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Saddle up the Popjustice high horse

  • October 19, 2007
  • Popjustice

It is sometimes difficult to be a fan of pop music.

You can spend hours arguing with people about how pop music doesn't need to be bad, how pop music isn't just for children, how there's more cre­ativ­ity in one second of 'Biology' than in Paul Weller's entire back catalogue, how pop music unites while other genres divide, how pop is the purest form of every other genre with the noise filtered out, how pop makes the world go around.

You can say all that, and then someone can go, 'have you heard the new Samanda song?'. And you just have to leave the room.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGyGYKlO4Pg

The thing is, this is not a pop single and the two women* fronting it are not pop singers. This is not a pop career. This is an example of a fairly shrewd man­age­ment team building a fleet­ingly lucrative brand around two people, using pop music — and the pop charts — to raise profile and increase the money they can make from public appear­ances, endorse­ments and various other non-musical ventures. It's a way of getting Samanda in the papers, on the pop TV channels,  on the radio: it's main­tain­ing profile (and therefore earning potential) without having to pay for any advert­ise­ments.

Look, we know Samanda are not the only act to do this. We know it happens all the time. But it's rarely this trans­par­ent and the musical trinkets used to boost profile are rarely so utterly without any semblance of merit.

We're not going to be writing about Samanda again on Popjustice and if you work in any area of the music media we suggest that unless you're inter­ested in helping Samanda add an extra £50 to their fee for a twenty minute appear­ance at a Romford niteclub you think twice before offering this act any further coverage.

* Remember, Sam and Amanda really are women. They are old enough to vote, to give birth to and to raise children. They are not 'girls' and they are respons­ible for their actions.

  • samanda
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This has simultaneously cheered us up AND thrown us into a shitty pit of depression

  • October 19, 2007
  • Popjustice
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The Back End Of Britney

  • October 19, 2007
  • Popjustice
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Pop as in popular
  • 1
    New Music Monday: Griff's Black Hole is super, and massive
  • 2
    New Music Friday: Let's kick off 2021 with some KLF
  • 3
    The Top 45 Singles Of 2020
Further listening
Greatest hits
  • We Will Not Forget: The Popjustice Calvin Harris Christmas Countdown
  • Max Martin interview: "I’ve begun to feel that, well, I kind of know how to write a song now"
  • A lengthy Neil Tennant interview
Further reading
  • 1
    New Music Monday: Griff's Black Hole is super, and massive
  • 2
    New Music Friday: Let's kick off 2021 with some KLF
  • 3
    The Top 45 Singles Of 2020
  • 4
    New Music Friday: Mae Muller doesn't want to be dependent
  • 5
    New Music Friday: There's a big one from Royal & The Serpent
  • 6
    New Music Friday: Baby Queen takes the throne
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