by ghosty » Sat Feb 05, 2011 9:54 am
[quote][i]Originally posted by InvisibleMan[/i]
<br>[quote][i]Originally posted by ghosty[/i]
<br>[quote]<
Gotta agree with that. The song "Waterloo" alone is better than any pop song by anyone in the 80's. In my opinion, however, the golden age of Top 40 pop was clearly the 60's. I may have affection for Top 40 pop hits of the 80's because I grew up during that period but nothing from the 80's approaches the sheer pop ecstasy of this:
<iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MCUO7F2xjzw" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen></iframe>
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offtopic but I will comment,
that Ronettes song is a very well crafted pop song indeed, and at the time there were some others. But better than ABBA? I would not say that... just by their catalog of great memorable tunes, ABBA wins here..
as far as that being better than 80's, that also depends on the person. For example, I find the bouncy/synth sound arrangements of 80's girl-groups like for example Fun Fun, Flirts, Bananarama and Expose to be quite interesting as well... that's because I like synth and rhythmic music...really depends on the person.
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Well, it's ALWAYS in the ear of the beholder. If I were comparing bodies of work I'd have to give it to ABBA too. The Ronettes had an incredibly short run. That said, I think "Be My Baby" is a better written and arranged song than many ABBA tracks.
I would say that "at the time there were some others". There were MANY others, moreso than any other time in history outside of the early 20th century. In my opinion, the entire output of The Beach Boys during the 60's ("I Get Around" "God Only Knows", "Good Vibrations", "When I Grow Up", "Kiss Me Baby", etc ) blows away most everybody else in terms of pure perfect pop music. Even The Four Seasons (if you wanna give the east coast it's due) lay waste to most everything that came after with songs like "Rag Doll", "Big Man In Town", "Let's Hang On", etc....again...in my opinion.
I'm not so much a fan of rhythmic/synth music when it comes to Pop. To me, that's a way of covering a multitude of sins (lack of dynamics, weak melody, simple and repetitive chord changes). It CAN be done and it sometimes is but not often....or at least not often enough for me since it's all a matter of personal taste.
Getting back to Roxette, I only know two of their songs, "The Look" and "It Must've Been Love" and I can't find anything interesting or exciting about them...but it's probably not my type of music if I'm holding The Ronettes up as an example of what I think Pop muisc should strive to match. [;)]