Pitchfork: The Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s: 20-01

xpost. OTM. It's a vicious, vengeful, score-settling album and Common People has to be set against Mis-Shapes, in which unthinking working-class bullies are the villains. I don't think Jarvis is presenting himself as representative of his class, which is why I think Mis-Shapes is one of the weakest tracks because it says "we" instead of "I". Jarvis doesn't really convince as a spokesperson for anyone other than himself. If there's a major criticism to be levelled at the album, it's that sense of embittered, finger-pointing superiority, a la Dylan, but I find that bracing and fascinating rather than unpleasant (and there's enough compassion and ambiguity in tracks like Sorted and Underwear to counterbalance it).

it's the joke that needed to be made xxp

man cant believe they left of sandstorm

xp to Dorian Well put. Whatever you think about Jarvis' current public persona, he was IMO an always-interesting lyricist, but not always likeable, which actually contributed to him being interesting.

The problem is, really, that "Common People" made it very clear to me that *I* was not going to be allowed to be in the team of "we" described in "Mis-shapes". So that really made the whole album kind of fall down for me in a way that I really just could not ignore.

1. "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang," 2. "Loser."

it's that sense of embittered, finger-pointing superiority

yeah i think this is def part of what k8 and i take issue with. i think this also has a lot to do with how you listen to music, how you align yourself with narrators. as you said, cocker doesn't work as a spokesperson for anyone other than himself, so you can't identify with the one pointing the finger (and if you do, that song gets even uglier) - you can't sing along as him. but then what role are you left playing? the one being pointed at? fuck off! or no role at all? well, maybe, but that's prob why the entire narrative leaves me cold.

"Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang" = "Common People"

like, "common people" works as neither a song that the listener gets to sing, nor as one that is sung to them...

And I disagree about Cocker not speaking for anyone but himself. He very clearly spoke for quite a number of people who identified with that angry, embittered, finger-pointing superiority. And it was almost *more* insulting to be told that people like me weren't going to be welcome in his army-of-the-different because I was different in an unacceptable way, even while he was gathering his flock of the different around him.

He often plays characters, though, although admittedly Common People is to some extent autobiographical. Identifying with an artist is such a subjective thing, I suppose.

"Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang" = "Common People"

― cee-oh-tee-tee, Friday, September 3, 2010 4:12 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

hmm, i'd never thought of it that way before

truthbomb

like, "common people" works as neither a song that the listener gets to sing, nor as one that is sung to them...

I'd agree with that but also say that it's not a problem for me.

I find the same with most hip hop to be honest. I don't need to identify with either the narrator or the subject of a song in order to like it.

Thing is, as is usually the case with pop records, most people engage with Common People because they find it a powerful piece of music, and don't get detained by worrying about who they should be relating to.

this is an excelent song, fits in with what its like to live in towns when u dress 'alternatively' in yr 11 there were 2 gangs the 'grebs' and the 'roodies' the 'roodies' being the ppl who were like pretty hard, but were compleatly senceless, wondered around creating trouble with mindless vandalisum and beating ppl up. the 'grebs' on the other had had quite a few intalectuals in, we didnt go round beating ppl up, cus most of us would get our heads kicked in if we tryed. but in 10 years time we are all going to be in decent jobs and they are going to be on the doll, in prison or a dustbinman (no offence to dustbinmen)

Thing is, as is usually the case with pop records, most people engage with Common People because they find it a powerful piece of music, and don't get detained by worrying about who they should be relating to.

^^^ this. It's all performance.

Agreed. I don't identify much with e.g. John Lydon, doesn't stop me liking (some of) his records.

that's mis-shapes, not common people

xposts to can't remember

I realise that you're speaking to Lex and not me, but that's not what I dislike about the song. I don't have to *relate* to the narrator or the object of the song to like it. But I do kinda have to be not implicitly denounced in it, in a way that I find rather unfair. I do object to that. But it is only one part of the tangle of what I dislike about it.

Anyway...

I've just had an unfortunate realisation re: Hyperballad and Bjork in general.

I love her songwriting, I love her vision, I love her words and her music, I love the arrangements and the production, and the way that she puts everything together. I love her persona, her image and all that. I even like the *sound* of her voice.

I do not like the *way* that she sings.

I didn't want to be one of *those* people but I guess I am. :-(

This is getting narrower and narrower and harder and harder.

I think 'Common People' is way more complicated than just 'class tourist fuck off you'll never be real/pure like us'. It has a pretty grim view of a certain section of the working class, one of which I know is true of a certain section of society, but not one in which I imagine Jarvis identifies with. As much as he loathes the woman, he seems to loathe his character just as much. Mis-Shapes can be seen as the kind of outcast/arty/weirdos call to arms, but I don't think the same holds for CP.

I could be misinterpreting his intentions, but as has been said so many times, it doesn't matter. To bring it around to Lex, I don't think the crushing (class) subtext of Taylor Swift's "Love Story" is intentional, but it's one of my favourite things about it. And I know a lot of people who take it as a sweet, romantic story, but that doesn't take away from its greatness for me.

you guys.

This is basically down to Windowlicker vs Are You That Somebody for me, now.

Which is a really really weird choice, and yet the songs have quite a lot in common, almost as if they are weird inverses of each other.

(Also that neither song is my favourite by that particular artist)

If only it'd been Soon instead of Only Shallow then I could unreservedly vote for that.

just vote for juicy it's a better song than all this business you're all getting all worked up about

the way björk sings "car parts, bottles and cutlery" may be my favorite single moment in one of her songs. overall though, I'd take about a dozen of her songs ahead of hyperballad

xpost. I dislike Mis-Shapes because it pretends there's a gang to join whereas (as This Is Hardcore made very clear) there was no gang. It was all about Jarvis. In that sense he's more like Lydon (strange, twisted, compelling, kind of unpleasant individual) than he is, say, Joe Strummer (come join me, we're in this together), though that's not how he was presented in the press at the time.

I generally dislike it when musicians claim to speak for the weirdos/outcasts anyway - it's the part of Lady Gaga's shtick which really sticks in my craw. It's more interesting to explore the gap between the artist and the audience than to pretend they're all outsiders together.

I mean, I think one of the reasons I really hate Common People is because it's just way too *simplistic* a take on class issues.

it's a fucking pop song

Thing is, as is usually the case with pop records, most people engage with Common People because they find it a powerful piece of music, and don't get detained by worrying about who they should be relating to.

great songs don't exist in vacuums though. i don't think i have to relate specifically to what someone's singing about, but there has to be a way in to the general emotional thrust of the song. there's none in "common people", or at least none i want to.

jess is still a total dickhead after all these years, huh

you want depth, go read a damn book.

that one can actually have [an expensive] education and breeding and still be as poor as a church mouse

what quirks of the british class system bring this about? because i mean the song is quite specific: "She told me that her Dad was loaded", "'cos when you're laid in bed at night Watching roaches climb the wall If you called your Dad he could stop it all" , "everybody hates a tourist". i don't know the culture in the flesh and we can never underestimate people's ability to ignore lyrics, but these points are pounded home in the arrangement. if your dad can't stop it all you're not this type of tourist.

You're right. I will *never* live like "Common people" and, in fact, I absolutely *refuse* to live "like common people" because I refuse to see it as something negative to aspire towards the extraordinary, the sublime, thegoodthebeautifulthetrue. This song, for me, really encapsulates this kind of negative anti-cultural-Thatcherism which produces some pretty questionable aesthetic results and political conclusions if taken to the logical conclusion.

this is complicated and i don't want to be presumptuous but isn't this part of what he means when he says "you'll never fail like common people" beyond the financial safety net. i mean the lyric is "You'll never watch your life slide out of view And then dance and drink and screw Because there's nothing else to do". couldn't u be armed by your education and background in a way that makes this refusal more possible, less heroic, than it would be for a "common person". i think this is so.

history mayne: it's a poorly-written song because cocker doesn't actually manage to portray this character as unsympathetic enough

what the song's doing is showing u it may take exactly this much to engender this sort of snarling resentment. that u haven't seen it i wouldn't blame on the songwriting, no offense.

Just because something is "just a fucking pop song" doesn't mean that it can't be *more* than a pop song. In fact, I think some of the more important cultural truths about the society we live in are revealed by the more ephemeral aspects. Hence, it's really important to dig inside pop songs if they stick in your throat in a particular way.

I mean, I hate Common People, but I do agree it should probably be on a list of "important songs of the 90s" because it managed to catch such a zeitgeist.

x-post to jess

it's a fucking pop song

Silly me. A music critic discussing the meaning of a pop song on a messageboard about pop songs. What was I thinking?

all i meant by that is that berating a three-four minute rock song for being "simplistic" is sort of massively missing the point of what it can do. i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything. the compression of the form almost requires reduction.

my beef was merely with using "simplistic" as a criticism.

I'm also trying to imagine how hard this poll would be if it had pitted, say Don't Know What To Tell Ya vs. Polynomial-C or Try Again vs. Cock/Ver10 and watch my head explode.

Surprised it was "Hyperballad" over "All is Full of Love" but I agree completely and xp on the "car parts" line mmmmmmm; it's her launching point from club/dance into thinking-x's pop, head in both spaces.

Is "Sandstorm" the one with Sting and an Algerian dude?

that wasn't me who said that?

the chick is greek so the song's connection to the british class system is sort of indirect; and the narrator/jarvis is not someone whose life is sliding out of view: he is at the prestigious st martin's school of art. the bit about the dog is weird. but it's an undeniable tune and i don't rly mind about all this, 15 years on.

xposts to zvookster

OMG, Jess, you might actually be being stupider than I initially thought. Are you really trying to tell me that a pop song or lyrics or poetry or something is really not capable of *not* being simplistic? That a lyric really can't capture something ambiguous and complex and multifaceted?

Because fuck me, that is *exactly* what I go to poetry and the more ... lyrical of lyrics to *do* for me.

...

oh sorry i see now that was lex! xp to mayne

i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything.

I mean, jesus h. christ, yeah, OK, this is why you write for fucking Pitchfork, and this absolutely encapsulates everything about why people around here bitch and moan and complain about said organ.

Time for me to bow out of this conversation now, because this direction of conversation actually *is* going to piss me off.

"Common People"'s lyrics seem amazingly appropriate for what's going on here.

Is "Sandstorm" the one with Sting and an Algerian dude?

― jaymc, Friday, September 3, 2010 11:41 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

thats desert rose dummy

i actually phoned st martins the other week to check that in fact there is no apostrophe there

so i amend my earlier post

well my work here is done

sandstorm is the one that goes "duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh [goes higher] duh duh duh duh duh duh duh [goes lower] duh duh duh duh duh duh duh"