Extreme Pop

[koganbot]

I posted this over on the rolling teenpop thread.

xhuxk was talking to me about Decibel magazine, which devotes itself to extreme metal, and after I got off the phone I got the idea that if you could designate some things "extreme metal" you should also be able to designate things "extreme pop."

So, my nominations for EXTREME POP would include:

Mariah Carey (esp. her 1991 peak) because she's just fuckin' extreme, and 'cause she squeaks.
Napoleon XIV's "They're Coming to Take Me Away" because it's extremely silly and irritating and because the flipside is the same song played backwards which causes people to shoot themselves in the head.
The Veronicas' "4ever" for its deliriously gorgeous harmonies.
Boney M for being guilelessly eclectic.
Richard Harris' "MacArthur Park," because someone left the cake out in the rain.
Lindsay Lohan's video for "Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father)"
Johnny Ray
The Shangri-Las
Little Richard

You can figure out what's extreme about the last three. This list is just to get the concept going.

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Some - not all - happy hardcore and eurodance cover versions. (will elaborate as to which when iTunes is open)

That faster, harder, popper mix of Whigfield's "Saturday Night" cis posted a while ago.

Lieutenant Pigeon - "Mouldy Old Dough"

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

"Saturday Night" in original mix is pop but perhaps not EXTREME POP, though it was ubiquitous pop with its special dance, so the extremity (as with the Eurobosh cover versions), comes when something that is already pop is made more so - faster, buzzier, more immediate - and has its non-pop elements (me being bored with it) stripped out.

"Mouldy Old Dough" - I'll elaborate more on this when Popular reaches 1972 but though the combination of primitive piano-hammering (by an old granny) and the gutteral mumblings of a horrible tramp does not sound particularly pop, it was No.1 for several weeks and certainly sounds like a limit being pushed - a particular kind of British pop jollity (the crowd gathering round the old joanna) turning stompy and aggressive.