Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Radio & Music >

Take That: Back for Good?

Page: 1(2)

miss wonderstarr

20:03 / 31.01.07

... are you effectively saying that "Stay Another Day" is parallel to "The Drugs Don't Work"?

20:09 / 31.01.07

Well, I suppose that is a comparable but in my entirely subjective opinion much more obvious work yes...

miss wonderstarr

20:10 / 31.01.07

OK are you not joking about East 17 being prophetic poets and all that.

20:13 / 31.01.07

I think the hidden meanings are there for those prepared to look for them miss wonderstarr.

miss wonderstarr

20:16 / 31.01.07

Actually that video was really fucking good. I'm surprised how powerful and sexy it was. It starts like "Two Tribes" and goes into a scene where Aliens' marines invade the Matrix Revolutions' Zion, choreographed by Janet Jackson. With a narration like Roy Batty's paraphrase of William Blake.

21:53 / 31.01.07

Wow. I had forgotten just how homoerotic that jelly video was.

I think I just strained my gay muscle.

22:05 / 31.01.07

Give it a day, it'll work fine in the morning.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:29 / 31.01.07

... are you effectively saying that "Stay Another Day" is parallel to "The Drugs Don't Work"?

That's insane "Stay Another Day" is incalculably better than "The Drugs Don't Work". As any fule kno.

miss wonderstarr

06:39 / 01.02.07

I don't know what's going on here anymore, but I meant that "The Drugs Don't Work" is apparently (also) about a terminally-ill family member, not recreational chemicals, and that "Stay Another Day" is (we just learned) also (apparently) about loss within the family.

15:42 / 01.02.07

Sorry, I should have been clearer, putting my cards on the table I must tell you I generally don't like pop. Contentious statement I know, but it hopefully explains a bit more my comments on Take That.
Having thought about it, I think TT's image was aimed at teen girls and grannies. I was going to use eggs as a counterexample to show that marketing isn't everything and plenty of people like the band for lots of reasons beyond sex appeal, but it seems a bit obvious now. Then I saw this post;
Dear Dr Quantum:
I've never particularly liked anything that Take That have been involved in before now, but I like this song and I like this video.
Have I caught Teh Ghey?
...and sort of sighed. Partly because of the idea that I somewhere said liking TT makes you gay, and that it was somehow a bad thing, and partly because Randy likes Take That:the next generation which IMHO is an even worse incarnation than the original. I've nothing against the people in the band personally (apparently Mark seemed lovely on Big Brother for example) and I wish them luck in their comeback, but I hate the music they make and the billion boybands they spawned.
If you like pop then TT are great, but why are they any better than McFly Westlife Backstreet Boys Nsync Boyzone Blue or the Beegees? Since I don't like pop (or the associated white silk etc videos) I reserve the right to loathe them.
Basically, I'm with Wonderstarr but from the opposite side- I think Girls Aloud are just as naff/great as TT depending on whether you like pop. And I'd agree with eggs there is something Davy Jones about little Mark, but I'm not sure why...

Anyway, what was the name of that recent TT song, where the video is of them wandering through the wilderness then all meeting up with Barlow and getting successful again? Full of moody looks and pouty lips like a weird version of LotR? Whatever, it was rubbish. I'll let you lot continue without my carping, please excuse my hating, good luck to TT but they're not my cup of T.

miss wonderstarr

20:18 / 01.02.07

I think Girls Aloud are just as naff/great as TT depending on whether you like pop.

I'm not a major TT fan, and I love GA, but I'd tend to agree with this. If you like pop, I'd say those two bands are of equal importance. I could quite readily respect a TT fan who had similar feeling for their band as I have for GA.

If you like pop then TT are great, but why are they any better than McFly Westlife Backstreet Boys Nsync Boyzone Blue or the Beegees?

That's an interesting question. Why do any of us feel one boy- or girl-band is better than another? I can understand that from the outside, they seem very samey. I make distinctions, but the grounds for those distinctions would take me a while to explain ~ and might still seem very subjective by the end.

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:24 / 02.02.07

I'm very much the same with composers of the late baroque period. If you can't read, most books look like cuboids filled with white paper with black marks on it, surely?

miss wonderstarr

07:38 / 02.02.07

I'm not doing a Sequart.com here but the point puts me in mind of this book, which aims at unpacking that very issue ~ how do fans make distinctions within popular culture? There is a chapter on why Kylie is the best pop princess, which didn't really do it for me, but... the anthology's introduction and conclusion, by editor McKee, are good.

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:57 / 02.02.07

Um... Am I missing something, or is the idea of critical analysis of popular music really that foreign/novel to you, miss w?

miss wonderstarr

08:05 / 02.02.07

Actually, I think it might be, Flyboy. Unless you count journalistic reviews as critical analysis. I don't think I've read any scholarly analysis of popular music, or anything much that seriously tries to account for how we'd make distinctions of quality between, say, S Club and Steps.

Am I being naive, and is this like someone saying "wouldn't it be good if there were university courses about MOVIES?"

miss wonderstarr

08:09 / 02.02.07

By popular music, I mean specifically the late-90s to mid-00 pop bands we're talking about here. I don't mean mod and punk, for instance.

But yes, it's quite possible that I've just focused elsewhere in my cultural studies reading and I'm embarrassing myself by having ignored an entire other field.

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:30 / 02.02.07

Kinda thing.

miss wonderstarr

08:43 / 02.02.07

Well, I can be dumb sometimes. Could you link me to some critical discussion of recent pop that I might enjoy?

16:00 / 02.02.07

Yeah.

16:01 / 02.02.07

It's close ... it's real close.

miss wonderstarr

19:17 / 02.02.07

This seems kind of negative, rather than helpful.

20:33 / 02.02.07

Ok. Well 'Words And Music' by Paul Morley is very good, then. It's dense, but rewarding. If memory serves, he tries to link Stockhausen with 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' by Kylie Minogue (the latter being his perfect pop song,) and sort of succeeds. If you can get hold of a copy (and it mghht be out of print now,) the chapter on the Manic Street Preachers is worth the price of admission on its own.

Whisky Priestess

20:53 / 02.02.07

Anyway, what was the name of that recent TT song, where the video is of them wandering through the wilderness then all meeting up with Barlow and getting successful again? Full of moody looks and pouty lips like a weird version of LotR?

That would be Patience.

Again, don't thank me, just buy the album.

(Also, fans old and new, be sure to watch until the very last second for a special nostalgic image)

21:22 / 02.02.07

For some reason, I feel terribly sad to be alive now.

miss wonderstarr

21:42 / 02.02.07

OK, I'm not being difficult but isn't Morley's book journalism? I can believe I've neglected a whole avenue of academia that analyses recent pop, but, I don't know... apart from Simon Frith who crops up whenever pop music is discussed in academia, nobody springs to my mind at all.

And also, the idea that academia hasn't adequately discussed the means through which people evaluate and distinguish between different pop bands* seems to be supported by the fact that McKee managed to get a book published in late 2006 based on the premise that this question's been neglected and needs to be addressed.

-----------
* and, in his book, gay porn sites, Xena episodes etc

10:48 / 03.02.07

If you can't read, most books look like cuboids filled with white paper with black marks on it, surely? Teh Haus

If you can read, one Mills & Boon bodice-ripper is much like another.
I know what you mean about baroque composers though, Alessandro Grandi and Ascanio Mayone are indistinguishable to me, just noise really.

Haus of Mystery

12:52 / 03.02.07

Maybe I'm tired but this thread seems like a Burroughs cut-up.

I think I like it.

Take That have occasionly been amazing, often pretty great, and sometimes quite winceworthy.
But I'd take them over the stultifyingly aggravatingly awful Boyzone/Westlife axis that swiftly followed.

13:05 / 03.02.07

OK, I'm not being difficult but isn't Morley's book journalism?

Well it describes itself as 'part novel, part critique, part history, part philosophical enquiry, part ultimate book of musical lists.' So it's all over the place really, but interesting nevertheless. Though perhaps a bit less intellectually rigorous than what you're looking for, admittedly.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:19 / 03.02.07

Well there's England is Mine, by Michael Bracewell, and sort of England's Dreaming, although that's more about punk and post-punk. Again, though, you could see these as histories rather than academic studies...

20:57 / 03.02.07

You forgot to mention 'High Fidelity' there, mate.

Because pop music isn't just a 'head' thing, or even a 'heart' thing - sometimes it's something that only one's 'arse' can really understand. As Hornby (The Hornster?) so eloquently, if somewhat indirectly, pointed out in his ghastly book.

Haus of Mystery

22:08 / 03.02.07

Always wanted to read that Morley book. I know lots of people think he's a nob, but I've got time for the guy - he wrote an ace piece on Manchester as a musical city in (shhhh don't tell Flyboy) the OMM a while back. Music writing is a hard feat to pull off. I often think interview collage books (like 'Please Kill Me') work better.

miss wonderstarr

06:31 / 04.02.07

Well, when I was freely "taking the shame" above, Alex's Grandma and Flyboy both seemed to imply that there was an academic field concerned with the serious analysis of recent pop music that was as established as film studies. (I said is this as naive as suggesting it'd be great if there were courses about movies... they were all, yes pretty much, it is.)

I'm not trying to win an argument here because I was glad to be wrong if it meant there was a world of pop analysis I'd missed ~ but I'm not really seeing evidence of that yet.

09:45 / 04.02.07

From what I understand of it (and I try to keep up) writing about Pop is slowly edging towards the kind of academic approach you seem to favour, Dr Batman, but it hasn't really got there yet.

If you like, 'Words And Music' was Paul Morley's long, and heavily undisciplined PhD effort about Kylie Minogue. But there's too much personal opinion for it to be something that's studied at university, at least as anything other than fiction.

miss wonderstarr

10:16 / 04.02.07

Oh, I don't know. I barely consider myself an academic anymore. Most of what I've done recently, though it sneaks into academic collections, is more creative writing, autobiography and invention than proper scholarship. I would probably dig Paul Morley's book.

Page: 1(2)