The queen and the princess of pop

You know what truly impresses me in music? A performer who can get me to like a genre I don't naturally warm to.

Sometimes I get a bit worried about people's musical diets (including my own). There's a tendency to stick to one kind of music, as if all of the music of that kind will be good and that everything else won't be as good. Funnily enough, this is the kind of reasoning that music companies seem to rely on - if someone has a huge hit, the airwaves are soon full of imitators because it's assumed that because they sound the same their success will be the same.

It's an almost complete fallacy of course. The external style of music is one of the least important things about it. The quality of the structure inside is what matters, just like in architecture. Putting a girl in front of a piano and getting her to write 'confessional' lyrics does not make her Tori Amos. Ravel is not at all like Debussy (dear God, I've seen that version of the fallacy more times than I can count).

Nevertheless, we do all tend to gravitate to certain styles. The chances of a singer-songwriter with an acoustic sound getting my attention are reasonably high. The chances of slickly produced pop music getting my attention are a lot lower.

Madonna has been succeeding in getting my attention for around two decades now, although realistically she got more of my attention and respect during the 1990s than before or since. Do I like all her stuff? By no means: I only own two albums (Ray of Light and I'm Breathless) and even those are a bit uneven. But she has succeeded in remaining at the forefront of popular music for all that time. Her instincts for music as a business as well as an art form are second to none.

I had initially dismissed Hung Up as a fairly poor pilfering of one ABBA's hits, and one of Madonna's weakest singles for some time. The lyrics and music are limited and repetitive.

Just like all dance music. I don't like almost all dance music.

Friday night, though, I saw the video for Hung Up and heard the song for about the 4th or 5th time and... really, really enjoyed it. The beat crawled under my skin. Yes, it's dance music. But as far as dance music goes, it's well judged. It holds together. I'm not likely to rush out and buy an album because of it, but if I'm out somewhere and it comes on I'm not going to wince.

Straight after the Madonna clip was the latest one for Gwen Stefani. It seems reasonably obvious that GS is intent on inheriting Madonna's mantle for the next generation. And guess what - I think she's succeeding.

As lead singer of No Doubt she already succeeded on getting me hooked on punk/ska stylings I have no business in liking (trust me, you would never pick me out of a line-up as the guy who thinks Excuse Me Mr. is a thrill). The Greatest Hits package that came out a couple of years ago is quite simply the best collection of pop singles I've ever come across. It also illustrates quite forcefully that each of the three albums (not counting the band's obscure debut, which is only represented by one song) was markedly different.

Now she's headed for a weird mix of Japanese pop and mid-80s keyboards. I'm not sure I even liked mid-80s keyboards back in the mid-80s. And yet...

I've now heard five singles from Love Angel Music Baby. I thought the first was completely brilliant, which led me to sample the rest of the album in a store, whereupon I hated it. I thought Hollaback Girl was particularly stupid. Despite that, every one of those songs has gradually been burrowing into my consciousness, to the point where I find myself saying "you know, I don't actually mind that..."

That's an impressive trick.