Mondeo Pop

What about Oasis then?

I do think that there is a certain smallness (or perhaps "containment" is the better word) to this stuff on a conscious stylistic level, such that when I say The Blue Nile go beyond it I'm not trying to be judgmental, just descriptive... A song like Wet Wet Wet's "Sweet Surrender" strikes me as deliberately pledging fidelity to a certain, quite conservative notion of songfulness. It reminds me of all those glowing descriptions of Crowded House's "tunesmithery" in Q Magazine back in the day. What is the implication of the phrase "tunesmith"? Craft over art? Tunes as honestly and humbly purposive and functional?

Also: let's talk about Fairground Attraction. Especially "It's Got To Be Perfect", which I adored back in the day.

The Blue Nile are the Mike & The Mechanics it's okay to like.

oasis -- and the verve -- were just too rough-hewn for this, sonically and lyrically. but maybe 'round our way' was approaching heaton. maybe. and what i was saying was, songs like 'sonnet' were taking the verve further towards MP. and naturally 'urban hymns' rang out of actual mondeos.

xpost

I mentioned Oasis cos 97 era Verve seems far more in a lineage with Oasis than say Prefab Sprout. 1997, Blair, Diana. Hedonism and sentiment finally overules Mondeo Pop streak of "Stay humble, stay low"?

yeah, fuck it. i'll buy.

But... The Man Who.

"The Man Who" is the album that killed Mondeo Pop.

I always thought that Fairground Attraction were more 2CV fodder - all that wilful rusticity crammed with a creak into a shiny new wicker picnic hamper full of shit spritzer and shoved on the backseat in a jam outside Maidenhead. I guess the Bluebells had a lot of this about them too. Also Carmel? Matt Bianco?

The folkish authenticity thing accommodates Eddie Reader's 'The Patience Of Angels' in addition 'The Second Summer Of Love', 'Young At Heart', 'Nothing Ever Happens'. I can sense tangible connections from this to Tunstall but the connections to the more urban/youthier sophistopop are harder to trace, and a far cry from something like Dave Stewart's 'Heart Of Stone'.

Matt Bianco were surely too *shiny* to be Mondeo Pop? Same reason, in a roundabout way, that Spandu Ballet and ABC aren't Mondeo Pop.

*Spandau

How did The Man Who kill Mondeo Pop... oh and then there's David Gray... I think it may have been at the scene but I don't think it was actually responsible.

xp

NickB probably right re 2CV. same things that keeps Hothouse Flowers not in this thing.

nickb's post is a thing to treasure.

Thing is you could NEVER have imagined Thatcher enjoying Mondeo Pop but there's Blair top 10 records of 1996 in that John Harris book and i is lamost 100% Mondeo Pop.

Travis were the point where Mondeo Pop made too great gains into both "pop" and "indie", they were on TOTP more, they were on Radio 1 more, they actively courted the NME and Melody Maker. It's wher ethe boundaries got broken up, which is why even if, say, Keane or Scouting for Girls wanted to make a Mondeo Pop album in this day and age they couldn't.

Keane and Scouting For Girls, The Feeling, Coldplay et al are all from a very different world. I don't see any of them writing anything so rooted if you see what I mean.

Lack of folk influence, surely? There's no humbleness.

Even when Mondeo Pop was smug (Heaton Heaton Heaton), it still meant it, maaaan. You can't say that about The Feeling.

For Lily Allen there is no such thing as society.

'the man who' isn't it. 'the man who' is profoundly post-1997. it and david gray and coldplay served perhaps a comparable audience to true school mondeo pop. but it's a galaxy away.

All I know is that after the release of "Driftwood", The Beautiful South never had another top 20 single.

why? it has the folkiness, the humility, the comunal thing, healy was always on the "we just making pop here tip. what's that song where he lays diss on wonderwall and devil's haircut? y know franny's 4real. still dunno quite where later period manics fit.

xp

and they are scottish...

it just feels wrong to me, chief.

mondeo pop is clever, but not too clever; a little sardonic sometimes but not mean. i probably read too much coldplay into travis, but they were too 'universal', not clever, never sardonic. no grit to them.

Maybe then tomorrow will be Monday
And whatever's in my eye should go away
But still the radio is playing all the usual
And what's a Wonderwall anway

AND

Travis - Slide Show Lyrics

Today is the day
For dancing and for singing
The birds in the trees and all
The bells are ringing
The sun is in the sky
Is bright as bright second light
Is bright oh god I hope I'm alright

Cause I'm gonna cry
Hold on, hold on
Slow down, slow down
You're out of touch
Out of touch
'Cause there is no design for life
There's no devil's haircut in my mind
There is not a wonderwall to climb
To climb or step around
But there is a slide show and it's so slow
Flashing through my mind

Today was the day
But only for the first time
Hold on, hold on
Slow down, slow down
You're out of touch
Out of touch

'Cause there is no design for life
There is no devil's haircut in your mind
There is not a wonderwall
To climb or step around
But there is a slidesshow and it's so slow
Flashing through my mind

Today was the day
But only for the first time
I hope it's not the last time

There is no devil's haircut in your mind

zing

Oh just saw the:
Today was the day

But only for the first time
Hold on, hold on
Slow down, slow down
You're out of touch
Out of touch

And realized I completely forgot the looming inspiration of Radiohead and Jeff Buckley.

wouldn't catch them in a mondeo, figuratively speaking.

When Travis debuted, didn't they get a lot of Radiohead comparisons?

turin brakes 'pain killer' is calling - will MP accept the charges?

Well, no Travis started as a post Britpop rock act, like Silversun or The Supernaturals.

xp

Someone's gonna mention Starsailor in a minute and then we're gonna be all "oh shi"

xp

i have no idea how travis got compared to radiohead, but that's what happened. based on 'high and dry' and um, er...

when Starsailor released 'Alcoholic' i fucking called it re Darkside Danny Wilson

Quitney: Godrich production, Healy aproximating that vocal styling, Radiohead being a bit closer to Mondeo Pop than anyone would care to admit.

We need Singstar: Mondeo Pop ASAP

Songsmithery in the modern world?

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51bpghLLQ8L._SS500_.jpg

Poor quitney Dr Morbius on one side Mondeo Mafia on the other. Stay strong buddy.

there are always going to be continuities, but that album represents a decisive shift from true-school mondeo.

the fray -- who?
coldplay -- no
razorlight -- rockist
the feeling -- no fucking way
the view -- uh?
the killers -- lol the killers
james morrison -- no, too 'heart on sleeve'
the kooks - lol the kooks
keane -- no, too sincere

i mean none of that lot have anything to do with the beautiful south.

and most of them are for traditional instrumentation and straightforward production, which T4F and prefab sprout were not.

i can almost hear 'Fill My Little World' as a Wet Wet Wet song tho - almost. maybe it's just the "riight up, riight up" bit.

Keane definitely like to stray into the blurry territory - Everything's Changing and Is It Any Wonder' esp. - the former could easily pass for late Tears For Fears altho I guess the latter is too U2/stadium. Beautiful South are an anomaly really, incomparable to anything else as pop 'force'.

re: the feeling. it's an attitude thing. it's about where they're from. it's about class.

i need to go back and listen to more, read up, research, perhaps.

Beautiful South are an anomaly really, incomparable to anything else as pop 'force'.

-- blueski, Thursday, September 13, 2007 8:46 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah, this is true also. they're not really very much like the others...

it's also an image thing re The Feeling. they really look American to me somehow.

kind of disagree about Razorlight as well if you actually listen to 'America' and 'Before I Fall To Pieces' from sonic pov.

remind me: 'Dakota' is too rawky right?

i think new order's 'republic' is mondeo, to follow up on the electronic reference.

Beautiful South are an anomaly really, incomparable to anything else as pop 'force'.

-- blueski, Thursday, September 13, 2007 8:46 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah, this is true also. they're not really very much like the others...

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 13 September 2007 20:49 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

There's no one like The Beautiful South? For a band so despised in certain quarters that seems kind of notable. Surely yr Prefabs are kinda similar, pleasant music with cutting lyrics? But sonically you may be onto something.

TBS = not aspirational? some sort of book-smart sophistication but very self-aware, earnest and NEVER pretentious

Is that perhaps a Northern thing? Anti-pretention, pro-folkishness, irrespective of intellectual output?

I am actually confused what Quitney and Stevey are getting at. Are TBS sonically different or different in tone? Listening to You Keep It All in, it's more retro, less folky perhaps? I'd like to hear some Grime MC's rap over that "Murder in '73" bit.