Today's time waster

[venta]

A 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?

Comments

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

The Auteurs did a song called "The Rubettes" (on their "How I Learned To Love The Bootboys" album), in which they took "Sugar Baby Love" and poured their usual poisons into it. I love it (the rest of the album isn't great, unfortunately).

Got to keep thinking about "the perfect popsong". Does it have to be something I actually *like*, or can I declare something to be a perfect popsong on the grounds of being vapid, saccharine, and ultimately detestable?

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

That's just a snob's view of pop, though. "Pop" shouldn't be defined to be any music designed to appeal to the masses and which we personally don't happen to like. Vapidity is not a rquired characteristic of pop, it's just extremely common.

To me, a piece of music being a pop song depends more on the formula it follows and the tricks it uses than it depends on what the song happens to be about, but maybe I'm alone in this.

More examples of archetypal pop songs:

I Get Around, The Beach Boys
Love Me Do, The Beatles
Stand by Your Man, Tammy Wynette

[venta.livejournal.com]

The Auteurs did a song called "The Rubettes"

... which is indeed a great song. And discussing it is how Richard's comment about Sugar Baby Love came up in the first place.