Rules Of The Game #15: Grown-ups Make Puppy Love

[koganbot]

Latest column: why teens sing adult lyrics: a theory (which is that it's the other way around); also, Britney as the little engine that couldn't.

The Rules Of The Game #15: Grown-ups Make Puppy Love

Once again they botched the italics. And I just spent five minutes debating with myself as to whether it should be "Grown-ups" or "Grown-Ups." (Oh, and I know that JoJo is actually 16 not 15, but she was 15 when her second album was recorded and released, and I couldn't be bothered to explain this.)

So, any opinion as to why love and romance lyrics overwhelmingly dominate pop music?

EDIT: Here are links to all but three of my other Rules Of The Game columns (LVW's search results for "Rules of the Game"). Links for the other three (which for some reason didn't get "Rules Of The Game" in their titles), are here: #4, #5, and #8.

UPDATE: I've got all the links here now:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/179531.html

Comments

Enough about love; let's talk about eggplant

[koganbot]

But notice the claim - or hypothesis - I'm making, which is that the standard adult pop song ("love was just a glance away, a warm embracing dance away"), sung by and for adults, without anything that signals "teen" in the lyrics, is based on the teen experience of relationships and crushes, not the adult experience of marriage and family or long-term gf and bf, etc. Country is a partial exception here, in that it definitely mines divorce and extramarrital affairs and love-grown-tired and love reinvigorated as themes; but still, this is only a partial exception, since adult day-to-day experience of relationships isn't divorce and extramarrital affairs.

And why do love and romance supersede all other topics? (For instance, there clearly aren't enough songs about aubergines.)

Love comes in spurts

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This was a point I was trying to make in my Pitchfork column on ABBA a few months ago, that their songs often (not quite always) feel more situated in an adult world rather than a teen one, even the love songs (of which there are many, obviously).

Does love dominate partly because it's an emotion that is felt in surges with specific triggering moments (same with anger, which is probably the second most common pop emotion) so it fits the 3-4 minute format well.

Re: Love comes in spurts

[koganbot]

Anger of course is usually integrated into the romance cycle, in break-up/revenge songs.

I have another hypothesis, by the way, which is that punk-protest-type lyrics are basically break-up/revenge songs with the lyrics simply redirected at parents social institutions. By that theory, "God Save The Queen" is essentially "It's All Over Now" but directed at Queen and country. You lied to me, but tables turn, your turn to cry. I used to love you, but it's all over now. Under my thumb's a queen who once had me down.

Re: Love comes in spurts

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

3-4 minutes is key, yes. Teen love in particular is a simple form of it that the listener doesn't need a phd in politics (or to have experienced a divorce) to understand. Almost everyone has had a crush on someone, because usually that's the first phase of love that people experience. In their teens.

Re: Love comes in spurts

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's a Swedish thing (Jessica P to thread!)...Amy Diamond's songs are totally terrifying sometimes in their adultness. Seriously, "Welcome to the City" pretty much is "Frankenstein" by the New York Dolls.

Re: Love comes in spurts

[koganbot]

Well, most of my love relationships last three or four minutes anyway. (Er, just joking, but there's that great line in David Johansen's "Frenchette": "You call that lovin' French but it's just Frenchette, I've been to France, so let's just dance/I get all the love I need in a luncheonette in just one glance, so let's just dance.") But I've been meaning to explore the ABBA catalogue ever since you ran that piece. Assuming my column keeps running, it'll probably be several months before I decide I've accumulated enough money to spare a little for CDs. Next month I go clothes shopping for the first time in ten years.

Re: Love comes in spurts

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I should compile (and upload) an ABBA compilation then! It's not like Benny and Bjorn need the money.

Re: Enough about love; let's talk about eggplant

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

"I got out the baking sheet and you grabbed a pot
The way you slice that aubergine is makin' me hot
Stick it in the oven babe and watch it collapse
And while it's sizzlin' we can go take a nap.

'Cuz it's an EGGPLANT dinner EGGPLANT surprise
I'm only seein' EGGPLANT when I look into your eyes
EGGPLANT dinner and an EGGPLANT lunch
On sale at the market so there's gonna be a bunch"

Re: Enough about love; let's talk about eggplant

[koganbot]

But this is really a crypto romance song! But then, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.