Last week I was slightly concerned that Channel 4’s lovely Popworld* was “on the turn” (as Simon’s parents might have put it). They started out by apologising for their title sequence containing Busted, Mystiq and S-Club, before announcing that the show would have The Killers, The Kaiser Chiefs and a performance from Doves. Now Simon was doing a great job of winding up the drummer of the Killers, but still it troubled me so.
This Sunday morning as I assumed the Popworld position on the sofa, I found myself preoccupied with the design possibilities for FT’s new club Poptimism**, a club dedicated to playing chart pop in an attempt to atone for the resident DJs’ miserable indie pasts***. A club who’s patron saints could well be presenters Simon and Miquita, and who’s likeness rights I was then considering. Trouble was that though the show’s title sequence hadn’t changed, this week’s show promised us: The Kaiser Chiefs (again), The Futureheads, The Bravery, Bez reviewing new releases, New Order and (gasp) The NME Awards. Fo’ shizzle.
This got me into only more of an indie/pop tizz because I have always been a HYOWG fan of New Order (MY BAND), but find the new album underwhelming, and though unimpressed by the young people’s newer-wave of new-wave bands, I really like The Futureheads a lot. Yay, even the Kate Bush cover.
Imagine my relief, if you will, when Simon threw all these same concerns into pop-relief in their NME Awards slot. I relaxed further when he carried out his usual silliness with the likes of Noel Gallagher, Peter Hook and a load of NME totty and it was accepted with relatively good humour. Maybe the self-parodying, never serious world of Pop and the student-angst world of Indie are no longer so far apart – and POP HAS WON.
It’s been 15 years since the great indie-dance wars were ended by pop’s top scientists colliding manchester wasters together with tremendous amounts of high energy, and in the euphoria of unification some started to wonder if the ultimate reunification, into the motherlode of pop, was going to happen in their lifetime. Maybe we are starting to see the first signs that this dream is about to be realised.
* Note the website is also out of date, and those web wizards have rechristened the site “Chanel” 4 in the <TITLE> tag
** Starting NEXT month
*** That’s the way I see it – apologies to FT colleagues who might protest otherwise