A recent reference to poncey music on another thread got me thinking. It’s a sub-genre of pop music that suffered greatly during the 90s when most formerly reliable poncey pop acts became tanned, billowy-shirted anthem merchants at a stadium nowhere near you. New bands seemed to be gritty, tuneless Lo-fi or sweaty gruntalongagrunge peddlars. This then led to the laddism of Britpop when we chewed with our mouths open and pretended to be hard.
I think only one act navigated this period flawlessly and that is (the) Pet Shop Boys. They played shows at The Savoy, they released a soundtrack to Battleship Potemkin, they thought about Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat – which is really skimming the surface. Even relatively recently there’s this one embedded here “Love is a Bourgeois Construct”. Musique-du-ponce par excellence.
Before the 90s you could hardly move for songs about philosophy, poets, architecture, religion or politics – but we have snuffed most of that out now. A great many of these songs were wonderful. What poncey songs or acts deserve a reappraisal then?
Never mind the King Of Pain, Mr Sting is surely Le Roi De Ponce?
Very much Mr Sting. If only for the line “Mephistopheles is not your name”.
BC – your explanation above notwithstanding: I’m a bit unclear on what differentiates poncey pop music from pop music. I don’t think I’m being wilfully contrarian – although I may be being a bit thick this morning – but surely the anthem pedallers, grunge merchants and Britpop chompers have moved into RAWK (to quote our very own DeramDaze) and well away from pop?
Yes, exactly. In their wake there is still tremendous pop music but no songs with accompanying choreography about Delius, no one using a cigarette holder, no one quoting Jacques Derrida. Hardly any berets. They have been railroaded off the hit parade.
Poncey music? What?
As per my perfectly clear OP explanation.
If I understand the ponce factor correctly, then British Sea Power ( or Sea Power) deserve some credit for challenging rockism through unusual gigs in libraries and village halls, and making soundtracks to films like Flaherty’s Man of Arran.
Without a doubt. A very good example.
When I used Poncey in another thread what I meant was pop music which thinks it is serious, highbrow even, when in fact it is light and frothy. And there’s nothing Wrong with light & frothy, just don’t think it’s anything but light & frothy.
It was more Moose’s reply that inspired this thread “You say that as if it’s a bad thing” .
I think you are in the right area with your definition. Like all great genres there will be arguments about which music truly qualifies. There is no doubt that the New Romantic period of 1981/2 was when it briefly hit the mainstream.
I think the first couple of Divine Comedy albums fit BC’s definition of poncey – packed full of references to literature and art-house cinema, before it all went a bit more arch during the britpop years. I prefer the poncey stuff!
I did also have DC in my mind but I have always considered Neil Hannon as a traditional “witty” songwriter in the style of Flanders and Swann or Noel Coward. I think the poncey pop star comes at things with more gravitas – genuinely thinking their songs are important (e.g. Mr Sting). With Neil Hannon, the smile is playing on his lips and long may he continue..
Up with this sort of thing.
The first Divine Comedy album is fantastic, really good stuff. And it’s poncus maximus – it even has a song with lyrics by William Wordsworth. It’s just a really great album.
The second album was prepared using the same ingredients, but for some reason I can’t be doing with it! I don’t know why. Casanova, on the other hand is great fun.
The first couple of Style Council albums probably fit, although the Angry Young Man reappeared for Walls Come Tumbling Down.
At that time Weller carried an enormous amount of laddish baggage though.
In later Star Treks, Captain Kirk is an elder statesman, wearing pince-nez glasses and thoroughly respected as an intellectual equal by Spock. Although the films were still good, this change in Kirk’s character and Spock’s respect for him changed the dynamic. Several academics drew parallels with the concurrent development of The Style Council.
Pet Shop Boys and the Draughtsman’s Contract – a perfect match – it’s almost like they soundtracked the film, which in retrospect looks like a playbook for Lord Flashheart from the scenes in that video – constant bowing and flouncing and polite rudeness.
I was thinking about the lyrics of the song when I posted it. The video is a delightful bonus.
Peter Greenaway films and Michael Nyman soundtracks are a perfect amuse-bouche accompaniments to a thread celebrating ponciness.
There was a lot of this about in the 80s. I was a post-grad at the time, and ponciness was seen in dull art films, tedious indie, unreadable French philosophies (ideally Marxist or po-mo), novels without a story, “interesting” haircuts, humour being suspect unless unfunny, Neville Brodie fonted-samizdat “manifestos”, dull 4-bloody-AD records and their sodding “Cocteau Twins” lyrics, and an awful lot of trying not to be found out for the cultural and fashion-related faux-pas of the previous decade. I was briefly that person, but the lack of wit and fun, and the performantive nature of it all meant that entropy soon took me back to knob-jokes, quantitative science (another no-no), not taking yourself seriously, and enjoying genres rather than “literature”. The world agreed; by 1990 it was again OK to like hard rock, detective novels, comedy, and reality.
Hear, hear! Please have an up! ⬆️
I can see how straying too far in this direction can be appalling for many, but if the pendulum must inevitably swing from the neutral I’d much rather have the pretentiousness above – especially in my pop heroes. There’s a place for Quo etc and much to enjoy, but I’m certain I would not have a life long love affair with music if it was all bedenimed hairies sneering at those with arty farty notions, however irritating they might be
– or my name’s not Benedict Vopeliere-Pierrot.
I suspect Vincent’s comments referred to a very specific point in the 1980s, where admitting to having liked hard rock, or prog, or disco, or whatever was strictly verboten if you wanted to maintain your pretentious cultural veneer. Hopefully we’re past this now, especially on this august site. But I also remember that period of history…’orrible, it was…
cool “nod” as we pass in the corridor, fitterstoke.
Pretentious, moi? I’m ALL for reaching for that which is just out of grasp, and heroically failing. It defines much of my cultural tastes. How could we ever surpass ourselves otherwise?
What I didn’t and don’t like is superiority complexes, tribalism, and bad faith.
“Everything But the Girl” always struck me as a band for A level English students sneering at the Rush fans doing Science. Never had any reason to doubt this doubtless cruel calumny. The mid-80s NME was FULL of these sorts of bands.
Just one more reason why I hated the NME in the ’80s…
Music for students who wear black polo neck jumpers and read poetry
(yes I’m being very reductive, and almost as sneering in return)
Music for students who wear NHS glasses and have a big ol’ pile of hair on top…
As a Rush fan who did Science, I approve of this comment.
👍👍👍👍
I was at Edinburgh University doing my PhD; the superiority complexes of the George Square students for the unhip smart-practical folk in Kings Buildings was massive. It gave me an enduring revulsion of joyless ponces and a desire to never want to be part of their scenes.
Naturally.
Well Ben was West London arty legacy but Tracey was as provincial as it comes. Which is what informs their best work.
As a good rule of thumb I’ll love anything with Tracey Thorn singing on it. Even Paul Weller in ponce mode.
Talking of cruel calumnies, I know a few people who think Tears For Fears were (are) a bit poncey. How wrong they are. I read that Noel Gallagher recently called them the best band of the 80s. I wouldn’t go that far (there was a wealth of none too shabby competition, n’est-ce pas DeramDaze?), but dismissing them as just light and frothy is clearly nonsense.
Absolutely, as we have discussed before…
TFF are brilliant, they tackle weighty topics and somehow end up not at all poncey, despite Curt’s braided hairstyle.
Hamish Hawk maybe fits the category. Musings of life, relationships, and the human condition with some arch references and poetic(ish) lyrical thoughts.
Not sure I like the term “poncey” but I see what it’s getting at
After a day of reflection I’m not a fan of the term either. Being bullied and labelled a ponce for liking brilliant music by clever people isn’t a warm, chuckle-filled memory, if I’m honest. I guess I was trying to reclaim the word but my heart’s not in it.
Everything about Rattlesnakes fits the bill. Just pick any lyric. Doesn’t stop it being a brilliant album, absolutely one of my favourites. As I’ve said before I wish I’d taken it as a template for my twenties as opposed to the classic mix of alcohol fueled hedonism followed by early marriage I chose.
I was pounce-averse but one listen to 2CV and my fringe just seemed to develop a floppy état.
I even know where it was – by a pool in Majorca with a couple of nouveau ponce just moved to London mates. Brilliant album, still love it.
The Fall did their ballet thing with Michael Clark. Tremendous it was too but not poncey. You could go a bit highbrow whilst being quite tough.
Britpop-wise, Suede and Pulp were a bit poncey. There’s always been that aspect to UK pop. A bit fey and effete. Those bands were really indie first. Indie had it’s ponceyness of course. I like that acts want to be a bit pretentious. God save us from Oasis and their ilk.
Suede is a great call. I love them, but honestly, “running with the dogs today”. I mean, come on.
They were in the process of handing over to poncemeisters the Pet Shop Boys who were preparing to ‘run with the dogs tonight’…in suburbia, natch.
Suburbia is a song that is confident and unquestionably great. I think it was 4th single of the album – Imperial phase in excelis. Also – All of my Heart by ABC.
Momus is someone who I haven’t thought about for decades, but this thread prompted his memory. I bought Tender Pervert (possibly confusing it with Tender Prey) in 1988, when I was on a ‘quirky’ music chase – anything off the beaten track. I bought the debut from Ultra Vivid Scene in the same year.
This must surely belong in a thread for poncey music.
He’s still going strong today, I believe.
I still like Ultra Vivid Scene! Postmodern guru Kurt Raiske channeling Roland Barthes’ “lover’s Discourse” for the second album. Time for a reissue of 4AD stuff, yes?
I was a big Momus fan for the first few albums before he became too out there perverse for the sake of it and lost a lot of the wit. The move to electronica didn’t work for me either. Certainly he was poncy on the first album but knowingly so from early on. In his track Closer to You from the Poison Boyfriend album, he takes the piss out of some of his earlier works “Murderers the Hope of Women, Paper Wraps Rock all that adolescent crap, what kind of idiot would sing that?”
When Divine Comedy started I was of the opinion that Neil Hannon was something of a Momus wannabe. I still do. His songs tend to be character studies without the strong narrative common to Momus’s best.
For Momus’s ponciest song I’d probably nominate In the Sanatorium.
Coincidentally, that was the video (retrofitted) that showed up when I googled Momus. It’s worth a watch, though slightly NSFW, possibly.
I’d say the whole genre of Chamber-Pop is poncey. Best example, Agnes Obel.
However, I cannot believe ect ect …. Belle And Sebastian. Even the name is poncey.
Aren’t B&S are just a more successful example of a twee “Hair-clip” band?
See also: EBTG, everyone on Sarah Records, C86.
EBTG were poncy for the first album. “The drummer can’t use cymbals” etc. “Love not money” was confused then they hit the motherlode with suburban melodrama which is by definition non-ponce. The dance stuff is post-ponce I think we can agree?
Non?
Yeah, I should have said “early EBTG”. Nowt poncey about Missing.
Genre overload!
Can’t believe I made it all the way to the bottom of the thread without seeing a mention of Shelleyan Orphan.
Crikey, yes. I have two of their albums. I haven’t played either in 30+ years. But, apart from not playing guitars, were they that poncey?
Crash Test Dummies? I quite liked their first album. And they got a song mentioning TS Eliot into the charts.
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm…
So did Elaine Paige.
This article is in this week’s New European I thought it was apposite.
https://app.theneweuropean.co.uk/rocking-the-classics-music-literature/content.html
I have always regarded Sky – Williams, Peek, Flowers et al as pretty poncey