Its easy to despair of pop these days. And fair enough. Its because the modern visage of pop cuts an anodine and pointless look, with no substance or any genuine ingenuity, let alone the classic hooks and melodies that should really form the spine of what constitutes great pop music. Its a boring argument at this stage, I know. It also smacks of being a misanthropist or cynic, but come on, lets be straight. All of us love a bit of pop music. And thats why those of us with a bit of taste endlessly hark back to the 80’s and 90’s for our guaranteed golden gems. These days? Its just a barren wasteland of that Simon Cowell claims to fertilize, but just ends up poisoning the pop landscape with more effluent. That lass Cher Lloyd offof the telly for instance, her new heavily backed single, need I say anymore. Or any other X Factor contestant, obviously. It’s pretty depressing that one TV Show has an iron grip on the charts, an institution that genuine musicians should still really pride themselves on conquering.
However, thats all a bit negative really, isn’t it? And besides, you’ve heard it all before. The truth is, pop will always exist, and thankfully for us, if we start to think outside the box, we are going to start seeing how it still exists in some of the best stuff thats emerged this year. Most new and cutting edge music is generally acclaimed for being daring, different and refreshing. Pop, these days believe it or not, is allowed to be just the same. Little Dragon’s new album is not just an excellent musical achievement, and a consistently brilliant long player, but shows that pop can still exist in the form of a stream of innovative and electronic batch of songs.
Ritual Union showcases a band who are on top of their game in unearthing a cocophany of melodic and interesting sounds, ranging from early console samples to jazzy tinges (an influence they have maintained since their early days) and an extremely adept stranglehold on all things production. Like Dubstep producer SBTRKT, who has also broached into nouveau pop territory, Little Dragon specialise in music catered for headphones, a trailblazing example of where intricate and progressive pop is probably now headed.
The key to Little Dragon’s pop sensibilities is Yukimo Nagano’s voice. Delicate, alluring and unmistakenly gymnastic in how melodic it is, she is the perfect foil for the rest of the bands flirtation with meshing dancefloor, jazz and electronic sensibilities into accessible pop. Arguably, it is she that makes it so accessible because her voice is enchanting in its own right. However, the real strength of it is that it is such an effective glue to bring all the elements of Ritual Union together in an excellent example of not just electronic pop, but dare I say it, pop.
Oh ye of little faith. So the good stuff is actually out there. you just have to find it.
I chose Nightlight as the example from Ritual Union, but the title track is also as good, and if you give the album a whirl, I’m sure you’ll find there’s plenty more tracks of equal calibre. Give it a rinse. Better than Cher Lloyd anyway.
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