The KLF

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boxedjoy

Well-known member
it's hard for me to tell. I listened to the top 40 religiously every Sunday afternoon until I was about 14ish, which is about 2002ish. But I still had a sense of ~the charts~ and who was number one, who was popular etc until maybe six or seven years ago. Now I barely keep up, the pop I like isn't popular and I discovered the pleasures of ambient and the more esoteric end of my music taste. So I can't tell if it's because it's the age I backed away or if it genuinely did just stop being significant.

One of the things I love about the TOTP repeats (currently, we only started making an effort to catch them from 1988 onwards) is how diffuse they are. You've got utter dreck from terrible white people brushing up against Italian house crossovers and the birth of hip-hop. You don't get that sense of tribalism in fandom any more, everyone is into everything because everything appeals to everyone.
 
hucks

hucks

Your Message Here
kakafrakka said:
heard of the klf for the first time because of the john higgs book which i loved

was very surprised to learn that they actually were big since i had never heard of them, everyone in here having personal stories tied to the klf confirms that they actually truely were an established name at some point
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Also they deleted their entire back catalogue so the music isn't on Spotify or itunes and I assume they don't ever licence it for films, adverts etc. They were genuinely a really big deal in the early 90s but have managed to leave no trace.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
The old TOTP episodes are indelible, incredible time capsules, like old magazines are. That's why the deep excavation of the Chart Music show actually works: apart from being very funny and insightful, they are a form of painstaking archaeology, digging up the layers of internet time to uncover the forgotten details and feelings of very specific cultural moments. (They always start the show by talking about what they were doing in their lives when the specific episode aired, which is crucial to the task at hand.)
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
craner said:
The old TOTP episodes are indelible, incredible time capsules, like old magazines are. That's why the deep excavation of the Chart Music show actually works: apart from being very funny and insightful, they are a form of painstaking archaeology, digging up the layers of internet time to uncover the forgotten details and feelings of very specific cultural moments. (They always start the show by talking about what they were doing in their lives when the specific episode aired, which is crucial to the task at hand.)
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Yep absolutely and this is why the "list programmes" of the noughties became so wearing - all the truly random bits were edited out.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
One thing that always strikes me about old top of the pops episodes is the incredible resilience of basic 1950s rock n roll acts.

1977? Punk! Donna Summer! But also Showaddywaddy.

1990? Nothing Compares 2 U, Orbital, Primal Scream. But also Shakin Stevens.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
craner said:
Baby Boomer nostalgia?
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Yeah I think that's partly it. Or nostalgia for nostalgia (for example people still love the film Grease). Probably for another thread.

My upstairs neighbour in my old flat had a huge confederate flag on his wall with Elvis on it. Which is perhaps another angle to it.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
john eden said:
Yeah I think that's partly it. Or nostalgia for nostalgia (for example people still love the film Grease). Probably for another thread.

My upstairs neighbour in my old flat had a huge confederate flag on his wall with Elvis on it. Which is perhaps another angle to it.
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boxedjoy

Well-known member
Not just the awful/brilliance divide but the cultural whiplash of shifting from one to another. Here's FPI Project and its great, Italian house-pop with a big diva - now it's time for Megadeth, great!
 
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boxedjoy

Well-known member
The Westlife thing is fascinating to me because even though they were huge and have all those chart-toppers they've had zero impact on pop. No new bands who want to aspire to their model of mum-friendly bland unison singing, no hastily assembled rip-off acts at their peak, no songs ubiquitous in public consciousness a la "Angels", people barely able to name the members, their singles charting big then disappearing like the fan base act they are. They're also just truly shit in so many different ways.
 
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boxedjoy

Well-known member
The Elvis re-releases definitely did a lot to break the charts but I think streaming has killed the idea of their relevancy. If I stream something twice and dislike it then it counts more than one purchase of something I really love and play on repeat.
 
V

version

Well-known member
boxedjoy said:
The Westlife thing is fascinating to me because even though they were huge and have all those chart-toppers they've had zero impact on pop. No new bands who want to aspire to their model of mum-friendly bland unison singing, no hastily assembled rip-off acts at their peak, no songs ubiquitous in public consciousness a la "Angels", people barely able to name the members, their singles charting big then disappearing like the fan base act they are. They're also just truly shit in so many different ways.
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Yeah, it's really satisfying. I fucking hated them.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
boxedjoy said:
The Westlife thing is fascinating to me because even though they were huge and have all those chart-toppers they've had zero impact on pop. No new bands who want to aspire to their model of mum-friendly bland unison singing, no hastily assembled rip-off acts at their peak, no songs ubiquitous in public consciousness a la "Angels", people barely able to name the members, their singles charting big then disappearing like the fan base act they are. They're also just truly shit in so many different ways.
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And yet it's impossible to forget the cultural wasteland they presided over, month after month, year after year.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
hucks said:
Also they deleted their entire back catalogue so the music isn't on Spotify or itunes and I assume they don't ever licence it for films, adverts etc. They were genuinely a really big deal in the early 90s but have managed to leave no trace.
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Maybe online but it you go in a second hand record shop there are loads of copies of their bits and bobs lying around.
 
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boxedjoy

Well-known member
I dunno. They were big and ubiquitous in one way, but in another it was a self-contained universe to me. I didn't have to interact or encounter them "in the wild" so to speak. They knew their audience and successfully and fully pursued it, I wasn't in that audience and so I found it really easy to neglect their activities from my life.

This is even easier today: thanks to streaming and algorithms I've never heard an Ed Sheeran song in full. I know its not for me so I don't ever have to deal with it.
 
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