Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

Popjustice tells it like it is

I love Popjustice, especially when it publishes posts like this one. On the monstrosity that is “Samanda”:

The thing is, this is not a pop single and the two women fronting it are not pop singers. This is not a pop career. This is an example of a fairly shrewd management team building a fleetingly lucrative brand around two people, using pop music – and the pop charts – to raise profileand increase the money they can make from public appearances, endorsements and various other non-musical ventures. It’s a way of getting Samanda in the papers, on the pop TV channels, on the radio: it’s maintaining profile (and therefore earning potential) without having to pay for any advertisements.

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0 responses to “Popjustice tells it like it is”

  1. McGazz

    Odd that a rampantly popist site like Popjustice should take such a rockist view of this, and post essentialist nonsense like “this is not a pop single”. It is – just a rubbish one. You could argue that Samanda’s single is the inevitable result of the prevailing popist mood of recent popular culture.

  2. Gary

    I dunno, is that rockist? They’re not moaning about it being packaged; they’re moaning that the package doesn’t include a shiny pop nugget…

  3. McGazz

    “They’re not moaning about it being packaged; they’re moaning that the package doesn’t include a shiny pop nugget…”

    Rockism operates a high culture/low culture split – discriminating in favour of ‘proper’ music made by ‘proper bands’, and against mindless chart nonsense. As you know, I’m no fan of rockism. But I don’t like Popism either. Popism is a kind of anti-intellectualism masquerading as postmodernism. Rather than accepting pop as something which can be criticised on the same level as ‘serious’ rock, it brings everything down to the lowest common denominator – rather than everything being equally worthy, everything is equally shit. How good music is becomes about it’s ‘popness’ or whatever – an essentialist value judgement.

    Once you start claiming “this isn’t proper music”, you’ve exposed yourself as a rockist – just one with a different standard of what makes legitimate music.