Jark
PLUMP and RIPE
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2007
- Messages
- 59,261
...this side of the year 2000.
I think the last two decades have, every couple of years, produced the kind of big pop girl album + adjacent campaign that sticks in the memory long after as a kind of gold standard for how it's done - think single choices, videos, perfs, tour, lewks, zeitgeist-invasion and good old-fashioned NOSTALGIA.
A few that spring to mind for me...
Ticks all the boxes - superb album, image reinvention, gorgeous visuals/videos targeted almost squarely at the gays at certain points, and constant, blanket media coverage - in 2002 it felt like we were all living in Kylie's world. The power of this era proved overwhelming in the context of Kylie's career and the albums that followed inevitably feeling like disappointments in one way or another, whether for the music or the success.
The unknown factor of the lead singer of a reliably big but only sometimes-mainstream rock band striking out alone with pop domination in her sights, the fact that each of the first four singles sounded like a SMASH (and each performed better than the last until Hollaback Girl) as the world either discovered or re-discovered Gwen Stefani, the casual serve of the stungorge Cool music video at a point in the campaign where most girls get a tour video or nothing at all... and the (since-reappraised) curiosity factor of Gwen taking four Japanese dancers with her at every stop of promo and her world tour. In every sense L.A.M.B. was a once-in-a-lifetime pop era.
A classic comeback narrative, the feeling of a diva being reborn, the iconic run of singles, three straight UK top 10s for the first time in a decade (would've likely been 4 had Shake It Off/Get Your Number not been a double-A), We Belong Together becoming Billboard's biggest song of the decade, the high-budget gloss of the music videos and the NARRATIVE SERVE of It's Like That/WBT keeping us on our toes and gagging for more...
EARLY DAYS obviously but considering Future Nostalgia is almost certainly my album of the year, has spawned the biggest hit of Dua's career which seems to be both an immediate and a guaranteed future classic, has produced a flawless run of FIVE singles plus a remix album, with new collabs and a reissue still to come and a tour on the distant horizon, I don't think it's too soon to say that Dua did that and Future Nostalgia has earned its place among the greats.
So, what are YOUR faves?
I think the last two decades have, every couple of years, produced the kind of big pop girl album + adjacent campaign that sticks in the memory long after as a kind of gold standard for how it's done - think single choices, videos, perfs, tour, lewks, zeitgeist-invasion and good old-fashioned NOSTALGIA.
A few that spring to mind for me...
Ticks all the boxes - superb album, image reinvention, gorgeous visuals/videos targeted almost squarely at the gays at certain points, and constant, blanket media coverage - in 2002 it felt like we were all living in Kylie's world. The power of this era proved overwhelming in the context of Kylie's career and the albums that followed inevitably feeling like disappointments in one way or another, whether for the music or the success.
The unknown factor of the lead singer of a reliably big but only sometimes-mainstream rock band striking out alone with pop domination in her sights, the fact that each of the first four singles sounded like a SMASH (and each performed better than the last until Hollaback Girl) as the world either discovered or re-discovered Gwen Stefani, the casual serve of the stungorge Cool music video at a point in the campaign where most girls get a tour video or nothing at all... and the (since-reappraised) curiosity factor of Gwen taking four Japanese dancers with her at every stop of promo and her world tour. In every sense L.A.M.B. was a once-in-a-lifetime pop era.
A classic comeback narrative, the feeling of a diva being reborn, the iconic run of singles, three straight UK top 10s for the first time in a decade (would've likely been 4 had Shake It Off/Get Your Number not been a double-A), We Belong Together becoming Billboard's biggest song of the decade, the high-budget gloss of the music videos and the NARRATIVE SERVE of It's Like That/WBT keeping us on our toes and gagging for more...
EARLY DAYS obviously but considering Future Nostalgia is almost certainly my album of the year, has spawned the biggest hit of Dua's career which seems to be both an immediate and a guaranteed future classic, has produced a flawless run of FIVE singles plus a remix album, with new collabs and a reissue still to come and a tour on the distant horizon, I don't think it's too soon to say that Dua did that and Future Nostalgia has earned its place among the greats.
So, what are YOUR faves?
- (on screen and in her lyrics) is okay? Yeah. Well. Let's not get into that.
