The Midnight Lumberjack notes a specific decline in the quality, artistry and authenticity, among other subjective criteria, in pop music precipitated by Disco and continuing to the present day. I don't buy it. In romanticizing the 50s and 60s pop it is easy to gloss over hundreds of execrable Frankie Avalon, Fabian, Paul Anka and Pat Boone albums, and later in the 60s the vast wasteland of knock-off psychedelia and Carpenters crap that topped charts for both of these decades. There has always been bad music and bad music has always been popular. In fact pop music of the 70s, 80s and 90s was arguably more inventive, honest and interesting than that which preceded it. I am not about to write the essay "In Praise of Disco", but the staples of that era such as "Disco Inferno" by the Trammps (a 10-minute long, technically difficult funk jam) or Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive" were equally, if not more challenging songs than their bubblegum brill building ancestors. The reaction against disco reflected more of a social backlash than a qualitative one as the unrelenting optimism and ubiquity of the music was incongruous with the equally oppressive and cynical weltenschauung of the time (just ask blue-collar south-side White Sox fans on Disco Demolition Night (but don't use the word weltenschauung or you may get punched in the face)). The 80s saw pop acts such as Duran Duran and Tears for Fears explore the inorganic aural sounsdcape that the synthesizer had unlocked. It was both novel and reflective of the increasing tension between culture and technology (songs like "I think I'm turning Japanese" came out while Japanese firms had already bought most of Los Angeles skyline). I will admit that all of the above groups and songs suck (a lot), however comparing their pop cred to the Beatles is a little dishonest, as the beatles became important (in a historical sense) after they had abandoned pop music and veered more avant-garde. Finally pop music is too difficult to taxonomize to begin with that it is nearly impossible to distinguish where pop music ends and alternative music or hip hop or anything else begins making the whole argument hopelessly imprecise. (Full Disclosure: My main motivation for writing this is that the Midnight Lumberjack deleted my last post, probably because it was incomprehensible and it threatened to tarnish the legacy vytriads has built for itself over thes past few whirlwind months)
