Frank Kogan

If we think of disco and Italodisco as being to the '70s and '80s what rock 'n' roll was to the '50s and early '60s, and if we think of techno and acid house and some of the other visionary stuff in the broad electronic dance area as being to the '80s and '90s and onward what rock was to the '60s and early '70s, then let's say there's the tendency within techno/EDM to embrace its lost rock 'n' roll/disco self in the same way that in the late '60s and early '70s the punks and glamsters and glitter babes were rediscovering their own lost rock 'n' roll/pop/punk selves and inventing something new out of it. One of the words that emerged when "the punk rock movement" started to go big was "power pop." According to Wikipedia, the term was coined by Pete Townshend back in 1967. But as an idea (Greg Shaw's I think, though I don't recall if I was reading his own words on the subject or other people who were crediting him), it doesn't emerge until the late '70s, the idea being that, while punk was a necessary moment of destruction, the music we really want is more open and expansive, a broader palette, hence "power pop" (the term subsequently designating something far too narrow, unfortunately, but that's not Greg's fault). So my thesis is that the real new power pop — as opposed to rock-based throwbacks like "Bar Bar Bar" — is EDM in its more pop and cheesy and reductively opportunist impulses (of course, my def'n of "new" here goes back to the early '90s; one of the advantages of being old is I can take "new" back a long ways; e.g., to me anything Dylan did after 1967 is "late Dylan").

Of course, the '70s and '80s weren't the '50s and '60s, and techno etc. wasn't/isn't the new version of the supposed '60s rock revolution, though I actually think there's a hunk to be gained from exploring those analogies. Disco didn't have nearly as much of rock 'n' roll's air of insurgency, but like r'n'r it took the funk 'n' groove of its time while carrying itself as if to say "we can bring this to the whole world, and use anything in the world in our sound." (Hip-hop also felt it could use anything but was very much about staking out its own territory.) And disco was probably more insurgent and utopian than outsiders realized, just as rock 'n' roll and rock were more of a consumer niche and less insurgent than claimed. (Not that being a consumer niche forestalls all insurgency.)

( Pushing the analogy )

"One (Always Hardcore)"


モーニング娘。 『愛の軍団』(Morning Musume。["GUNDAN" of the love])


モーニング娘。 『わがまま 気のまま 愛のジョーク』(Morning Musume。[Selfish,easy going,Jokes of love])


( Notes )