The Loud Pretties (As Opposed To Power Pop)

[koganbot]

Was thinking of my definition of power pop — "pop melodies with loud guitars and sometimes power chords" — and realized that one could say the same about the music I call "the loud pretties," music like the New York Dolls' "Jet Boy" and Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." But I don't consider the latter power pop. Power pop (e.g., Crayon Pop's "Bar Bar Bar," which is putting "power pop" on my mind these days) has a much cleaner sound. The prettiness of "Bar Bar Bar" seems separable from the musical attack. The two accompany each other without being integral to each other. Whereas in the loud pretties, the guitar squall and the vocal squall seem one and the same, the melody emanating from the squall.

Jet Boy

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Smells Like Teen Spirit

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Bar Bar Bar

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(The Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and the Who's "I Can See For Miles" are poised between power pop and the loud pretties — though you need to understand that in their time, in comparison to the surrounding sounds, they seemed really loud, especially "Miles.")

Comments

From Chuck

[(Anonymous)]

Hey Frank - Actually, unless my memory is way off, on your 1991 Pazz & Jop ballot (which I probably still have in a manilla envelope somewhere), you said "Smells Like Teen Spirit was powerpop. (Think you also called "How I Could Just Kill A Man" punk rock and "Mind Playing Tricks On Me" blues, too, but I could be wrong.)

ILX has a couple amusing if interminable threads, by the way, where Phil Dellio and I argue out our powerpop definitions (which can pretty much all be summed up thusly: Chuck says crunchy, Phil says jangly.)

Re: From Chuck

[koganbot]

Totally forgotten about this, but you're right:

CATEGORIES
Geto Boys' "Mind Playing Tricks On Me" is blues. Cypress Hill's "How I Could Just Kill A Man" is punk (though not "punk rock"). Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is power pop.

I think I was correct in considering "How I Could Just Kill A Man" punk for its daring you to take it seriously and for its being fucked and making an issue of it. And it has fangs that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" doesn't. But Kurt screaming "denial" at the end of "Smells" is also punk, even if (unlike Stones, Dylan, Velvets, Stooges, Pistols) he's not also scratching out your eyes while he's blotting the sun from the sky. The blot is mostly internal, Kurt turning the lights out on Kurt. Poor guy.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" should've been my number one song of 1991 (I've still got a draft long list, and it's somewhere betw. 11 and 13). I nonetheless continue to think that my actual 1, 2, 3, and 4 (Corina's "Temptation," Lisette Melendez's "A Day In My Life (Without You)," Enigma's "Sadeness," and Naughty By Nature's "O.P.P.") held more excitement then and now for the future. And Cypress Hill should've been on both my albums and singles list; they only got on my videos list.

Power pop and punk aren't mutually exclusive, of course.

I do think I'm making a good sonic distinction between power pop and the loud pretties. Ramones and Joan Jett would be power pop, Nirvana and the Dolls would be the loud pretties (as would the Clash). But obv. I wasn't making that distinction in 1991, or if I was I forgot it when I was writing my comments.

The actual immortal line from my ballot was the one that you picked out in Accidental Evolution (in my comments it's directly above "CATEGORIES"):

LITTLE WING
I rather like the Enigma LP (C minus in your turkey shoot). There's a part in the middle of Side Two, where the guitar imitates seagulls, that I like a lot. It would have been even better if they'd gotten seagulls to imitate guitars.

(My comments were addressed to Christgau, so "your turkey shoot" means Christgau's turkey shoot.)

[askbask.livejournal.com]

"Sony Music Entertainment has sealed a license and partnership deal with rookie girl band Crayon Pop, a sign that global music labels are increasingly watching the Korean music industry in hopes of spotting the next Psy."
http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2013/08/13/sony-music-looks-to-korea-signs-crayon-pop/

Crayon Pop as a worldwide hit is a funny idea, even if it doesn't play out. Reminds me of when we talked hypothetically about what the first western kpop hit would be.. I guess it's time to think about what the 2nd one will be.