My Music Theory: Pop Culture, Disenfranchisement, and New Pop

I have been avoiding this blog recently. After recovering from a particularly difficult few days at last week's end and after finding nothing particularly worth mentioning, it's been a challenge trying to figure out what the next topic of discussion would be. So my task to you is to do some brainstorming: What do you like from the world of New Pop/synthpop? What '80s fashions do you find yourself missing? Any '80s TV/movies fill you with a sense of hope and wonder and excitement (or at least provide you with some substantive thrills)? Pls to mention them here kthx.

Another thing I've been thinking of, and this one's a general one: In times of deepest turmoil, the popular culture often becomes more exciting, more revolutionary, more original. Think of the first British Invasion. The artists and musicians involved in that scene were born at the height of World War II during the Blitz and other bombing campaigns directly targeting the U.K., and spent most of their childhoods living through a period of rationing that didn't end in Britain until ca. 1956. The period of rebuilding after the war likely took longer. So when these children of the destruction heard the barebones workings of primitive early rock & roll, they took that sound and turned it into something catchier, more refined, and poppier, as a subconscious attempt at reworking an immature sound into something more grown-up.

Fast-forward a couple of decades and witness the participants in the so-called Second British Invasion. At the time these artists were recording music, their government was ensnarled in the Falklands conflicts, their economy was in a deep recession, everyone feared the results of a mega-clash between the two sides of the Cold War, and people routinely had nightmares about nuclear strikes wiping out the planet. So in one of the most rebellious statements ever made, these artists combined elements of post-punk, classic New Wave, '60s pop, disco, and funk, and blended them all together to craft a sound that was poppy, peppy, and full of energy. It did not dare mess around by meandering about -- it was straight to the point. Showoffs and musical wankery were both despised and reviled, and bland, naive statements of "we can change the world!" were replaced by oblique lyrics full of imagery as the artists thumbed their noses at easy solutions to difficult times. They figured: Why the hell try to change things when they can only ever be unchangeable? We will choose to live out our days here with as much zeal and gusto as we can, and we will never let the difficult times get to us. Witness the quote from Simon Le Bon -- "We want to be the band that people dance to as the bomb drops." Detractors might view this as nihilism at its most obnoxious, but a realist can and should only view this as the only proper way to go.

Contrast the above with times of relative peace and prosperity, particularly in America, when global issues didn't really start to hit home until the late 1970s. Early '70s American radio played never-ending marathons of the Captain and Tenille, Loggins and Messina, Cat Stevens, Al Stewart, and other artists who were safe, bland, anonymous, dispassionate, almost bucolic. In the mid '70s the arena rocker ruled American airwaves, their musical wankery and pomposity matching the free-wheeling, bombastic spirit of the Me Generation at its selfish and self-centered prime. The soundtrack to the movie FM showcases the worst collaboration between the two aforementioned periods of popular American music, at a time when the only positive American contribution to popular music from 1970 to the present, disco music, was already utilizing the exciting advances in musical technology. In other words, they were quick to welcome the synth.

Disco music is, in fact, the exception that proves the rule. A musical genre whose target audience involved the disenfranchised in American society -- gays and lesbians, transgendered people, racial and ethnic minorities, and women -- its pulsating rhythms and willingness to lead the listener/dancer into a state of oblivion provided a revolutionary wake-up call to groups of individuals who were accustomed to living life on the periphery. The dance floor became a target for pent-up energy and frustration, and it allowed these people to join in with a global community of dancers, artists, and other fabulous people, who all feasted upon the ferocious energy boost that disco gave them. By the end of the 1970s, all of these groups sublimated disco into their consciousness and, though circumstances forced disco to remain underground in the U.S., it never really died off.

The aforementioned circumstances involved anti-disco chants and rants that were more often than not mere window dressings for bigoted thought processes that resided below the surface of the obnoxious young, Caucasian, suburban males who shouted "Death to disco." A few years later, these same men, all grown up and now a part of the power structure in America, targeted the premier element of the Second British Invasion, New Pop (synthpop), and hissed stereotyped and vaguely homophobic remarks in an (eventually successful) effort to wipe the American popular music slate clean of these artists who dared to challenge the dominant musical paradigm. Tying this all back to the original theory, New Pop helped provide entertainment for another group that was effectively disenfranchised in the early to mid '80s -- young teenaged girls. It is telling that only one filmmaker throughout this time spoke the teenaged girls' lexicon: John Hughes, who also made movies for teenaged boys (but with an enlightened spirit that did not objectify the girls therein). These girls, who were also continually frightened by the thought of nuclear war and who were hearing in the news stories of this relatively new phenomenon called "global terrorism", whose main target happened to be U.S. interests, sought New Pop for the same reasons that the men and the women out on the dance floor ca. 1977 sought out disco.

So I suppose, having said all that, that it's no surprise that I too would get wrapped up in New Pop. Since its original purpose was to provide an outlet for young women whose voices weren't being heard or represented in the mainstream, it fits with my own life story. As an American Latina who "came of age" in the 1990s, I can recall not seeing anything in the media that told my own story. The only members of "la raza" who took part in mass media were still the bit players -- the key grips, the best boys, the carpenters, and the like. I cannot recall a single TV or movie star throughout the whole of that decade who looked like me or a member of my family. The music of that time period also did not speak for me. Alternative rock was for the white kids in the suburbs (though as someone who tried so very hard to be white, I did do a good job of mimicking interest in the genre). Rap and hip-hop were for African Americans, whose voices were being heard loud and clear. Dance took on a European flair but quickly became mired in its own repetitiveness; it was more for the drugged-up dancers than for any music listener. Country? I don't think so. So my music-seeking ears picked up very quickly on a genre that had already proven itself to be an effective voice for those without one, and I almost immediately fell in love with New Pop. The highly tailored androgyny spoke well to me in a time when the popular young male pop cultural figures appeared slovenly and full of machismo, and the thoughtful artsiness of the video clips held up very well when compared to the banal performance clips that filled '90s music video television programming.

But I'm going to have to think about this theory of mine some more. I don't know if it's fully fleshed out enough. It does appear to solve a lot of puzzles, though. And I'm hoping that maybe, if it does work out, it will go far in explaining why it is I was drawn to what I was drawn to, even though I've been told for fifteen years that I'm not "supposed" to be drawn to it, either for popularity or critical reasons.