Casualties of Applied Metaphysics (Ecl., Avant, ?)

Henry Cow has worked with some poppy stuff (like "War" off IPoL with Slapp Happy) and again in their collaboration with Slapp Happy on Desperate Straits.

But I'm not most people. It's definitely poppy to me -- on the "avant-pop" side.  It's quirky, but it is so damned catchy; however, I don't expect to hear it on American Idol anytime soon.

Incidentally, It's the only track of Henry Cow I ever recognised from the radio.

Henry Cow were more poppy than CoAM is (so far)! 

Epignosis wrote: Logan wrote: But I'm not most people. It's definitely poppy to me -- on the "avant-pop" side.  It's quirky, but it is so damned catchy; however, I don't expect to hear it on American Idol anytime soon.... "Catchy" does not equal "poppy." "Pop" music has a definite structure (perhaps with some variations), and is to be distinguished from "popular" music.  I've heard all four Henry Cow studio albums, and there's nothing pop-oriented about any of them.

Robert, of course pop and popular music can be synonymous, so one doesn't necessarily need to make that distinction ("poppy" is an adjective).

From the OED:

POP

1. (adj) In a popular or modern style
2. of performing, or relating to pop music
1, (noun) (in full pop music) commercial popular music....

But that's by-the-by and arguing semantics is often a dull, tedious exercise.

I never said, or meant to imply, that catchy equalled poppy.   Catchiness is a common quality of pop music, but that doesn't make it pop or poppy.  To me Slapp Happy has "avant-pop" qualities, and so when Henry Cow collaborated on "War" and the Desperate Straits album those qualities came through for me (I wouldn't describe "War" as a pop song, but it still has a poppy quality, in part at least) .  *does a search* Incidentally, Slapp Happy is called an avant-pop group on its wikipedia page -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slapp_Happy

Here's a fun little link on avant-pop -- http://www.altx.com/manifestos/avant.pop.manifesto.html

EDIT: Apologies for the silly digression , back to CoAM. God I feel like I need a smoke. Holding out.... Oops, digressed again.



Edited by Logan - March 12 2009 at 01:45

I haven't found any other topic on CoAM on PA, so here we go)

"Ask the Machine" is fun, but a bit too amateurish and directionless. I liked the second half of "Operation", "Raindance" coda and some bits from "The Machine" (despite its terrible FruityLoops drums), but everything other seemed to be filler to me Shorter tracks have their moments but they all lack something for sure. Anyway, don't stop! Good luck with your stuff, guys!