Entertainment For Lively Minds
So which room and what weapon killed pop music as performed by bands?
I'm trying to work out when did music kill the pop group? I know it was dead in the 90's, when the boy bands then dominated the chart. By then I was into alternative music, only watching top of the pops when it was alternative week in the month, such as the episode of TOTP's that I recall had Manic Street Preachers and Terrorvision.
But those bands are not pop music, I'm not talking about indie/punk/rock/dance/sub genre of music you make like which you think is pop, but is so not.
The Bee Gees were a pop group, Jackson five were a pop group, The Osmonds were a pop group, Spandau Ballet were a pop group, Duran Duran were a pop group....(and I could go on). As much as you can argue about the various merits of these bands, the difference was though is they played and wrote their own music.
Something happened though towards the late 80's when someone decided that actually that was a business model they didn't want to continue.
Rather they could get spotty Herberts, subject them to a bit of repointing, flush their throats full of treacle for singing and bang, puppets that can be controlled. Their dancing honed by cattle prods tutors and bromide in the cola so they don't go off after the stage shows. And don't get me started on the production of recent pop music as well!
Was it Stock Aiken and Waterman who decided as producers they didn't need a band, so focusing on solo artists?
Was it Bros, when after listening to them again you have to ask what did the guitarist actually do? (Though combining Karl Marx and dancing would never be done today!).
Did the guitar based bands decide that they wanted to be cool and just go off pop?
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People who write their own material...
...are not the be-all and end-all. Unless you think everything by Sinatra, Ella, Billie etc is rubbish. Not to mention Goffin/King, Spector, Motown, Stax.
I could go on. And probably would if it wasn't almost bedtime.
Oh I know about lots and
Oh I know about lots and lots of bands and artists that don't write their own stuff. The difference is, when did what could be considers "pop" lose a portion of originality in production and performance?
It could be argued that the business model...
you say was discontinued was the exception, not the norm. Pre-Beatles a producer produced, a songwriter composed and a singer sang. Very fine pop music was made this way. As The Beatles re-wrote the rule book, Motown continued the noble tradition of apportioning each part of the record-making process. It never really went away... the trouble is that nowadays you do not find the same calibre of people working together to make a hit record. Holland-Dozier-Hollands and Marvin Gayes are a bit thin on the ground...
I think you're just getting older
I mean, personally for me the early 80s were the best time ever for pop music, ABC, Human League, Soft Cell, and the best pop star ever in my opinion Adam Ant. But I've seen plenty of people on this site and elsewhere who disagree completely and who think those were plastic and soulless times. Some have gone as far as to say that the early 80s killed off pop.
Great pop music has always been a mixture of things anyhow; Motown produced some of the best pop music ever and most of those artists wrote not one note of the tunes they played and were wheeled in and out of studios on a definite production line.
In fact a lot of the great pop music, not all but a lot, has come from the back room, going way way back. The faceless songwriters and producers with a list of hits as long as your arm.
Personally I think over the last few years Brian Higgins and Xenomania have been responsible for some excellent and hugely original pop music, as good as pop has ever been.
Actually, those do sound
Actually, those do sound like a good explanation, that pop music done by the band itself was an aberration that lasted for a while, but could not sustain itself.
Shame really that no one in bands want to do "pop" music any more, they have to label themselves in various tags to describe their music.
It is all pop really though
The vast majority of the bands in those genres you refer to, who write their own stuff, are mostly looking to produce catchy hit tunes are they not? And they can succeed, like Ting Tings, MGMT, Coldplay etc. Then again you've got your good manufactured type pop music like Girls Aloud, which is perfectly valid. Collapse of singles market probably has a lot to do with reason why the kind of bands you talk about maybe don't chart so much - I often hear a song that I feel could have been a hit in past but doesn't chart now. It's partly to do with the kind of people buying the singles isn't it? I don't really agree bands have turned away from pop, as you say. Also I think Terrorvision were a bit rubbish, as I recall. I prefer some of the SAW output (You Spin Me Round for one) in fact.
My children are educating me
After years foisting my music on them, my kids are now educating me. They (11 to 6) watch The Hits and TMF Chart Shows and songs that I would have dismissed straight away are now sinking in and starting to appeal. It really is about the age and stage you are at in your music cycle.
Today's pop
I think there are lots of pop bands around today - Kaiser Chiefs, Coldplay, Snow Patrol etc. I find it strange that these are still labelled or thought of as "Indie".
They are all operating in the same field as Duran Duran, Hot Chocolate, Spandau Ballet were in the 80's - major labels, big budgets, radio playlists etc etc.