Pop Lifer: who we are & what we’re up to

Hello there. Welcome to the Pop Lifer blog. The name’s a reference to a Prince song (if you don’t know it then do yourself a favour and click here), with a little hint of prison thrown in. One of us has seen DVDs showing young men in prison and it looks like fun!

This blog is an anonymous blog, run by two friends who are calling themselves Neil and Chris in honour of their jointly adored Pet Shop Boys. The anonymity is not to create a JD Salinger or Altern-8 type mystique, but we both have jobs which prevent us being publicly political or partisan – and we might want to be both here from time to time.

But politics isn’t the main point of this blog, pop culture is. WordPress’ “tips for bloggers” says that you should choose a specialist subject, nothing too general – so we were fucked before we even started. We have tried to stand out in one way – we are a positive blog. God knows there are many things we hate, but why waste time blogging about them (for that you should follow us on Twitter – @poplifer).

This blog is dedicated to celebrating pop in all its glory and oddity, and the impact it has on all of our lives, whether as a way of understanding our weird world, keeping us entertained while we wait for the apocalypse or actually changing things for the better. Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld (Pop Lifer Official Heroes, both) had two rules for their show: “no hugging, no learning.” Ours are “no sneering, no cheap cynicism.” We’ll try to keep them to a minimum, anyway.

Pop culture covers everything from Kubrick to Cantona, Goldfrapp to the Goonies, Warhol to The Wire and all between. We do not recognise the distinction between high art or good art. There’s only good art and bad art – and we’ve appointed ourselves as the final arbiters on that.

There’ll be some bad jokes, some regular features (like Picture This, which snatches a great image from pop culture and adds a few words), random ramblings and longer pieces on things we really care about (eg the courage of Frank Ocean, or the power of the Olympics to tell us something about the world we live in). Given who we are, politics and social issues are likely to crop up from time to time, but we’ll try not to bore you. Though if we do – well, it’s our blog. If you don’t like it, go get your own – they’re free, you know.

This was written on 18 July, following a flurry of texts, emails and late night calls between Pop Lifer’s writers. We don’t really know what we’re doing yet. We’ll let you know if we ever do.

Right now, Neil’s favourite pop acts are Frankmusik, Depeche Mode and Black Box Recorder, his favourite colour is brown, favourite animal is the manta ray, favourite country is Sweden, favourite film is Mulholland Drive and favourite thing in the world is swimming in the sea. The place he least wants to go on holiday is Uzbekistan.

Chris’ favourite pop acts are Plan B, PJ Harvey and Blur, his favourite colour is blue, favourite animal is the fox, favourite country is France, favourite film is a Hard Day’s Night and favourite thing in the world is playing football with his kids. The place he least wants to go on holiday is Dubai.

One of us is gay and one of us is straight. You’ll probably be able to work out which is which.

Comments and interaction are not just welcome, not just encouraged but practically begged for. Abuse only welcome if funny or true.