically novel/amazingly- produced pop is? It strikes me as a) over-identification with other kinds of music, still - look look this is more dissonant than GYBE!, and b)kind of still a rationalisation, an avoidance of the sentiments and emotion in the music, which of course comes from the sound as well as the lyric, but is still very much the silent partner in the race to acclaim Beyonce/Timbaland/Max Martin's studio skills?

(sorry for garbled nature of post)

If you're talking machine-sound-qua-machine-sound, Tom, then...*thinks*...well, let's face it, would something be celebrated if it didn't provoke an emotional response? The response need not be directly related to the subject matter or delivery of the lyrics.

I have to admit that I don't understand the appeal of Destiny's Child amongst ILMers, either, for the same reasons previously mentioned (though maybe not quite so vehemently as Alex). To answer the question itself, I grew up with pop music too, and for me it was more an epiphany when I realized that I liked non-chart music even better. I haven't reviled top pop hits automatically, however. There have often been brief intersections between my tastes and that of the general public. But they're getting increasingly rare.

Ned, I *said* that the emotional response comes from the sound as well as the lyric - but the writing about/celebration of pop seems to leave out the emotional response entirely in favour of the micro- cataloguing of particular production styles and rococo metaphors for particularly weird noises.

Judging from Melissa's original qn, the sounds-as-sounds are a way into pop for a lot of people, a way of taking pop seriously without confronting the emotional kick of pop. But I think that needs to be confronted - as Reynolds said in his end of year roundup (though with different ends) how did we start separating our listening out so much?

I'm not a Destiny's Child fan myself, mainly because I find Beyonce pretty irritating. The songs come across more like lectures -- regardless of how ironic some of the sentiments are alleged to be -- and are generally quite un-fun, combined with music I'm finding mostly uninvolving, lacking somehow. That whole 'not going to dis you on the Internet' line is contrived enough as it is, her delivery doesn't help matters much.

I don't have a problem at all, though, with the methods of creation. Bring it on. But the results in this case are wanting.

i too have noticed that ubiquity of phrases like machine pop, weird production, when discussing DC etc. its almost as though its not enough for stuff like this to just be good, its got to win at the production blahdy blah as well. the production/weirdness seems to be overplayed (we're all guilty of this i reckon). its only part of the record, not it all.

for the record i'm a fan of DC, and probably came the same route as other here (thought 'interesting' around the time of bugaboo or say my name, bought writings on the wall. started here). seemed almost to be trying to convince myself of the merits around this time "look its as weird as (insert name here). put under strange scrutiny, not enjoying on own terms, pointleslly intellectualising my thoughts on.

both independent woman and survivor initially seemed disappointing but have been growers. its here that i've found i haven't actually noticed the dissonance/production/blah but seem to have liked them without qualification/justification/distancing intellectualised reason.

Reverb as Womb. I think I can charge an hourly rate for this.

Beg pardon there. Hmm...well, okay, what if people generally feel there's little to add or talk about the sentiments expressed in lyric or lyric delivery? What if it's more of an attraction to try and capture the music -- especially if it's music on a bleeding edge of sonics -- rather than to deal with a lyric that in and of itself has no immediate interest? I'm not saying that *is* the case universally, I'm just trying to advance an argument.

Maybe pop doesn't tell much to people as much as might be thought on that level. I don't know...

Survivor has the worst lyrics. That's all I'm going to say about Destiny's Child. Although there are points in the song that amuse me because they reach Richey James-levels of trying to fit as many syllables into a line as possible. Unfortunately, crap about compromising your Christianity by talking on the Internet because you're so much better than the rest of the world isn't really very interesting besides for the fact that it's too damn wordy. Beyonce has definite self-esteem issues because she's always going on about how much better she is than her boyfriends.

My theory is the reason why they repeat their choruses 800 times in every song is because they can't write a proper verse. Their lyrics are boring and overwordy and pretty much interchangeable. I don't think there's any point in talking about Destiny's Child for anything besides the production and sonic values, which are pretty good (though not exactly experimental or adventurous in my opinion).

OK, wider perspective. (Cause I'm still not talking about the lyrics!)

We are moving into an era where by fair means or foul you can find out *for yourself* what particular tracks sound like very quickly. The future of criticism therefore moves away from the universally oriented sound-describing and scene-tracking game and becomes networks of, essentially, friends (even disconnected-friends like this forum or a site-and-its-readers) thinking and recommending.

In other words I'm as interested in what the music does to you as what it sounds like. It's not an either/or thing - you can do both.

Okay, that makes sense. From the way you're talking about it it's almost like it's WRONG to talk about DC in only production terms (using a specific example) because it's "dodging the emotional impact" or something similar, except DC doesn't have any emotional impact for me. I see no reason to discuss it because other than "Their lyrics and attitudes annoy me a bit" I have nothing to say emotionally. It's more that it's fun and sounds good than anything else. If something hits me emotionally, I'll talk about it and I reckon a lot of people would do the same.

Granted, I do see what you're talking about a little bit, that new- pop-fans do focus first on the production values before giving in to the pop scene. But I think that's a temporary problem with it, not a permanent issue, it's a "transitory phase".

tom, if i understand correctly, your problem is with an almost whole new wave of pop fans adoring what's out there today because of the sounds, which they enjoy as sounds for sounds sake: they break the song down into its components and don't love the song as a whole, but merely because, "is that a 303? OMG!" or "tablas, man, tablas."

the song is not viewed as a whole and there's no attention lavished upon the emotional impact of pop music. today's strand is ripped out of its timeline and cut off from its forbears, e.g. the hormonally- charged music of spector, et. al.

and if this all is the case i can understand why you'd feel "cagey" as you say. i don't think it's the wave of the future and within a few years, i expect he critics to go back to their pre-max martin/timbaland stand on pop as guilty pleasure. it's a phase, is what i'm saying. whereas you and i will still be waving the flag, many of our current compatriots will have moved on to something new. i don't think it's anything to get worked up by.

*frowns* It's incredibly hard for me to answer your question, Tom, because I can't see or sense a particular difference. To me it more just feels like I don't have to make mix tapes anymore. Since one still has to get around to actually hearing the music in the first place, regardless of how fast or slow one gets the music, or whether exposure is mediated or directly referred. Perhaps I'm not answering what you're asking, though.

Maybe it's just that the sonics are all there is to some current pop. I wonder if Timbaland or Destiny's Child could come up with something with the emotional power of "Be My Baby" (or "The Winner Takes It All").

Tom makes a good point. When I discuss music with like-minded folk, I try to focus on emotional affect, although I also try to resist personalizing this to the point where it is solely my response. On the other hand, when trying to "pitch" Mystikal, Janet, et cet. to "unbelievers" I find myself first telling them to solely focus on the production. We need to recognized, however, that we live in an era of profound innovation in production, and that a great deal of what makes a song with discussing (i.e. what makes it unique) is to be found in the production -- although, to be sure, not to be left as onomotopeic descriptives.

essentially, as sterling as saying, it's a way of converting the savages. i have my doubts, though, if people who aren't open to pop music in the first place will stay with it a few years down the line. but if they're just going to focus on the way it sounds, who needs them any ol' way.

"We Need A Resolution" and "Say My Name", respectively. Both for me beat "Be My Baby" for emotional impact (though that track for me really *is* all about the sonics), though they don't hit "The Winner Takes It All". (Out of interest, the Spector-produced tracks which move me the most are "Baby I Love You", "Walking In The Rain", "I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine", quite a few others....)

I have no problem with the discussion of sounds, but the discussion of sounds exclusively seems, occasionally, a little evasive. And Ned, I was re-reading some of your album reviews yesterday and I think you personally do combine personal impact and sonic analysis in a very strong, and individual way, so it clearly comes more naturally ;)

Of *course* they can, Patrick. I would have thought enough exposure to ILM would have convinced you of that by now. Cripes! Hasn't it been made clear enough by now that there are people here who -- utterly disappointing as it may be to some -- enjoy and treasure certain things that others don't, and that those who *do* treasure such stuff can place them in the same regard and feel the same passion for them as others will for other songs? Is that really so hard to accept?

People will value *what they value* in the music they love. They may not express it in similar ways, maybe they won't express it at all! But that does not remove, hide or destroy the impulse, and the impulse is not invalidated because of what is valued. And if it *just* the sonics, then explain to me how that is somehow less valid than the words when it comes to hearing something and loving it.

Jesus H. "Soon" is fucking unintelligible. I can't talk about that record in any way other than sonics. It might not have the goddamn immediately, lyrically clear approach of "Be My Baby" or what have you, but that DOES NOT INVALIDATE MY EXPERIENCE WHEN I HEAR IT. And when I first heard it, time stopped, the world stood still, and I was rooted the spot. Call it encountering the sublime or whatever, but was I emotionally in thrall, and am I still emotionally in thrall? Unquestionably. Period. And somewhere in all those glazed guitars and rolling beats and those damn riffs and swirling sounds and whatever the fuck else is in that recording, I touch the divine.

I think now I understand what Tom is getting at...

Man, I'm going to put "Soon" on as soon as I get off the computer.

Ned - I don't think that enjoying a record for its sonics is less valid than any other way. It's certainly the only level on which I enjoy "Are You That Somebody" (however great it is), and I thought other people might feel the same way. But if someone is moved to tears by "Say My Name", I'm certainly not going to argue with it - I *wish* I had the same reaction. I still think that there is some music which tends to go for the heartstrings more directly than other music, but yeah, that's a hugely subjective area.

Very subjective. And some music which directly aims at the heartstrings ends up not doing that at all for many. Otherwise we all be crying every time "My Heart Will Go On" came on the radio.
"There...
You are...
LIKE a throbbing star..."

Or perhaps that's a different song.

Oh, and thank you Tom. Um, I try? You got me, I just sat down and wrote...

For me, in a pop song it's not what you say it's the way you say it. If you could transport Mariah Carey back to the 60's and have her sing on a Ronettes tune she would ruin it with her ridiculous oversinging, wall of sound production or no wall of sound production.

Maybe it's just that the sonics are all there is to some current pop. I wonder if Timbaland or Destiny's Child could come up with something with the emotional power of "Be My Baby" (or "The Winner Takes It All").

Argh, Patrick you are SO WRONG. Ok, we'll just ignore for a second the fact that you put the satanic swedes on a parr with Ronnie Spector, but still...

Half of the emotional power of Be My Baby does *not* come from the words, but from the sonics. That song is all about the throbbing heart-beat like pounding of the introductory drums. It's all about the slight tremolo in Ronnie's voice, when you realise that she actually *means* those silly, insipid, sentimental words. I have listened to this song a thousand times, trying to figure out the magnetic hold it has over me. It's not the words- it's the performance, it's the instrumentation, it's the production- it's that damned VIBRATO on Ronnie's voice as she quavers through the "whoa-oa- whoa-oh-oh-oh".

I don't actually care about Timbaland, and I DC, well, they have some good pop hooks in their songs. But DON'T go telling me that the sonics aren't important, especially in the great 60s pop classics.

I've probably completely misunderstood this thead. What else is new.

I guess the epiphany for me was when I realised that I could listen to whatever I liked and no one would really give a toss. Though, I did feel a little embarassed buying Europe's greatest hits. So, not that pop was better or all metal was crap, or alternative bands weren't all that alternative. I guess the ephiphany I really hope for, is to go beyond the genre...but that's kinda of a hard goal to reach.

So, Kate, can you please point out at which point the words "emotional power of the LYRICS of Be My Baby" were used at all in this discussion? You just SAID that it has emotional power. No one said the emotional power was wholly lyrical. He was saying he could appreciate the entire production as an emotional thing, as opposed to Timbaland or DC, which he ONLY likes for the sounds with no emotional impact involved.

Don't go off on him being "so wrong" when you put words in his mouth.

Summertime, 2 yrs ago. The "street radio" of New York had "That Thing" by Mlle. Lauryn Hill on heavy rotation. I heard it blasting out of living rooms, battered vans, low-riders. I heard 3-year-olds skipping behind their big sisters at Fulton Mall, singing the chorus phonetically. Man, I can't wait for the summer. I hear the new Missy song is poised to ascend the summer-jam throne ("Bigshot"? w/Ludacris I think? anybody heard it yet?)

tracer, i think you're thinking of "lick shots." no ludacris on it, though; however, he is on "one minute man" which will be on the new album (jigga jay-z is on the remix). and yeah, i think it's going to be HUGE on, say, hot 97 this summer.

Okay, let me make this clear, I had no real interest in MUSIC until I heard Bjork years ago. It held no interest to me until I realized it could be interesting like that. The Beatles and classical were just kind of fixtures, but that was it. I still can't stand most chart pop, and I hate a whole half of the Destiny's Child I heard. I really only like the hooks and the production. I can't stand Beyonce's voice and her lyrics. But, the songs just made me realize the potential for something other than ultimate disposability was there. Does that make sense? This has not made me go out and buy a Destiny's Child album. It just...makes me want to listen to pop a little more closely. It made me realize there WAS anything to listen for. Because it's the first time chart pop hasn't made me want to go and drive myself off a bridge.

And also, pop has yet to affect me in any emotional way whatsoever. So that's up next for me...now that I know the sounds aren't worthless...can someone point me in the direction of something that is more emotional?

Er...to say it again, emotion is where you find it. I mean, I can't predict in the slightest what's necessarily going to hit you that way, so it's sort of hard to answer your question. One person's deeply emotional experience with a song will be another's explosion of 'trite bullshit! remove!' Do you have a specific sense or sentiment in mind? That might help focus the question a bit...maybe.

That's true, of course, it's all subjective. I guess I'm always looking for something that'll break my heart. Which is not to say that's the only emotion that music can/should conjure...but it's what I like to hear most often, and what'll affect me most often.

Well, hm. Recent chart pop that breaks the heart. Candidates, anyone? I can't think of anything for me that fits that particular bill off-hand...

That R Kelly song (his latest single?) is quite heart breaking and a very old one would be Crossroads by Bones Thugz and Harmony, and the Shape Of My Heart by the Backstreet Boys. Though, I guess with me the video imagery adds to the song.

Maybe people who are coming to electronic pop and r&b from an indie background focus on the sonics and production simply because these *are* very novel compared to the sounds of the guitar bands they're used to. Hip-hop/r&b/dance producers embraced this technology a long time ago so inevitably they are some way ahead of the average rock band who've just got around to thinking that 'maybe it's time we used a sampler'.

One other point. Old style records made by people playing instruments (including synths - so this is not an 'acoustic vs electronic' argument) in *real time* have little accelerations and timing anomalies that can convey emotion. Most modern r&b and pop has a steady tempo and quantised playing which flattens things out. Sonic novelty is actually essential to combat ennui.

Aaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...
How annoying. I come back this morning to listen to my recent Destiny's Child MP3 acquisitions, only to discover that they've lost all their lustre. I really really wanted to like them in some inverse pretentious way, maybe. The hooks are still okay, the production is still okay, but it just didn't LAST. However, it's still better than whatever horrendous pap the dimwitted Radiohead fans that I commune with on a regular basis try to push on me (Coldplay, Starsailor, Travis, Gorillaz).

Let the record show that when it comes to those four horrendous bands, I couldn't agree with you more.

My advice? Keep them around on the playlist, let them spring up randomly every now and then. That's how I've got into a lot of things, pop and otherwise.

Yes. "I Wish" by R. Kelly is magnificent. More so in the remix -- when the strings hit... *swoon*. "I Wanna Be With You" by Mandy Moore got me the first time I heard it. I'm sure there are plenty of others.

Kate - I wasn't doing lyrics vs sonics. "Be My Baby" does indeed derive a lot of its power from its production, but *for me* it's the melody that does the trick, that moves me so much. The lyrics are part of it as well, but in that particular song, Ronnie Spector could be singing her grocery list and it would still move me. And I could see the words to "Are You That Somebody" becoming equally moving if they were transplanted in a different context. As it is now, the song grabs me at a level of "wow, listen to all those weird sounds and how well they work together" and totally fails to get an emotional reaction out of me. I still love the song, though - it's damn good at what it does.

Yes, I will triple I Wish. That's a fantastic song that I keep forgetting I like a lot. It's the first R. Kelly single I've liked in ages.

I always thought Lucky by Britney Spears was particularly sad but other people just don't get it and get annoyed that Britney could ever feel sad, even as a character, so maybe that's not a good example.

So I was listening to DC and Britney and TLC and a bunch of other stuff recently, and it's pretty hooky and OK. But there is a part of my brain that would rather hear crunchy power chords instead of keyboard stabs. I hate synths used in a certain way, and it's purely an aesthetic thing. Also, I find most pop lyrics have a certain quality that I find asinine. So I just don't see how someone who doesn't want to listen to these cliches is necessarily an indie snob, the same way that someone who doesn't mind them is an idiot. Sure, I might appreciate how the 303 used in Try Again is, say, better programmed than the one in the old acid house track I love, but the horrible diva-vocals just put me off. It's not the immediacy of pop, because lots of non-pop has that (hello Ramones), it's just specific hallmarks of the genre. As for the sounds thing, Tom, you can't get away from the fact that pop is all about sounds. Even the lyrics aren't about content, they're about the way they strike your ear. Pop certainly isn't about harmony or rhythm or any of that other shit. That's why we can talk about it the way we do. Of course, I don't mean talking about it exclusively in terms of the equipment used to make those sounds, because that's just trainspotting, but in terms of the way the sounds within the song affect its reception (ie. Britney's robot voice in that song I forget). It's also why I don't like a lot of pop, because I don't like the sounds. To say that I'm just closed minded because I can't absorb those sounds is simply inverted snobbery. Let's face it, the primary difference between Oasis and Britney Spears is in their sound. Their lyrics are equally asinine, their harmonies and rhythms are equally simple, but one uses guitars and one uses synths. I mean, let's take the Pepsi challenge, shall we?
"I don't want to be there when you're coming down, I don't want to be there when you hit the ground, so don't go away"
"Now I can see that we're falling apart from the way that it used to be / no matter the distance, I want you to know that deep down inside of me" Equally stupid and cliched, but you like one and I like the other, and so I conclude that the main difference between pop & indie is aesthetic. In a world where pop and indie were given equal media exposure, they'd be a lot closer in terms of popularity, and that's what makes indie people so angry. I'm not advocating such a world, but it's something to think about.

Amen, Dave M.

Well, like Tom, I grew up loving pop. I never felt any need to distinguish between my mum's Abba records and the new Madonna single and Happy Mondays and, say, 808 State; it was all pop, and it was the only place where I felt I could *be* someone.

If I was snobbish about anything in my teens it wasn't pop, it was the indie-schmindie that was then enjoying its brief moment as a kind of neo-AOR-pop. I went through a "moaning about all those crappy boybands" phase, it's true, but it was never kneejerkery. But it was the 99/00 pop boom that really refocused me, as for Tom.

Piff#1: a radio on a high windowsill plays 'She Loves You' as the sun stream past it down onto small me, four in 1964 (maybe five in 1965), surrounded by dancing grown-ups, a coffeebreak turned into an impromptu rave-up by the Beatles suddenly on the radio: my idyll/my all-nations Woodstock/my perfect-country-lost-beyond-return, as easy to remake as any coffeebreak-turned-impromptu-boogie, when the right song comes on the radio.

[I grew up in the deep country, no TV at all till seven, little radio: parents' records aside, pop came in odd surges, some too scary-ugly- attractive to focus on directly — cf majorly Slade as discussed elsewhere, whispering malevolently in my dreams]

Piff#2: I'm 16, unusually ignorant of pop and hungrily gathering info from schoolpals, all boys at an all-boys school. They're more or less nothing but conformist Yes/Floyd fans: the exceptions Chris, a Sabbath/punk fan who had no friends but me (a good friend), and Gareth, a lone but fanatical Abba fan, who had no friends at all. Gareth was dislikeable, a fussy, clever pedant: aged 15, he was dating a married woman aged 35+, which made people dislike him more. This I usefully learnt from him: w/o myself knowing anything much abt Abba except that the median taste around me despised and feared them, I cd see how the brilliant intensity of Gareth's non-conformism sustained and cheered him. I admired this, w/o even slightly liking him more.

Piff#3: at college, an obsessive NME/Sounds reader and Peel follower and zero-tolerance pol-pot punker, I bought the world's tiniest, tinniest radio in order to hear pop "as it shd be heard" (guess I'd read this somewhere). In spring 1979 my first Free-Lunch astonishment: 'Mindless Boogie' by Hot Chocolate ("600 dead in Jonestown, very strange, very strange"). Somewhere round about this time I decided — punk rule #98564312 — that every record that got to No.1 was BY DEFINITION a great record: and that I had to learn to love it if I was ever to understand pop and/or the world. This theory foundered as an absolute in Jan 1983, with Men at work's "Down Under" (tho if truth be told, actually what failed is me, not the rule: I just cd not teach myself to love "Down Under").

(cue singsong playground voice)Dave is a Rockist, Dave is a Rockist, Dave is a Rockist.(uncue)

Er, by which I mean that you're arguing for some sort of purely literary lyrical distinction between genres. Which, of course, is false. Lyrical closeness doesn't tell you anything about theme, delivery, melody, image, accompaniment, rhythm, even basic things like key and chord progressions and harmony.

On another note, the rhythms of pop and rock aren't at all alike -- as a matter of fact, pop is consitantly surprising me with its rhythmic innovation -- and this is from all corners, not just the big names.

And no indie would not be as big if it had equal exposure to the current big acts. Why do I know? Because I used to try to "convert" friends to indie-bands. The lo-fi ones got a "this sounds like crap" response, as did the noise ones. As did most to nearly all, actually. At best a "this is sorta nice" and then of course they would go their merry ways and never think of it again.

Yeah, I probably am a rockist. Oh well. Calling someone a popist just sounds too catholic :)

I don't think I understand what you're saying. I was trying to point out how both sets are similarly dumb.

Playing some indie rock for your friends is nothing compared to the everyday exposure we get to songs like Nelly's Ride Wit Me. It is in no way comparable.

I'm sorry, Dave M, but your argument falls apart as soon as you say the Ramones are 'non-pop.' The Ramones were pop, albeit a form of pop one that was not having as much currency as before and over time has had less and less in terms of the Grander Scheme of Things, exceptions like, say, Green Day aside. Joey et al may have posited themselves against examples of pop bands they found particularly unworthy, but they were all about hooks from the start, and you can damn well bet they wanted to be on the radio. It was only because they *weren't* on the radio that things could build from there into this assumed opposition, in their case and in many others.

I can't accept that indie is somehow different from pop when it can just as easily be (and is) a subset of pop. If the Ramones used 303s, etc and Britney guitars etc., would that in fact change your mind about them at all? If so, then you don't value indie, you only value a certain kind of sonic approach over another, fair enough -- and you don't hate pop anywhere near what you claim it to be, when it sounds like you want pop, only dressed up to your tastes.

Frankly, I'd guess that indie people -- whatever *that's* supposed to mean -- are angry by and large because their own sonic and aesthetic biases and slants are not the ones in common currency, and seem to want to feel that theirs are automatically privileged and worthwhile precisely for that reason. Thanks, I'll do without that world. Complaining about modern pop while wanting to set up an alternative canon exclusively in its place merely replicates what you claim to hate. It makes more aesthetic sense to me to attack a performer, producer or what have you on their own grounds and their own worth as valued by oneself, rather that trying to set up such curious and limiting oppositions.

You are of course right about the lyrics. That's why I try to ignore them most of the time. ;-)

"One More Time" if the lyrics were by Ira Gershwin? "Butterfly" by Crazy Town if the lyrics were by Sondheim? "Get Up (On The Downstroke)" with lyrics by Norman Mailer? It just doesn't work. The "dumb" lyrics are an integral part of the overall craft. Listen to Bush's "Come Back Down" and feel the universal sweep in the vagueness there -- the majesty of the track comes precisely from the dissolute lyrics.

"Get Up (On The Downstroke)" with lyrics by Norman Mailer?

I'm sorry, this would surely be awesome...

I don't recall this thread being about snobbery or inverted snobbery or pop vs. indie, sorry. And while it's great that people who like pop don't have to be defensive about liking pop, I have no interest in making people who don't like it quite so defensive about not.

I don't think you're closed-minded - you wouldn't be persevering with FT or the forum, or sitting down and listening to Britney and DC, if you were. You don't like pop because of the sounds, fair enough - that's a lot of why I don't like trip-hop or mainstream rock, too.

Now we've got that out the way, I disagree on a couple of things. For one thing, having simple or romantic lyrics isn't neccessarily 'asinine'. I don't think any of the songs I like are asinine, and I can't see why anyone would think the music they like is either. For another, when I talk about emotional impact, I am for the millionth time not talking about a form (sounds) vs content (lyrics) division - the two are as you suggest pretty much inseparable.

I'm talking about the way 'pro-pop' writers seem to treat pop as a research lab - here is the weird squelchy noise and here is the strange unresolved beat etc - without any discussion of how the music makes them feel. I have been guilty of this myself, obviously. And I don't think that the "fact" is that pop=sounds, at all. I doubt very much if the bulk of Britney's buyers are buying it or responding to it purely because of Max Martin's terrific production. I love reading about Max Martin's terrific production - I just want a criticism which takes other stuff into account too.

I guess when it comes down to it, I can only enjoy "pop" (in the narrowest sense) as science. It has no emotional impact for me at all. So when I listen to Destiny's Child and hear something that nearly sounds like muzaked (muzak is now a verb, damnit) Autechre...that can excite me. But very little else in the pop (once again, in the narrowest sense) vocabulary can excite or affect me.

And once again, please know that when I say pop, I mean chart pop a la Britney, Destiny's Child, Abba, whatever.

As an aside, I'm quite interested in what music does emotionally effect you, cause I liked the "music that breaks my heart" answer - mostly cause that's what I look for currently in 'pop', I suppose.

I very rarely find music that "breaks my heart," but it's always something I look for. Other things "sound cool" but also hit me on another, intangible level.
But anyway, music that has "broken my heart" recently: Radiohead, Bjork, Kristin Hersh, Jeff Buckley, Autechre (don't ask how), Joni Mitchell, Lisa Germano, Low, Big Star, The Smiths, Jim O'Rourke, Krzysztof Penderecki, Olivier Messiaen, Elvis Costello, The Microphones

But that's not all the music I like. It's hard to determine what exactly makes me like the music I like, because while I often say it should "break my heart," it's not often the case. The Pixies don't break my heart, Can doesn't break my heart. Yet they're two of my favorite bands. Anyway, if you want the grand "list" of music I like currently, you can go here.

Coming in late from the left side I know (long day at the office), but here's my two pennies re: pop and emotional kick. While I'd agree that emotion is high and vital in pop, I find that it usually achieves it's height via intensity rather than complexity. Due to the immediate and right between the eyes nature of the stuff, pop emotions tend to be pure distillates of the real thing. A big bowl of sugar, vinegar or what have you - too obvious to be palatable on most occasions. I'll admit to having gone misty eyed at damned horrible Bryan Adams romance ballads if they crept up on me whilst I was already bobbing up and down in a pool of post-breakup vulnerability - but that's the crux of it right there - pop's simplicity can fool you by piggybacking on your own complexities and making you think it's all that - but all along the best part was yourself. No additions. Is that it's genius? Maybe so. However, most of the time I just can't get past that same 'designed to evoke' transparency, to the place where I might have been having a natural emotional response, especially if the lyrics are specific enough to preclude a particular range of feelings that might have bubbled up inside (based on the sonics alone). The music capable of breaking your heart will likely not be a dirge of unmitigated pop sorrow. It likely will not be a plaintive refrain about lonliness either. Unless you're already in such a state of course. Or in other words, I don't think it can *make* you feel anything, because pop is primarily a mirror - as I'm sure has been mentioned on ILM a thousand times before me. Human hearts only break when our fool selves try to feel *everything* all at once and get so mixed up in the feelings that we want to burst. Capturing THAT in music is beyond rare, and rarity is by definition, not pop. Or so I would have you believe as of 9:03pm this Wednesday night. I might say something else if you ask me after midnight.

I don't want to side track this excellent discussion, so I'll keep my responses somewhat shorter than the last post:
Ned: You're right, the Ramones aren't non-pop, or even non-chart pop, but they're not Britney either because of aforementioned sonics. Indie's definitely a subset of pop, but I think the reason I prefer it over Britney is due to those sonics, nothing more. You're very right about stuff.
Tom: I wasn't saying you called me closed minded. My bad. I also wasn't trying to drag this into pop vs. indie territory as much as explain why I think the "realization" in Melissa's q. doesn't have to happen for all of us. I'm not being defensive, I'm really just working out for *myself* why I dislike chart pop.
What I'm really saying is that the reason I dislike Britney et. al. is that I don't like their sounds, not anything to do with ideology or radio play, and although I wish the way that radio play is allotted was more fair, it doesn't really affect my (dis)liking of chart-pop itself.
More in line with the current discussion, pop sometimes breaks my heart and I'm a big ol' suck about it. I have a secret, evil place for Sting in my heart, and it is a place wet with big drippy tears every time I hear "Why Should I Cry For You" because Sting has a beautiful voice. Now if it wasn't for the production, I could like it and not cringe every time I hear the snare drum. Blurgh.

Unfortunately, my epiphany was very very shortlived. I don't know. The music just could never become part of the fabric of my life or mean anything more to me than a nice hook and production. I can't imagine wanting to listen to any of this by next week. It just wears thin so quickly, for me. And even on the production end, I liked Destiny's Child's production because it reminded me a bit of Isolee and Autechre and other things I like at the moment. People like Britney Spears--the production just leaves me cold.
Will I ever like chart pop? Tune in next week. I plan to check out some more, but I'm getting the feeling I'm not going to find anything that'll really excite me. Maybe that's just the way I am, and I shouldn't deny it.

Ya know, sometimes I really like it when something leaves me cold. Not so much in the not-interested sense as much as the sheer, chill sheen of something. That's attractive in its own way, you almost have to tone down to appreciate it...

Hm... Here's my thought, Melissa -- don't try so hard. That may sound flippant, but instead of actively searching for an experience, why not just let yourself be surprised? You never know, you might be blindsided in the best possible way by something you never thought you'd like. Happened to me, happened to a lot of us, all of us, maybe? Depth never has to wear a label saying 'deep' on it.

I think my point is (I really don't have one), that to have all the elements I like in music, it would no longer be chart pop, you know? Like, for me to truly like Destiny's Child, they'd have to get new singers, write new lyrics, and make their production less glossy. Uh oh, look, they're no longer Destiny's Child. Did that make any sense?

Yes and no. To me that just sounds like you're not fond of Destiny's Child -- who may be a chart pop act, but who aren't the immediate end- all and be-all and universal factor of 'chart pop.' It would be like me saying, "I'm not fond of At the Drive-in [in this case quite true], if I were leading the band I'd change things about them [also true], and then they wouldn't be an indie-rock band anymore [not necessarily true in the slightest]."

I mean, if I were to do what I wanted with Destiny's Child, or any chart pop for that matter, they'd be an experimental or lush and darkly symphonic act, no longer anything like what they were. It's just that in Destiny's Child, I heard a moment of "weirdness" that I appreciated, for a short while. It's that weirdness that I'd build on.

And quite possibly that weirdness itself could easily become something pop. Something dissonant, built upon and developed, could easily become something acceptable -- it's happened before plenty of times, it will happen again. It doesn't take much for that to happen -- merely somebody with an ear for both the bleeding edge and the public at large.

Could you please be a bit more specific? You know, examples and such.

Melissa, from what I see on your web page, you seem to actually like a lot of pop artists, just maybe not the 2001 kind - I can definitely relate. But yeah, Ned's right, trying too hard to like the stuff could end up being a real turn-off for you. Trying to understand why lots of smart music lovers think Destiny's Child is the shit (as opposed to a decent singles act like, say, Pat Benatar) is kinda having a similar effect on me.

BTW, if you own records by all those artists on your page, congratulations, you just might have a collection that rivals Ned's ;).

Ah, but 'tis why I've been calling it "chart pop" or "pop (in the narrowest sense)," you see? There's got to be a better name for what I mean. Anyway, I'm full aware that artists on my favorite artists page can be classified as "pop," but I'm not going for that wide definition.
And if I owned music by every artist on my list, I'd be a happy little girl. Alas, I'm a poor student who can barely buy a cd a month. But I'm working on it. I'm getting there.

I'd just call it 2001-pop.

Tom was asking somewhere up there about records that break our hearts. The Rolling Stones' Exile On Main St does it for me - not so much in a sentimental weepy kind of way (not that there's anything wrong with THAT), but in that it just takes me all sorts of places emotionally where little music can take me. It goes way beyond just the quality of individual songs - it sounds like some godly force is driving them through the entire record, making their music feel like it never had before or since. It's unbelievably powerful to me.

In a more traditional heartbreaking vein, I'd nominate Pulp's "Something Changed", Heavens To Betsy' "Complicated", The Band's "Katie's Been Gone", The Drifters' "Up On The Roof" and Patti Smith saying "just watch me now !" at the end of "Piss Factory" as hugely moving moments. And about 5000 other songs I know.

Pop epiphany happened several times before realised what I was missing. But it wasn't whole tracks that did it, just moments. It's almost as if they didn't 'qualify' for my full attention - Alliyah - Are you that Somebody / Cher - 'Believe' / Shanks and Bigfoot - Sweet like Chocolate - Despite the occasional job with the radio on I never took pop onboard until my stereo broke down and left me with the radio, that dragged me out of my LP's and white labels. Personally I think 'functional' pop incites a self- abandonment, over- rides preconceptions and prejudices, through lyrics, sounds, production, emotional content, even image, but not specifically any. What makes it cutting-edge is it's ability to surprise me, unlike the other genres I indulge.

"My Funny Valentine" (sung by Elvis Costello) and "Seymour Stein", they make me CRY - but ANYWAY: Can i just agree with a WARINESS of Pop Criticism acting like SCIENCE? Not because there's anything inherently wrong with it - hey, all art forms have schools of criticism that analyse, dissect and try to codify its component parts to somehow nail down exactly what they're made of and thus avoid having to engage with those Strange Feelings it gives you. Sometimes Intellectualising base responses is an attempt to fight back Emotional Response, sometimes its an attempt to convince yourself you're having an emotional response, whatever.

No, the reason i personally am wary of this sort of analysis, especially of something as exciting and primal as music, pop or otherwise, is because in general it's REALLY BORING. The best criticism has the same effect as the music it's talking about - it just MOVES you, one way or another, and you don't have to sit down and write a (fully referenced) essay for it to be All Right to feel that way. SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS i usually find is Interesting, like learning to use a new Tool can be Interesting, but it is remarkably lacking in JOY.

Salon just ran a nice interview with Christgau where he said that music crit is admitting how you feel about a song, then figuring out why. I find purely personal criticism unreadable -- stuff along the lines of "every time I hear this song I feel sad," except more eloquent, that just doesn't do it for me. I need some way to bridge the gap between the critic's unity of perception, the object, the artist's unity of intent, and my own taste. Also, I think that the purely personal and the purely sound-descriptive can go together and make truly hideous but quite common hybrid reviews. I.e. "the clicks and squelches are uplifting". You see? -- unity of perception, description of object, but no bridge between the two.

My point was that some music it is all just science...not emotion. Some music just fails to reach me on any emotional level, like with chart pop. I can only appreciate things like its production, or its hook, or its melody. But it doesn't all come together for me. Obviously, though, I wouldn't be listening to music if it didn't affect me emotionally. There's plenty of music I find very emotional.
But if this criticism wasn't directed at me...nevermind.

Tom, you're invalidating my entire mode of criticism!

Seriously though, it's true that pop's success *doesn't* rest on cool sounds/production etc. etc. But for me, listening to the sounds is pretty much how I listen to all music these days. Getting into The Buzzcocks, I can appreciate the lyrics and the energy and the pure songfulness on one level, but it's the krautrock-lite grooves, the use of dynamics, the zippy basslines, the sudden bursts of sing-song harmonies, Shelley's deliriously unbalanced vocals etc. that make the connection, that make me emotional. So for me talking about my response to the music is pretty much synonymous with raving about its constituent parts, whether electronic or not. "Born To Make You Happy" may have had a greater effect on me than any other pop song these past two years, but sung by anyone other than Britney or produced by anyone other than Max Martin it would probably be useless to me.

Hey, if you want to hear something cool, epiphanic and heart- breaking, just listen to the first track on Lloyd Cole's first solo LP (1990). It's not dissonant or technologically interesting, mind you.

or good, either;)

Today I heard again the solos by Robert Quine on Lloyd's 'Man on the Verge' (2000). That's about as much dissonance as I need. The only question is, why didn't Quine get to play on every track on that LP?