Today's time waster
Jan. 15th, 2003 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaA while ago a friend of mine said that he considered The Rubettes' Sugar Baby Love[*] to be the perfect pop song.
I'm not sure what I would suggest...
A perfect pop song would need to be short (a good example of how being too long can spoil a song can be found in Kenickie's Punka - a great song, I think, but would be so much greater if they'd had the sense to stop about half way through).
I think it wants a chorus, almost by definition. And has to be something you can dance about like a twat to, if you're so inclined. Probably something you can recognise within the first bar and a half, across a dancefloor...
Any thoughts ? Defining "pop" is, of course, left as an exercise for the reader.
[*] at least, I think he did. Richard, if you're reading, am I right?
I'm not sure what I would suggest...
A perfect pop song would need to be short (a good example of how being too long can spoil a song can be found in Kenickie's Punka - a great song, I think, but would be so much greater if they'd had the sense to stop about half way through).
I think it wants a chorus, almost by definition. And has to be something you can dance about like a twat to, if you're so inclined. Probably something you can recognise within the first bar and a half, across a dancefloor...
Any thoughts ? Defining "pop" is, of course, left as an exercise for the reader.
[*] at least, I think he did. Richard, if you're reading, am I right?
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Oh, and of course...
Date: 2003-01-15 06:41 am (UTC)Sheena is a Punk Rocker by the Ramones, which is one of the landmark singles which ensured that punk would become a subversion of the pop formula rather than a rejection of it, and without which none of these Undertones or Green Days would have been possible.
Re: Oh, and of course...
Date: 2003-01-15 08:44 am (UTC)And a few more, moderately recent, examples:
Bohemian Like You, Dandy Warhols
Stripper Vicar, Mansun
Sit Down, James
You Only Get What You Give, New Radicals
Some of those might not fulfill the "short" requirement.
I'm not quite sure what criteria I'm applying in my selection - it has a lot to do with the song being very compact, with simple catchy riffs, natural progressions, "obvious"-sounding bridges, and that kind of thing. I'm also limiting it to things I like ;-)