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| Glossy gals who knew how to throw a pose! |
Massive global hits when singles sales and radio plays meant something The Bangles wrote, played and sang as fantastic as they looked, and whipped up a storm live. Forget the "greatest girl group ever" tag - which they were - The Bangles are the last great Pop Group.
Good for a daily dopamine rush, and to remind yerself of how unbelievably great pop could get. As an added bonus [left - Ed.], a live recording from '84, when you still had your own teeth.
That track list in full!
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Okay, that bit about "last great Pop Group" should have you stroking your whiskers ... what's your choice?
ReplyDeletePugwash.
ReplyDeleteThere are others of course, but I'm going with Pugwash.
Cheers, Peanuts Molloy.
By the way, I should have specified that my choice quite obviously includes the Pugwash offshoot band "Duckworth Lewis Method".
DeleteAlso, I've just remembered that the very excellent Pugwash album "Silverlake" was produced by the very talented Jason Falkner of Jellyfish fame.
Cheers, Peanuts Molloy.
If you define Pop Music as Not Being Popular, I suppose Pugwash counts.
DeleteFair enough. I misunderstood your question.
DeleteCheers, Peanuts Molloy.
I understand why you chose them. They're not rock music, not really, and they have melodic songs that respect the craft of the three-minute pop song. But they're absolutely unpopular in terms of size of audience. Does it matter? Probably not. But for this exercise, we're looking at mainstream acts that sold shitloads. Not any old shitloads, quality shitloads.
DeleteFor me - possible options are not really anything I listen to. Since 2000, I would consider - Destiny's Child (more R&B?), NSYNC, and Backstreet Boys as possibilities - but "great Pop group" - not really - since I don't equate "worldwide success" with "great". So, I am struggling coming up with a serious answer.
ReplyDeleteNow - what I am most interested in is you posting ANYTHING that involves in any way, shape or form, the delightful, talented and easy on the eyes Ms. Susanna Hoffs. I think you would say "GAWJUSS". I am here all day, every day, for anything you are dishing out in that regard.
I know I haven't really answered your query - sorry - but I do have 2 non-post related questions:
1. How is your boy "Lucky" doing?
2. Do you set a goal for yourself each day you are writing - in terms of pages, or some other metric? I am interested in the process (and the outcome). As always - thanks!
Lucky was badly named. Ate something that killed him, poor li'l mutt. Still, he was loved in his short life. We've had a dozen or so dogs, only two remain.
DeleteI've been trying to do justice to this story for *counts on fingers* over thirty years. At least three "completed" versions, none of which was as good as it should be. This will be the last book I'll write (never say never), so I'm taking the time to get it right. Knowing the basic story means I don't have to think about structure and development, just everything else. I'm generally getting through a page a day, around 300 words. Writing is re-writing - every time I open it up I speed-re-read from the first page, improving as I go. It's the best I've ever written, but as soon as it's finished, sometime in the new year, is when the No Fun At All starts. I've had my fifteen minutes, and the sad fact is that agents aren't looking for Old White Men. Agents want exciting first-time novelists that tick their boxes (take a wild guess - you'll get them right), a person-product who can front-sell the book. The best I can hope for is "fine writing, but not for us". I'm not into self-publishing, vanity publishing, or e-books. I want a good publisher to make a nice paper book so I can die happy with it clutched to my meagre chest.
FT3 - Unfortunate news about Lucky. At least he found your doorstep briefly before his untimely demise.
DeleteRegarding your writing - thank you for the insight. There are 3 things I will never be - (1) pianist (2) novelist (3) artist (painter) - but am always wowed by those I meet that are. I admire the skill/talent required that I do not possess.
"Writing is re-writing" - that nicely describes the process. I admire your tenacity in working on this latest iteration. The fourth time WILL BE the charm.
If you have enough tools in your skill set to write a coherent comment, and you do, you can write something longer. That's all a novel is - a very long comment. A convincing answer to a question no-one was asking.
DeleteFun stuff and quick shout out to Austin's own Kathy Valentine, their original bass player. It was obviously without her they became your duly anointed "last great pop group." As for that, I'm no expert, but if I understand your (seemingly reasonable) parameters you may be right. I think an argument could be made for Cheap Trick, but I'm not inclined ("Surrender," tho). Mebbe Blink-182 in the pop-punk category? Again, nothing I'd go to the mat for. Your call.
ReplyDeleteCheap Trick meant zip-ola in the UK and all countries non-contiguous to the Untied Snakes (and to me, incidentally - that "dressing up" schtick, possibly, the "we're having KRAZY FU-UNNN!!" thing. I'll tell you if you're fun, pal.)
Deletebut, but, but...they were big in Japan...or at least at Budokan...weren't they?
DeleteStrawberry Switchblade and it's not even close
ReplyDelete"Not even close" is about right.
DeleteGolly, the only pop group I know much about is The Who. And The Bangles post-date them :^)
ReplyDeleteD in California
Yah, Hoffs. I was dropping out of UC Berkeley to start a band at the same time she was there ('77-'78). The "new wave" kids were few and far between. She missed her chance to an original member of the Chinese Torture Girls, but come to think of it, we probably wouldn't have let her be an official member as the Girls were not girls.
ReplyDeleteMy taste is shorter is better, as a general rule...but on the extended mixes... the "Purple Haze Mix" of A Hazy Shade of Winter is pretty good.
I like the Bangles for what they were but with just 3 studio albums and barely 5 years on the scene all prior to the Berlin Wall crumbling (much like the Bangles did) and all of it before Britpop any claims about being the last 'great pop group' methinks are stretching it a bit.
ReplyDeleteFor example love em or loath them, the Gallagher Brothers could teach the Bangles a few things about great pop music (and they didn't need a cover to produce one of their biggest hits either). After all 3 of Oasis's albums have individually outsold the whole of the Bangles worldwide sales.
And just to ensure everyone goes away with a tidy little earworm to plague them all day here's a fun fact. Did you know that that simple little ditty 'Wonderwall' has apparently been almost 10 billion times on Spotify alone with an average of around 7 million streams per day...
"Today is gonna be the day that you'll never get it out yer 'ed........."
Oasis is a good call. But The Bangles have *five* studio albums, all good, and there's only *one* good Oasis album. "Eternal Flame" (a Hoffs song) has sold more copies than any Oasis single (and I guess that would be Wonderwall because nobody can remember any other Oasis song). But of all the suggestions so far, this band of prats comes second.
DeleteHmm... there's an argument that half-a-dozen Brit Pop bands are great pop bands. If we add "last," I want to ask where we're looking for the evidence. Oasis? Brit Pop? It barely registered in the U.S.A., over here Oasis and Blur were one-hit wonders.
DeleteThe "commons" of the Top 40...the Billboard Hot 100... has been sliced n' diced into ever small sub-genres. Are Oasis "pop?" Or "rock" or "alternative?" By the 90s in America, there were several playing fields, and as in sports, a soccer pitch isn't the same size and space a baseball stadium. A band could be huge in the "US Alternative Airplay" and invisible on the "Hot 100."
Is "pop" popular, or an outdated style of music that is actually unpopular with the general public?
An even though they were invisible in America, I'd take Blur over Oasis as a "pop" band, Oasis are more "rock."
The Bangles are unambiguously Pop; not niche. Global hits (doesn't necessarily mean quality, but in this case skill and talent were essential to the package), and could compile a Greatest Hits album worthy of the name (another parameter). So I reckon they are the Last Great, True Pop Group. The songs they didn't write were well-chosen (and again, hits) and well-performed - they never sounded like a covers band.
DeleteThe argument that "Oasis wrote all their own material"? I remember the biggest criticism levelled against them at the time was the uncanny similarity of their songs - or parts of their songs - to earlier hits. It was like (in retrospect) asking AI to write a song; data scraping and recombination.
That should have said
ReplyDelete'has apparently been streamed almost 10 billion times on Spotify alone......'
What is this "Spotify" of which you speak?
Deletethe four seasons obviously
ReplyDelete...woody
Can somebody check Woody's meds?
DeleteI gotta say, Dukes of Stratosfear . . . and / or They Might Be Giants. I know, I know..no huge string of pop megahitz...sue me!
ReplyDeleteWith respect, Snorkers, these are just bands whose t-shirt you'd wear.
DeleteWith equal respect..yes. And where's the linque? (and yeah, Crowded House too! )
DeleteIn my book XTC and the Dukes of Stratosphear would be on my fantasy Top Of The Pops every week. And if I had their tee shirt I'd wear it with pride.
DeleteDo you have the extra tracks version of Twenty Five O'Clock?
DeleteI don't if you're seeking, I'd like them if you are offering please.
DeleteI'll upload it tomorrow, my time. The extra tracks are well up to par.
DeleteAt the risk of hearing a lot of clattering from the Bangles contingent, I'd like to put forward Crowded House as the home of some of the most virulent hooks in all of 80s pop—there is no vermicide potent enough to extinguish their fearsome earworms.
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of clattering the Dad Rock contingent, I file the Crowdies under "formalist craftsmen", alongside Pugwash, Fountains Of Wayne, Badfinger, and all the other groups with a few good mid-paced songs, zero charisma, and bad hair.
DeleteI might say Gin Blossoms. Or maybe Jellyfish (wink, wink)
ReplyDeleteEt viola!
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/UTjnvpD9MJA
It’s hard to argue with the Bangles being last great Pop Group, although at the time I was not really paying attention to pop music, my head had been turned by Rock. However whenever I watched Top Of The Pops on a Thursday night in the 80’s Madness seemed to be performing yet another of their annoyingly catchy pop ditties. Unfortunately I doubt Madness will be familiar with non UK based visitors to Th' Isle O'Foam©, but there is no doubting their impact in the UK.
ReplyDeleteScissor Sisters were pretty good about twenty years ago, but were gone in a flash.
As for pop music from this century, most of it sounds ‘all the same to me’, but then pop music is not made for sixty something year olds, one exception I heard a couple of years ago was Raye, great voice, very pop… however a recent single(?) seemed over produced (or something) to my ears, I can’t really explain as I only heard it twice.
are The Killers pop? or Kings of Leon? maybe Vampire Weekend? how popular is popular? were The Strokes a pop band? labels are hard ... if the gauge of popular was the same as the day of The Bangles, i think The Lemon Twigs would be the kings of MTV.
ReplyDeleteIn this essay I will define the term "pop music". Pop music is popular music. It used to be easily and visibly measurable by singles sales. Any single that sold well enough to get "into the charts" was popular. Today, the sales of any single are indefinable, and the single itself is an amorphous thing. Pop music was defined by the 45rpm single in a way no other genre has been, and driven by radio plays, TV appearances, and weekly magazines. The commercial infrastructure that created pop is no longer relevant (or even in place), and "pop" has become a rather arch term for sophisticates who want to distance themselves from rock music.
DeleteNo, The Strokes are not pop, they're formalist stylists playing "rock" in quotes.
Didn't sell a shedload, true - but they had hooks-a-go-go. Ladeez an Gennelmen- THE UNDERTONES! And their bass player was a very good writer who wrote a very good book...
ReplyDeleteFor me, it's a tossup between The Spice Girls and Squeeze.
ReplyDeleteI can undersand me wishing to be anon, but that pearl is actually from me, Geriatrix.
DeleteYou're tossing between spice and squeeze, then.
Delete