Definition:

Frankly, life's too short to deal in thousands sub-genres so I tend not to! Cerebral Pop, therefore, is my own made-up genre tag designed for those tracks which are essentially Pop at heart, but are more sophisticated than the mainstream easy-listening variety. Aligining my definition with critic's convention, sub-genres would, in many instances, include some of the following: Art Pop, Avant Pop, Baroque Pop, Experimental Pop, Progressive Pop, Psychedelic Pop or Sophisti-Pop.

The Jukebox Pick (of 2,458):

 Yes

 (David McAlmont, Bernard Butler)

 McAlmont and Butler

  “Utterly perfect” Cerebral Pop

 So it's the summer of 1994 and guitarist Bernard Butler's just left Suede, feeling down. Within days, inspired by Dusty Springfield's ability to reverse low mood with songs like “I Only Want To Be With You”, he's plotting to deliver the perfect moment in pop, 1990s style. “I listened to that at full volume until the speakers distorted. I wanted to do something like that, with the strings and drums really loud and interesting key changes. I wanted to learn how to do that.” Learn, he did and, after a couple of mis-fires, he finally sourced the perfect vocal counter-foil for his arrangements, David McAlmont, a singer with a three octave range, keen to take his career onto the next level. McAlmont brought his own lyrics to the table. “Even though Bernard's aspiration for it, if I'm not mistaken, was to make a really joyous record, the lyric I had for it was pure vitriol. It was a really bitter, twisted lyric about being dumped and imagining what I'd say to the person who dumped me when I became famous, which was a real risk to take. It all depended on the record succeeding or it would have been ridiculous.” He needn't have worried. The single was released in May, 1995, and went Top 10 in the UK Pop Charts, selling 140,000 copies. More than that, the critical acclaim afforded the track since then has been fully merited, for it's a spine-tingling masterpiece of epic proportions, positively re-realising Phil Spector's wall-of-sound 30-years-on. Yes!

Some favourite artists:

David Bowie, The Beach Boys, Depeche Mode, The Kinks

The Jukebox pick: