Doc Martian's Lounge: November 2011

Monday, November 21, 2011

after not watching the american music awards...

As elitist as I am about music, I really like Taylor Swift. She's one heckuva singer/songwriter. Like maybe America's best since Tom Waits. I don't know if I'd want to listen to her all the time, but every time I do, its been a rewarding experience. 1 of her makes up for a whole lot of pop acts, Christina Aguilera and her phenomenal lungs excepted.

A lot of pop groups are really pretty good when you aren't bombarded with them. Back when I worked at the White Sheet (a newsprint shopper), I usta hate the nights it was like blasting pop radio. I remember cringing every time Bel Biv Devoe's Poison came on... however, 10 years later, I heard the song and was like \m/. Its really a good song, just hypeityhypeityhypeityhyped way too much when it was popular. So with many pop acts. I was sitting here thinking about picking up a Christina Aguilera Greatest Hits the other day, and I wouldn't have had a single qualm about it, instead I went with James Brown though, or was it The Temptations?

Like many bands, its tough to separate the fans and the packaging of a performer from the performer themselves. Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre are a good example of that statement. Back when The Cronic came out, Dre was marketed as straight up hip-hop king from the streetz boy yeh, and the man had all kinds of talent, Snoop got marketed just the same way, and years later, he had all kinds of talent too, but to see their hype and their fans, it would be impossible to tell the difference.

Today's pop music like any other form of music over the last 100 years, consists of some very talented individuals, and some individuals that aren't as talented but know who to blow or buddy up with, and sometimes, its a matter of learning a craft. Timberlake. 5 years from now, he might do something I really dig, he does some stuff that is pretty fair bubblegum->funk the last I listened to him (2 or 3 years ago).

I'm as unlikely to write off the pop scene as I am country or jazz or rock or metal, at least today, all those scenes have gigantic floparoonis as far as being able to create anything worth listening to, but then, in the middle of it all, is goatwhore, or eli 'paperboy' reed, or dwight yoakam doin' tejano with buck owens, and it seems worth having those scenes in place even with all the crap that's come out of them. After all, I don't have to put Usher on my iPod.