Now, I know that one of the main criticisms of pop is that you're going to be ashamed of it in 10 years--that you're going to look back and say, "Why the hell did I like that crap?" Or, at least, "Why the hell did I say I liked that crap in public?" Pop's temporality is assumed to be a source of embarassment and shame, the theory being that if you're not embarassed by it now, as all the indie kids are, then you will be later. (Unless, of course, the indie kids decide that a certain pop artifact was worth appreciating, in which case you look sort of ahead of the curve but sort of pathetic, like the aging metalheads who really sincerely like Slayer.)

But what seems overlooked is that the heat that pop's temporality can generate produces an often corresponding heat in response, and if this positive sincerity is embarassing in its short-sightedness, then so is the antipopism. Exhibit number one for this theory: this old text file on NKOTB. Now, isn't that kind of embarassing now?

Of course, there are those bands that you still can't say a bad word about, somehow, without people getting offended: the Pixies, Tupac, etc. I was going to say Nirvana, but then I found this...

(Totally unrelated: some good musician jokes.)
posted by Mike B. at 6:27 PM 0 comments