Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Some call it Dogcore...
or A Brief History of Canine
When we announced that this year would see the first all poodle number one, a wave of excitement, intrigue, and admittedly a lot of disinterest, raced through the TiaPL readership. As a result, we'll be keeping you up to date with the poodle based news throught the coming year, but before that we realise that the whole concept of dog-based pop music might seem like it's come out of nowhere and is a nonsense idea, much like using a chainsaw to cut your toenails, but this simply isn't true. It's had a long, illustrious history, and it's that which we want to educate you with today.
Although there were some classical canine composers, most notable Johan Sebastian Bark and some who were favoured by King Charles, the music ability of dogs was not really held in high esteem for many, many years. At least, not in public anyway. As time went on it became more and more common for artists to take pup music, repackage it and use a more human-friendly artist to sell it. The most notable exponent of this theft was Elvis Presley, who's disrespect for the culture he was plundering was by far the most degrading thing about his actions. When he recorded "Hound Dog", a song which, by it's title, should have been celebrating his hairy chums, instead insulted them, a million voices howled in protest. Their revenge came with his final indignity - when Elvis died he was found looking like a bloated shadow of his former self, pumped fill of drugs, with his trousers round his ankles, sitting on a Pug.
The first proper pup star was the sheepdog duo of Dog Dylan, a collie who spearheaded the popular folk movement. He's probably best known for Sniffing in the Wind, featuring the famous line "How many times must a dog be walked before they call him a dog". Unfortunately their career was scuppered for two reasons:- firstly when he swapped his favourite, traditional rubber ball, for a new modern electric toy to chase after instead, but secondly, and more importantly, due to his long and hard fought battle with Cat Stevens. Dog's career pretty much ended when the singer got stuck up a tree and needed to be rescued by the fire department.
Even with minor successes like that, the pup-pop movement never really took off, mainly due to the sixties being the era that insect bands made their mark. Something that has never been repeated since the invention of insect repellant in the seventies. With them out of the way, it paved the way for the glam rock movement to make it's entrance. While the more butch hounds, such as bulldogs and pitbulls gave this a wide berth, many took the opportunity to put on a sparkly collar, get a tartan jacket and rock out in a ridiculously camp way. Bands such as Sweep, -Rex and Rolling in Mud snapped at the heels of the lower end of the charts but, like most doggy efforts to communicate, they were pretty much ignored and got left outside in both the metaphorical and literal kennel.
The eighties were a lean time for dog musicians, though their influence did live on, mainly in the dog-caller based fashion sense of goths admittedly, but other than a few exceptions, such as Paw-chestral Manoeuvres in the Park and Spaniel Ballet, the musical mutt's kept their heads as low as a mongrel who's owners have just discovered his mess in the corner. Even the summer of love and acid house music failed to tempt many hounds out to play, mainly because no-one else could hear their whistles.
As we headed into the nineties, a more political music began to emerge, with Billy Bragg (from Barking, Essex) heading the Red Setter movement, designed to encourage the UK youth to vote Labour. Alas, it wasn't a huge success, and many bands that held similar political views ended up as rivals, despite the similar ideology, and the bitterness still remains to a certain extent, evident at Glastonbury in the late nineties, where Billy Bragg bemoaned the fact that the Manic Street Poochers had set aside a lampost for their own use only.
It's the mid-nineties that we discover the apex (so far) of the Dogcore movement, the chart-troubling Brit-Pup scene. Based around notorius indie hangout, The Winalot Mixer in Camden, a whole host of bands appeared and seemed about to inherit the earth. For a while it seemed that simply having one jangly bell on your collar and a glossy coat would guarantee you a record deal. Bands such as Cur hit the top ten with their hit Barklife, who could forget the attempts at androdgyny by Spayed (Best known for Animal Irate), an attempt which did, admittedly, end up pretty sexless. The pretty pups of the movement were Menswe@ratmeifibarkatthem, who despite having no tunes did have a nice line in well fitted collars and two tone coats. It was their deification that ultimately led to Brit-Pup being seen as a joke by the media, much along the lines of the novelty Jingle Cats scene.
After that collapse, the dogs retired to lick their wounds (and their testicles), but soon they'll be back... the might of poodle pop will take on all, and we'll be keeping you fully informed of all the exciting dog based events as the year progresses. Forget Michelle, this year it's all about the Pup Idols.
When we announced that this year would see the first all poodle number one, a wave of excitement, intrigue, and admittedly a lot of disinterest, raced through the TiaPL readership. As a result, we'll be keeping you up to date with the poodle based news throught the coming year, but before that we realise that the whole concept of dog-based pop music might seem like it's come out of nowhere and is a nonsense idea, much like using a chainsaw to cut your toenails, but this simply isn't true. It's had a long, illustrious history, and it's that which we want to educate you with today.
Although there were some classical canine composers, most notable Johan Sebastian Bark and some who were favoured by King Charles, the music ability of dogs was not really held in high esteem for many, many years. At least, not in public anyway. As time went on it became more and more common for artists to take pup music, repackage it and use a more human-friendly artist to sell it. The most notable exponent of this theft was Elvis Presley, who's disrespect for the culture he was plundering was by far the most degrading thing about his actions. When he recorded "Hound Dog", a song which, by it's title, should have been celebrating his hairy chums, instead insulted them, a million voices howled in protest. Their revenge came with his final indignity - when Elvis died he was found looking like a bloated shadow of his former self, pumped fill of drugs, with his trousers round his ankles, sitting on a Pug.
The first proper pup star was the sheepdog duo of Dog Dylan, a collie who spearheaded the popular folk movement. He's probably best known for Sniffing in the Wind, featuring the famous line "How many times must a dog be walked before they call him a dog". Unfortunately their career was scuppered for two reasons:- firstly when he swapped his favourite, traditional rubber ball, for a new modern electric toy to chase after instead, but secondly, and more importantly, due to his long and hard fought battle with Cat Stevens. Dog's career pretty much ended when the singer got stuck up a tree and needed to be rescued by the fire department.
Even with minor successes like that, the pup-pop movement never really took off, mainly due to the sixties being the era that insect bands made their mark. Something that has never been repeated since the invention of insect repellant in the seventies. With them out of the way, it paved the way for the glam rock movement to make it's entrance. While the more butch hounds, such as bulldogs and pitbulls gave this a wide berth, many took the opportunity to put on a sparkly collar, get a tartan jacket and rock out in a ridiculously camp way. Bands such as Sweep, -Rex and Rolling in Mud snapped at the heels of the lower end of the charts but, like most doggy efforts to communicate, they were pretty much ignored and got left outside in both the metaphorical and literal kennel.
The eighties were a lean time for dog musicians, though their influence did live on, mainly in the dog-caller based fashion sense of goths admittedly, but other than a few exceptions, such as Paw-chestral Manoeuvres in the Park and Spaniel Ballet, the musical mutt's kept their heads as low as a mongrel who's owners have just discovered his mess in the corner. Even the summer of love and acid house music failed to tempt many hounds out to play, mainly because no-one else could hear their whistles.
As we headed into the nineties, a more political music began to emerge, with Billy Bragg (from Barking, Essex) heading the Red Setter movement, designed to encourage the UK youth to vote Labour. Alas, it wasn't a huge success, and many bands that held similar political views ended up as rivals, despite the similar ideology, and the bitterness still remains to a certain extent, evident at Glastonbury in the late nineties, where Billy Bragg bemoaned the fact that the Manic Street Poochers had set aside a lampost for their own use only.
It's the mid-nineties that we discover the apex (so far) of the Dogcore movement, the chart-troubling Brit-Pup scene. Based around notorius indie hangout, The Winalot Mixer in Camden, a whole host of bands appeared and seemed about to inherit the earth. For a while it seemed that simply having one jangly bell on your collar and a glossy coat would guarantee you a record deal. Bands such as Cur hit the top ten with their hit Barklife, who could forget the attempts at androdgyny by Spayed (Best known for Animal Irate), an attempt which did, admittedly, end up pretty sexless. The pretty pups of the movement were Menswe@ratmeifibarkatthem, who despite having no tunes did have a nice line in well fitted collars and two tone coats. It was their deification that ultimately led to Brit-Pup being seen as a joke by the media, much along the lines of the novelty Jingle Cats scene.
After that collapse, the dogs retired to lick their wounds (and their testicles), but soon they'll be back... the might of poodle pop will take on all, and we'll be keeping you fully informed of all the exciting dog based events as the year progresses. Forget Michelle, this year it's all about the Pup Idols.
