Deceitful memory music
Was it as good as I remember?
For the past few months, I've been listening to Pony's album "Velveteen"--all the way through or doing my part to boost the number of Spotify listens on the songs "Peach" and "Sick"--both too low for the quality of their songwriting. "Sick" specifically makes me think about music I heard on TV when I was in elementary and middle school in the early-00s. Was programming on channels like Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel as rich with well-written power-pop / pop-rock songs as I remember.
The first time I played "Sick" for Erin she said, "this sounds like it should be in the Legally Blonde soundtrack." "Yeah, or the Lizzie McGuire movie," I added. The song does have an essential femme-can-do-it-all-too attitude, and also an inherent soundtrack-ness--you can immediately imagine a film or TV editor sequencing a montage in which the protagonist is experiencing a twee victory. The allusions to TV may be through osmosis, too, given Pony's last album title TV Baby, band leader Sam's podcast 2 Much TV Podcast, or their work as a voice actor for a My Little Pony spinoff.
Most of what I am thinking about is if music from young adult programming in the early-00s was as serious as I remember, or if the memory is just deceit.
There is an inherent pop architecture to this music. Pop more in the mold of The Go-Gos than Taylor Swift. Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus. Listen to "Vacation" and then listen to "Wildest Dreams." Both songs I love, one being three-dimensional, the other having this new pop aesthetic of no tension and release, no architecture, but this slowly ascending chord progression that alludes to resolution and form but just ends up feeling like "oh, it's still going." There is a verse to chorus transition but the separation isn't sharp. And like I said with respect to Van Halen, music that has a structural lineage is better music because the history of sound and song writing is embodied in it.
Snow Day was a Nickelodeon and Paramount-produced movie released in 2000. The soundtrack has some gold: Sixpence None the Richer's MIGHTY cover of the La's "There She Goes", "Noise Brigade" by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and an especially legendary song, "Another Dumb Blonde" by Hoku.
The content of "Another Dumb Blonde" isn't very intellectual, but no one cares nor should. Music that is intellectual for the sake of being intellectual is really boring or just for music class nerds like me. Hoku has an accessible voice. This isn't a criticism. I mean accessible as in unaffected by pitch correction or vocal manipulation. Natural. It has a standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus pop form. And it is exceptionally cinematic. It has a balance of energy to it that lends to film or television scene composition--verse to chorus transitions amplify emotional direction of a specific scene.
Whether or not a song is good isn't really an argument to have because music is maybe one of the most subjective forms of art. And Colin Young of God's Hate, Twitching Tongues, Deadbody and the Hardlore podcast (dude's talented) has a phrase that nothing sucks because everything took effort to make, or something like that.
Then my memory of TV and film music from my childhood isn't whether or not it has artistic integrity. They are good pop songs. And Pony's "Sick" is a good pop song. It may be more adult in content and sound, but it's still a pop song.
If you want to continue the discussion, send me an email or put it through the snail mail
HERE TO LISTEN LLC
PO BOX 725
BRATTLEBORO, VT 05302
You can listen to the radio show on Brattleboro's community station WVEW every Sunday at 12pm EST
Here to Listen show archives are available here
You can buy Here to Listen merch here