I said something that sent a jolt of disbelief through the ranks of Popdose. I have been known to take my opinions to the far side, but this one threatened to betray an ignorance I didn’t know I harbored. Let me spell it out and see if I’m as far off base as some have claimed me to be:

Madonna will not be remembered for her music as much as her controversies. In fact, the latter is likely to shadow the former so much that her output as an artist will become an afterthought. And while Mariah Carey’s vocal acrobatics have become the standard pop style (thereby irreparably screwing everything up), Maddy’s antics have become the standard conduct by which all young up-and-comers must match or else not be noticed at all.

Your first salient question would be, “Dunphy, do you even like Madonna’s music?” Honestly, it’s not that I dislike her music at all. No, I’m not a fan and no, I don’t own any of her albums, but I can say unequivocally that she’s made three truly great songs in her career, a lot that I like in passing, and some that are total crap for the sake of spiking the media. The three great songs are, in no particular order, “Live To Tell,” “Oh Father,” and “Frozen.” All three indicated to me that she could radically depart from her patterns and deliver. There is nothing on her latest, Hard Candy, that comes close to the style and sentiment of the aforementioned tunes, even though that album is being hailed as a return to form.

Ideally, that’s what we should be talking about, right? That album? The music? Sure, Maddy’s a PR animal and seeks attention the way sharks seek chum, but she’s a singer and that ought to be the first thing that comes to mind, no? (more…)

When I was a kid, my heroes were, at the very least, deserving of adoration. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Cheap Trick, Dan Pastorini (the one non-musician of the bunch) — the one thing they had in common was that they were immensely talented at what they did. Some would say that they were among the very best, and thus, they seemed bigger than life to me and the millions who adored them. I was inspired by them and what I perceived to be their dedication to the craft. I also admired their shrewd understanding that a fair bit of marketing went a long way, too.

Of course, the music world is not just full of legendary artists such as those named above. For as long as there have been artistes, there have been those whose marketing overshadowed their artistic endeavors. I’m thinking along the lines of C.W. McCall, Taco, and — oh, what the heck — Sigue Sigue Sputnik.

Such one-hit wonders would invariably come out of nowhere, dominate the airwaves for every last second of their fifteen minutes of fame and then, thankfully, disappear into pop oblivion. The respectable artists who were temporarily swept aside to make way for this brief dalliance with the latest “here today, gone tomorrow” pop confection would then return to their rightful place on radio playlists and the ship would right itself.

I mean, acts like Tiffany, Sly Fox, After the Fire, and others had their success, but it was always understood that they’d go away. That’s what one- or two-hit wonders did. It was understood.

But then something weird happened.

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Hey, Popsters! You’re back for more weekly mixing fun, eh? Good. I’m glad you’re here, and I hope this week’s mix starts to spark some discussion about when a particular genre of music surfaced from the underground and became mainstreamed. You’ll probably quibble with my choices, but that’s okay, because it’s tough to find one song that basically says, “This is the definitive point where, say, hard rock, grunge, ’90s bubblegum pop, new wave, or disco started.”

So what I’ve assembled for your enjoyment is a collection of songs that, for me, signaled that a musical genre had come up from the underground to become part of the mainstream. (more…)