RE: In Defense of Level 42
elson trinidad (elson@westworld.com)
Wed, 14 May 1997 03:29:35 -0700
At 12.01 PM 5/14/1997 +0100, Balfourth, Winston wrote:
>Yes they had one or two okay tracks on these albums and you could argue
>that they were maturing as a band, but I certainly don't think that they
>matured. In fact I believe that they took a backward step. How can we
>achieve pop success, simple let's write bland music and we'll make a lot
>of money and live happily ever after.
Obviously, since you're from the UK, where L42 actually got a lot of
airplay and toured constantly, you have a different point of view. I'm an
American, have only heard three of their songs on US radio, have *never*
seen
them live and had to buy their last album as an import, since it was never
released in the US.
So we're talking about two distinct viewpoints here; you may dismiss L42 as
'pop pap' but in America, even the most commercial-sounding tunes were way
too 'complex' for the average American audience, and L42 never had a
'marketable image' here. It seems, though, that UK pop music is made to a
somewhat higher quality standard than American pop music; even the Spice
Girls sound like quality material when compared to American top40/MTV crap.
Elson
-30-
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Elson Trinidad
Los Angeles, CA, USA
elson@westworld.com * http://www.westworld.com/~elson
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