Idling through Twitter (as I sometimes do) I recently discovered that current pop stars are not as famous as they appear to think they are. Ellie Goulding was featured this week on a BBC online news post saying how ‘unprepared’ she was for fame but, interestingly, most of the comments were along the lines of ‘sorry, who is she?’ This despite rather significant chart success. Something similar happened with The 1975 recently when they proclaimed that they would only play gender-balanced festivals. Despite a couple of number one albums and Brit awards hardly anyone appeared to have heard of them. When I was a kid even my Dad (who cared not a jot about music of any sort) had heard of T.Rex and Slade. Now it seems that pop stars are fairly niche. What caused this? Was it the internet? Personally I think it eroded the mystique. But then it could also be the fact that ‘Top of the Pops’ is no longer viewed by different generations and that the prime medium for music now is the intensely private (and ubiquitous) headphone.
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Vincent says
Definitely: TOTP, and light entertainment yewtree types doing their impressions indicated that mick jagger and mott the hoople were known to the uncool maindtream: recall the Two Ronnie’s doing Medicine Head. I find most pop acts identikit now: the pretty blonde chanteuse, the gobby chav got lucky, the woke rap artiste Guardian readers have heard of, this year’s heavy rockers, etc.
Tiggerlion says
There’s too much of it about these days. Pop stars can have a ‘hit’ with relatively few sales.
For some reason, I have been putting together a playlist for 1973, the year I turned 15 and bought more albums than singles (financed by a milk round). In that year, I bought Slayed? (released in 1972, I know), For Your Pleasure, Aladdin Sane, Mott, Dixie Chicken, Fresh, Countdown To Ecstasy and Goats Head. I had to rely on my mates or relatives to hear Innervisions, Red Rose Speedway, Band On The Run, Mind Games, Killing Me Softly, Masterpiece, Selling England By The Pound and so on. Stranded, Pin Ups and Berlin were acquired in 1974 and there were a few bought for me as gifts. Dark Side Of The Moon was everywhere. It was impossible to avoid.
These days, I could happily buy and enjoy eight albums a week, let alone just eight in a year. In 1973, Little Feat and Steely Dan were obscurities but most people I knew had at least heard of them. All the rest were really well known.
Nowadays, there are so many acts, often with an ardent following, but it’s gigging where the money is, if you play to big enough crowds, or getting a song onto a TV soundtrack or advert. Albums are ten a penny and don’t make much profit, on the whole.
Leicester Bangs says
Weird how people comment to say, ‘Who is she?’ Why don’t they just Google it?
eddie g says
Indeed. I reckon a lot of people view it as a form of inferred superiority to adopt a tone of wilful ignorance when it comes to pop culture. They wouldn’t dream of doing it with literature or opera.
Mike_H says
Looking down on people who are ignorant of pop culture is a form of snobbery itself, in my opinion.
There are a LOT of people who are completely ignorant of Literature and Opera as well as pop. Not wilfully but because they never learned to appreciate them.
You have to remember that most people in this world are Civilians. i.e. not like us smart arses at all.
johnw says
I confess an ignorance in Opera because what I’ve heard isn’t for me and life’s too short.
My impression is that many people that profess an ignorance in pop music are being snobby.
My ignorance of literature is merely embarrassing!
Mike_H says
My ignorance of current pop music is because I have no interest in it. I COULD make an effort and listen to whatever is current but I can’t be arsed, frankly, when there is so much other stuff, in multiple fields and genres, that I already know I prefer. That’s not snobbery, it’s exercising my right to choose. Possibly akin to your ignorance of opera.
SteveT says
I was mildly rebuked on here for not knowing anything g of Billy Eilish or whatever her name is. This is not out of any snobbery but because I choose to spend my available listening time on stuff I have a fairly good idea I will like. For example the Third Mind album which came last week. Knew nothing of the album other than two of the players are Dave Alvin and Michael Jerome both of whose work I like . There wasnt much of a risk in buying the album and it is indeed very good.
Ellie Goulding I do know about because of her version of How long will I love you which is a great song and shows she has some taste.
Mike_H says
I find myself somewhat riled by accusations of snobbery against people who aren’t thrilled by modern pop and see no reason to expend effort in trying to do so. It’s a kind of snobbery in itself, to my mind.
I listen to what I want to listen to and ignore what I don’t. If anyone doesn’t like that then fuck ’em.
MC Escher says
Not liking recent pop music is fine, of course. What annoys me are people who feel they have to tell you how crap it is. And they always do.
Mike_H says
People who lose their rag because you don’t like what they absolutely love.
There are plenty of bands/artists that are revered here but that I don’t think much of or even actively dislike, but these days I tend to either keep it to myself or else I try and explain why.
davebigpicture says
I did a few jobs for Sky Sports around the turn of the century. As my knowledge of sports people is limited to the likes of Frank Bruno and David Beckham, it wasn’t a surprise when the project manager said, “Sorry Dave, they’ve asked if they can have someone who knows who the people coming on stage are.”
Even in the Internet age, I still wouldn’t know a sports “personality”. I’m just not interested but at least I’d be able to Google them if I had to know what they looked like.
Mike_H says
It’s because they aren’t really interested enough in them to Google them.
As just about everyone above has commented, the way pop music is presented and listened to has completely changed.
TOTP was on prime-time TV and the comedy/variety shows on TV had pop acts on, so even those with no great interest heard and saw the chart acts of the day and knew who they were. Workplaces often had radios playing pop too.
No more prime-time TV pop shows or that kind of variety offerings so the generations aren’t watching/listening to the same stuff. The generations don’t watch TV together any more. And a lot of workplaces that used to no longer allow radios.
Either kids have their own TVs in their rooms or they’re watching other stuff on screens of their own with headphones on/earbuds in.
Also the sheer amount of music being produced and the number of acts coming and going, compared to the pre-millenium decades, is frankly staggering.
Tiggerlion says
Yes. Just as there is loads more music around, there are loads more TV shows. In 1973, there were just three channels, I think. Now, that’s unthinkable.
retropath2 says
Wilful ignorance is just what I had to claim if my mother was watching TOTP with me, lest she thought I liked anything I was too cool for. So I certainly didn’t know who bloody T Rex were despite them always seeming to be number one.
eddie g says
I would interject at this juncture that T Rex were- and always will be- very, very cool indeed.
retropath2 says
Tyrannosaurus Rex possibly, if swiftly dispelled by an actual listen.
eddie g says
All four Tyrannosaurus Rex albums are startlingly original and I love them more than some of my actual friends.
deramdaze says
At one time, The Golden Age, everyone was in the same game.
Ken Dodd? Yes.
Jim Reeves? Yes.
“The Sound of Music?” for sure.
But, for all that, it was FOR ALL, and it included the Golden Agers that still hold sway – Beatles, Dylan, Jimi, Dusty, Otis, Stones – you know the routine.
The Toppermost of the Poppermost.
The Golden Age ended, c. 50 years ago.
Hmmm, problem …. Hey! Let’s change the goal-posts – pretend it never happened, don’t release 45s, release 45s off the album, not know it happened in the first place, invent irony, create multiple format releases, refuse to appear on TOTP, cancel TOTP …. now, acts who can’t get beyond no. 10 in the chart and haven’t sold a bean outside Camden Town are players ….
Oh, you know “the rest.”
And “the rest” is for dodgers.
MC Escher says
Never mind, eh? Life goes on, the only constant is change, etc.
fentonsteve says
The 1975 are managed by a friend of a friend. Despite that, I’d never taken the time to really listen to them until about a year ago, as I had assumed they were not aimed at middle-aged blokes like me. They’re actually alright.
Ellie Goulding once covered a Waterboys tune, so she can’t be all bad either.
johnw says
It’s a problem that some bands pass me by completely because I listen to the ‘wrong’ radio station. I fear the 1975 may be one of those bands. I’ve heard a couple of their songs but couldn’t name one. I don’t really understand what gets something played regularly on 6 music and what’s seen as a radio 1 act.
Black Celebration says
I too hanker for the weekly charts/TOTP and credibly measure success by the number of hit singles or albums. I would say roughly 1960 – 1995 was the period where you could do that.
Smash Hits had a mid-80s statistic which blew my tiny mind. One appearance on TOTP gave you an audience size equivalent to filling the Hammersmith Odeon every night for four and a half years.
But then there was definite corruption going on. Backhanders to Smashie and Nicey, dodgy sales figures at chart return shops, for example.
Despite this, you could still tell a genuinely popular hit single from one that has done well due to being promoted to death. That distinction is not so easy to make now.
A case in point is my own beloved Depeche Mode. Statistically, their biggest UK hit single was in 2009 – but it had tiny actual sales in comparison to middling singles they released twenty years before.
Paul Wad says
I lived just across the road from my junior school, so I used to go home for dinner (that’s lunch for you southerners). On Tuesdays I was tasked with writing down the top ten (plus the position of any singles that anybody asked me to look out for) and then presenting it to the lads back in the playground. I can still remember everybody accusing me of fibbing when I got to number one and said it was The Specials with Too Much Too Young, cos it wasn’t even in the charts the week before. I had the same problem with a Jam number, Going Underground I think. One I always remember being asked to look out for was a Bruce Springsteen single and that was in 1980, so one of my ten year old mates was on the ball. For the rest of us it was all The Police, Blondie and Madness.
johnw says
That was my job at senior school. If I missed what Johnny Walker said for a new entry I was stuffed. It was also handy to have the list to know when to start and stop the tape recorder on the Sunday night chart rundown.
Freddy Steady says
That’s ace Paul, and exactly what happened in my school. It was SO exciting when the Jam went straight to number one…so exciting.
Black Celebration says
The Jam going straight in at number one was a huge moment in my young teenage life (OK, you can take out “young teenage”).
I’m not sure it had been done very often before, so it was a big deal.
Tiggerlion says
Prior to that 1973 was peak straight-in-at-number-one.
Elvis Presley – Jailhouse Rock 1958
Elvis Presley – It’s Now Or Never 1960
Clîff Richard and the Shadows – The Young Ones 1962
The Beatles with Billy Preston – Get Back 1969
Slade – Cum On Feel The Noize 1973
Slade – Skweeze Me Pleeze Me 1973
Gary Glitter – Love You Love Me Love 1973
Slade – Merry Christmas Everybody 1973
After 1995 it became the norm until streaming was taken into the equation.
Diddley Farquar says
I think the big deal with The Jam at the time was that it was not the kind of record people were used to going in at number one, i.e. it was not the usual kind of commerical pop fare. It was supposedly cool, ‘alternative’-type, new wave/punk fare. That was the feeling as I recall.
Freddy Steady says
I think you’re right Diddley.
And I remember being told or sure it was the first time ever a band had gone straight to No 1.
We were lied to…thanks Tiggs!
fentonsteve says
Was the next one Duran Duran? It certainly felt like it at the time. I had a portable transistor radio in my PE kit bag and was briefly popular with the girls at school.
Tiggerlion says
The Police – Don’t Stand So Close To Me 1980
Adam And The Ants – Stand And Deliver 1981
The Jam – A Town Called Malice 1982
The Jam – Beat Surrender 1982
Then Duran Duran and Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
Black Celebration says
Thanks @tiggerlion. I’d forgotten The Jam did it three times.
Strictly speaking …Al Martino achieved the feat as well.
Tiggerlion says
Only by default. He was number one in the first ever chart. Who knows where he was the week before that and it had been available for more than one week.
Rigid Digit says
then Band Aid
johnw says
Slade did it three times, The Jam did it three times. Were they better than their peers? Did they have more rabid fans? My understanding is that their record label, Polydor, had a different method of taking advance orders than other labels (perhaps they were the only label to take pre release orders) and, as a consequence, managed to get pre-orders counted in the first week of release.
Black Celebration says
If that was the case, then surely Polydor would have turned the trick a lot more times than they did? I think at the time both Slade and The Jam were big enough to warrant those number ones.
johnw says
But which other Polydor acts would it have worked with? The only other possibility I can think of is Siouxsie & the Banshees. The bands already had to be very popular but I assume the advanced order thing just gave them the edge.
Rigid Digit says
Sham 69?
johnw says
No further questions m’lud.
Declan says
Abba were a Polydor act.
The Good Doctor says
It is absolutely the internet. When I was a kid music came from Radio 1, Top of the Pops and Smash Hits. Now it comes from (insert whatever it is the kids get their music from) – and it’s not a shared experience so much but…
Ultimately nothing has changed. I went round to see a good pal of mine tonight and his teenage daughter was dancing in the back room with her pals to current pop hits and singing every word aloud – and at one point my mate went in and bust some moves and sang along to embarrass them like the classic “Dad watching TOTP” role – and the girls laughed and cringed as you’d expect. Same stuff happening, different media, and harder to get a handle on and keep abreast of but – it’s still recognisable as Pop
NigelT says
As far as music is concerned, it is absolutely the demise of TOTP, mainstream children’s entertainment shows and light entertainmen programmes. It’s weird to think that we used to complain there was little pop on tv, when it was actually embraced by the these shows. Even before TOTP, the Beatles were on TV nearly all of the time, and I remember being remnded about this when I watched Anthology the first time…Morcambe and Wise, the Palladium, kid’s tv, Ed Sullivan….this is what fed Beatlemania. You hardly ever see pop music on tv now.
Mike_H says
Pop used to be regarded, quite rightly, as an ephemeral part of Light Entertainment. Once late ’60s Rock reared it’s head it tried to distance itself from Light Entertainment and be taken seriously. It succeeded and soon after that, Pop began to take itself seriously too, setting itself apart from mere disposable entertainment for the masses. Now, as well as Classical snobs, Jazz Snobs and Rock Snobs, we get Pop Snobs too.
And thanks to digital technology, nothing is ephemeral any more. Everything is forever whether we want it or not.
Billybob Dylan says
As far as pop music on TV in the 60s and 70s is concerned, the big difference compared to today is that these shows were only on once a week, and we didn’t have VCRs back then. You watched TOTP or Do Not Adjust Your Set or Morecambe & Wise when it was broadcast because if you missed it, you’d never see it. Kids today can’t possibly comprehend the sense of anticipation we experienced at 7:35 pm on Thursday evenings when TOTP came on. Now we have everything on demand and we can watch it on our schedule, it’s taken the “specialness” away.
Timbar says
Thursday was the ideal day for TOTP, as the following day at school, it would be the main topic of conversation. “Did you see…?” “Yes they were great. I’m going to BUY IT with my pocket money tomorrow!”
Once they changed the day, that all went.
Billybob Dylan says
Absolutely!
Freddy Steady says
Pop will eat itself.
eddie g says
I fear it’s well beyond that stage and that pop and rock has been regurgitated so often that it now has the condition of bland and over-milked Ready Brek.
Diddley Farquar says
Your statement is rather undermined by the fact that you recently professed a preference for Morrissey’s latest over any other new music released in 2019, despite admitting to not having really listened to any new music apart from his. Old farts stop listening to new acts because they can’t keep up with the decades hurtling by, and so they hang on to the comfort blanket of their beloved golden age of the 60s and 70s where their heads reside still.
NigelT says
I think that is slightly harsh..! There is only so much much you can listen to, so listening to anything new means not listening to something you have probably listened to for years and enjoyed. I am indeed an old fart, but part of listening to any music is for pleasure and if the familiar gives pleasure then I see nothing wrong with that. There still seems to be this idea that we should find new stuff all the time and this is somehow the expected behaviour. Much classical music is very familiar but I don’t feel the need to seek out new orchestral pieces just because it’s old.
eddie g says
I shall leave Mr Farquar to his sterling work of courageously breaking new pop ground for us less worthy creatures to follow.
Diddley Farquar says
My point is don’t dismiss the new or moan about the brave new world of modern music if you don’t even bother to keep up. Old farts are we of course and have inevitably lost track of new trends, new developments. I know I have. The 90s was probably the last time I kept up properly. I don’t however go in for this business of we had it best, our time was the golden age, now it’s all gone to pot. I recognise that it’s me not them, for the most, though of course there were certain great years or periods that were better than others. I find new stuff that’s exceptional and wonderful. It’s not really that hard. New acts appear on TV chat shows for example. Clips appear on Youtube. The shared experience of TV has diminished but we oldies can find new to newish acts quite readily. Best of year lists. Articles in newspapers online. All sorts of places. Of course it doesn’t matter if you’re not interested and are happy to stick with the familiar but don’t slag off all new music in that case, as if it’s all crap nowadays, as some do.
eddie g says
All valid points of course. There is still good music being made and all the rest of it. I suppose the difference for me is that I’m not fifteen anymore and nothing I hear is likely to spark the same kind of jolt as Bolan or Bowie or Rotten did. Even as a teenager growing up in the late seventies during the excitement of punk I was aware that the ‘golden age’ of pop/rock was dying and that this was probably the last throw of the dice. I was drawn back to the sixties- to Syd, psychedelia, Moby Grape et al. I’d always loved the Beatles and now that decade became something of an obsession. Not only musically, but culturally too. Because pop music doesn’t exist in a vaccuum and I was fascinated by the historical context in which this music was made- Vietnam, Kent State, Martin Luther King, the Maharishi, mini-skirts et al. What excited me about pop music in the 1960s was that it was genuinely baffling for the older generation. They had never experienced long-haired skinny guys with guitars and the whole concept of what it meant to be a ‘citizen’ was being challenged. The music business itself was caught napping too and from Chubby Checker to Woodstock feels like a hundred years whereas in fact it was just over six. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that ‘pop music is dead’ because that would be ridiculous but the kind of pop music that interests me unfortunately is because, by its very nature, it would be impossible for it to thrive today because the context which sustained it has gone. I am probably more of a ‘historian’ and ‘curator’ rather than a straightforward fan. I hear stuff I like today, of course I do. But my passion is what has gone. What it once was. What it can never be again.
Mike_H says
As a certified old fart, I don’t give a flying fuck anymore about what is “current” and “now” and “happening” etc. etc.
Why the fuck should I?
One of the few plus factors of growing old is not having to give a shit about things like that.
Diddley Farquar says
I did not say you should. I agree with the last sentence also.
Twang says
Up.
salwarpe says
I’m completely out of touch with modern music – there is indeed just too much of it. The best way I find of keeping up is to see what my favourite Afterworders post (such as in their end of year lists) – usually I can triangulate to my sweet spot from that.
A quick listen and Ellie Goulding and The 1975 just strike me as generic X Factor fodder and indie landfill respectively – let them seek their fame. Billie Eilish is much more out there and interesting. And of course Dua Lipa!
fatima Xberg says
Today’s promotional activities for music – especially in the pop or radio formats – means constant presence on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube etc. Resulting in the usual “thousands of” likes and clicks, and the artists being bombarded in reactions and response. So it’s understandable that they think they’re on top of the world.
It’s even crazier in the model and fashion scene. Everyone is always accompanied by a crew of minders and PR assistants. When I was working at the advertising agency we always had these “teams” showing up at the office with the air of “the supermodel has just arrived on the red carpet”. Only to find out that it was actually “blond girl on a bike no. 254” from the catalog. But she came with her own “scent advisor”. For a photo shoot.
Tiggerlion says
For very different reasons, I could do with a scent adviser.
Mike_H says
Yoo-oo-oo-oo scent me ..
The sweet essence of giraffe.
dai says
Young people don’t really watch conventional TV any more. The new stars are made by Tik Tok, Instagram and YouTube. Some of these may be pop stars, many others are famous for all sorts of nefarious reasons that old people like us don’t understand.
Tiggerlion says
Why this obsession with Pop & Rock? Hip Hop and Dance have been the dominant genres for decades.
Diddley Farquar says
It’s all pop to me, pops.
MC Escher says
Therefore that makes them “pop,” by definition, no?