No, my friends.
Pop music.
I've wanted to write about this for a little while, if only because whenever someone asks me about it, my answer comes out as bashful garbled nonsense, which does nothing for my cause. My cause being, in short: so I like pop music, what of it?
Here is a list of the shows I have tickets for in the next few months:
12th December -- Slow Club, Queen's Social Club, Sheffield
4th February -- Taylor Swift, O2 Arena, London
4th May -- McBusted, Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield
30th May -- One Direction, Etihad Stadium, Manchester
One of these things is not like the other. One of them is a "proper band", one I probably wouldn't mind chatting about. If I mention the others, I'm inevitably greeted with eyerolls, raised eyebrows and laughter. Yes, I'm 24 years old and I have tickets to three huge pop gigs in 2014, and guess what?
Bless you, queen Judy. (source)
I just don't care any more, you guys. I'm done feeling embarrassed for my musical tastes including, but not being restricted to, pop music. I like it, I enjoy it, and I'm going to tell you why.
“One thing pop music is good for is remembering that somewhere inside us is the potential for unvanquishable joy.”- John Darnielle, The Mountain Goats
I'm not even entirely sure how to categorise pop music. What's popular isn't always pop, and what's pop isn't always popular - it's a bit like 'indie', where the original name of the genre didn't actually describe the sound of the music itself, but now it kind of does, in a hard-to-grasp way. But with regards to the name, I think some of the snobbishness can be directly pulled back to the name - popular. It's a weird phenomenon, the one that seems to assume that because something is liked by a lot of people, it's somehow deligitimised. I guess everybody secretly wants to believe that their taste is above everyone else's, that they were the only ones with the discernment to favour a particular thing, while the rest of society blindly worships the mainstream - I can understand that, it's an intoxicating idea. Only the purest of art exists on the fringes; the rest is a big old mess of diminished creativity and blandness, etc.
But one of the things that makes me the happiest about pop music is the idea that it's bringing joy to thousands and thousands of people. I saw McFly on tour last year, and in October I paid to watch their 10th anniversary Royal Albert Hall concert online*, and being in a room (whether in reality, or virtually) with hundreds of giddy, dancing, singing bodies made me infinitely glad to be alive. It thrums through you, that kind of collective joy. And even alone, knowing the music I'm listening to is probably making someone else laugh, cry or riot at the same moment - that's pretty cool too.
But it's not just the abstract idea of pop music that makes me so happy. It's the bare bones of pop music. It's the ridiculously catchy melodies, the riffs, the beats that make it impossible not to dance. The hand-clapping, the doo-wopping, the cowbell. The repetition, mantra-like, of a hook, until it's burned into your brain and you're singing it over and over while you're trying to sleep. This one, I'm sure, is a matter of taste - my brain is just wired to like that stuff, to love it, and other people's might not be. But that doesn't mean my brain is less advanced or something. Silly girl only like silly song. No: woman with varied interests enjoys music that makes her happy in her very soul.
Just because something is created with a mainstream audience in mind, doesn't mean it's free from talent, conscience, passion and craft. Something that sells that well is hardly going to be complete rubbish, and dismissing it is a huge middle finger to people who work damn hard - both in front of the camera and behind the scenes - to make music that people will like.
And as for my tastes in particular, allow me to elaborate:
McFly/Busted - It's a debate I've had with several people, and I'll stick by my guns every time: A lot of the time, the only real difference between McFly and some kinds of pop punk/soft emo bands is the market they're aimed at. If you got All American Rejects to play One For The Radio, then got McFly to play Gives You Hell, you'd absolutely think they were the bands' respective songs. Both write all their own stuff, both play their own instruments, both are great, but one is marketed towards tween girls while the other is marketed towards angsty teenage boys. Except McFly have no problem being seen as a pop band - they own it, they know their army of Galaxy Defenders have made their career and they appreciate that. It's the unpretentiousness I adore; naturally, they get frustrated when people assume they don't write their own music**, but they're not mad about being seen as a pop band. They owe a lot to their pop following, and they make it very clear that they're here for the fans.
This video is a love letter to McFly fans and it's beautiful.
And as for the birth of the supergroup that is McBusted, I can honestly say that I haven't been this excited about a musical event since...since the last time I saw Busted, probably. I was such an enormous Busted fangirl at 13/14, and this is basically just like a dream come true. If they don't play my favourite song about failing at sex, I'm going to be gutted.
TASTE MY HAPPY. (source)
Taylor Swift - SWIFTY, my queen, my joy, my idol. And, apparently, the pop act that most people seem to have a particularly unfavourable opinion of. There are better analyses of Swifty's meteoric rise and popularity than I can offer in this space (but just get me talking about it, particularly after a few wines), but let me tell you why I love her. Swifty is my age. At 15, she wrote songs I literally could have written myself, if I'd had a modicum of talent - songs about being the bitter, unpopular girl with a crush on her jock next door neighbour (or in my case, the guy I sat next to every day) who would never notice her "like that". Song about Romeo and Juliet fantasies. Song that indulged that very particular experience of being an emotional, lovelorn, angry, romantic teenage girl. Yes, some of the things she wrote were silly and problematic, but she was also fifteen.
Do you know how important it is for a young girl to look at someone like Taylor and think "it's okay to feel like this"? Just so important. It's bad enough being female and having your emotions disregarded, but being a emotional teenage girl - well, nobody's going to give a shit, because you're just a child, and it's puberty, and you're probably just being dramatic, etc. etc. ad infinitum.
“I think that allowing yourself to feel raw, real emotions in public is
something I am never going to be afraid to do,” she said. “Hopefully
that’s the case, if I can remain a real human. I’m fine with being
honest with my fans about the fact that it’s okay that everything isn’t
okay all the time...Those are real feelings that every single person goes through. I think
that it’s okay to be mad at someone who hurt you. This isn’t about,
like, the pageantry of trying to seem like nothing affects you.” - Taylor, from the article linked above.
Taylor Swift is an openly honest and emotional young female, and I fucking love that. And dammit, her songs are good. We all caught the We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together bug, and yelled along with I Knew You Were Trouble. She's a bloody good songwriter. Just listen to All Too Well (her MASTERPIECE): You call me up again just to break me like a promise // So casually cruel in the name of being honest. MY GIRL TAYLOR, you feel me.
And as for writing about her string of exes, I'll make three brief points and leave it at that, because I could go on for a while.
- As far as I can tell, Taylor has about the same number of exes as I have, a fairly normal amount for a girl my age. It just happens to be that hers are famous. And why shouldn't she date?! Anyone saying she gets around is engaging in slut-shaming, pure and simple.
- Dudes (and other women) have written album after album of songs about their exes - Maroon 5 actually going as far as to name their debut album Songs About Jane, after Adam Levine's ex. You don't hear anybody deriding them now, do you?
- If you think Taylor Swift isn't the most self-aware, astute master of her own reputation, you're entirely mistaken.
Nicki Minaj's face, though. (source)
Little Mix - Now, I haven't mentioned Little Mix yet, mainly because they haven't announced tour dates yet, but when they do, I'm going to be first in line. Little Mix are my favourite musical artist of 2013. They're beyond talented, their 90s grunge vibe gives me life, and they're unapologetic besties who represents a pretty diverse way of being female. Both their albums have a strong contingent of songs - cowritten by the girls - about female friendships, about knowing who you are, about celebrating womanhood, and not feeling obliged to fall at the feet of every boy that pays you attention (Salute, Wings, Change Your Life, Always Be Together, We Are Who We Are, How Ya Doin? Going Nowhere, Little Me...need I go on?) and that is such a fucking important message for young females.
I implore you, WATCH THIS VIDEO. Talent!!
I watched a few interviews, read a little about them, and realised that they seemed like a pretty sweet, fun group of lads who sing bloody catchy songs. I never really had a 'boyband' phase when I was a kid (Busted aside), so it was almost like my 11-year-old self was yelling "YOU OWE ME THIS". And there it is. I just like them. They're fun and daft and they don't take themselves too seriously and their albums are solid and they're actually pretty damn talented. I'm not screaming at them in the street or waiting outside their houses, but I'm unashamedly being an adult human who appreciates what they're doing***. This one, inevitably, gets the most laughs, but the people who laugh at me didn't go and see the One Direction movie with three of their best friends after a couple of bottles of wine and have the best evening ever, did they now?
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| Also, I am just leaving this here. For science. |
*****
As I've said, I can understand why my tastes don't match up with other people's - that's just a fact of life. I don't like peas, but that doesn't mean I vocally and rudely mock and attack peas, or laugh in the faces of people who do like them. Liking pop music as an adult attracts a particularly patronising kind of derision. It's tiring and I'm bored of it. The artists I mention above, among others, make music that is designed to bring joy to loads of people, me being one of them, and I think that's pretty great, actually.
*I'm just saying, this is a great idea - for limited-space concerts like that, ones that were too far away for me to manage, I could happily pay a little to watch them online, as I'm sure others would too.
**And if you think they're poor songwriters, go and listen to She Falls Asleep pt I & II, then help yourself to a big handful of wrong.
***Though don't get me STARTED on how horribly exploitative that documentary was, ugh.
