Pop Group

DISCOGRAPHY

Y (1979) 8/10 +

For How Much Longer (1980) 8/10

We Are Time (archival, 1978–1979) 5/10

Cabinet of Curiosities (archival, 1978–1980) 5/10

Citizen Zombie (2014) 4/10

Honeymoon On Mars (2016) 3/10

Mark Stewart

Learning to Cope with Cowardice (1983) 7.5/10

As the Veneer of Democracy Starts to Fade (1985)

Mark Stewart (1987)

Metatron (1990)

Control Data (1996)

Edit (2008)

The Politics of Envy (2012)

The Pop Group took ideas from Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica (acid jazz, psychotic grooves, guttural male vocals) and cut the technical complexity for the update of punk music's barbarism.

The first time I listened to For How Much Longer I was in shock; I didn't realize just how far Rock music could push into purely upsetting atonality, even though behind the fracas was actually a pretty accessible sort of avant-Funk.

Mark Stewart is easily one of the most underrated singers of Rock -- hearing those animalistic screeches and howls (a mix between hardcore punk and soul) forced me to recalculate the magnitude of the human voice. Of course what helped is what he was saying, too: "We are all prostitutes -- Everybody has their price" is such a disturbing statement but rings so true that it has burned into my memory. Nobody could shout things like that without becoming a little monstrous.

Mark Stewart's solo debut Learning to Cope with Cowardice indulges funk music to the most distant denomination possible. The discipline of Dub music maintains itself in the delay effects, and gruesome displays of studio-distortion channel the Pop Group's paranoia.

Citizen Zombie sustains the band's distinctive palette for genre-clash and funky atonality, but the sheer recovery of the Pop Group "sound" doesn't necessarily make a good album. The old ideas were all in-place, and that's the album's charm as well as its shortcoming.

Nations is more like a tribute to the Sleaford Mods before anything else. Meanwhile, Age of Miracles switches between the signature avant-funk chants to a chorus and piano-phrase that borders on stadium-soul.

TOP 10 SONGS

    1. We Are All Prostitutes (1980)

    2. Thief of Fire (1979)

    3. She Is Beyond Good and Evil (1979)

    4. Feed the Hungry (1980)

    5. Justice (1980)

    6. Blind Faith (1980)

    7. Snowgirl (1979)

    8. How Much Longer (1980)

    9. Blood Money (1979)

    10. We Are Time (1979)