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Ben Hales on Music
Ben Hales on Pop Music
I am tremendously old, I admit it. Too old, you might think, to work in my chosen field, pop music, the quintessential young person's game. I was 33 in February, yet this March saw the release of a brand-new album of pop music by Aqualung, which I co-produced and for which I wrote some songs. How is this possible? Did I use a fake ID to get past the Pop Police? Did I gnaw through the pop-wire with the last of my decrepit teeth1? No, I rode in quite legitimately on a cloud of pop passion that lives on inside me, as buoyant and glittery today as when it was born, 25 years ago, the moment I put the needle down on my mom's copy of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Now, of course, everybody recognizes that Sgt. Pepper's is a seminal album. It may even be the genesis of the Serious Pop Album as I understand it (Some like to say In the Wee Small Hours by Frank Sinatra was really the first, and they have a point, but by the time he made it, he was no longer a proper pop artist). But I'm starting to wonder if, in the way my parents' generation lived through an anomalous period of peace and prosperity, my generation will have been the only one for whom Serious Pop Albums have any meaning.
Since that period in the mid-'60s when the Beatles and the Beach Boys pushed each other to put more good songs on their records, musicians began to spend increasing amounts of time and money making their albums into artistic statements; soon, like all long-format art forms, Serious Pop Albums became the standard measure of cultural significance, bulldozing the frivolous "single" and bloating up into ponderous arena-sized behemoths.
That was the time when pop hit puberty, read some bad books, had some bad sex, and called itself rock. Bands started commissioning paintings of verdant bongtopias for their album covers rather than using a cheesy picture of themselves wearing nice jackets. Luckily, many artists remained unconcerned about this development and carried on regardless making Proper Pop Albums (or Un-Serious Albums: hamfisted collections of singles, fillers, and contractual obligations designed to extort money from young people) from the Partridge Family to Prince, from New Order to New Kids, from Bread to Britney.
Now, of course, everybody recognizes that Sgt. Pepper's is a seminal album. It may even be the genesis of the Serious Pop Album as I understand it (Some like to say In the Wee Small Hours by Frank Sinatra was really the first, and they have a point, but by the time he made it, he was no longer a proper pop artist). But I'm starting to wonder if, in the way my parents' generation lived through an anomalous period of peace and prosperity, my generation will have been the only one for whom Serious Pop Albums have any meaning.
Since that period in the mid-'60s when the Beatles and the Beach Boys pushed each other to put more good songs on their records, musicians began to spend increasing amounts of time and money making their albums into artistic statements; soon, like all long-format art forms, Serious Pop Albums became the standard measure of cultural significance, bulldozing the frivolous "single" and bloating up into ponderous arena-sized behemoths.
That was the time when pop hit puberty, read some bad books, had some bad sex, and called itself rock. Bands started commissioning paintings of verdant bongtopias for their album covers rather than using a cheesy picture of themselves wearing nice jackets. Luckily, many artists remained unconcerned about this development and carried on regardless making Proper Pop Albums (or Un-Serious Albums: hamfisted collections of singles, fillers, and contractual obligations designed to extort money from young people) from the Partridge Family to Prince, from New Order to New Kids, from Bread to Britney.
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