Tops in Pops

Surprise, surprise.  Or is it?  Michael Jackson’s music album Thriller of the early 1980s tops the list of the 20 best-selling albums of all time.  All time here I take to mean the last three generations or so, judging from the artists that made the list as bestsellers. Thriller sold zillions, says writer Mark Edwards, but more important, it changed music.

Also in the top 20 bestsellers list are specific albums of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Shania Twain, The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Whitney Houston, Boston, Alanis Morissette, Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, Bee Gees, Guns N’ Roses, Santana, Meat Loaf, Britney Spears, and Prince.

The list confirmed my suspicion that I’m outdated in pop music.  I’m not familiar with Thriller but for a wee part that was used in a cola drink TV ad some 25 years ago. Luckily I know Michael Jackson, but then who doesn’t?

I only like Jackson’s Christmas songs and his version of Steve Lawrence’s song Happy.  His voice was still that of a young boy, back when he was with his brothers as the Jackson Five, eons away from his bleached skin and implausible facial cosmetic surgery and tattooed eyes and eyebrows made to approximate the face of Diana Ross.

Look at what that guy sacrificed at the altar of his art, the husband once said, referring, perhaps, to the weirdness that Jackson had achieved.

When it comes to pop music knowledge and appreciation, I can be counted on to be either outdated or outright daft, never been up to date and never will be. It seems it takes a decade for me to appreciate current musical trends.

Perhaps one’s taste in music is greatly influenced by one’s elders.  One grows up with such kind of music so one tends to take it on as his kind as well.  Therefore we have Michael Bublè who’s dishing out songs taught by his grandfather.

My choice of easy listening I credit to my father, he with that once great collection of instrumentals and Frank Sinatras and Perry Comos and songs from the 1920s to the 1950s.  It was also he who explained why Johnny Mathis and Nat King Cole have the singing voices but not the kind that would qualify for opera singing.

Then sometime in my early teens, when Let Me Call You Sweetheart kind of songs became unbearable, I knew our shared taste was approaching the divergent zone.  I went gaga over the Lettermen, for which he repeatedly said that only the symphony orchestra accompaniment is good about the group’s singing and that it has no original song of its own.  His opinion didn’t affect my loyalty in any way, though it was obvious that my taste for easy listening had been fixed, never mind that the Lettermen’s popularity peak was in the 1950s.

Pop, a 19th century coinage for the word popular, refers to an aspect of culture that is appreciated by a wider public and is regarded as simplified for greater accessibility.  Michael Bublè’s The Way You Look Tonight is accessible compared to Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons as disco dancing is compared to ballet’s Swan Lake.

And pop music, like all other aspects of pop culture, has social relevance and influence.  Today’s music could be tomorrow’s basis for cultural historians to understand how we lived and how we were.

Meanwhile, today’s music bestsellers are not necessarily the most influential, which is an entirely different list.  The Velvet Underground & Nico tops the most influential list.  Hardly anybody bought this album, it is said, but everyone who did formed a band.

Others in the list are The Beatles, David Bowie, Patti Smith, The Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Public Enemy, Sex Pistols, Kraftwork, Michael Jackson, Nirvana, NWA, Aretha Franklin, Ramones, Marvin Gaye, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Bob Marley, and Joni Mitchell.

I can claim familiarity with and appreciation for the songs of The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Bee Gees, Santana, and Prince of the bestsellers list and The Beatles, Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley, and Joni Mitchell of the most influential list.

Considering artists that made it to both lists or have appeared twice in a list (like The Beatles), my own list shows a ratio of one personally known to three unknowns, not too bad for someone who feels outdated.  Meanwhile, just let me enjoy The Lettermen and Aretha Franklin and Neil Diamond…

(30 March 2008)