Spion
I hear ya
Aren't those 'genres' created by Billboard's search for a way to say 'black music'? And don't they cover a myriad things that just do not belong together?
Those Were the Days...
- Thread starter Stanley Edwards
- Start date
coccinelle
Active Member
I think pop music is just that: popular. It's light and likeable and melodic and cheesy and usually sells in buckets. Kylie was always pop, from 'I should Be So Lucky' onwards and the only time it didn't work was when she was trying to do credible dance stuff for Perfecto. Things with edge or a touch of darkness or belonging to a genre don't usually get classed as pop.
So does a Leonard Cohen song. Does that mean it's pop?
Whereas say, Mogwai use a much more complex structure. Does that mean it's classical?
Well R&B was invented to replace the term 'race music'. Soul grew out of that, but certainly in their old incarnations they are distinct forms.
Now it's harder to say.
Spion
I hear ya
but R&B in the billboard chart would have included almost anything made by black people from 1948ish to 1964-ish, so would have included things where we'd recognise the 'B' of R&B but lots else too, like doo wop.
And 'soul' was the term they replaced R&B with, no? But then look at, say, early James Brown and it's pure 12 bar blues in structure
Spion
I hear ya
Maybe, in the grand scheme of things
I'm not convinced they are that complex when you strip it down to the bare chords and the progression used.
Well no, it wouldn't have been called R&B till much later...
But that early JB stuff isn't called soul for that very reason, it's called R&B.
You get my point though.
Thing is, outside contemporary music, pop is considered to be pretty much everything in contemporary music. A classical buff - especially a prejudiced one - would lump Cohen, Mogwai, Fast Food Rockers, Aphex Twin and Katie Melua into 'pop'.
Which is meaningless.
If we're going to search for a definition of pop within contemporary music, it gets harder.
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
inre: the definition in reverse, that's to ignore that, for eg, Teenage Kicks by the Undertones could have been classed as punk rock, when it was quite clearly a perfect pop song.
Definition of a song as r&b and soul doesn't preclude that music from also being pop, imo. But that still doesn't answer what makes a pop song, if the singles charts are being discounted from the argument. Here's another one for you - can a pop song be unpopular?
Definition of a song as r&b and soul doesn't preclude that music from also being pop, imo. But that still doesn't answer what makes a pop song, if the singles charts are being discounted from the argument. Here's another one for you - can a pop song be unpopular?
of course it can.
All Saints reformed and released some stuff which flopped badly. Does this mean it's not pop? Course not, what else could it be?
So again, the chart-based definition is meaningless.
If Funeral For A Friend have a hit and All Saints don't, who's the pop act?
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
badly produced flabby r&b, as far as i could tell.
editor
hiraethified
I guess one factor that is rarer to find in recent mainstream pop is the excitement generated by new genres, sounds and technologies exploding on the scene for the first time - but that's more than made up for by the fact that a young kid today has an infinitely richer back catalogue of songs to enjoy and bands more influences to draw from.
But the few years around punk/ska/new wave/synth bands was definitely a notable and particularly creative time for UK music.
But the few years around punk/ska/new wave/synth bands was definitely a notable and particularly creative time for UK music.
when was she on perfecto?
she did do some fairly "credible" dancish-stuff whilst on deconstruction, and there may well have been some perfecto remixes, but i don't recall her ever doing stuff for perfecto or being signed to them. unless perfecto is something to do with deconstruction - i dunno. anyway, this would have been all the "confide in me"-era stuff, which did very well indeed. after deconstruction it was to parlaphone, and that was when she did loads of indie-ish stuff as well as dancey stuff and that flopped in the UK but was a big success in oz. e2a - actually, that album was still on deconstruction, not parlaphone. anyway, er, carry on.
Spion
I hear ya
Billboard changed its race music chart to 'R&B' in 1949 so lots of things got lumped into that 'genre' that a non-marketing-driven definition would have categorised differently
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0002965
Fair dos. i didn't realise the soul label came so late (1969)
coccinelle
Active Member
Spion
I hear ya
But then I guess a lot of 'classical' gets lumped together in ways that someone who knows their stuff would see as just as silly too - tho tbh, in musical terms - if you really strip it down to numbers of chords and their structures - there's not much between that lot.
It does. Praps because it's all pop, even that which isn't popular.
Northern soul is a great example of pop music that's not popular
editor
hiraethified
Some might, but I've met more than enough young kids who look wistfully back to bands of yore.
I certainly didn't think it was a particularly brilliant time for music when I was kid until punk came along and I was a music nut from about age ten onwards.
But don't you think that there's been a few 'golden periods' for music?
And when I was a kid - back when The Specials and Dexys were at their height - I listened to Bob Dylan and Deep Purple. Same as it ever was...
I do. But that's ultimately a subjective view, and one that can only really be judged in hindsight. To a 14-year old kid, that's not the issue - as you said yourself..
editor
hiraethified
I don't think it's as black and white as you're claiming, but there you go.
I'm not claiming it's black and white, simply that it's not as simplistic as the OP and subsequent posts have made out. Yeh, there are some periods which seem more exciting than others. Sometimes even the kids involved will sense as much. But ultimately, statements like "all pop is meaningless now" are the moanings of the old and bitter.
Spion
I hear ya
Weirdly, the 2tone period was the only time I've been remotely on the pulse with emerging music, but at the same time it was for the type of reasons you describe as my bro is lots older than me and I'd been listening to his Bluebeat singles and albums since I was knee high to a etc
If it is entirely subjective I'm labouring under the illusion that there have been periods/scenes where innovative music emerges from small labels/festival and gig scenes etc that bypass the large scale music industry
Don't follow you?
Spion
I hear ya
I was agreeing with Ed's view that there have been 'golden periods' in music, and that while it's entirely subjective whether you like the music or not, it's a fact that in certain periods flourishes of creativity occurred as a result of social and musical developments that were outside the grip of 'the industry' (eg, UK psychedelia/folk in the late 60s; punk/new wave)
</out on a limb, a bit
>
ChrisFilter
Like a boss.
I was agreeing with Ed's view that there have been 'golden periods' in music, and that while it's entirely subjective whether you like the music or not, it's a fact that in certain periods flourishes of creativity occurred as a result of social and musical developments that were outside the grip of 'the industry' (eg, UK psychedelia/folk in the late 60s; punk/new wave)
</out on a limb, a bit
Rave in the late 80s early 90s...
I was agreeing with Ed's view that there have been 'golden periods' in music, and that while it's entirely subjective whether you like the music or not, it's a fact that in certain periods flourishes of creativity occurred as a result of social and musical developments that were outside the grip of 'the industry' (eg, UK psychedelia/folk in the late 60s; punk/new wave)
</out on a limb, a bit
yeh, but I addressed that. I don't dispute these golden periods happen (although that's a whole subjective can of worms too: ask some luddite muppet like lightsoutlondon whether the rave scene was a golden age of musical development and he'll beat you to death with a Judas Priest album). I'm just not sure how much that affects the kids caught up in them at the time. I think teenagers are overexcited about music anyway, it's just sometime what they're over-excited about turns out to be pivotal, if you see what I mean
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
I find myself in so much agreement with geoff at every stage of this discussion that there really is no point in me even posting.
