MUM’S GUIDE TO POP
‘You’re not with it!’ This perennial cry of youth is a favourite with every generation.
As parents whose recognition of pop ends with the Crosbysinatra era, we view with bewilderment the fearsome rapidity with which pin-up succeeds pin-up over our daughter’s bed – all personable young men, all looking exactly alike. Occasionally we venture a bright remark about these portraits. ‘That’s a nice picture of Tommy Steele,’ we say timidly, bringing forth the contemptuous reply that this is not only not Tommy Steele, it is the one after the one after.
‘You’re not just a square, Mum. You’re the original square root.’ This withering comment stung us into making investigations of our own, and we are reporting the results in the hope that they will enable other befogged parents to hack their way through the pop jungle. The first essential is a rough glossary: POP: Short for popular; in a word, anything that sells over half a million discs and broadcasts to thirty million avid ears. Sometimes it’s a guitar, or a group, or a voice, sometimes it’s a certain passion-provoking waggle of the ear or undulation of the stomach muscles. But if it sells, it’s pop. ROCK ’N’ ROLL: Style of music introduced in the 1950s, now therefore archaic. It is as much as your life is worth even to mention it. SWING: This is such a back number as to be almost a dirty word. TWIST: A new type of acrobatic exercise favoured by the young and performed by putting the best foot forward and circulating the bottom half of the body independently from the top – a physiological impossibility, we would have thought, but the slipped disc merchants are happy about it. DISC JOCKEY: The man who plays pop records on radio and TV, and is responsible for the teenage rush to borrow some money from Pop to buy some. David Jacobs is currently king of this fraternity. HIP: Is what you are when you know all about it. SQUARE: Is what you are when you haven’t the remotest idea. SENT: Is what you are when the performance does something to you; what it does varies from a wriggle up your spine to tearing out handfuls of hair or total unconsciousness, depending on the performer.
A final word of warning. Never mistake pop for jazz, rock for swing or modern for trad; the fact that they are all well nigh indistinguishable is irrelevant.