Last night I chatted to my new friend Zoe on Facebook and as you can see, without Twitter's character counting restrictions, it became more of an essay writing competition than a conversation. Same rules as before -- I didn't know what the subject would be until we started talking (typing). See if you can spot the moment when I turned into Paul Morley.
Zoe: Oops, I've started talking here. Shall we carry on here? This thing still confuses me!!
Stuart: Let's carry on here. How are you? What would you like to talk about?
Zoe: I'm ok thanks for asking. Bit odd this as I've never properly met you. Ok how about this to break the ice ... Pop Music is Dead. Would you agree or disagree with that statement?
Stuart: Disagree. Vehemently disagree. Why do you think it's dead?
Zoe: Oops, did I hit a nerve? lol. Manufactured boy/girl bands, one hit wonders promoted by televsion shows, cover version after cover version filling the charts, where have all the good pop bands of our youth gone to?? What has happened to originality?? Do you still listen to the top 40? I haven't this decade. Even the BBC knew pop music was dying out cos they pulled Top of the Pops!
Stuart: All of which is true of course, but to an extent it was also true in the 80s with Stock Aitkin and Waterman (which I was huge fan of at the time) and even earlier you could argue that the motown sound was entirely manufactured. Pop music if you're talking about in terms of Spice Girls thru Girls Aloud is manufactured but always has been.
I agree that the Simon Cowell axis of shit has gone some way to changing the perception of pop music but if you look at something like the PopJustice website you can see that pop music is alive and well. I'd call Lilly Allen, Kate Nash, Little Boots, Lady Gaga, Paloma Faith even Metric, pop music, even if the sound is often based on guitars or electronica.
I think the problem is that as such the definition of "pop music" has narrowed lately. Blur/Oasis and before them The Rolling Stones/The Beatles were considered to be pop music whereas these days they're thrown in with rock music and fans of that kind of music tend to look sideways at "pop" as though it's something entirely different.
Zoe: Yeah, but how many people will have heard of most of those names you just mentioned?? Where are our 21st Century Rolling Stones, Oasis, Beatles etc? I doubt if those bands started out today you would ever get to hear of them! Not too sure I agree with your comments about Motown music being manufactured though when you compare it to the likes of Pop Idol/X-Factor these days. I see little similarity between likes of Stevie Wonder and Leon Jackson, and Diana Ross and Michelle McManus! S/A/W started the decline of pop music back in the late 80s and it hasn't recovered since.
Stuart: Oh I see. So what you mean is that there aren't any bands producing the kind of groundbreaking music that we heard from The Beatles etc and even if there were they wouldn't have the same following.
Firstly, with digital distribution and mass demographics it is increasingly harder for bands to get noticed because there's such a diverse audience. I'm listen to an album right now by a band called Metric which was released earlier in the year and is very good indeed and I wish I'd known about it sooner so it could have soundtracked some of the past few months.
But that doesn't mean that something, if it's as good as The Beatles, can't break out. The question is whether it has to. The measure of success has reduced and I suspect quite a lot of bands are happy to have a smallish but loyal following because it allows them to have the creative freedoms that mass production prohibits them from having.
Plus the problem with guitar bands is that they're rather caught in their looong shadow. Even Oasis who have never lived down the fact that everything they do sounds like The White Album (or whatever).
My understanding of Motown is that was the musical equivalent of the old Hollywood system and was essentially copied by S/A/W. They had a roster of stars and would choose who recorded what, effectively filling a gap in the market. If that's not manufacturing music I don't know what is. In terms of musical quality there's a country mile between what Berry Gordy was doing and Simon Cowell, but the methodology was very similar indeed.
Good god, that's an essay isn't it? Sorry.
Zoe: OK, I'll try not to be as epic but I can't guarantee lol. I do think there are bands out there doing good music but they don't get given the exposure that the more "instant-hit", if you like, pop acts are. It so much easier for a record company to go with the easier option rather than invest in something that may or may not turn out to have more longevity.
On the point of digital distribution etc this should surely have made it easier for people to find any good music that is out there? After all didn't the Arctic Monkeys supersonic rise to public prominence derived from the internet and such sites as Myspace etc??
Then again, when you think about it, maybe there just aren't any really really good pop bands out there anymore. If you think back, for example,to Live8 a few years ago, who were the big bands that performed? U2, The Who, REM, Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney - were where the 21st century generation of good pop bands? If that concert had been in the 1960s who wouldhave headlined? Beatles, Rolling Stones, Hendrix? The 70s - Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie? The 80s - Queen, Dire Straits U2? Are you with me? In the 21st Century we don't have our really good pop bands any more.
The methodology in what Motown and S/A/W did I can undersatnd was similar, but quite rightly the quality between the 2 couldn't be further apart. Motown took good singers/artists and produced amazing records. S/A/W took soap stars and the like and produced utter musical diarrhoea in my musical opinion. If they had wanted they could have put Geoff Capes in a blonde wig, written a tediously catchy synth song and promoted it on CBBC till it got to No1! lol
Stuart: Exactly. When they should be spreading the money around and investing in lots of different music (which was rather the case in the early to mid-90s, the money is being put into less acts but that changed in the late nineties and hasn't improved much since.
Arguably the sea change happened when the first, best, Sugababes line-up were dropped by the record company because their singles only charted in the top twenty and that was registered a failure.
But that doesn't mean pop music is dead. It's just different. I think you have to be careful not to mix up the definition of what constitutes "pop music". There are perhaps no bands like the ones you list, but that's because pop music has moved on to other things. Girly pop mostly, bluesier influences. R&B.
People are just listening to other things, and like I said earlier, the sound mixes guitar music riffs with dance beats it's all very postmodern because the people creating the music have a much wider range of musical tastes because they have access to a wider range of music.
Not necessarily worse, just *different*. Rock music will have resurgence soon probably just as it did in the early nineties with Brit pop and actually earlier this decade with your Arctic Monkeys and the like. What S/A/W and their successors have done has *nothing* to do with that. They're different genres of pop music.
But I think we're hitting against a taste issue. I love all of the music you list, but I also love Shakira and think her contribution could be and is potentially as important, particularly in relation to introducing world music sounds into mainstream pop.
And people are finding the good music. Little Boots was a grass roots discovery, v popular before she was signed by a record label. Kate Nash too. These things still happen. And both of those are country mile away from most other things and look to the past for influence.
Zoe: I do find it interesting you mention the Sugarbabes, because this in a way has a lot to do with what seems to have become "karaoke" pop music. I think I'm right in saying that none of the original members are still in the "group"? Surely they are now a tribute act? If not, what's the point any more? Just resurrect any band with new personnel and call them The Grateful Dead, Beatles, Lynyrd Skynyrd?!
Talking of Karaoke, lol, the one thing I despise about the way pop music has gone these days is almost upon us again - the X Factor Xmas No 1!!! Do you realise that if they do it again it will be the 5 year in a row??!! A British institution ruined by a reality TV show. What chance do Bob the Bulider or Mr Blobby have of ever regaining the top spot at Xmas?! lol
As an aside, did you know that 9 of the last 25 Xmas No1s were cover versions of one sort or another . . .?
Stuart: On that we can agree. There are no original members. It is just a tribute act with the same name. If Sugababes are the yardstick, then pop music is dead.
Zoe: Somewhat ironic when you think about it that Mr Blobby and Bob the Builder actually did do original Xmas No1s! lol May pop music rest in peace.
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