On Wed, 13 Mar 2002, Greg Smith wrote:
quoted 9 lines on 3/13/02 6:42 PM, Andrei at andrei@world.std.com scrawled:> on 3/13/02 6:42 PM, Andrei at andrei@world.std.com scrawled:
>
> > Pop music is not about advancing the state of music.
>
> Marrs' Pump up the Volume
> The Beattles Seargent Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band
> Run DMC's self titled debut album
>
> were these not pop music?
Yes within the context of pop music, but within the context of all music
you could probably make some convincing arguments against them. When I
made that comment I was speaking in a sort of absolute sense.
Don't get me wrong I think The Beatles and Run DMC are great, but simply
musically speaking what advances did they make ?
The Beatles were geniuses, but they didn't revolutionize the concepts of
harmony or melody. And spoken word, sampling and the use of drum machines
were around a long time before Run DMC. I think these people made more of
a social impact which is what pop music is good at, imo.
I think Hendrix is one of the only pop musicians I can think of who
clearly brought something new to the table in a general sense (an approach
to playing the guitar which changed things henceforth).
I think the most important thing progers failed to understand is that what
pop music is great at is dealing with social mores, not musical issues. If
you look at all the seminal figures in pop music history (Elvis, Bob
Dylan, The Beatles, Sex Pistols, etc.) you'll see that their impact has
more to do with socio-political issues than with some sort of
revolutionary musical statement.
Andrei
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