Fight

The fact that Steady Mike has not yet answered this thread in a clever and involved way (or indeed any way) allows me to say:

- No! What are you on about? Pop music is about melody, silly!

without actively contradicting him. Phew.

- with apologies for those expecting to read something on-topic -

Scott - yeah "crusade" is the wrong word. I think why I take issue with Nitsuh's idea repeatedly is not that it's a bad idea or a poor reading of the current situation - in fact I'm really interested in it - but just that I'd like to be convinced of it. It just seems to me to be par for the course rather than something new for relatively stripped down rock bands to be championed by the press (a press, I might add, who have been increasingly incorrect in their predictions). You're right, it's no coincidence, because it's part of an ongoing discourse that takes in neo-glam, new wave of new wave, britpop, lo-fi, instrumental post rock, B&S-style indie, slowcore, emo (and as such is no more unexpected than Mixmag hyping Daft Punk). One interesting aspect of the whole Strokes bonanza is that in retrospect it was so obvious and inevitable: the media have been waiting for such a pop-friendly Velvets-inspired group for ages (since the late eighties?) and would have made a fuss about them at any time during the nineties, presumed higher journalistic standards notwithstanding.

In terms of future movement, well, yes, a tidal move towards those values Nitsuh mentions is inevitable, but by the time it emerges I think it's unlikely that The Strokes or Life Without Buildings or Starsailor will have anything beyond a tangential connection to it. I feel a lot more comfortable since Nitsuh re-emphasised (and maybe i just missed it before) that the leaders of such a movement would have to be offering *something* new.

Problems with Ewing's theory.

1. Trivially - he has not explained terms. 'ProTool' = ?

2. He seems to be talking about a choice between perfection and deliberate mistakes. This is a non-choice, a red herring. It is very difficult - no, impossible - for me to play anything perfectly (so that's out); and so I am hardly going to worry about making deliberate mistakes (so that's out). What happened to playing as well as you can (which != perfection)?

3. He ignores the most important aspect of pop music, namely: Songwriting. Can a song be perfect, or imperfect? Maybe we use this language sometimes - 'My Funny Valentine is the perfect love song', or whatever. But that's loose talk - I think that really we don't think of songs in that way. We try to write good songs, or better songs, or the best songs we can manage. So again his dichotomy does not arise.

Ewing's thinking seems to revolve around an idea that C21 pop = computer noises. Probably with someone singing horrible 'soul music' inflections over the top.

I think this is like saying that C21 politics = G.W. Bush. Yes, he's dominant and can do what he likes and the media will follow what he says and does. That doesn't mean we have to accept him, or like him, or that we shouldn't hope for or believe in alternatives.

Is the most promising of glitch moving towards a pop direction and vice versa (d-d-d-dirty pop!)?

I see glitch and "protools"-pop as being synthetical rather than antithetical, and not just because glitch is increasingly sculpted and tailor-made. Surely shiny pop has been incorporating allusions of mistakes for ages - most obvious example might be the deliberate computerised muck-ups of the vocals in "Believe". I reckon this tendency will grow as artists and producers have to cast further afield for inventive sounds.

Beginnings of a theory - Glitch is to IDM what acid house was to house: at once the establishment of a sub-genre around a machine "mistake" (only this time on a digital rather than analogue level) and a sound that can be positively identified and automatically associated with the genre from which it springs. As with the 303 sound, I imagine the glitch will become increasingly normalised, both musically and conceptually, potentially becoming merely another component in a lot of pop and mainstream dance.