Why do we all love classic pop? Maybe it's just better
Resurgence of the oldies ... not a single new album released by a contemporary artist in 2020 has gone platinum in the UK
John Lennon could go to number one in the UK album charts this week with Gimme Some Truth.
It is a compilation released for what would have been his 80th birthday. If only we actually lived in the kinder world he once imagined.
Instead, his native Liverpool is suffering, and The Cavern club from which the Beatles emerged has had to depend upon a government grant to survive.
For many of us, Lennon remains the ultimate rock star, with a talent and personality that helped raise rock ‘ n’ roll from youthful pop fad to one of the great art forms of our era.
Lennon was an audacious musician whose work spanned a universe of possibility: edgy, adventurous, experimental, yet rooted in melody, harmony, songcraft and emotion. He was a witty, loving, angry, idealistic, self-questioning and deeply flawed man, whose artistic quest embraced the raging complexity of being human.
Yet I wonder what he would make of being toppermost of the poppermost” (his rallying cry for the young Beatles), almost 40 years after his death? “I don’t have any romanticism about any part of my past,” he said in one of his final interviews, in 1980. I don’t believe in yesterday.”
It is not a sentiment the music-loving British public appear to share.
The current number one album is by Queen, a live set with singer Adam Lambert standing in for the late Freddie Mercury. Britpop champions Oasis are at number 3 with (What ’ s The Story) Morning Glory? an album that came out 25 years ago.
Oldies figure throughout the charts, with compilations by Dire Straits, Iron Maiden, Tears for Fears and Suede all in the midweek top 10. Indeed, the biggest-selling albums this year have been by those cutting-edge pop sensations Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Marley, Abba and Oasis.
Meanwhile, not a single new album released by a contemporary artist in 2020 has gone platinum in the UK.
That represents 300,000 certified sales (and yes, that includes streaming figures, tabulated as “album equivalent units”).
British dance pop star Dua Lipa managed to reach 150,000 sales (certified Gold) for her latest album, Future Nostalgia.
Yet it is clearly more old-fashioned nostalgia wewant right now. The rise of the golden oldies is part of a larger trend during the pandemic. By analysing data from almost 17 trillion plays of songs on Spotify in six European countries, economist Dr Timothy Yu-Cheong Yeung of the University of Leuven in Belgium found a surge in “nostalgia consumption”.
An example would be that ELO’s Mr Blue Sky featured in Spotify’s top 200 every day in July, 43 years after its initial release. Now, it doesn’t take a statistician to work out reasons why people might turn to the comfort of familiar songs in times of stress.
Yeung ’ s rather academically phrased conclusion was that old songs “generate positive utility ”, or in other words they make us feel better. Yet I would like to advance another theory, controversial as it may be. What if the old songs actually are better?
It is interesting to look at the midweek chart and see what albums are vying with Lennon for the top spot.
On the one hand there is Edna, the debut from London rapper Headie One, who is about as contemporary as a musical artist can get. He works in the controversial drill rap genre, telling tales of street life in north London set to fractured electronic beats and delivered in a dense slang all but incomprehensible to the casual listener. Headie One has a devoted young fan base but operates in a specialised genre that’s unlikely to crossover to a wider mainstream audience.
The other contender is veteran Britpop group Travis with their ninth album, prosaically titled 10 Songs.
Their singalong style has never made them critical favourites yet they have retained enduring appeal by adhering to long-established musical virtues: melody, harmony and storytelling.
As band leader and songwriter Fran Healey recently commented: “If you’re never fashionable, you can be timeless.”
The battle between Lennon, Headie One and Travis is almost a perfect metaphor for the state of popular music, caught between a fierce modernity that is innately self-limiting and a nostalgic yearning for the songcraft of yore.
John Lennon would have understood the appeal of both extremes, and, in effect, was an architect of a musical hybrid that bridged them. The Beatles emerged from the electric shock of rock ‘ n’ roll, but Lennon and McCartney were well versed in the songs of their childhood, incorporating elements of show tunes, folk and even (perhaps unconsciously) the harmonic elegance of classical music into their art.
They pushed pop into thrilling new areas without ever forgoing its beating heart: songs of meaning and emotion with melodies that everyone can sing. I suspect those values are eternal, and modern pop artists abandon them at their peril.
The rise of hip hop and electronica, with all the genre cross-pollination of the digital era, has created a lot of exciting music in a very volatile environment. But contemporary pop has become an arms race of sonic novelty, leading to a fixation with short-term instant gratification.
Youth-obsessed singles charts are increasingly distinct from the album charts, where more enduring artists tend to prosper.
When the music business is looking around wondering why no big new stars have emerged in this strange year, it might be worth considering that Britain has produced only two unarguable global musical superstars this decade: Adele and Ed Sheeran, artists united in their appreciation of classic songcraft.
It is songsmiths like them, making music beyond the realms of fashionable trends, who will be the golden oldies of the future.
When we need songs that we can all sing together, we shouldn’t have to turn to the past.