Lessee, what'd I miss in two days...OMG.
PINK BULLDOZER
No, not the aborted Skye title...I'm referring to this:
I got the idea that if you could designate some things "extreme metal" you should also be able to designate things "extreme pop."
So, my nominations for EXTREME POP would include:
Mariah Carey (esp. her 1991 peak) because she's just fuckin' extreme, and 'cause she squeaks.
Napoleon XIV's "They're Coming to Take Me Away" because it's extremely silly and irritating and because the flipside is the same song played backwards which causes people to shoot themselves in the head.
The Veronicas' "4ever" for its deliriously gorgeous harmonies.
Boney M for being guilelessly eclectic.
Richard Harris' "MacArthur Park," because someone left the cake out in the rain.
Lindsay Lohan's video for "Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father)"
Johnny Ray
The Shangri-Las
Little Richard
You can figure out what's extreme about the last three. This list is just to get the concept going.
[...]
PINK BULLDOZER
The Magazine of Extreme Pop
(Except the title would have to be in pink; and it would probably end up as a Website rather than a magazine. Metal Mike Saunders could interview Skye Sweetnam, and Dave Bedbug could review the record. Brie Larson would publish promo tour diaries. Reports from Europe on Marie Serneholt, Eurovision, Iranian disco.)
Lots of conversation happening at Blogger nemesis LiveJournal, here and here.
So who's going to spearhead this and actually do it? Grab some webspace, get some writers together, raise hell. Include MP3s. You could do it at blogspot for free, I'll letchyall use my rinky dink server for the music, although I'm sure you could do better than that.
Bedbug Dave v. Dave Bedbug, or y'all could call me "Diabetic Dave" like in high school (haha, "sugar shock," get it! Seriously though don't call me that) or D-Mo or Dawg Mo or D. Buggo or Dabug like in Russian class.
(Thoughts that follow are to be taken with one grain of salt:)
Aqua and Toy-Box are both EXTREME POP, but Ch!pz and Daze are not. The A-Teens are capable of EXTREME POP. To connect to another idea, it seems like EXTREME POP has to do with how many free lunches you get in one serving. So "Hypocrite" might be EXTREME POP, but "Billy S" is not. This might explain why the "Confessions" video is clearly EXTREME POP but the song isn't necessarily...the second link to the Poptimists discussion includes a bit about the "tabloid violence" video, which in music video terms is full of free lunches. When the video came out, someone said Lindsay's singing in Charles Bukowski's bathroom (still one of the funniest things I've read all year), which would not be a free lunch in a Fiona Apple video but is in a Lindsay Lohan video. Indie cannot be EXTREME anything because all indie has rubber bumpers on it. No matter how hard you slam against the extreme wall you won't get hurt, so no EXTREME chances can ever be taken, only normal chances, albeit huge normal chances. Being labeled "indie" in the first place -- as a socially cosntructed category but not an aesthetic one (genre), just as teenpop isn't an aesthetic category/genre -- signals the loss of extremity, whereas being stripped of that label (cf. Liz Phair) might mean you're finally being adventurous in an EXTREME POP way (meaning post-Matrix Liz Phair aspires to EXTREME POP, and some later Courtney Love, though I've only heard America's Sweetheart so I won't draw that out too much). But that doesn't work in reverse, to say that whatever it is that classifies music as TEENPOP signals it is by definition EXTREME POP (as indie by definition is not), because there is teenpop that is not EXTREME POP. Maybe TEENPOP is a signifier of the potential for EXTREME POP, whereas INDIE is a signifier of a threshold of extremity beyond which the music can never pass unless it stops being defined as "indie." The Pipettes will never, can never be EXTREME POP. Lily Allen aspires to EXTREME POP but I'm not sure that she's there. "Finally Out of P.E." might be EXTREME POP but "Stilts and the Titanic" is not.
Teenpoppers who live and breathe EXTREME POP, past and present: M2M, Skye Sweetnam, Brie Larson, Daphne & Celeste, DaHv, Aaron Carter(moved from the "aspire" category), Nikki Cleary, Devo 2.0, Aqua, Toy-Box, Hampton the Hamster, Crazy Frog.
Teenpoppers who aspire to EXTREME POP, but don't always achieve it: Britney, A*Teens, Fefe Dobson, Lindsay Lohan, Ashlee Simpson, Hannah Montana, Huckapoo, Hoku, Hilary Duff, the Veronicas. [EDIT: I think Kelly C belongs somewhere between aspire and live and breathe...when she WANTS to do Extreme Pop, she does it, when she doesn't, she doesn't...so maybe "tactical extreme"? "Occasional extreme"?]
OTHER NEWS: Marit Larsen has a Myspace; I erroneously called "Bring It Back" a "preview," when in fact it has not been confirmed or denied as a track on Sound Soldier; finished my Confessional Jamz mix for Stylus, still tinkering with the Myspace column which I don't think I'm ever going to be happy with, but hm, maybe I'll get a chance to expand my thoughts in a big fat essay someday; I was going to buy an Enuff Znuff album for three bucks the other day but decided against it (ditto David Banner's MTA2 and the Hoot soundtrack); Frosty Day has passed and I still haven't gotten a Frosty, but I will do so today on my way about town; I did not pack too many oat groats. EDIT: Oh, and I REALLY WANT THIS ALBUM. Heard it in a coffee shop last night, followed by the Polysics, who will become EXTREME POP when they go Polysics 2.0.
OPEN DISCUSSION: Has anyone noticed how strange Rihanna's "Unfaithful" is? The recent singles jukebox kind of touches on it, but not really. It's a confessional jam, so you won't hear it from me yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment