Great pop or lightweight and forgettable?

[Deleted]

This has placed high in The Guardian top 100 number ones singles of all time. I suppose it was predictable they'd shoehorn some modern stuff in there,but is this a good choice?

I guess some wag might say 'lightweight and forgettable' is the definition of great pop,,but I've never bought into this.

Personally I dont mind it. It's a fairly catchy light hearted thing, but it's too basic for me to get much out of it and I don't think of it as great pop. I guess people will say we'renot that target audience which is clearly true, but I'd argue great pop transcends its target audience.


www.theguardian.com/music/2020/may/11/the-100-greatest-uk-no-1s-no-20-carly-rae-jepsen-call-me-maybe

It's telling that most of all the article is about Justin Beiber and the marketing strategy.

[~ / % ? *]

It's almost modern country. Definitely melodic and tuneful, great semi-symphonic hook, better than most of the 80s dreck that gets usually raved about and no ABBA-ESL vocals. Points taken off for the supposedly cool, but actually lame cars shown: 64/65 Mustang, and 78/79 Trans Am.

The song is 9 years old and heard regularly. Isn't all great pop lightweight?

[Deleted]

May 20, 2020 12:31:55 GMT ~ / % ? * said:

It's almost modern country. Definitely melodic and tuneful, great semi-symphonic hook, better than most of the 80s dreck that gets usually raved about and no ABBA-ESL vocals. Points taken off for the supposedly cool, but actually lame cars shown: 64/65 Mustang, and 78/79 Trans Am.

The song is 9 years old and heard regularly. Isn't all great pop lightweight?

Maybe. I just don,t think there's much there you know. The hook itself only lasts a bar or something. If this was Abba, to use an obvious yardstick of great pop, that hook would lead to another hook, or be part of a surprising middle eight shift. It wouldn't be the whole point of the record.

[Charlie O.]

I'm with G on this one. There just isn't much there musically, and it's a one-idea song lyrically as well.

[rayge]

May 20, 2020 12:31:55 GMT ~ / % ? * said:

Isn't all great pop lightweight?

No, unless you want to get tautologous about it and say that frothiness defines pop and any attempt at something more weighty calls for a transfer to another genre. With few exceptions, there's nothing much on Philles after 1963 or so that lacks emotional or musical gravitas, for example, and it's all pop.

But then we all have different ideas of what constitutes pop. In the Fifties, 'pop' was basically 'not classical': blues, folk various genres of jazz got nowhere near the radios, or any turntables near me. The Platters were pop. So were Frank Sinatra, Mario Lanza, Kay Starr, Mantovani, Elvis, the Drifters and Eddie Cochran. And indeed the Beatles, Stones, Who and Kinks.

[toomanyhatz]

May 20, 2020 15:32:45 GMT Charlie O. said:

I'm with G on this one. There just isn't much there musically, and it's a one-idea song lyrically as well.

Ditto. And does the typical thing that most modern pop hits do, which is repeat it ad-infinitum for the length of the song before the hard stop. Even at just over 3 minutes, it's way longer than it needs to be. We get it in the first thirty seconds, then it pounds it home. 

Great pop can be lightweight, but it's not great unless it's transcendent in some way. 

[Sneelock]

I won't say "great pop" but I won't use the word "forgettable" either. I was around teenagers when that song was hitting critical mass and I don't think I'll be forgetting it anytime soon.

I grew up with Burt Bacharach and Goffin/King songs so "great pop" isn't a badge that I pin on many lapels. on the other hand, the ability for a song to stick inside the listeners mind like a goddam barnacle is a force to contend with.

"lightweight" is a phrase that I don't think quite takes that into account.

so, I've taken what I see as my only logical course of action. I've voted "meh"

[oleandermedian]

May 20, 2020 18:48:40 GMT Sneelock said:

I won't say "great pop" but I won't use the word "forgettable" either. I was around teenagers when that song was hitting critical mass and I don't think I'll be forgetting it anytime soon.

Yes - it made them bop around like fleas.

I like that curious left-turn it makes into the chorus. It’s hookier than… I dunno, a meat-packing plant. But the verses are so insipid! They’re basically fuel packs whose only function is to propel the payload into orbit and once they’ve done this they are discarded and fall back to earth and land in a field in Kamchatka or wherever and everyone forgets about them.

I also like the funny twist at the end of the video!

[sloopjohnc]

It's great pop. It may not have much musically, but who cares. There are lots of great songs that aren't "musically" great.

I never liked the expression, "Fuck art, let's dance." It always seeemed either/or and a bit crude, but the message is true.

I never listened to Casey Kasem on the radio hoping they'd play Mozart.