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

Extreme Lunch

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I dunno if anything can simultaneously be "indie" and "extreme" in this sense (as in "EXTREME POP") because indie as a social construct (not genre) signals a kind of acceptable, or maybe accepted, level of extremity. When an artist is kicked out of/not included in the indie category, like post-Matrix Liz Phair or Courtney Love, it's possible to become EXTREME POP.

This seems closely related to the "free lunch"...like the more free lunches a song has to offer, the more (potentially) EXTREME it is.

Daphne and Celeste are EXTREME POP because they don't give a fuck. Eminem (usually) isn't, because he says he doesn't give a fuck but actually does.

"Hypocrite" is EXTREME POP, "Billy S" isn't (I also don't think self-consciousness disallows EXTREME POP, "Hypocrite" counters that, although smug self-consciousness certainly does, "Billy S" supports that). M2M is EXTREME POP, Marion Raven and Marit Larsen are not (Marit is closer), because neither of them would stick a Bee Gees chorus in the middle of one of their songs without batting an eyelash. Maybe Marit would do something like this someday, but she'd bat one eyelash, i.e. wink.

I just realized that the Girl Authority version of "Hollaback Girl" is EXTREME POP and the original isn't. Hmmm

The A*Teens and Devo 2.0 are both EXTREME POP because they want it and they go get it, West End Girls aren't because they don't and they don't.

Aqua are EXTREME POP because they're Danish bimbos, Toy-Box because they're Danish dorks. Both know they're funny instead of thinking they're funny, which is why Daze and Ch!pz are not EXTREME POP.

Re: Extreme Lunch

[koganbot]

Hi Bedbug

Indie is extreme to the extent that it's extremely tepid; the more extreme it is the more tepid it feels, at any rate. I like the idea "accepted level of extremity"; would "required level of 'extremity'" be another way of putting it?

New quick definition of "extreme pop": "extreme music that isn't boring." But perhaps I need to come up with an auxiliary concept: "extreme semipop," to designate "music that has the potential to be popular because it isn't boring even if it isn't yet popular."