This is impossible to answer because if I'm wrong about it I don't know that I'm wrong about it
Tom wrote this in his Guardian column on the subject of what critics might be wrong about now:
The answer isn't likely to be some crazy underground music: it'll be hiding in plain sight, probably popular but not completely mainstream, dismissed because we think we've already got its number.
Then he added on his Tumblr:
Other stuff I was thinking of (or which was suggested to me) here: teenpop, Latin pop (Jonathan Bogart's suggestion and I suspect a good one), and the whole OTHER hardcore continuum - hardcore/happy hardcore/hard house/'scouse house'/donk/'clubland' etc.
To which I replied:
But wait, you're surrounded by rock critics who LOVE teenpop and go over it with a fine-toothed comb. And you're surrounded by critics who love Scooter. You'll ALWAYS find critics willing to plump for the proles and plump for the bubblegum (not that teenpop has been bubblegum for years, but only the people who have their ear to it know that). As for Latin pop, the problem is more that not many of the critics you pay attention to pay attention to it, not that they're wrong about it. But some who do pay attention to it do sometimes show up on ilX (including Rolling Country every now and then).
Obviously, if it's something we're wrong about we won't know what it is, because we're wrong about it. Ballads, smooth jazz, adult contemporary, urban AC. Not that I necessarily think that we're wrong about it, given that I don't listen to it much and that's 'cause I don't think I'll like it, and I don't think I'm wrong to think it's not very good. But if you're looking for what's hiding in plain sight, that's where you look. Michael Bublé. I mean, I thought his last single sucked.
The answer isn't likely to be some crazy underground music: it'll be hiding in plain sight, probably popular but not completely mainstream, dismissed because we think we've already got its number.
Then he added on his Tumblr:
Other stuff I was thinking of (or which was suggested to me) here: teenpop, Latin pop (Jonathan Bogart's suggestion and I suspect a good one), and the whole OTHER hardcore continuum - hardcore/happy hardcore/hard house/'scouse house'/donk/'clubland' etc.
To which I replied:
But wait, you're surrounded by rock critics who LOVE teenpop and go over it with a fine-toothed comb. And you're surrounded by critics who love Scooter. You'll ALWAYS find critics willing to plump for the proles and plump for the bubblegum (not that teenpop has been bubblegum for years, but only the people who have their ear to it know that). As for Latin pop, the problem is more that not many of the critics you pay attention to pay attention to it, not that they're wrong about it. But some who do pay attention to it do sometimes show up on ilX (including Rolling Country every now and then).
Obviously, if it's something we're wrong about we won't know what it is, because we're wrong about it. Ballads, smooth jazz, adult contemporary, urban AC. Not that I necessarily think that we're wrong about it, given that I don't listen to it much and that's 'cause I don't think I'll like it, and I don't think I'm wrong to think it's not very good. But if you're looking for what's hiding in plain sight, that's where you look. Michael Bublé. I mean, I thought his last single sucked.