If today's top hits had a philosophy degree it might sound like this. Innovative, sophisticated, avant garde. Sometimes edgy. Always different. With King Princess, Charli XCX, FKA Twigs, Anna of the North, Mr Hudson, Lykke Li, GOODNIGHT HYYTS, Magnum Haus, Allie X, EMZAE and friends.
Pop has changed. It has been proven – the pop song altered forever by streaming, via data analysis. The New York based company Hit Songs Deconstructed advises artists, labels and writers what elements help to make a hit by breaking down and analysing songs that have been hits. Presumably the most expensive option available is Post Malone’s DNA. But by mentioning his very name in a song, you could improve your chances of having a hit (right Sam Feldt & RANI?). Closely followed by pitch-shifting autotune perhaps.
Songwriters have come to feel like they must work to a formula more maths than magic – especially those writers thrown together in a ‘writing room’. The pressure is very much on that such teams will produce hits. Get in the writing room. Grab coffee. Quick round the table introductions to meet your fellow writers. Read the analysis report. Write the song. Is this really how hits get made these days?
Even the Swedish hit machine Max Martin has been known to complain about this. The quiet unassuming Swede has co-produced and co-written more hits than Lennon & McCartney. He knows all the tricks and invented some of them. But Max has said he would like more time for a song to develop. He doesn’t have that time. To make the song a hit, Max and the folks in the writing rooms must get to the hook within six seconds. Or risk being skipped. And being skipped does not a hit make.
The notion of getting to the point in pop isn’t strictly new or unique to the streaming era. ‘Don’t bore us get to the chorus’ has been what busy, attention-starved radio listeners wanted all along. Music genius and Chic legend Nile Rogers got around this issue by simply starting his songs at the chorus. He first did this 40 years ago with ‘Good Times’ (although he did take two bars and 20 seconds before the chorus kicks-in - slow!). He has done the same trick ever since to great effect (not including Debbie Harry’s ‘Backfired’, when the trick…well, it Backfired). Nile was so good at producing hits that his ‘hit machine’ beat-up Fender Strat. is said to have generated a music economy all of its own (worth as much as a billion dollars. By the way, Backfired is actually really good and deserves a re-evaluation. We’ll do this eventually when we get to Debbie Harry). As pop records go, it sounds utterly organic compared with the hits of today.
But why is The Song Sommelier meddling in such murky issues as the modern pop song you may ask? Well, we’ve noticed an element in pop – a growing element – that does not concern itself with these rules, much. This pop is being made by more single-minded, visionary individuals. And, the music benefits greatly as a result it seems. Again, nothing new as such. Pop – some strands of – has been improving steadily for a long time (take that naysayers!). Wind back to Britney Spears’ In The Zone for example in 2003. Then in came Lady Gaga. When Taylor Swift made her 1989 album in 2014, she re-set the standard somewhat for pop. A couple of years after that, Rihanna did the same with Anti.
These great pop records actually really ‘popped’. They surprised, delighted, sometimes shocked just that little bit. Pop can only do this if given time to build (something to ‘pop’ against). To our ears, pop now is better than it has been for a long, long time. Very much following in the steps of those greats mentioned above – but pushing the boundaries further. These past few weeks we’ve had new records from Charli XCX, Caroline Polachek, Allie X, Bat For Lashes, Mr Hudson, Shura and Tove Lo. All just fantastic records that seem unconcerned with formula and more concerned with musicality, beats with variety, great choruses and genuine ‘pop’ moments.
Many of these records demonstrate the art of the conceptual. They lean towards the avante-garde you might say. Not daytime radio material necessarily, and all the better for it. Some of this is challenging yes. It is dark, but only the better when the shades of light get revealed. King Princess – new album out now hurray! FKA Twigs (new album soon hurray!), BANKS (recent album fab), Delacey (first album soon), Glowie (first album soon), HYYTS (first album soon). This is pop to stop and pay attention to rather than music for those always travelling but never arriving.
So, what to name this music?
We thought maybe Avant Pop – defined by Wikipedia as “popular music that is experimental, new, and distinct from previous styles while retaining an immediate accessibility for the listener”. That’s close but not quite on the money. We feel this pop needs something more. Something reflecting those influences of the past yet breaking new ground. Something unbound by the rule book. Something conceptual, related as much to art and philosophy as the music. And something not taken. Think…if Today's Top Hits had a philosophy degree it might sound like this. Innovative, alternative, sophisticated, avant-garde. Sometimes edgy. Always different.
It was Mick Clarke the Song Sommelier artist in residence that cracked it in the end. Through that artwork: “stickers stuck on a mondrianesque backdrop incorporating the title and all fusing together in an unseamless postmodernest sort of way”. For an artist he does have a way with words does Mick.
So there we have it, this is Postmodernist Pop.
From a brand new track from King Princess, all the way back via Charli XCX, to 1999. Hit us baby one more time, and roll on Volume 2 (no skipping though!).
Next up…pure pop greatness + Scandinavian melancholia = who else could it possibly be, if you cannot guess it then you can take on me!