Kiss and Tell

POPULIST INNOVATION 18 June 2008

Populist innovation is what happens when great ideas appeal to a big audience. Kevin Braddock, contributing editor to GQ, columnist for the London Paper and contributor to The Sunday Times, on why things don’t have to be clever to be smart

We don't often think of innovation as a populist phenomenon. Instead, we tend to think of it as originating among the elites, who conceive, nurture and then share it with a wider audience.

But increasingly, the exchange works both ways. There’s growing currency in the notion of ideas that aren’t clever (as in complex) but are smart (as in thrillingly immediate); ideas that expertly fuse new thinking with the mass audience. This is where dance music comes in. This is where Kiss comes in…

“Turn it up loud and get lost in the groove, leave your mind on the bookshelf where it belongs…”

The above quote comes from the book The Manual – How To Have A Number One Record The Easy Way (which did indeed spawn several hit records). It’s a quote that has relevance to Kiss for several reasons. The heartland of the Kiss playlist is exactly this kind of music. Dance music and its various subgenres are designed to prompt a certain response in listeners. While the defining emotional values of indie and rock are introversion, exclusion and anger, the emotional values of dance music are very different. They range from fun, extroversion, inclusion and sensory disorientation, to sex, status and success. These values are more closely related to the body than the mind, to the dancefloor rather than the bookshelf, and to the many, rather than to the few.

For these reasons, tastemakers in the British music press have often tended to disparage dance music, claiming it to be dumb and disposable, particularly when compared with the kind of music that makes the cover of rock mags. Those attitudes are quite revealing. They reveal the prejudice that there is something to be feared about populist tastes, and about things which can't be intellectualised, and they also point to a strain of elitism that is an enduring feature of British public life. This applies particularly to club music and R&B, which are principally concerned with feelings related to sex and release – things that don't feature in lyrics by Thom Yorke.

Popular records that appear to bubble up from nowhere – club hits from Stardust’s ‘The Music Sounds Better With You’ to Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’ to Rhianna’s ‘Umbrella’ to Wiley’s ‘Wearing My Rolex’ - exemplify this in that there is little to say or write about them. They can’t really be discussed - only danced to! At the same time, they are indicators of genuine popularity, rather than media-defined popularity.  


Permission to have fun: this is what dance music and Kiss represent. Sensory pleasure and the removal of the peculiarly British straightjackets of reserve, ‘taste’, status anxiety and guilt. This is the real spirit of populist innovation and this is where Kiss connects to a much broader sphere of innovation in popular culture: brands, products and personalities who have succeeded in innovating at the same time as generating popular appeal.

These brands, products and personalities do several things: they challenge elitism, dismantle barriers to participation and demystify intellectualism. They celebrate diversity (rather than hierarchy) and the mainstream (rather than the niche). And perhaps most importantly, they grant permission to be extroverted instead of introverted. All these equities are shared by Kiss.

This may all seem to imply a kind of dumbing down. But when growing numbers of people find the ‘tasteful’ niche peripheries of popular culture to be airless or soulless, it should be no surprise that many find themselves attracted back to a progressive mainstream.
 
Populist innovation makes the elite feel anxious, since it threatens their position of influence and authority; similarly, populist innovation doesn’t apologise for wanting to be successful and the spirit of populist innovation is the maverick gene in the common British DNA which is the counter point to the elitism and reserve.

This is all about the power and democracy of great ideas and expressive behaviour.  This is populist innovation.

By Kevin Braddock, contributing editor to GQ, columnist for the London Paper, contributor to The Sunday Times, and former feature writer for Mixmag, The Face and Muzik

 
POPULIST INNOVATION COMES IN ALL SHAPES AND SIDES – TO GET THE BALL ROLLING, HERE’S FIVE GREAT EXAMPLES

easyJet

Established in 1995, Stelios’ crew broke the airline monopolies and made short-haul accessible, cheap and cheerful. Cheeky, strategically smart (‘making flying as affordable as a pair of jeans’) and with telephone booking numbers festooned down the side of their planes, easyJet equalled populist innovation in full flight.

The Rolex Dances

Skepta (right) is sweeping his, while Wiley is all about wearing it. Both tracks spread like wildfire across YouTube with many videos of Rolex dances in action, before hitting playgrounds the nation over in Soulja Boy fashion.

The Wii

Christmas 2006 and the gaming market is turned on its head. Suddenly everyone’s granny is picking up a controller; as are five-year-olds and all family members in-between. Gaming duly goes mainstream like never before.

Facebook

Okay, so it’s success has waned slightly in recent months, but Facebook remains the very definition of the contagious product – it’s not much fun if you’re on it on your own; it’s bags of fun when millions of mates jump on board. Whatever the future holds in store for social media, Facebook marks the moment when innovation and populism truly collided.

Ikea

Formed in 1943 (company motto: ‘to create a better everyday life for the many people’), Ikea brought democracy to design, making fine Swedish style affordable for all. A turnover of $28 billion demonstrates they’re onto something.

FURTHER READING/VIEWING

OGILVY’S RORY SUTHERLAND ON BRAND DEMOCRACY

IKEA – BRAND OF THE MANY

HOW THE ROLEX DANCE SWEPT THE NATION

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