Prince-Purple Rain
Nirvana-Nevermind
The Cure-disintegration
Counting Crows-August and Everything After
Nick Drake-Pink Moon
Jimi Hendrix-Are You Experienced
White Stripes-White Blood Cells
Bob Marley-Natty Dread
The Smiths-Singles
Velvet Underground-White Light, White Heat and Loaded
Bjork-Debut
U2-The Joshua Tree
Weezer-Weezer, also called “the blue album”
Beach Boys-Pet Sounds
Buddy Holly-hell, one of those collections
Ramones-Leave Home
James Brown-hmm, pick one
Dave Matthews Band-Under the Table and Dreaming
Cowboy Junkies-The Trinity Session
Uncle Tupelo-No Depression
I’m sure those guys from Liverpool go in there somewhere, but where do you put Zappa?
Am I the only one who likes Substance better than The Best Of? I like the older mixes better.
That’s a great album.
Myler Keogh, I love David Bowie, but I don’t know if any of the albums you mentioned would fit best in pop. Maybe Young Americans would.
who, me?, I don’t think most of the stuff you listed would be considered part of the genre “pop”. And I’m totally baffled by your inclusion of VU’s White Light/ White Heat. That’s their least poppy album.
Blur - Parklife, definitely.
Pulp - Different Class
Sloan - Twice Removed
And I tentatively submit **The Smiths ** - *The Queen Is Dead * - tentatively, because there may be a better album for this list, but it’s the one I consider “essential”, personally.
Talon Karrde
Well, I guess it depends on your definition of Pop music.
to me, most styles of music you’re going to find on the radio are pop. Regardless of whatever tagline the stations choose to use, “Today’s hottest country!!” is pretty much the same as “the only station that really ROCKS”, when it gets down to nuts and bolts. Most rock/pop bands have a core consisting of drums, bass, 1 or 2 guitars, vocalist, and auxiliary instruments such as piano or horns. The rhythms and chord progressions also tend to be used and re-used variations on a basic theme.
Contrast this with Jazz, which makes a virtue out of completely changing the song structure in favor of spontaneous improvisation, sometimes with completely off-the-wall instrumentation (bassoon, anybody?). Of course, in classical music (and modern classical, and any non-tonal music for that matter), all bets are off.
Not that I think that’s a bad thing. I really enjoy most of the above bands, I just tend to think of them all as “pop with a ____ flavor”
Fountains of Wayne - Welcome, Interstate Managers
The Eagles - Hotel California. Or better yet, their greatest hits Vol 1. It’s the best-selling CD in history.
Jackson Browne - Running on Empty
There’s a pretty fine line between pop, modern country, and rock. A lot of these acts could probably wind up on several lists.
I wouldn’t include ONE of these bands in a pop list. Well, maybe the Beach Boys.
OK, I’ll bite.
kalhoun
what is it about a band that makes it pop/non-pop?
who, me?, I personally think of a lot of that stuff as “pop”, but there’s also Pop as a genre, which I don’t think includes all poppy music.
But still… I wouldn’t call WL/WH pop of any kind. :dubious:
great! I was getting butterflies in the stomach at the thought of actually having to fight on such a mundane subject.
so, would someone like to define pop, so that we can get the ball rolling on the main purpose of the thread?
Bob Dylan-Highway 61 Revisited, pop?
Talking Heads-Stop Making Sense, pop?
Saturday Night Fever Sdtrk., pop?
Pop Music just means music that’s popular.
Beatles - pop
Elvis - pop
Fleetwood Mac - pop
Prince - pop
Madonna - pop
Etc.
I think this particular category is too broad.
A lot of so-called pop is better described by another genre tag–pop punk, hip-hop, country, etc. The rest defies easy recategorization, unless you just want to describe it as some flavor of rock. That’s not good, because rock is really too broad a category to be a useful descriptor, and that’s the wrong label for synthpop and similar genres.
I think that AMG’s take on pop/rock is a pretty good statement of what I’m after:
Ultrafilter
That still seems like a fairly loose definition of pop. Since you are the one who is taking the burden of putting the Essential Music Library (EML for short?) together, though, I will bow to your judgement. Are there any bands/albums I’ve listed so far that you don’t think mesh well with your definition of pop music? I’m just searching for a little clarity, so that I don’t brainstorm stuff that’ll get rejected anyways. Thanks.
No Pop collection would be complete without at least one Barry Manilow album. And don’t forget about Hall & Oates, particularly Voices
or Private Eyes.
I’m still not sure exactly how the compilation process is going to work, and all along I haven’t been too worried about keeping strict genre lines, so don’t worry too much about it. The goal of this thread is more to pick up things that wouldn’t get picked up if there was no pop category–so Michael Jackson, Madonna, Britney Spears, Nick Lowe, etc. If you want direction, those are the terms to think in.
(bolding mine)
I think he could fit into other categories. I first heard him with the song Heart of the City on a punk compilation. That song would definitely fit into early punk. I would probably call him New Wave. Though, I admit, my view of modern music is kind of punk-centric.
All right, I’ll try to stop nitpicking other people’s posts. I don’t want to be the kind of person who does that.
Any discussion of good pop groups that leaves out The New Pornographers is incomplete.
Pop = good beat required, can have some limited amount of funk, very small dose of soul is acceptable
Oh, great, now we’re limited to soulless, unfunky music.
which only leaves us with Celine Dion.
Just joking. And yeah, my highjack ends here.