I was listening Magic 105.4 earlier. They played Papa Don’t Preach by Madonna. The girl in the song pleads with her Dad to let her see someone he disapproves of.
Next in the playlist was Uptown Girl by Billy Joel. A young man laments that the woman he has fallen for is from a different social class.
It occurs to me that these two songs are Pop Pairs. They could be two views on the same relationship.
My sense is that you could probably make a Pop Pair out of any two songs where the singer declares their love for someone else. But the really great pop pairs will be two songs that present two sides of a less conventional relationship. For example, Young Girl by Gary Puckett, paired with Born Too Late by the Poni-Tails; or Money Money Money by ABBA, paired with Gold Digger by Kanye West.
Alternatively, where the sentiment is quite specific: The particular question asked by the Shirelles in Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow is answered quite specifically by the Waterboys in How Long Will I Love You?
Eternal Flame by the Bangles paired with Firestarter by Prodigy.
#Britawards vs #BBCFolkAwards
How to describe the particular type of nausea induced by last might’s Brit Awards? It was not so much the music itself – bands like Bastille and Rudimental are producing catchy, modern pop, and I loved the choreography in Bruno Mars’ performance of ‘Treasure’. Rather, it was everything else about the event itself: The arrogant, cursory acceptance speech by Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner; Harry Styles’ joke “what did we win” when he arrived late on stage to collect an award; and presenter James Corden’s constant references to people taking cocaine in the loos. The entire programme seemed to be channelling a drug bore, who thinks he is being the life of the party when in fact he is rambling and obnoxious.
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