“The terms of approbation applied to Beyoncé could not be more rockist. Deep, meaningful, political, Zeitgeist-y, content-heavy, Arty, etc etc. The work is celebrated in the same way as Sly Stone or Bob Marley or Public Enemy etc were incorporated within rock discourse. Whereas Ohio Players, Brass Construction, Rob Base ‘It Takes Two’ etc never were, because not about capital-C Content or redeeming social value - just about dance energy and function. So in fact this particular form of poptimism — annotative, parsing, interpretation-slanted — is just rockism with an expanded* sense of who the auteur is."
thought circa Lemonade, newly applicable
* But not really even expanded much, since rockism always had space for the Black Pop Statesman, always granted respect to the What's Going On move. It was the "trivial", just-pure-fun stuff made by white and Black alike that wasn't taken seriously.
How long till we get a compilation of 2010s bro country, SoundCloud rap or EDM festival singles hailed by Pitchfork and Stereogum as the new NUGGETS and praised for its vulgar vitality?
ReplyDeleteOn a more serious note, I think pop music went through the same process that horror movies did in the 2010s, moving from lowbrow to middlebrow (and, arguably, losing the vulgar vitality mentioned above).
ReplyDeleteA possible fifth dimension (far out!) for your pop discourse diagram: Personality. The importance of the performer's life, their history, their ideas, their relationship with their fans, their performances in interviews, at awards ceremonies, and in social media. Not really the same thing as the Artistic dimension, because it's distinct from ideas about Importance, timelessness, innovation, personal expression, and so on. The two can go together, but they don't have to.
ReplyDeleteTaylor Swift is, of course, at the absolute extreme of that dimension, with Beyoncé pretty close to her. Many rappers also score highly, as do the Gallaghers. And the Manics, of course. Anyone who has come to stardom through a TV talent show.
At the absolute nadir: any kind of faceless techno. MARRS. That Pete Waterman fake "rare groove" track. Snow Patrol.
I think "personality" is really something that cuts across all those axes, to one degree or another. It's like something that performers deploy, in the same way that they deploy voices, lyrics, instruments, notes, the stages etc. They deploy image and persona and biographical details.
ReplyDeleteLike, you would think initially maybe that "personality" is largely on the Showbiz side of the triangle - if only because there is so much more emphasis on looking at the star, glamour, etc.
But then the Art side of is often about a quirky personality, eccentricity - that's part of the making of a cult figure as much as a weird, experimental sound. Think Aphex Twin, Captain Beefheart, Bjork.
Folk - less so, but not completely. There's more of an emphasis on the performer as a representative of a community, a truth-teller. Still as Folk edges into expressive, art zones, you get your figures with charismatic life stories - Vashti Bunyan, Ann Briggs. Dylan obviously, the more he leaves behind truth-telling in the political-social sense for his own personal truth (and untruth).
Function, the phantom fourth side, is where personality is the least part of it. (Although the oddball stories of some in this area can be winnowed out retrospectively - Delia Derbyshire, Raymond Scott, etc). Mostly though it's faceless techno bollocks, faceless ambient bollocks, faceless EZ-listening bollocks... John Barry was a good looking bloke but most people who loved and heard his music had no idea what he looked like or anything about his ilfe.