This album is the best pop album I've ever heard. Yes, it's a pop album. No grinding, distorted guitars, no grunge growling, no symphonic rock to be heard anywhere on this record. When I say this, however, you must keep in mind that I don't particularly like The Beatles; my favourite Beatles song is Tomorrow Never Knows. I do, however, like Mr. Bungle -- but I can only listen to Mr. Bungle once in a blue moon, beyond that it's just too much (sort of like the Fantastic Plastic Machine, only in a much more dissonant way). In any case, The Dissociatives are fantastic. They blend the things I DO like about the Beatles (which is to say, the fundamentals of pop-rock) with just a touch of the dissonance and wackiness of Mr. Bungle, add a dash of electronic stuff like synths and the occasional fake beat, and mix in Daniel Johns' talent for crafting killer riffs and vocal lines. This talent is considerable, Johns being the architect behind such grunge anthems as Tomorrow, Israel's Son, Abuse Me, and Anthem for the Year 2000.
The songs that result from this blend are surprisingly compelling, and the atmosphere is successfully sustained for the entire duration of the record.
Well worth looking into.
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posted
I am totally musically uninformed. I can't read music. I can't play an instrument. I do have vague ideas of what a certain sound is, though. Heavy Metal sounds one way. Emo another. Electronica another, etc.
Thinking about it, I have no idea what 'good pop' is. I guess I always considered pop to be something along the lines of fast food, corporate muzak. Something that will be forgotten in five years. Music that has zero personal meaning to anyone.
So, I never really considered the Beatles to be pop beyond their first album. The Beatles are experimentation. John Lennon's perfectly flexible, powerful voice. The evocative lyrics of 'Eleanor Rigby'. The Beatles aren't Madonna, or Michael Jackson, or The Backstreet Boys, or any of those groups or people that no one will really give a rat's ass about in twenty years.
Anyways. I guess the main point is that I have no idea what pop is supposed to sound like. So, saying something is the best pop album ever doesn't mean anything to me.
posted
If you're looking for a rough rule, the "pop" of a given era is whatever millions of screaming teenage girls listen to. This makes the Beatles very much "pop," or at a bare minimum "pop rock."
Madonna and MJ have been around for about 20 years. Nobody's showing any signs of forgetting either of them. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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The screaming teenage girls thing would be the first couple albums, which I did kind of admit. The Beatles outgrew that.
I concede that pop phenoms can last a long time, but I don't think this changes the, er, poppy-ness (vapidness?) of their music.
In any case, 50 years from now, people will still be listening to the Beatles because they say something 'serious' about the world we live in. Madonna and Jackson will be historical footnotes because they do not and are not.
Isn't pop is supposed to be transitory and representative of consumer throw away culture, yes? That's why it's called pop?
Do millions of teenage girls are screaming for The Dissociatives? If a pop tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it, like, exist?
I'm not trying to be an ass. I know it sounds like it. Just honestly never really thought about what pop is before.
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posted
Here's the fundamental disconnect between you and I: I don't think pop has to be vapid. Pop has BECOME "transitory and representative of consumer throw away culture" with the rise of bubblegum pop ('NSync, oddly enough, pointed this out themselves in their hit single Pop -- intentionally or otherwise). In any case, what's popular (which is where the term "pop" comes from) doesn't necessarily have to be BAD (cf. the Beatles). In the last decade or so the usage of the label "pop" has shifted somewhat; the usage you're talking about has become much more prevalent, where disdain is implied.
Yeah, the Beatles say serious things like "I want to hold your hand." (OK, OK, first couple of albums, I know, that was a cheap shot. )
Madonna has said plenty of things about the world we live in. I don't think you're giving her enough credit (MJ, he just crafted some tasty grooves, not so much with the commentary). People still play their hits (Billie Jean especially) at clubs and bars on a regular basis. Their stuff will still be around many years from now, I think.
When I say the Dissociatives have put out a pop album, though, what I mean is that their sound evokes the "pop of old," i.e., they are reminiscent of the Beatles (crossed, as I said, with Mr. Bungle).
Edit: I found a definition:
pop: (of music or art) new and of general appeal (especially among young people) [syn: popular] (WordNet)
quote: Here's the fundamental disconnect between you and I: I don't think pop has to be vapid.
I will grant you this. Otherwise, it does sound like we agree, basically.
I would like to comment on one thing:
quote: In the last decade or so the usage of the label "pop" has shifted somewhat; the usage you're talking about has become much more prevalent, where disdain is implied.
I would be interested in knowing whether or not this is true? Thinking about it, I can't think of a time when there wasn't generally recognized element of...kitsch?...when people talk about pop. Plastic people. Trendoids. Shallowness. The term 'pop culture' means throw away culture, as far as I know. Only love what is popular, not what means something to you. What is old must be thrown away. All these things are pop. Even back in the day of American Bandstand, pop was sneered at by some people.
But, as you pointed out, these things are often not true.
I don't know if I have a point to all of this.
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posted
I can't either, but then neither of us has been alive all that long.
I think, though, that when disco was big they didn't call it "pop" to imply that it sucked, they just called it "disco." However, I wasn't really, well, alive, so it's hard to say.
I also don't know when the term "pop culture" was coined.
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