Arcade fire, The Suburbs, comes close. So does Arthur’s Landing, Yeasayer and others played a lot recently, including Amanda Palmer and John Grant. Pop is not about enhancing success, it is about raking the claws of life into the superficial face of the winner, the uproar under the song of success. It sings from below as much as above. Good pop is social reportage and comment, combined with good music, by my reckoning.
I may be a dinosaur. My judgement is basically the same since I heard the first great pop songs of the Beatles, the Kinks, and others, in my youth. Yet I feel proud, not shamed. Like, Let England shake ( P J Harvey). This is a great way to judge music, as relevant as ever. Social reportage and comment meaning an extended sense of democracy, a core theme of good pop music.
