David Porter » Entries tagged with "pop industry"
UK Christmas Number One Hits: Time to Grow Out of Them
Antithesis of seasonal goodwill, the Christmas bestseller is invariably controversial, often totally irrelevant to the season and now certainly out of date. Often seen as a badge of honour for artists, the race for the Christmas Number One single dominates news and record company/artiste planning for months on end. The Christmas chart used to last for two weeks over the Christmas/New Year season, so it was much prized in commercial terms, if not artistic. UK charts started in 1952, after appearing in New Musical Express; before that, figures were based on sales of sheet music. Once the charts began, the immediate controversy arose over how to measure the Christmas winner. The UK Christmas Number One was that at the top of the UK Singles Chart on the week before Christmas Day, based … Read entire article »
Filed under: Articles at Suite 101
Pop Songs and Band Names Inspired By Places, Names and Numbers
A great party game, or one to occupy everybody on long journeys: think of all the song titles about places, people, night, day, love, clowns, food, colours. From time to time, a band comes along with an original, unusual or plain weird name. Who’d have thought The Grateful Dead, The Kinks, The Mindbenders, Moby Grape, Limp Bizkit, A Flock of Seagulls or The Electric Prunes would take off? Other out of the ordinary, left field names, like Large Marge and the Tell ‘Em I Sent Ya’s or Dead Ant Farm are known by fans alone. Actual places have become common inspiration for band names: Alabama, Boston, Chicago, Europe, Asia, Bay City Rollers; while locality inspiration struck E Street Band, Kansas, Sugarhill Gang, and Backstreet Boys. However, it’s what inspires songs that is … Read entire article »
Filed under: Articles at Suite 101
Good as New Covers of Hit Songs
Pop Music Industry Recycles Top Tunes from the Past There’s little that’s new in the pop music industry – just like most performing arts – and covering other people’s songs has always been a route to success or derision. If a song has done well and sold a million a few years ago, most pop moguls think it will sell again. Or a movie might suddenly need that very song, and it’s rehashed, re-recorded and released to a wide-eyed generation of youngsters or nostalgic oldies. Dolly Parton’s rendition of old-time rockers Led Zeppelin’s 1970s classic, Stairway to Heaven, is a far cry from the original. Sacrilege in the eyes of many diehard fans. Equally, Britney Spears’ recycling The Arrows old hit I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll … Read entire article »
Filed under: Articles at Suite 101