Pop Is Dead? Pop Is Dead!

why

does

that

happen

??

(sorry)

Strauss isn't an idiot; journalism is the idiot, and the reading public is the idiot. Since Strauss is writing for a "newspaper" he can't just say, "Here are a bunch of records I want to write about," he's got to pretend to spot a trend (because "trend" = "news"). The only trend he cites is that Britney, *NSync, and the Backstreet Boys didn't hit #1 this year. They also didn't release records this year, which might have been an obstacle. Not that they'd have sold as well as last time. But he's just being absurd in claiming that (therefore) the extremes dominated the charts. Almost all the albums he cites (maybe three or four exceptions) is by artists who two or three years ago hit as big as or bigger than they're hitting now. No trend. Two more stupidities are: (1) That Alan Jackson and Jay-Z represent "extremes" whereas *NSync and Britney represent "designed for broadest spectrum possible." Like, *NSync are designed to take in the Jay-Z and Alan Jackson audiences, whereas Jackson and Jay-Z are designed to exclude the *NSync audience? (2) That you can use Number 1 albums rather than total sales to represent the success of a genre. (The trend I was reading about in Billboard midyear: sales of country were slumping and of hip-hop were plummeting; country was failing to break new artists and its midline artists were suffering, while the biz was waiting with fingers crossed for Shania and Faith and the Dixies to come along and save its ass. Indies were the only part of the business to more-or-less hold its own in comparison to previous years, possibly because its album sales aren't diminished by the downloading of hit singles.) But you're better off reading the opening few paragraphs not as a serious statement about music but as an attempt to portray the piece as being about something more than "I'm writing capsules about a bunch of number one albums, and I'm going to get paid to do so." (Is that what happens when you design your writing for the broadest possible spectrum of pseudointellectual dimwits?)

No more Britney and NSync = soooooooo 2001

I'm dubious about any article that tries to chart a trend based on an arbitrary block of 52 weeks. One should not pick a year and then identify a trend; a trend should make itself felt, at which point you can try to ascertain when it began.

Another way of saying what Frank said, that the demands of his editors and the form "year end reviews" are expected to take, have defeated Strauss who is otherwise not a bad writer.

Blame it on the Raines

First ever Milli Vanilli-NY Times cross-referencing joke?

When I first heard "Blame it on the Rain" (waiting in a car outside the Peace Museum) I thought it was David Bowie.

He wishes!

The one thing I like about the article, other than noting how well country is doing right now (albeit standing on the shoulders of giants, er, giantesses?), is the lack of the obligatory 'ROCK IS BACK!' trumpeting.

Thanks, Frank - I didn't mean to say that Neil was stupid, by any means - more lazy & irresponsible, from what I could tell, but I like your kindler, gentler explanation better. Kindler & gentler if you don't mind the general populace being tagged as "uh, duh" instead of one individual.

If people simply saw P!O!P! as the mountain Mouhammed (sic) has to go to, it might be better to understand & accept these so-called trends & sell-outs & mainstreamings.

Naw, Iggy Pop is alive and well. He did an interview or 2 like 8 months ago.

As long as (social ossification) + (human failure of imagination) creates ppl who wish to reference/identify w/ imaginary ppl whose only distinguishing characteristic is a willingness to symbolize the supposed inadequacy of the 'individual' in an idealised egalitarian projected alternative consciousness, 'pop' music will never die!

Pop was never "alive" in the first place, merely "manufactured" in a cold, antiseptic lab like the soulless product it is.

Muahahahahahahaha!

[to worms:] GET...BACK...IN...THAT...CAN!