Moment when it became like cool to like commercial pop music?

lol missingNO credulously quoted theneedledrop, i'm done

Yeah, see, this shows you don't know what you're talking about, which is what makes this thread so stupid. Read 90s issues of the NME or Melody Maker, and you'll find plenty of appreciation of commercial pop from people who mostly wrote about "cool" indie music. And that's been continuous back at least since the post-modern re-appraisal of pop in the 80s; meanwhile, before the late 60s, there wasn't a widely understood category of "cool" which was all that distinct from commercial pop. So what you maybe should be asking is, how and why did the ideas of cool and commercial briefly diverge in the 70s?

Yeah man!!

I do think this is an interesting question, even though it invites derisive responses. I alluded to something similar in a year-end ballot a couple of years ago; a friend who’s usually on the same page as me when it comes to this stuff disagreed--saying that nothing much had changed in the last few years--so that gave me pause.

To prove that nothing has changed, people will usually point out that there have always been rock critics who wrote enthusiastically about chart pop (true: the aforementioned Ken Barnes’s name will turn up, a few others), and that there have always been certain pop singles that did really well in Pazz & Jop (also true--“Jump,” “MMMBop,” etc.) I’m not sure such songs are the best place to look for counter-evidence.

Things feel different to me. And I don’t think it’s just age (it’s partly age), but I don’t know.

― clemenza,

Literally a few posts later someone here cited "NME and Melody Maker" as evidence that pop has always been cool to cool people in exactly the same way it is now.

sd otm that kind of credulity is a lil embarrassing

Xp yeah how ridiculous that ppl keep citing actual instances dates & songs which clearly don't count, why aren't they taking into account your & clemenza's vaguely-defined feeling that "things" are "different" now

'Cool' isn't the same as it was back in the 60s, 70s and 80s. It got popularised and democratised.

Let's say cool people started liking pop in June 2013 how's that

Now I'm off to listen to Justin bieber, so beloved of cool music buffs across the internet

this thread is a corpse without lefsetz

real answer =

http://rodrigomattardotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/new_zealand_a_hard_days_night_lp.jpg

http://www.beatlesbible.com/1963/12/27/the-times-what-songs-the-beatles-sang-by-william-mann/

The outstanding English composers of 1963 must seem to have been John Lennon and Paul McCartney, the talented young musicians from Liverpool whose songs have been sweeping the country since last Christmas, whether performed by their own group, the Beatles, or by the numerous other teams of English troubadours that they also supply with songs.
I am not concerned here with the social phenomenon of Beatlemania, which finds expression in handbags, balloons and other articles bearing the likenesses of the loved ones, or in the hysterical screaming of young girls whenever the Beatle Quartet performs in public, but with the musical phenomenon. For several decades, in fact since the decline of the music-hall, England has taken her popular songs from the United States, either directly or by mimicry. But the songs of Lennon and McCartney are distinctly indigenous in character, the most imaginative and inventive examples of a style that has been developing on Merseyside during the past few years. And there is a nice, rather flattering irony in the news that the Beatles have now become prime favourites in America, too.
The strength of character in pop songs seems, and quite understandably, to be determined usually by the number of composers involved; when three or four people are required to make the original tunesmith's work publicly presentable it is unlikely to retain much individuality or to wear very well. The virtue of the Beatles' repertory is that, apparently, they do it themselves; three of the four are composers, they are versatile instrumentalists, and when they do borrow a song from another repertory, their treatment is idiosyncratic - as when Paul McCartney sings Till There Was You from The Music Man, a cool, easy, tasteful version of this ballad, quite without artificial sentimentality.
Their noisy items are the ones that arouse teenagers' excitement. Glutinous crooning is generally out of fashion these days, and even a songs about 'Misery' sounds fundamentally quite cheerful; the slow, sad song about 'This Boy', which features prominently in Beatle programmes, is expressively unusual for its lugubrious music, but harmonically it is one of their most intriguing, with its chains of pandiationic clusters, and the sentiment is acceptable because voiced cleanly and crisply. But harmonic interest is typical of their quicker songs, too, and one gets the impression that they think simultaneously of harmony and melody, so firmly are the major tonic sevenths and ninths built into their tunes, and the flat submediant key switches, so natural is the Aeolian cadence at the end of Not A Second Time (the chord progression which ends Mahler's Song of the Earth).
Those submediant switches from C major into A flat major, and to a lesser extent mediant ones (eg the octave ascent in the famous I Want To Hold Your Hand) are a trademark of Lennon-McCartney songs - they do not figure much in other pop repertories, or in the Beatles' arrangements of borrowed material - and show signs of becoming a mannerism. The other trademark of their compositions is a firm and purposeful bass line with a musical life of its own; how Lennon and McCartney divide their creative responsibilites I have yet to discover, but it is perhaps significant that Paul is the bass guitarist of the group. It may also be significant that George Harrison's song Don't Bother Me is harmonically a good deal more primitive, though it is nicely enough presented.
I suppose it is the sheer loudness of the music that appeals to Beatle admirers (there is something to be heard even through the squeals) and many parents must have cursed the electric guitar's amplification this Christmas - how fresh and euphonious the ordinary guitars sound in the Beatles' version of Till There Was You - but parents who are still managing to survive the decibels and, after copious repetition over several months, still deriving some musical pleasure from the overhearing, do so because there is a good deal of variety - oh, so welcome in pop music - about what they sing.
The autocratic but not by any means ungrammatical attitude to tonality (closer to, say, Peter Maxwell Davies's carols in O Magnum Mysteriumthan to Gershwin or Loewe or even Lionel Bart); the exhilarating and often quasi-instrumental vocal duetting, sometimes in scat or in falsetto, behind the melodic line; the melismas with altered vowels ('I saw her yesterday-ee-ay') which have not quite become mannered, and the discreet, sometimes subtle, varieties of instrumentation - a suspicion of piano or organ, a few bars of mouth-organ obbligato, an excursion on the claves or maraccas; the translation of African Blues or American western idioms (in Baby It's You, the Magyar 8/8 metre, too) into tough, sensitive Merseyside.
These are some of the qualities that make one wonder with interest what the Beatles, and particularly Lennon and McCartney, will do next, and if America will spoil them or hold on to them, and if their next record will wear as well as the others. They have brought a distinctive and exhilarating flavour into a genre of music that was in danger of ceasing to be music at all.

Moment when it became cool to seriously post in the "Moment when it became like cool to like commercial pop music?" thread?

wall o' jangle

Moment when it became cool to seriously post in the "Moment when it became like cool to like commercial pop music?" thread?

― a total laugh package (s.clover), Monday, November 17, 2014 10:33 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

s.clover you are MISSING THE POINT. this post has ATOMIC SCALE ROUGHNESS ONLY because ALL POINTS ARE MISSED.

i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in
i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in

i wish that i could be like the cool kids
cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in

https://espngrantland.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/nuggest-botched-pr.gif?w=694

With technology has come increased corporate gobalization and control. U.S. corporations now spend about 200 billion dollars a year in advertising. I mentioned tumblr earlier because the role of imagery in advertising has become more potent than anytime before in history with our masssively increased screen time, even post TV. We should be asking questions about the role of corporate in our music today more than ever. They have incredible ability to maniulplate tastes. Taylor Swifts father's removal of her from Spotify, a democratic system in interesting, even though they were set to make $1,000,000 this year off it. It's not the money, it's that they can't control it's content.

i bet Taylor was so mad about her dad doing that, she'd be like "awww Daaaaaaaaad, you've ruined my life" and then she'd stomp off to her room but maybe later she'd cool down and he'd take her out for ice cream and she'd understand he was just looking after her interests

we should def be asking questions about the role of corporations to manipulate democratic systems like spotify

*in manipulating

yeah man, who knows how far that goes

Raccoon, honest question here: how old are you?

http://i.imgur.com/4BLmb7n.jpg

No results found for "an actual sock filled with actual shit actually jumping over an actual shark".

The problem with that query is that socks don't actually jump.

http://broadviewthomsonpta.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/sockhop.jpg

xp
yes, that "rap against rockism" article.
2004.
i personally noticed a change around this time. prior to that year, there weren't nearly as many emo/indie/alt kids who were into built to spill and jimmy eat world claiming "ashlee simpson autobiography: album of the year." but in 2004 weezer fans were def saying this and believing it. and it seems as though many of the more open-minded music fans have gotten a kick out of challenging rockists with similar claims ever since. 10 years later, it's become far more commonplace and ordinary for swans and ariana grande to comprise someone's top 2 of 2014.

i mean, the correct answer is who gives a fuck, and just worry about whenever it happened for you specifically, which is what i thought the question was asking prior to reading the OP. and if that moment never took place for you, and you've been listening without bias all along, then good for you. you're the big winner.

xp
agreeing that "Toxic" signified some of this change.

"Taylor Swift's dad removes her songs from Spotify" is totally going to be a line in the updated "We Didn't Start the Fire."

Again no. I feel a lot of people are just missing the whole point.
― Raccoon Tanuki, Friday, November 14, 2014 4:10 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark

ok then ignore nothing to see here

The actual serious answer to this thread is as usual not really about the music or what people like but more about the changing face of music journalism and its publication/distribution, and how that intersects with online fandom and tribalism/interconnectedness.

Like, the first question people should be trying to answer is: "given that, statistically, commercially successful pop music is more likely to be liked by any given person than commercially unsuccessful music, why is it that I am only just now noticing that some people in my own social milieu like some of it?"

the role of imagery in advertising has become more potent than anytime before in history

cause when you're
raccoon
tanuki raccoon tanuki
ya gotta believe em

yes, that "rap against rockism" article.
2004.
i personally noticed a change around this time. prior to that year, there weren't nearly as many emo/indie/alt kids who were into built to spill and jimmy eat world claiming "ashlee simpson autobiography: album of the year." but in 2004 weezer fans were def saying this and believing it. and it seems as though many of the more open-minded music fans have gotten a kick out of challenging rockists with similar claims ever since. 10 years later, it's become far more commonplace and ordinary for swans and ariana grande to comprise someone's top 2 of 2014.

i mean, the correct answer is who gives a fuck, and just worry about whenever it happened for you specifically, which is what i thought the question was asking prior to reading the OP. and if that moment never took place for you, and you've been listening without bias all along, then good for you. you're the big winner.

They weren't into Ashlee Simpson because it hadn't been figured out properly yet how to market this new idea of cool image pop star. They tried with her, but failed. Progression of the internet changed the game. It was no possible to market music made for commercial reasons in a pitch perfect cool image. For example, Lorde, her major label Universal had been carefully preparing her image for years before she even released. Yet when she came out it was made out, deliberately, that she had "come out of no where", it was all corporate marketing, all carefully planned. What the web changed was the ability to do this even more effectively than before even on TV, which did the same thing in creating MJ, Madonna, Elvis. All about the marketed image. Now it was different with those guys, but essentially the system works the same. But during the 90s and 90s there was a popular rebellion against this corp manipulation that corp basicallly embraced and went with for decades, contented as money was so fluent at this time there was no problem in many genres diversifying. But a mindset among people from this period changed away from this, in around 2008-11, to embracing again corporate music as cool. The question is why, the answer is internet, advertising, shrinking profits, electronic music, corporate globalization at levels impossible before the tech rise of the last decade.

Rise of electronic homogeneity in music played a role in enabling too (bands were squeezed out, it's become far easier to learn garageband alone than guitar with friends), which goes in hand with the increase in tech. We've never questioned the role of tech in corporate capitalism essentially, it's only ever fed as a positive thing because the places we are fed info about it are themselves tech based companies. The lack of questioning of "who is benfitting from this?" means we walk blindofld into getting U2 albums force fed onto our new $8000 Iphones

wait where are you buying your iphones?

i can't watch

nuki has a pager obvs because #FEDSWATCHING

Just noticing all these guys deriding this thread posting their favourite songs in that One Direction thread.

This probably happened around the time it began to become more difficult to kick a ball in the street, the irony of course being that in many respects (modern footwear, lighter balls), its actually never been easier to kick a ball in the street. We've become a society that knows better than ever before exactly how to kick, yet isnt capable of kicking. Its almost impossible to pinpoint when this started but I first became aware of it in 2006

one day i'll be living in raccoon tanuki
and all you're ever gonna be is mean

http://media2.giphy.com/media/snzf0ayzx1gn6/200.gif

This song (2001) should also be mentioned in the timeline:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWZKw_MgUPI

It didn't in the end have a huge influence but I remember at the time it was seen as a kind of surprising song for non fans of NSync's usual music. Obviously the lyrics talk about how pop boy band music deserves more respect but it was probably their first song that really warranted it. I was surprised a little that is was as far back as 2001.

Failed attempt:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/96/U2-Pop-cover.png

I remember being a little obsessed with this song in 99:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijXcYLV1aNg

I never had any hang ups on pop music growing up even though I mostly listened to non pop. I seem to remember being avidly tuned into the USA charts at this time, that were mostly dominated by Rnb and rap of the time, often worked into pop, something the UK charts mostly lacked. But NSync's "Pop" song seemed like a break from RnB influence nearer to EDM of today?

i keep seeing this thread title pop up and each time i think, "WTF?" what an ahistorical question.

i finally clicked on it... and look who it is!

surprise surprise

the weirdest thing i encounter on ILX is people whose historical consciousness seems to date back no farther than the late 1990s. i don't know if ILXORs are getting younger or what. maybe some of them were born then.

yea this is a terrible thread

sorry raccoon

meh, i understood what raccoon was asking even if obv it can be picked a part pretty easily. he meant when did it become cool among hipsterati 20-30something urban white males to like pop music.