SFJ + Madvillain + New Yorker = yay!

Also, wow he's a great writer.

Although come on...is he only listenening to Jurassic 5 and Dilated Peoples? The underground isn't this monolithic genre of regressive music.

Some independent acts prove their devotion by exulting in musical and linguistic obscurity, like slightly hipper stamp collectors. Some m.c.s spend so much time scolding the popular m.c.s that they come across as schoolmarms, switches in hand. Others are so committed to resurrecting various “golden ages” of hip-hop—1979, 1988, 1993—that their work is not much different from that of Renaissance-fair revivalists dancing around the maypole. Independent pop—not just hip-hop—has in many ways become a version of graduate school, a safe zone where artists can eke out a living, take their time doing specialized work. "

djdee:

Do you think Sasha is only referring to Jurassic 5 and Dilated Peoples in the above quote? Also, he's only got so much space to work with.

Also, the fact is - opposition to the mainstream, no matter how ignorant a mindset, does not preclude an artist from making good music!

I'm very fond of this one thing from Clap Clap Blog:

On the one hand, it's understandable that everyone's conception of genre is going to be slightly different, partially because of their original entry point into the genre (someone who came to industrial via Nine Inch Nails is going to have a different idea of what "industrial" sounds like than someone who came to it via Throbbing Gristle, for instance), partially because of value judgments people associate with the genre ("Nirvana's not pop! They're way too real!" "The Offspring are so not punk! They suck!"), along with various other factors that might cause two people to slot a group into two very different areas; if nothing else, Simon's prog survey is evidence of this. And this is valuable, and is the source of a lot of delightful arguments. As long as people sort of acknowledge this--"Well, I don't think Dizzee Rascal is hip-hop, but that's because of blah blah blah"--it's perfectly fine, and not really that confusing.

But the problem is that "pop" isn't like industrial or punk or ambient or salsa: it's a high-level genre that rarely contains a song that isn't also wholly contained within another genre. Thus, electronic pop, R&B pop, rap-pop, pop-rock, folk-pop, pop-country, etc., etc., etc. And it means a number of different things. So we need something to differentiate exactly which conception of pop we're talking about.

And that's why I made this handy classification guide!

# Level One Pop or POP-I
Pop-as-market-phenomenon. Chart pop. Any song or album--but not artist--that makes it onto the charts, "the charts" here generally regarded as being the Billboard Hot 100 singles and top 200 albums in America and whatever weird definition you Brits and Europeans and Japanese use that's the equivalent. Generally regarded as widening to include an album which includes a chart single but which itself is not on the chart, unless the sound of the non-charting songs differs significantly from the sound of the single. A very strict, mathematical formulation: anything that's popular is pop.

Can be widened to Pop-I.5, or what Pitchfork is currently calling "Uncharted Pop:" music that sounds like the current pop sound but is not actually, for whatever reason, on the charts.

So, by this definition:
Britney Spears is pop-I.
Magnetic Fields is not pop-I.
Folk Implosion's "Natural One" is pop-I but the album from which it came is not.
Yo La Tengo's "Nuclear War" EP is pop-I.
MPath[2] is pop-I.5 but not pop-I.
Boston's first album is pop-I; their last is not.
Basement Jaxx is pop-I in Europe but is not pop-I in America.
Guns 'n' Roses is pop-I.
A Guns 'n' Roses tribute band is not pop-I.
A recording of Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony is not pop-I.
Christian Marclay is not pop-I.
Benny Goodman is pop-I.
Squirrel Nut Zippers are not pop-I.

# Level Two Pop or POP-II

Pop-as-sound. Anything that sounds like anything that's ever been pop. So when we call, say, the Rosebuds or Beat Happening "pop," despite the fact that they'd be happy to get onto the CMJ chart (which, no, doesn't count for pop-I), let alone even sniff Billboard's panties, this is what we mean: the sound, not the sales, make it pop. The pop sound it's referring to can be a pop sound that was on the charts, but it can also be anything that's just become generally popular over the years. (It does not, however, usually mean a retro sound that refers to something that was not pop; you don't hear people calling post-punk revival bands "pop" for this very reason.)

It's safe to say that this conception generally runs at least 10-15 years behind what's actually popular at the time. For instance, someone today throwing in handclaps or backup vocals going "ooh," or an analogue keyboard, would be regarded as including "pop elements" (and, of course, given that it's a pop-II conception, this could be said regardless of the song's actual success or failure in the marketplace) whereas someone including a Timbaland-esque beat would be said to be including "hip-hop elements," and someone including a grunge sound would be said to be including "grunge elements" (although I've never actually heard this said about anyone, now that I think about it). This is the common usage, but it doesn't actually apply to this definition, so someone writing a song that sounds like the Neptunes would be just as pop-II as someone writing a song that sounds like the Beatles.

This classification can be roughly divided into "retro," i.e. straight mimickings of past pop groups, and "poppy," which appropriates a general sound or elements of a sound that was pop at
some point but can't really be pegged to anything specific or which doesn't sustain the aesthetic over the life of the project.

So, by this definition:
Britney Spears is pop-II.
Magnetic Fields is pop-II.
Folk Implosion is pop-II.
Yo La Tengo's "Nuclear War" EP is not pop-II.
MPath is pop-II.
All of Boston's albums are pop-II.
Basement Jaxx is pop-II.
Guns 'n' Roses is pop-II.
A Guns 'n' Roses tribute band is pop-II.
A recording of Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony is not pop-II.
Christian Marclay is not pop-II.
Benny Goodman is pop-II.
Squirrel Nut Zippers are pop-II.

# Level Three Pop or POP-III

What musicologists and classical music folk mean when they say "pop music." Any music that is not art music. Music that is, or that can be, made by amateurs. Depending on your views on jazz, any music that is improvised in whole or in part, or (if you want to include most jazz) which does not proceed from some master plan.

It's unclear where "world music" fits into this; in a conservatory, it'd be in the ethnomusicology department, but for our purposes, it's unclear where, say, African tribal music belongs. It's pretty clearly not anything we would think of as pop (obviously and perhaps unfortunately, since pop-II's definition flows from pop-I's, pop-I's should be amended to state that the charts are generally those charts in the "first world"), but it's also not anything we would think of as art music. Maybe call it "Level 0.5 Classical" or something.

Needless to say, very few people who have a passing familiarity with the Smiths are ever going to be using "pop" in this sense, but it's worth throwing in there since just because those people generally aren't part of our conversations these days doesn't mean that this particular worldview of music, i.e. the music theory one, hasn't profoundly shaped the terms of the debate.

So, by this definition:
Britney Spears is pop-III.
Magnetic Fields is pop-III.
Folk Implosion is pop-III.
Yo La Tengo's "Nuclear War" EP is pop-III.
MPath is pop-III.
All of Boston's albums are pop-III.
Basement Jaxx is pop-III.
Guns 'n' Roses is pop-III.
A Guns 'n' Roses tribute band is pop-III.
A recording of Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony is not pop-III.
Christian Marclay is pop-III.
John Zorn is probably pop-III. (Experimental music is where this gets tricky; ditto for highbrow electro artists like Aphex Twin and Autechre.)
Benny Goodman is pop-III.
Squirrel Nut Zippers are pop-III.

Like I said above, that was actually a Sun Ra quote...and considering it was written by Sun Ra, it seems a lot less awkward to me. So yeah, while it is clever (is sasha ever NOT clever?) in this case it seems a bit misdirected.

Like I said above, the Quasimoto lyrics were actually a Sun Ra quote...and considering it was written by Sun Ra, it seems a lot less awkward to me. So yeah, while Sasha's line is clever (is sasha ever NOT clever?) in this case it seems a bit misdirected.

(I don't think its stupid)

But consider the fact that the song is a Sun Ra homage.

The revolution will not be televised!

Surprisingly, I lived in a dorm for the past two years and have yet to come across a poster graced with tongue-in-cheek Sun Ra quotes. Plenty of Animal House posters, though.

I'm failing to understand how coverage in a magazine automatically makes something no longer underground.
"Madvillain" is no household name.

i think lots of sun ra's sayings are much much less impressive when the arkestra isn't doing it. i mean, the arkestra kind of IS the meaning, not the words themselves.

just because i think "the satellites are spinning" doesn't mean i want to hear pharrell yelling "satellites spinnin' yo!, uh, yeah!" (and i love pharrel, holla etc)

* cept chuck berry

Agreed- Madvillain is not a household name, but neither is Cat Power, or NERD/Neptunes for that matter, and they got a Grammy! I guess I'm just hung up on the difference between indie and underground hip-hop, the whole terminology of it....

XPOST

If you don't care, go to another thread. I think there's a nice one about "favorite records to clip toenails to" or something like that...

jsoulja, yr gonna have a hard time convincing anyone that Pharell is just as well known as Madlib. Or Doom.

I'd use Avant for that instead of Underground, cos I'd want Underground to still hold some sense of "outside-the-mainstream". But I like the idea of still bearing on the ground, and I'm not disagreeing, just thinking out loud.

Definition's a terrible thing, innit?

If that makes any sense....

I totally missed when this became a big issue!?!?!

xxxpost

There are at least 2 distinct things that people do when using terminology to describe music.

(a) the illbient-hard-dark-tech-step thing used by critics is often an attempt to describe for the listener what the music sounds like;

as opposed to

(b) the use of terminology by fans in constructions like x is underground, y isn't underground to define what mental category a piece of music belongs to.

(a) is suggestive and (b) is prescriptive, which isn't to say that either is wrong, as such, but that (b) is always open to argument whereas (a) is simply trying to help the reader hear. in these terms, i think that SFJ's comments about Madvilliany are almost totally (a).

Its too mainstream.

I'm not religious about hip hop by any stretch of the imagination (although I enjoy a lot of it), but I'm well aware of Madvillainy, Madlib, MF Doom etc. I'm sure a lot of people not into hip hop *at all* have at least heard the names because these people get coverage in forums that operate outside the boundaries of hip hop - ie. any vaguely indie/alternative press. As free-floating members of this transgenre indie-beneficiary program, Madvillainy would seem to operate outside the parameters of the "underground" ie. they are not artists liked and enjoyed almost exclusively by those operating with an intentional monogenre myopia.

This is not a qualitative distinction obviously! I'm sure most underground acts would kill for the sort of attention that Madvillainy get.

I also like it more than any of the albums I heard last year.

Ben Kweller? Eww, hes not underground at all.

I have listened to a few hundred CDs this year and Madvillain is my favorite so far.

https://abstractorchestra.bandcamp.com/album/madvillain-vol-1

this seems offensive