eurovision: we invented pop
Friday, May 23rd, 2008
America - the United States, that is - has, I think it’s safe to say, won the culture wars.
America is, of course, a Nation founded by Puritans who were considered too extreme even for the Mad Mullahs of Cromwellian England, and formalised by a group of humanist-leaning revolutionaries. The dichotomy - strict puritanism battling with freewheeling acceptance of new ideas - is what kept the US so vital for so long.
And in this, the first decade of the twenty-first century, the face of Western (and much Eastern) mass culture, not to mention a large part of the face of high brow culture (the forehead, perhaps, and the left cheek. Maybe a bit of the chin too) has been remodelled - in, at times, a Bride of Wildenstein way - by a culture obsessed with Novelty value.
Because, to the Humanist, sensation based side of American culture, novelty is, in and of itself, A Very Good Thing. If the gilt flakes away and what’s left is lead, the offending novelty is unceremoniously dumped, and life carries on as though nothing had ever happened. Viz the hula hoop, Tiffany (the serenader of Shopping Malls; not the purveyor of Sterling Silver) and, of course, Hillary Clinton.
At the same time, however, there’s that Puritan Work Ethic demanding that the novelty - as long as it lasts - be wrapped in the tissue paper of import. Everything, put simply, must have a deeper reason for existing. To be otherwise makes a thing worthless frippery. A hula hoop is not simply a ring of plastic designed to provide meaningless fun; it’s a revolutionary exercise tool.
Movie Stars too: try retyping the last sentence, replacing the words “Hula” and “Hoop” with “Jane” and “Fonda.”
But sometimes - even after the gilding has blown away like gossamer - the remains are shown to be of immense and permanent value.
Jazz. Motion Pictures. Hip Hop. Journalism-as-Literature. Beat Poetry. Rock ‘n’ Roll. Disco. The Blues.T.V. Soap operas. The works of Hemmingway and Fitzgerald.
All of these came from America (having often, admittedly, been sourced elsewhere - usually Europe or Africa) but America can lay claim to taking base lead and, if not actually transmuting it, certainly of regilding it.
But not pop. Oh no. To see an American do Rockanrawl is a joy, a Hip Hop crew - love or loath the genre - is, in full force (I.E. On a good day, not a specific reference to the purveyors of “Alice (I want you just for me)”) a pleasure to behold.
But, when Americans try to do pop, they invariably end up with Lite - Rock Lite, or R+B Lite - and it’s often not bad at all. The Thriller album, or the first Britney Spears, for example.
Then there’s the afore-mentioned Tiffany (the serenader of Shopping Malls; not the purveyor of Sterling Silver), Debbie Gibson, or the entire oeuvre of Les Soeurs Simpson.
Not Pop. Because Americans can’t do pop. Because Pop - like Champagne, Philosophy, Opera, Ballet, Farce and Surrealism is a peculiarly European concept, and, in the Eurovision Song Contest - a TV spectacle stretching, this year, over three nights and attracting an audience of 150 million people - Europe takes back Television (a mass culture product invented in the Old World but fully realised, popularised and proliferated via the New) and uses the medium to proclaim it’s biggest contribution to modern Popular Culture.
We are Europe. And we invented Pop.
And the first Euro Pop Star? W. A. Mozart. Listen to Die Zauberflote, the highlights, and you’ll see what I mean: One after another after another. All Killer, no filler, pop sensations. Glorious, hummable, joyously nonsensical and beautifully crafted songs sung by men dressed as vagabond bird catchers, or drag queen castrati done up as the Queen of the Night. Lyrics that make little or no sense, and choruses that are little more than ‘La La La,’ but tunes and tempii that burrow into your head like audio ringworm, and don’t let go. Listen, and tell me you can’t see a direct line on to the “Happy Ever After” album by Donna Summer (an American, but an album largely factored by Europeans in Europe), and on to ABBA’s melancholy meisterwerk “The Visitors,” A-Ha’s “East of the Sun,” and even Bananarama’s “Wow.”
Because - and here’s where distinct difference – when it comes to popular culture, Europeans have no shame.
We’ve seen Empires rise and fall, survived Genocide and Futurist Haircuts, and acknowledge - happily - that a loud, catchy dance tune performed by a bunch of fancy dress Latvian Pirate Kings and Queens might, in fact, be nothing more than it seems - a joyously fizzily camp entertainment designed to make the audience smile, tap its feet, and hum along.
Pop, in other words. And with this years Eurovision selection promising the afore mentioned Pirates,a Spanish Reggaeton Pastiche with obscene lyrics, and a Polish woman with the whitest teeth, tannest tan and closest resemblance to a post-op Tranny since Dana International, the proof is incontrovertable:
You can keep your Britneys, your Justin Timberlakes and your XTinas - all of whom take themselves waaaaay too seriously anyway. Because, for this one week - and this weekend in particular - Pop rules the world.
We are Eurovision. And we, as I believe I may have mentioned, invented pop.