Our newest columnist, singer Dot Allison wonders if the art can ever be put into pop again? There has always been manufactured pop. As soon as the business-types worked out that they could market music at all, that art form became fair game for exploitation by those who cared little for art. But in the past a high president in songwriting was set by the likes of the creative collective at the 'hit factory’ that was Berry Gordie’s label, Motown Records.
Similarly. there was the Brill Building in New York where partnerships in songwriting like Carole King and her then husband Gerry Goffin wrote classic pop songs like ‘Natural Woman' and 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow?’, while elsewhere in said building Bacharch and David charmed the world with the sublimely timeless words and melodies of songs like ‘Say A Little Prayer’. ‘Walk On By' and ‘What The World Needs Now'.
Meanwhile, on the West coast of America, Metric Music in California, also understood the necessity for authentic art where content is to be considered alongside style. One of the great songwriters at Metric was Jackie DeShannon who, later writing for The Byrds, The Searchers, Annie Lennox and Kim Carnes, forged a way for female artists, being the first to be taken seriously as a solo writer in her day.
The emphasis being on the artistry of the song is, for me, the common theme that links all these songwriting communities where art had managed to link arms with the business of marketing music.
I just wonder if, where the current version of classic pop (my cursor slipped and wrote poop actually), is concerned, there has not been a little something lost along the way? The art within the pop song. One only needs to mention the names Ronan Keating, Keane. Nelly Furtado, Dido, Take That (or as Liam Gallagher calls them 'What's That?') and Robbie Williams to kind of make the point without saying much else. When did capitalism begin to win the arm wrestle? And I wonder, can we, art lovers that is, win it back?
Dot Allison 's new EP Beneath the Ivy is available now on Universal Digital. An album will follow in 200 7.
60 THE LIST 19 Oct-2 Nov
POP
LILY ALLEN
ABC, Glasgow, Mon 23 Oct; Studio 24, Edinburgh, Wed 25 Oct
There are two renditions to the Lily Allen story. The first casts her as a hopeful potty-mouthed princess, effortlessly posting her calypso-pop tracks on Myspace and flashing two fingers at the record industry as she cruises to the top of the charts. The other sees her as the spoilt progeny of scenester father Keith, raiding his contact book to secure a record deal, and recalling the toughest times of her life being when her mother had to struggle to pay for her private education. While the rest of us have been formulating our own interpretations, she has successfully stolen the hearts of teeny-hoppers and hipsters alike, being equally in demand from fashion magazines and Saturday morning television. However, despite inducing fits down south, her first ventures into Scottish territory have been tempered.
ECLECTIC AIM
While originally booked to play Edinburgh’s 2500 capacity Corn Exchange, the gig has since been resized to the cosier confines of Studio 24. There is the possibility that while she has captured the imagination of the media and pre-pubescents, the rest of the country are less interested in the summery pop of her album Alright, Still, now that winter is on the horizon. These set backs aside, it seems premature to pronounce the Lily Allen road show as a hype over substance affair. Having only started playing live in the last three months her sets are notoriously unpolished but, so far, her boisterous presence has compensated for a lack of practice. No amount of media coaching could produce such publicity-generating gems as calling Bob Geldof a ‘sanctimonious prat’, and with her tongue having lashed its way through what seems like half the music industry, it is this Chutzpah that marks her out from her more tedious contemporaries. Whether she will end up insulting her way out of contention remains to be seen. (Miles Johnson)
Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Thu 26 Oct; King Tut’s, Glasgow, Fri 27 Oct
Having cut ties with the now defunct Manchester hip hop label Grand Central, Andy Turner as Aim has found a new creative freedom on his own ATIC Records. His new album Flight 602 furthers a journey into excitable syncopation and lush melancholy. ‘I think a lot of people on the label felt there was a box that you had to fit in almost. so it's nice to be out of that' says Andy of the ageing Grand Central, a label that Aim had been very much an intrinsic cog within from day dot. “There's an acoustic track on my album with no beats on it at all and it's nice to be able to do stuff like that. Some people might be surprised by it but the last thing I wanted to do was remake the last two albums. I will be working with MCs again too. but fOr this album I just wanted to try and get to the essence of what I was doing and let the music stand on its own.‘
Those last two albums, Cold Water Music and Hinterland proved sleeper hits for the Cumbrian, charting a slow rise from the underground and spawning a celebrated live ensemble with his wife and former GC chanteuse Niko. 'lt‘s two-fold really, with the band. Because you're with all your mates doing something together, it's a lot more enjoyable I find. And now I don’t see it as a separate thing, and when I'm writing now I'm thinking of the band and how it will translate when we play it live. It'll be interesting to see how far we can take it.“ (Mark Edmundson)