Pop music and the Radio for non-popists

I listen to r'n'b/rap radio but rarely top 40 pop radio. So I first heard Train "Hey Soul Sister" when I put on MTV early one morning getting ready for work (only have basic cable so I do not have all the cable choices Some Dude mentioned above). I was at a Bar Mitzvah recently and at the party afterwards all the kids were singing along with that and seemingly the entire Black Eyed Peas catalogue.

Yeah but Doglatin:

- You don't watch pop TV
- You don't listen to pop radio
- You don't pay much attention to pop songs that are playing in pubs/bars/shops/on car radios

If you'd been living like this, you wouldn't have heard any commercial pop in 1998 or 1988 or indeed at any time before. You have to at least be keeping an ear out, paying SOME attention, if you're really that interested. You probably just don't give enough of a shit.

mdc otm. i hope this doesn't get brought up again when the next poll comes along.

(There's nothing wrong with not caring, my mum probably doesn't know any of the songs in this poll, but I'm not sure she's handwringing about it)

The second a new track hits that rotation, you might have feelings about it way more acute than you would if you just looked the single up on YouTube between playing your own stuff.

Pretty much all pop I hear these days (outside of things like advertising) is stuff I make a point of hearing, which I agree can feel a little weird -- it really is a different experience to seek out pop rather than just absorb it as a part of the environment.

I've been thinking about this a lot. A lot of it comes down to push vs pull - TV/radio vs internet as a model for how you hear things. I vastly prefer the former. Somehow, as nabs says above, it has an impact "way more acute" than if I were copying and pasting song titles into YouTube. But is that just me and my age?

There's quite a lot of push on the internet as well though - things like Last.fm, the Related Videos section on Youtube etc etc. Even Myspace to an extent.

reckon i hear most of what new pop music i hear in shops

I always feel out of it when the end-of-year singles polls come out. I don't have cable, don't feel like watching Youtubes is really listening to music, and when I listen to the radio in the car it's always the Country station. I do try to keep up, but sometimes the effort is annoying--I've heard "Bad Romance" and "Papparazzi" lots of times, but that's because I dled them and put them on my ipod, not because they were hanging in the air around me. "Pokerface" for example is not on my ipod, and therefore I haven't heard it. I've only heard the supposedly unavoidable "Umbrella" one time in a context outside my own iTunes.

I think that growing up as an MTV kid gave me expectation that if a song was a hit I was just going to hear it without having to actively seek it out. Nowadays the closest thing to an "unavoidable" hit for me is one that gets used in movie trailers, like "Paper Planes" or whatever.

Somehow, as nabs says above, it has an impact "way more acute" than if I were copying and pasting song titles into YouTube. But is that just me and my age?

i don't see why this is - it seems like a bit of a romanticisation of pop as an idealised communal event rather than, y'know, just music. you don't usually receive your techno or indie or whatever via this weird magical-cultural-osmosis that dog latin seems to expect, so why is it so "weird" when you have to make the tiniest bit of effort to find out what lady gaga sounds like?

It's easier to put MTV on in the background than to active type in names into youtube, then do it again three minutes later when the song runs out.

actively

i actually rarely hear big hits "naturally", cuz i) i hate radio, ii) never watch tv, iii) wear headphones everywhere. (all of that behaviour predates the internet.) so, not hearing these songs in the wild isn't that weird. but being unaware of them would be weird, because that's just a matter of PAYING ATTENTION TO PEOPLE. and once you're aware that there's a famous pop star called lady gaga, it's down to whether you're curious enough to hear what she sounds like - if you are, it's so easy to find out that there's no excuse. and if you're not, fine, but don't pretend you give a shit with threads such as this one.

But Lex - most music, ESPECIALLY pop music, is fundamentally meant to be consumed in social situations, and if your social group skews away from that music it becomes harder. But it's still easier with pop than anything else.

It's the same with techno, most of the big tunes I really loved over the last 10 years were first heard on the dancefloor. Now I don't go clubbing as much, finding out about stuff seems like more of a chore, a trawl, and as a result I don't hear as much.

It probably doesn't help that the mediocre-to-amazing ratio in techno is quite a lot poorer.

I think you're being really mean to doglatin here, lex. He's trying to find an easier way to incorporate pop music into his life.

ok three-step plan to hearing all the big pop hits

1) pay attention to what songs people are talking about and what's in the charts
2) youtube or download
3) listen

simple.

But Lex - most music, ESPECIALLY pop music, is fundamentally meant to be consumed in social situations

idk, i think this is a bit of a romanticisation of it. unless you're at a club or someone's putting tunes on at a house gathering, what other social situations does one consume music in? when it comes to listening on a quotidian basis i'm pretty sure most people (the people who make a point of listening to music every day, anyway) consume it alone.

No I think that's wrong - I'd say the vast majority of people in this country consume pop music through the radio in offices and vehicles, then through hearing things on TV, then through hearing things in pubs and bars. Far more people than bother to look things up on the internet.

(Okay TV isn't really a social thing but the other points stand).

radio in cars isn't a social thing either! and i've never worked in an office with a communal radio (thank god).

obv i mean "music fans", ilm types, not casual music listeners.

(thank god).

Really, you should.

The answer's in the question for me - ILM. Like dog latin I barely hear any pop other than as background music because, well, my life isn't really structured that way, and as far as radio goes, it's not so much the music as the bloody people on it that make it unlistenable. But as long as you don't mind being behind the curve a bit then ILM is amazing for people with discriminatory wit discussing the best stuff, which gives me the best pop radio I could imagine, with a bit of youtubing/judicious purchasing. OK, I don't always, no, don't often know what people are voting for, but then that's why the votes are great (and also why I generally prefer them pop heavy than, say, indie heavy - I know where I am generally with that sort of thing, and The Fall have been my perpetual companion since I was a youth, so, you know, much as I enjoyed seeing Blindness in the poll, it was most enjoyable for the things that I haven't heard, wouldn't have heard otherwise).

An old-fashioned admission: few things match hearing a single I've championed on the radio.

contextual listening should be mandatory for anyone calling themselves a pro critic imo - without the dialogue any given aesthetic just becomes crippled didactic bias eventually. some dude also mega otm about internet myopia

contextual listening should be mandatory for anyone calling themselves a pro critic imo - without the dialogue any given aesthetic just becomes crippled didactic bias eventually.

not really sure what this means, if anything

what is contextual reading?

what is 'the dialogue'?

man am i supposed to write a essay on it? the dialogue is in experiencing how things do or don't work in situ rather than solely in your own personal headspace bubble

and that situ is determined by ______________?

idk, the civilians listen to stuff in varying contexts, and im not sure who the critic is meant to be beholden to here. their only duty is to write good criticism, full stop.

radio in cars isn't a social thing either!

??? It is if there's more than one person in the car.

There's two ways I hear pop music: 1) listening to the radio when I drive, and 2) actively looking up YouTubes or listening to iTunes clips as a result of following the Billboard chart or the ILM rolling pop thread. I don't have cable, so there's no such thing as "music TV" for me, and most of the bars/clubs I go to don't play contemporary pop music.

From roughly 1997 to 2002, I heard very little pop at all because I didn't value it at the time and therefore never sought it out. Even in the car, I listened to NPR or college radio. Maybe the alt-rock station once in a while. Occasionally, something would break through: in the summer of 2000, it seemed like everybody was talking about Eminem and I found myself fascinated by him as a cultural phenomenon, so I paid attention a little more closely and heard "The Real Slim Shady" and "Stan." (It helped that the alt-rock station played him.) But I also missed a lot of stuff at the time that was huge: Notorious B.I.G., Aaliyah, Destiny's Child, DMX, Nelly, etc. If I happened to hear these songs while out (and I'm not sure where I would have, at least not on a regular basis), I likely would've just tuned it out.

I think one of the benefits of hearing things "in context" (and this is maybe just repeating r|t|c's point) is that it makes you think more about how stuff you love, stuff you like, stuff you're indifferent too and stuff you hate all fit together.

If you're the total master of your own destiny in terms of what you hear then it's very easy to get caught in a critical feedback loop where the stuff you seek out is good because you seek it out because it is good because you seek it out because etc.

I think ceding control to the radio offers a useful lesson to the effect that pop (in the broadest sense) is filled with a variety of strategies that sometimes pay off and sometimes fail miserably, and that sometimes the difference between the first outcome and the second is pretty subtle.

I think that is all generally true, Tim, although I have trouble sometimes figuring out how the stuff I hear on the radio fits in with the rest of the music I listen to. Like usually, I can tell how much I like something based on how often I am compelled to listen to it. But there could be a pop song I've heard dozens of times involuntarily, and I'm not sure if I really like it or if I've just heard it so often that it's stuck with me.

I think that goes some way towards agreeing with my point!

Ah yes, I suppose!

i seek out stuff i don't think i'll enjoy (and the fact that i've heard of, and indeed heard, songs by sleigh bells, dirty projectors, animal collective et al proves my point about paying attention). helps that there's a huge variety of tastes in my circle of friends and acquaintances.

agree that context is helpful, disagree that the radio is essential for that context...even ignoring non-social contexts, it's just one social context among many. and a particularly annoying one at that.

it makes you think more about how stuff you love, stuff you like, stuff you're indifferent too and stuff you hate all fit together

the only thing radio has ever made me think is how much i hate radio presenters. and really, you need the radio to teach you that pop's failed strategies and successful ones are similar? idk i've never listened to the radio regularly ever and i definitely don't plan on starting any time soon, there are too many other ways of listening which don't do my head in.

and if radio is so essential, is criticism of, idk, a joanna newsom* album that doesn't get played on radio stations anywhere invalid? if you're able to approach that as pure music why can't you do the same for a beyoncé song? and isn't that what you have to do for eg beyoncé album tracks?

*i guess she might get played on radio now, insert, you know, ~difficult~ artist who doesn't there, too tired to think of one

Context and serendipity is great (completely agree with Tim F's point fwiw and not just for music) but it's nice to have an gazetteer for certain areas. Taking short cuts to get maximum enjoyment for minimum effort is worth it if you don't want to immerse yourself in something at the expense of other areas you also value.

Taking short cuts all the time is boring and you get minimum reward from the things you are interested in.

xposts

Ugh, radio presenters drive me up the wall, main reason I don't listen.

the only thing radio has ever made me think is how much i hate radio presenters.

Speaking as a former one...

More seriously -- I admit that in my head (and I think this is a not dissimilar path for a number of people) radio as a preeminent, almost solitary source of finding out new things is situated in a time and place for me, namely my youth. Part of this can be ascribed to the expected issues addressed elsewhere on recent threads -- that listening habits when young shape one's view of music as a whole, questions of free time, etc. Then there's also what Lex describes -- most DJs, combined with ads, make me NOT want to listen. But there's also the question of pop radio as way to hear new sounds and styles -- Tim is rightfully concerned about a feedback loop, but the flipside is that if you are both aware of potential sources around *and* open enough to stumbling across surprises, the context of pop-radio-in-itself as a necessary focus is eroded, if not wholly ditched.

On a broader scale -- for the longest time I've invoked the role model of a 15 year old kid hearing something random for the first time and wondering what the heck it is as a way to capture that sense of the pop radio thrill; I still find it valid. But the 39 year old me is not interested in and cannot write from the point of view of pretending to be 15, not without sounding ridiculously patronizing. Perhaps this is a failing, but if I'm going to be honest with my writings and thoughts for others I kinda have to be honest with myself first.

The whole "THAT SONG WAS EVERYWHERE" requires a little bit of paying attention on the listener's part. You're probably hearing these songs, but not properly internalizing no matter how many times you drop the old "I don't even OWN a radio canard"

A good example is like when me and my gf would go out and every time a car would go by playing "Empire State Of Mind" I would groan. She would always be like, "Why are you doing that? I don't even know that song." Even though I heard it in her presence like 10 times. You just have to sort of ask yourself "What is this" every time you hear a song.

There's just a little bit of LOL READ YOUR BLOGS and just listening to your surroundings. I don't listen to the radio or watch TV but I know every Ke$ha single just because I hear them out in public, listen to the lyrics, internalize what they are and match them up to the 10,000 times people mention "Your Love Is My Drug" on the internet

britishes referring to radio DJs/hosts/personalities as 'presenters' will really never not be funny to me

idgi

do radio djs even use 'discs'? hmm?

and i've never worked in an office with a communal radio (thank god).

We used to have either Radio 1 or 2 (occasionally some local sation) on at work util a year or two back and it really does make a difference - on one hand it means I'm less aware of what the meat and potatoes of mainstream pop is right now (which I sort of miss), on the other I don't have to spend my working day sitting through stodgy playlists of largely terrible music (and, yes, terrible DJs).

Other than that, though, I still hear a lot of things through the usual channels - I make a habit of sticking one of the TV chart rundowns every so often, just out of curiosity. Or, yeah, I just look things up on YouTube that I've heard about here. It just means I cover less ground because I'm not spending as much time listening (or hearing in the background).

Life's too short to sit through that stuff, especially since most commercial stations in the UK rotate the same 12 songs every hour.

Can't you listen to the radio for 15 mins then?

"Speaking as a former one..."

would have loved to hear your rocktober lunch box two for tuesday rock blocks and your artfully placed bill murray caddyshack samples.

Believe me, I could have gone down that road if I tried. (Much more likely was classical DJing.)

idgi

do radio djs even use 'discs'? hmm?

― frap your hands say yeah yeah yeah (history mayne), Wednesday, July 7, 2010 10:19 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

some do...some do

point is 'presenters' brings to mind someone at an awards show dressed to the nines and opening an envelope for me, and it's funny to picture someone sitting in a radio station behind a microphone doing that

"This is Ned Rockin' Raggett, playin' the best of classic rock album sides. Next up, we got an awesome one from a little band called the Eagles..."

point is 'presenters' brings to mind someone at an awards show dressed to the nines and opening an envelope for me, and it's funny to picture someone sitting in a radio station behind a microphone doing that

― Davey Mo Coulier (some dude), Wednesday, 7 July 2010 15:36

heeeere's [award show], with your HOST...

not listening to the radio anymore has actually made me appreciate pop music a lot more when I occasionally hear it.

I'm also one of those people who had to actively seek out Lady Gaga's music as I had only heard/read a some random comments about her and finally a couple of months ago decided I should at least know what she sounds like and so decided to download one of her albums.

i really am gonna sit down when i have time and go through that tracks thread and watch the youtubes. i'm looking forward to it. so much stuff i haven't heard. like, most of it probably.

last year we all went bowling with ilxor herb albert and his family and they were blasting all the big pop hits and, man, i didn't know any of them. and they all sounded great to me. good sound system at the bowling alley. basically i just like hearing beyonce or anything beyonce-esque really loud in a public place. that day stands out cuz i really don't hear that stuff all that often otherwise. i don't watch mtv anymore. we get the bare minimum of cable now. and sadly i mostly listen to the western mass radio station The River which is mostly boring alterna-yuppie npr stuff. i listen to that cuz it comes in really good. pop/r&b/chart/rap/etc is really addictive to me though. i mean i never REALLY feel out of the loop or whatever. you can get back into it with a minimum of strain or effort. it's easy.

point is 'presenters' brings to mind someone at an awards show dressed to the nines and opening an envelope for me, and it's funny to picture someone sitting in a radio station behind a microphone doing that

― Davey Mo Coulier (some dude), Wednesday, 7 July 2010 15:36

heeeere's [award show], with your HOST...

― r|t|c, Wednesday, July 7, 2010 11:04 AM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

in America awards shows have one host (or maybe two or three sometimes) for the whole thing and then there are a few dozen celebs billed as presenters who announce the individual awards

xpost aw man, don't listen to The River, that shit's like musical poison. turn on The WIZZ, Laser 99.3, fuckin BEAR Country. anything but...

I'm down outside of Houston now and found the like the perfect hip-hop/pop station that we don't have out in the sticks. heard Gucci Mane 'Wasted' -> Ke$ha 'Your Love Is My Drug' -> B.o.B. 'Airplanes' -> Lady Gaga 'Alejandro' -> Young Money 'Bedrock' on my drive back from the store

I think you can hear lots of pop in shops or doctors surgeries or adverts on TV without knowing who the songs are by and you think you have never heard anything by *insert pop star mentioned in newspapers or ILM threads*. Until one day a youtube is posted in a poll thread then you go "Oh I have heard that! Just didn't know who it was by".

Because that is what happens to me. Same goes for the big "indie" or "mainstream rock" bands.

"xpost aw man, don't listen to The River, that shit's like musical poison."

but it's my official source for all things michael franti!

Different is Good.

There's quite a lot of push on the internet as well though - things like Last.fm, the Related Videos section on Youtube etc etc. Even Myspace to an extent.

OK well I don't do last.fm so I don't know about that. But related videos on Youtube, myspace etc - you have to click a link, type a URL - usually while you're sitting at a desk. It doesn't just wash over you. And yes Lex, with the radio (and pubs, and the gym, etc) there IS an effortless osmosis - the songs just come, one after the other. Sometimes the DJs even say what they are. And knowing that lots of other people are listening RIGHT NOW to the same thing you are gives it an added thrill, makes me feel connected up. It's (sort of) like the difference between watching the Roland Garros final as it happens or watching it on DVR or Youtube or whatever. It's the exact same match but one of them has an electricity to it that the other doesn't.

Cosign.

And knowing that lots of other people are listening RIGHT NOW to the same thing you are gives it an added thrill, makes me feel connected up.

I remember Tom Ewing mentioning something like this once. It's weird in that as I consciously recognize it being accurate (consider ILX/Twitter commentary on lots of things happening in the moment, not just musical), I don't recall getting this feeling from radio play. It always felt quite private, really.

totally agree w/ned - have never got any sort of electricity or communal thrill off the radio. i actually do get it when i read people's comments on last.fm or even youtube, though - seeing how much a song i love also means to other people.

you have to click a link, type a URL

OH THE EFFORT *wipes sweat from brow*

ok, everyone talking about the magic of this effortless radio osmosis which saves you from ever having to think or pursue a song - i don't believe that you've only ever consumed music via the radio. i know you have music you love that didn't come to you via osmosis. is listening to that music somehow lesser for you, then?

I think you can hear lots of pop in shops or doctors surgeries

Is this another British term? Because generally I am asleep during surgery.

Actually, I have a question: Does the UK have anything like adult-contemporary radio? Because I can sort of imagine someone being familiar with pop songs by Colbie Caillat or Jason Mraz or Taylor Swift from the Lite FM that gets played in offices, grocery stores, laundromats, etc., and not knowing anything by Drake or Ke$ha.

Colbie Caillat

Who?

Ignorance is bliss.

That stuff just doesn't seem to cross the Atlantic

I think you can hear lots of pop in shops or doctors surgeries

Is this another British term? Because generally I am asleep during surgery.

the waiting room while waiting to see the doctor as they're behind schedule usually. Not during surgery (my guess is they play classical in there)

Ah yes: see, that's another place where in the U.S. you'd hear pop music but it would usually be of the adult-contemporary variety.

Or maybe a "mix" station like this.

Actually, I have a question: Does the UK have anything like adult-contemporary radio? Because I can sort of imagine someone being familiar with pop songs by Colbie Caillat or Jason Mraz or Taylor Swift from the Lite FM that gets played in offices, grocery stores, laundromats, etc., and not knowing anything by Drake or Ke$ha.

BBC Radio 2 is sort of like that - they play a lot of polite singer-songwriter stuff and a tiny bit of modern r'n'b (more of the retro-styled Amy Winehouse variety as opposed to, say, Ciara). Surprisingly 'California Gurls' is on their playlist at the moment but I'd put money on it being some version with Snoop edited out.

Smooth Radio
or any local oldies station like Clyde 2 and its equivalents over the country that have the exact same playlists