That's it! The only ism I want to come out of your mouths is jism. Overacademic Bullshit Must Die.

Best thread ever by the way.

[haha wait'll they get a load of my bakhtin and jay-z piece in the reader!]

god i am such a stereotype.

(sterling, stop trying to blame everything on gramsci!)

James just won this thread.

No - my post-marxist theory class did like one theorist per week (such that i'm shaky on Gramsci anyway) and I am too lazy to like actually study these guys for fun, even though it is fun. But where should I start if hypothetically I was going to? it might make understanding In Review easier anyway.

not that i've really talked about him on there actually, & i dunno when i'll get the time to talk about him RIGHT. he's got all these fragments of ideas which spin out and suggest things about talking about music which need to be totally fleshed out and flipped and etc. if they're going to make sense in that context. its all in the way he breaks things that seemed fixed open and the questions he suggests asking.

a-and I've never even *read* him on the Carnival. it seems like another of those things where people take one fragmentary concept from a dude and turn it into his "thing" coz the body of work is too complex. Cf. vygotsky and the zone of proximal development or hell derrida and "deconstruction" or d&g and rhizomes or etc.

HAHAHA THIS THREAD HAS TURNED INTO A DISCUSSION OF BAKHTIN!!!!

Uh. Anyway.

Then I realised I was thinking of a load of shite and went back to dreaming about Halle Berry.

If you must be "intellectual," read some Milan Kundera. He's at least funny.

And it's "Riot Girl," not "Riot Grrl." Good Charlotte can spell.

some also claim it means bisexual, jrvision. Part of me actually wishes their name was Bisexual. It would look pretty badass in their trademark font.

BUT, according to Highway to Hell: The Life & Times of Bon Scott, AC/DC was "named by Margaret Young after a warning sign she noticed on her sewing machine" (!)

Hi D. Thats true, i was confusing 'electric saw' with a 'sewing machine' probably, it was a long time ago.

(Jrvision==RexJr.)

SCENE: A sunny suburban kitchen. The countertop is blue tiles, there is a nice bit of yellow touch. JAMES THE POT and MICCIO THE KETTLE are sitting on the stove top--electric range, natch.

Miccio the Kettle: I hate everything! Everyone is so annoying! Sterling Clover is a fuxor! You all suck!
James the Pot: Fuck you Miccio! Fuck you and Good Charlotte! What crawled up your ass! You're stupid!
Miccio the Kettle: You're stupid! So's Chuck Eddy!
James the Pot: Eat my fuc!

Enter STERLING CLOVER, who starts putting KETTLE and POT away properly

Sterling: I do say that the circumvention of my cabinets beheld by these items of crockware is shocking and appalling, what would Bahtkin say about this horror of filth? cf proximal Lysol developments.

THE END.

Blount, I don't wish Marcus got knifed, I simply asked if the world of rockcrit would be better or worse because of it. The man probably has family. Though I didn't hesitate to make the query about the value of the man's existence, seeing as how he said it WAS a good thing the dude from the Spin Doctors had throat ailments and may never get to sing again, because the Spin Doctor used the word "bitch" in "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong." Marcus set seriously caustic precedent there.

Some words are valuable, some ain't

and then arguing that other people are guilty over overacademizing...really, now.

vs. Fred Durst.

Christ you should have said something, they've already agreed in principle to publish my piece about this thread and I kinda need the money

Also, in a forum like this one, it's selfish to assume that just because a concept is over YOUR head, it's over everyone else's head too (cf. "overacademic bullshit").

"Impenetrable" to whom? To YOU! You're saying you can't understand it, therefore NO ONE can!

"Impenetrable" belongs on the "use other" pile, along with "unlistenable" (which I was guilty of using when I first got here).

I personally don't mind high vocabulary words in any type of writing; it forces me to get out my old and worn dictionary (the copyright's from 1954!) and look up the word, thus enabling me to learn a whole new word (as opposed to "Whole New World", which is a great example of a POS Disney song). However, when it comes to music criticism, I really can't stand the usage of a highly obscure musical artist or film director as a crutch when it comes to the description of said critic's opinion of the album/song/concert and assuming all of the reading audience will get said reference. Robert Christgau landed forever on my "I curse you forever!" list because of similar actions; I mean, what 13-year-old in 1993 Middle America was going to know some of the artists he referenced in his reviews? (Besides, he was one of those music critics who was there at the "it must've happened!" music journalism convention that obviously decided Duran Duran would forever get treated like shit by all "well respected" music journalists no matter what the band did, thus making people such as myself bristle at the mere mention of Q, Rolling Stone, Spin, NME, etc.)

*ahem* But anyway, college-level vocabulary doesn't bother me in the slightest. In fact, sometimes I welcome it in greedily. I like learning new words, new ways of describing things and putting words together, etc.

ha crosspost

To paraphrase what I said before -- if you're not familiar with it, that doesn't necessarily make it "obscure."

Goddang, Blount look higher up in the thread for your precious names. You really can't think up any yourself?

http://www.orsiitaliani.com/durstdc3.jpg

the idea that english speaking music magazines are writing for some intellectual elite is hilarious to me.

(hey! Ironically "Rollin'" just came up on my mixtape THIS VERY SECOND!)

Of course, with the invasion of the Internet and the fact that almost anything can be Googled into understanding, this point may be at present moot. There was no such thing as the Internet for the average Jane/Joe back then, however. There weren't even computers at the grade school I went to back then. So it wasn't as if I could look up "Robyn Hitchcock" as easily as I could look up "redoubtable" back then, just to name an example.

I just think that when it comes to criticism that would've been read by a wide audience back in the Dark Ages Before the Internet Was Available in Any Public Library, people should've worked hard to not include elements in the opinion piece that would've been damned impossible to look up. Words are one thing -- I mean, everyone in here has had a dictionary in their possession for all eternity, right? Even slightly obscure historical events could've been found out through a quick interrogation of one's favorite history teacher. But trying to figure out who the hell "G.G. Allin" is/was back then -- I think I would've had much better luck finding out through my teachers what happened during the Second Peloponnesian War.

p.s.: I knew who The Smiths were back when I was 13. I should've -- I was a fan of theirs back then. (Still am, in fact. Ever loyal me.)

I'm sorry, the "average sports column" is total dreck! What are you thinking of here?

These days even the teachers would have to google for that.

Hey, me neither, but that was part of the fun/mystique! You found out stuff however you could, bit by bit, maybe going through the microfiche Rolling Stone collection at the library, or reading a 100-word review in a Trouser Press guide.

Abraham saw signs of God and believed. Now the only sign is that all the signs in the world make no difference. Is this God's ironic revenge? But I am onto him."

I want a miccio barbie so bad.

I am not a rock critic. I post and read ILM. I don't really care if someone uses "overacademic bullshit" language or not. So quit assuming you speak for anybody else.

Thanks,

hstencil

Was I a rockcrit when I was 12? No.

Anyway, your argt stinks. "I can't name any --> they don't exist."

(and like i was talking about you, hstencil)
/good-natured ribbing

A: Even my dad knows Skip Bayless is an idiot.

If academia has proven anything, it's that throwing a firework into a boring study hall always produces more boring study halls than it does fireworks. Did you really expect us all to say 'shit, he's right!', throw the A through K section of our bookshelves out into the street and never come back?

And Daria, isn't theory the development of ideas? How can you get rid of that in an academic environment?

(and someone please answer one more question: what thread sparked this one? i want to read it)

YES. Do it, now.

For instance, relying on jargon or buzzwords or theorists without taking the time to explain them to those who are not intimately acquainted with them. This doesn't mean writing for a 13-year-old: this simply means writing outside yourself. I'm looking forward to seeing Sterling's article on Jay-Z and Bakhtin -- but since I only have a cursory understanding of dialogism, I'm hoping that he'll elucidate Bakhtin's theories somewhat to get me more interested and involved in the piece. (It will also allow him to better support his argument.) There's also just plain bad writing that's dense or labored or whatever, and I think we all agree that Xgau, in his attempts to be pithy and allusive, sometimes fails to communicate his basic message.

Often this all comes across as elitist because readers think I-don't-get-it-I-guess-I'm-dumb, but too often it's just the critic's laziness (or unwillingess) to explicate. And if we are indeed talking primarily about journalism (instead of academic criticism that's explicitly written for an inside crowd), then this seems worthy of critique.

That's a whole new thread I don't even want to touch yet.

and why is it so important have a clear stance on that?

It depends on what your ultimate goal is. If you are an evaluative critic, the kind that gives points and letter grades, then it's important to let the reader know how and why you liked something, to give them some sense of where you're coming from so they can better predict if they'll like it or not.

If you're more of an analytical critic, I don't think it's as important to state your personal likes or dislikes. But I think it's still important to have a well-defined perspective or approach, so the reader knows whether you actually agree with Derrida's point and find it useful, or if you're just being gratuitous.

the potential helpfulness of such a word — of any jargon word — is that it compacts all into one place a lot of apparently different activities/concepts not otherwise so gathered: and the gathering may be laborious and you don't want to do it all over again, so you use the word as a shortcut for "go see the work [x] did categorising/arguing this, which is very telling, and i wd only spoil it if i tried to summarise"

i am v.naughty when it comes to citing ppl as if it's obvious to all what they think and say: this is (partly) because i am pathologically bad at precis, and get in a terrible panic if i am asked to summarise a paragraph ("unless i read every word ever written in the english language, i do not truly understand this sentence and must let it stand for itself")

i am not in fact quite so naughty when it comes to words like "postmodernism", which i mainly think are failed attempts at genre-marketing and NOT handy codifications of related ideas

i think the shortcut is fair enough (explaining things everyone present already knows can be tedious and offputting — or just look silly cf "the popular beat combo supergrass"), but i think asking for the longer version is completely fair enough also

I suppose my only real worry these days is the (self-imposed) idea that everything is up for grabs and has to be listened to and talked about. (In terms of angle? Honestly, after dealing with theory for years, I don't want to think what I'm supposed to be doing on that front.)

mark is basically OTM. It goes, for me, as simple as this: yes, JBR, you're right, the onus of understanding shouldn't fall entirely on the writer as then everything written, ever, would resemble a Dick & Jane book. However, the reader, while choosing to enter the discourse, isn't the one choosing to start the discourse, or trying to explain a greater idea or point to anyone. Ergo, the writer has more of a responsibility to write in a fashion that is best suited towards those who they are trying to get their point across to; ie. write in a lucid, explicatory, engaging fashion otherwise you will lose your audience quickly.

If your audience is other rock critics, then who gives a fuck? If your audience is the general public of, just for example, Spin magazine*, then I think you should give a fuck about things like angle or clearness. It entirely depends on who you are writing for--I think that the style of writing Miccio is specifically talking about is better suited towards books than for the Village Voice.

* Note that using this as an example is not remotely an endorsement of the idea that Spin is in some way a bastion of intellectualism; merely that this was the first popular publication that came to mind!

everything is up for grabs and has to be listened to and talked about

Change "has" to "can" and I'm with you, Ned.

The only thing that has made me scratch my head is that I can't think one bit of currently popular culture in movies, music, whatever that Sterling dislikes.

Change "has" to "can" and I'm with you, Ned.

Rah.

(note to self: one day get to page two of being and time maybe you big faker)

Yeah...this is kind of what Miccio was saying (I hope he doesn't mind me putting words in his mouth). Not specifically about Sterling for me, but that phenomenon--that writing like this is somehow an achievement. It's like the difference between having a conversation with Chuck Eddy and a number of Eddy/Xgau/Whomever wannabes: You talk to Chuck and he might say something completely inexplicable, but when you say, "WHAT?" he will explain it in an enthusiastic, engaging manner and work the listener into what he's trying to express. You talk to certain other folx and the same thing occurs, but they don't go on to explain in an engaging, friendly fashion--they kind of smirk, like, "Figured you wouldn't know what I meant." Which is just kind of dumb: why bother attempting to put forth ideas at all if you only want to share them with other people who have the same experience and knowledge as you?

Writing is for making points, not scoring them.

if there's NOTHING for the reader to do, then brains will not get engaged (however an awful lot of academic discourse is actually extremely stylised, mannered and samey: its difficulty entirely superficial, like haxorspeak)

(it's sunny out and i'm sick.)

Not acceptable.
Think of the carpet cleaning bills.

Yeah, but would you yell at him from a car? I would!

When you read stuff at college, you sometimes get bright text full of ideas and well written. More of the time though, you get some small ideas appallingly written. Very frequently, it's worse: cliche rewritten as gibberish.

So, it's natural to distrust stuff that seems "academic".

Most people, especially here, can take a bit of braininess.

Some people, especially here, can detect faux-braininess, yes?

Without any examples (and I didn't spot any as I skim-read), this thread gets nowhere. That's where it is. Where is the end?

People tend to yell Miccioooooo from cars at me, so ya know. And I'd think right now it would neither positively or negatively affect the world much if I got trampled to death at a Bizkit concert. Plus there's always my legacy to worry about...

The End Is The Beginning Is The The End

Sorry. I couldn't resist.

Actually, in this context it means nothing. Its a pun that has to be said out loud to make any sense. (Although the reader would have to assume your last name is pronounced Mish-EE-OH.)

Now why does this matter? Coz to me often "theorists" and rock musicians are often finding different ways of addressing the *same thing* and so often indirectly addressing one another. One way to kill the self-satisfied patrician role of academia is to actually try to bring it into *dialogue* with the things it addresses.

One of the more thought-provoking/useful things about Meltzer was that for him philosophy was the question and ROCK!!!! was the answer. Hendrix's famous logical connective "A public hair B" etc. But that's really just a varient of left-hegelianism. (which is another reason knowing theory is good, because it helps you spot old debates in new clothes).

Another problem is that sometimes cryptic references are meant as jokes and not as k-brill. insights. So plenty of times there's no *point* in explaining them if someone doesn't get them because the explanation kills the humor and without the humor there's nothing left. I know I do this IRL fairly often, but mainly w/r/t pop-ephermia from the 80s or early 90s as opposed to with highfalutin' theorists.

Pick up an instrument.

(jess, thank you for omitting that comma)

I seriously don't even know why people bother writing about rock in his wake. Kogan's stuff (like that Disco Tex essay) comes pretty close, tho.

oh shit, did i just use "theory" again!? sorry.

Criticism is public service, but it's not office work. Its ultimate purpose is to communicate to others about music and the culture surrounding it, but not dryly or obviously. It's journalism, but it's meta-journalism. It is aware of itself. It exists to inform and elucidate, but also to entertain. Whether it's bullshit or not is purely subjective, and whether it's academic or not depends on the kind of writer you are, and the audience you want to reach. Taking an academic approach to writing about music is not the same thing as being an academic -- music, after all, is not an academic exercise in and of itself, or at least it shouldn't be. Sounds are not ideas, they are sounds. Music writers are exactly the kinds of organic intellectuals that Sterling mentioned (I really like that concept, BTW). They work from a base of that which is un-intellectual and attempt to put it in broader context, which is an intellectual activity. This activity contains an inner conflict, but a mild one, to my thinking. If Walt Whitman can intellectualize a blade of grass, why can't I intellectualize a guitar?

I understand all this very clearly, and I accept it, and I don't think it an act of stubbornness to refuse to discuss it further. There are layers here, and contradictions, but no more than in my own personality. The true measure of an intellectual is the ability to deal with contradictions.

I didn't say that. A useful intellectual is able to get down in the pit of contradiction with everybody else.

I mean there is just reams and reams of writing about music around, and it's staggering how bad most of it is, how uncool, unsexy most of it is. Meltzer was able to wed theory and his his own whacked concepts to rock music in his writing, in a way that seemed wholly inside, of the music. And he did all this at the beginning! WHen there was no codified "rock criticism", when there were no banal "literary critism" majors running around American campuses. So much of the writing around seems so pointless, so lacking in imagination, I don't even think the writers know why they do it. And we're fucking swimming in it! It's everywhere!

But just as words aren't substitutes for ideas, dropping the names of famous theorists is no substitute for using their ideas in interesting ways. I like Sterling's writing a lot, but that Ja Rule clip was just silly name-dropping; I mean it has nothing to do with any sort of Gramscian concept of hegemony at all, it was just gratuitous. But at the same time, at this point Sterling or any other writer shouldn't have to gloss Gramsci's ideas in the course of invoking him. He's, uh, a pretty well-established theorist. The Genovese reference, however, probably should have been prefaced by something like "In his important text Wages of Whiteness, the African-AMerican historian," (or whatever, was it WoW? I read him like 10 years ago but I hardly think that's the type of name that can just be gracefully dropped without explication)

oh and Diamond -- it *totally* had to do with Gramsci -- the point being that the "universal" h8 of Ja and his popularity go hand in hand -- the consentual relations to his music cloaked as disdain for his "sellout" persona were the key to the article.

But if you think people thinking about, talking about, trying to understand the music they listen to is a *good* think -- and I can't imagine you don't -- then it seems pretty obv. that bringing all tools possible to bear in this is also a good thing.

I mean you're the one making the absurd assumption that not using big words = not thinking and talking and trying to understand.

proof: the entire history of all music ever

(i forgot its actual title)

But I'll also admit that a good portion of my love for popular music has to do with a fascination and excitement about its history, and the fact that its history is constantly being written and re-written. And so listening to that Sugar song made me simultaneously think "Wow, that riff is classic! I really want to dance now!" and also "Does this mean Sugar is underrated? If so, how come? Did they suffer from not being Husker Du? Is a singer's second band always considered inferior to their first band? etc. etc." I don't think that everyone is as captivated by that aspect of music as I am, and if you're not, then perhaps criticism doesn't seem as interesting.

All the best things in life are useless.

all of this wasting of time with "ideas" when we could be doing louie louie covers in our garage!

You cannot be serious
/Johnny Mac

go listen to all music ever and see if you still think the same thing.

and what the hell is listening to all music ever going to accomplish? I guarantee you that 90% of the musicians i listen to have not read one single word of 'intellectual' music criticism.

Also, careful about my reference to "people who 'get it.'" In the context of my post, I meant something like "people who are intimately acquainted with theory" -- i.e., "people for whom 'Gramscian' is a meaningful term." There is no value judgment here. When I ask "Who should we write for?" all I'm asking is "Can we use jargon and short-hand, knowing that a certain segment of people here are more familiar with theory (and thus can follow it more easily), or should we explain more for those of us who aren't as familiar?" What are our responsibilities to our community? And Oops, if you'll notice, I don't understand what "Gramscian" means, either. So I'm not being snobbish. If anything, I want more of the explanations.

Why academicese should never be allowed to pollute music writing:

1) Cleverness is a poor substitute for intelligence

2) It swaps one form of reference spotting for another

3) It's fucking lazy. Parrots parrot because they have nothing to say. Or can't be bothered to coming up with their own ideas.

4)It's inherently exclusionary and elitist, which is surely not the point. Or is it?

5) Audiences don't need "improving."

6) But some music writers might.

7) Phrases like "zones of proximal development" Ugh!

8) Theories deal in generalisations, not messy specifics. Like pop does.

9) Nine of out ten musicians don't give a shit, though they might nod emphaticially and service your self importance, if they think you're further up the chain than they are. Which you probably aren't.

10) There are plenty of words and ideas audiences do understand (see 5) - the question is, do you? (see 6)

11) It provides a convenient filter for ideas - but what's being filtered out?

I'm going to bed. You all play nice now.

ha ha ha

you'd know at least that I wasn't talking about music theory per se when I mentioned it if you'd actually read my post. go eat a bag of dicks.

Vgotsky's not a name I came across whilst sitting my Joint Philosophy/Psychology degree a decade ago, nor did I encounter during my admittedly brief teacher training, since teachers, bless em, are mostly concerned with the practicalities of classroom management. "Zones of proximal development" will be of no use to me next time I confront my students, who will be expecting me to have a coherent plan and some sensitivitity to their individual need.

I mostly concern myself with reading proper books by proper writers, and not the kind of people responsible for what Alasdair Gray (talking about talking about a critic that described Lanark as "postmodern," if memory serves, though I don't currently have the book in question to hand) "critical effulgent," Noam Chomsky and Nabokov being the honourable exceptions to that rule. Mostly though, I'm with Gore Vidal on academics; most of them are poor writers and poorer thinkers.

Jess - you may have a point about my overgeneralising about uh, theories overgeneralising (it was late, and I've slept very little this week), but the fact remains that most theories inevitably require a set of hypotheses/assumptions, and nine out of ten are more interesting for what they exclude than include.

"Go eat a bag of dicks"

Our intellectual elite has spoken. Tremble, proles!

Have a good day, Sterling.

Just coz the ZPD is only a small element of Vygotsky's thought (he's mainly known otherwise for correctly calling out Piaget on the supposed solopsism of "inner speech" (kids talking to themselves)) doesn't mean its not useful. The general idea is that a child who is five and tests at the level of a five-yr.-old will test at the level of say a six-yr.-old if put to work with a seven-yr.-old or a twelve-yr.-old to help them. That area of overlap of social and thought skillz is what Vygotsky termed the ZPD. 'course there's more to it than that.

I'd suggest the lack of vygotsky in yr. classes is more an indication of the poverty of current academia rather than academic "methods" like, y'know, thinking and writing and being rigorous about it. Not to mention which thinking just coz something is boring means its no good is rockism of the worst sort [not to mention "proper books by proper writers" -- I suppose you prefer proper musicians who play proper instruments too, y'square.]

(besides which, the phrase is translated from Russian -- cut the guy an even break don'tcha.)

& I think you miss Jess' point which isn't about the specificity of theory but rather the generality of pop.

The "generality of pop?" Pop may well have general appeal, but its basis is always specific individual experience, and by proper writers I meant folk who make me appreciate the generality (though I prefer *universality*) of the human condition by focusing on the nitty gritties. Given the purpose language is communication, there's nothing "proper" about the impenetrable polysyllabic doublespeak that constitutes a lot of academic writing.

I don't have a problem with thinking. I do it every day. Sloppy thinking, however..........

"I suppose you prefer proper musicians who play proper instruments, y'square."

Heh heh. This is the other problem with (let's be fair: a lot of) academics, people. Beneath all the cleverness, they're just snidey namecallers, using dubious assumptions to justify indulging in dull oneupmanship.

And there's nothing rigorous about that.

Ecfuckingzactly

I think the purpose of communication is to confuse and conquer.

i'm gonna go way out on a limb here, did you go to UC?

you remind me of someone...

*Unless we can somehow recycle the concept of the great artist so that it supports Chuck Berry as well as it does Marcel Proust, we might as well trash it altogether.* - Robert Christgau

But rock criticism does something even more interesting, changing not just our idea of who gets to be an artist but of who gets to be a thinker. And not just who gets to be a thinker, but which part of our life gets to be considered "thought."

Say that - using rockers like Chuck and Elvis as intellectual models -young Christgau, Meltzer, Bangs, Marcus et al. grow up to understand that rock 'n' roll isn't just what you write about, it's what you do. It's your mode of thought. And if you do words on the page, then your behavior on the page doesn't follow standard academic or journalistic practice, and is baffling for those who expect it to.

To explain this new behavior, and the bafflement it causes, I use "school" as my metaphor for the psyche, and I say that school tries to enforce a split between classroom and hallway. The split tells us that to be intellectual we have to live in the classroom and to obey the classroom rule, which is to talk not to and about other people but just about some third thing, "the subject matter." It says that to talk to and about each other, as we do in the hallway, isn't to think but to merely live our lives.

And so - the split claims - either we can use our intellect or we can live our lives, but we can't do both at once. And living our lives (as the hallway narrowly construes this) becomes "visceral" by default, since our lives have been ejected from the "intellect." And the hallway's vengeance on the classroom is to say, "You may be smart, but I'm *real*, and you're not." But this is an impoverished realness, since it expels anything that the classroom defines as "mental," and forbids our putting something off at a distance and reflecting on it.

Good rock critics, by and large, don't honor the boundary between classroom and hallway. This puts us at odds with most editors-in-chief, department heads, and those horrible people the readers. The rules have no intellectual validity; we're not following them; and the reader who wants reassurance through us that he's smart isn't going to get it from us in the standard way, and the reader who wants reassurance from us that he's real isn't going to get it either.

Simon Frith points out that most magazines now "edit every contributor into a house style expressing house opinions." This is in order to match taste with publication, publication with reader. Even those "intellectual" magazines that wouldn't think of editing someone's opinions will nonetheless choose writers whose styles fit the magazine's brand. "Intellectual" is itself a style, a brand.

There are arguments to be made in favor of imposing a uniform style, maybe the best arguments being analogous to the ones for school uniforms: suppressing personal characteristics also suppresses social and class characteristics and therefore suppresses social conflict and gang warfare, thereby allowing the school to get on with its business. But no one claims that school uniforms are somehow more *intellectual* than regular clothes. Yet academia and journalism do try to claim that the enforced style is more
intellectual or "objective" than any other.

I first came up with the "classroom-hallway" metaphor 12 years ago, in this passage:

"'A fifteen-year-old's relationship to a pop song also puts her in relation to other fifteen-year-olds and to *their* relationship to the pop song and to other fifteen-year-olds etc.' Yes, and believe me, all fifteen-year-olds know this. But the sad thing is that the fifteen-year-old who writes empty truisms like 'a fifteen-year-old's relationship to a pop song also puts her...' etc. and shows it to the teacher gets an A-plus, whereas a fifteen-year-old who writes something that actually puts her in relation to other fifteen-year-olds knows better than to give it to the teacher, knows
that it's not welcome. E.g., from recent *Smash Hits* (Australia):

"'Calling all gorgeous guys on Earth who are 14 or older. We are two 15 year old chicks who are absolutely in love with Guns N' Roses, Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, Poison, and stax more! Interested?'

"'I'm sick of it! Once again I was game enough to wear my Bon Jovi badge to school and what do I get for it? A black eye. I'm sick of people always saying that Jon Bon Jovi has AIDS, they know it's not true but they say it just to shit people up the wall. So to all you terrorists out there, I think you're jealous because you're not as good looking or popular as him!'"

Of course, the fifteen-year-old's relationship to the *teacher* puts her in relation to other fifteen-year-olds too, so I'm not claiming that she's failing to live her life when she's writing down teacher-pleasing generalizations. And I'm not saying the *Smash Hits* letter style is in all circumstances *better* than the vague social generalization, especially given that this piece itself is full of such generalizations. If you lean
towards generalizations you'll go for the "classroom" prose; if you lean towards analogies you'll lean towards the "hallway." My point is that when she's out in the hallway, amidst the flirting and fighting, she's sure as hell thinking. She's working out her relations to others; she's working out who she is. And if a big deal of her caring about music is that it helps her do so, she might wonder - in the event that this caring leads her to becoming a rock critic - why she's not allowed to continue using the music
on the magazine pages as she always had in her life. What's the rule that says you should stop being a person when you become a writer, and what do the rules of journalism have to do with being a writer in the first place, or being a thinker?

Of course, the glam-metal chicks and the black-eyed battler are *in* the magazine, but they're safely off in the penpal section and the letters pages, where they're business-as-usual. Put them doing the same thing on the main pages, though, and they're suddenly wild things, gonzos, transgressors, a threat to... well, what *are* they a threat to, and why? And, if we assume that what's on the main pages has something to do with what the readers want there, the crucial question is why do they want to keep this prose style, this part of themselves, off the main pages? Are they trying to protect this
part, by keeping it off the main screen? Are they trying to protect the main screen from their lives?

I'll give an answer that I never would have imagined giving 20 or 30 years ago: In today's culture, print is a more potent medium than music, at least for presentation of self - more potent, and therefore has to be kept under more control.

Rock critics do the same thing that an Elvis or Jagger or Eminem does: they put themselves at issue, their personalities, their social stances, and in so doing force the readers into an attitude towards *them*.

When rock 'n' roll first hit, it had the effect of calling social status into question. But such a thing can be disconcerting, even for those whose status is low. After a while it's hard to continually lose one's sense of place, even if you don't have much of a place to begin with. Fact is, though, rock criticism barely has a place anymore. That's because it doesn't match up with the world's grid. There's this pseudo-equilibrium right now, in its prose style, semi-casual, somewhat jokey, moderately snide, tastefully feisty, not too over-"analytic," not too "wild," and still fundamentally subservient to the supposed subject matter. This is nothingness, not balance. You don't need to strike a balance between thinking and living, since one doesn't detract from the other. Real rock critics do both in their prose, and it's always too much for someone. Marcus
gets attacked for being too academic, Meltzer gets attacked for being too undisciplined, but it's really the same attack, the hallway-classroom split trying to reassert itself from one side or the other. I've heard Marcus's prose attacked for being too dry. Compared to what, the Great Flood?

Whether the style is wild, academic, or a casual balance, once a magazine or a profession imposes a uniform writing style, it's forcing the writer to suppress his own social characteristics in favor of the magazine's or the profession's. And once some writers get away with defying the dominant style, then another writer's conformity to it becomes a personal characteristic anyway; there's just no escaping the personal; it's so tied to the social. And social relations get called into question, and the self gets called into question, and the reader gets uneasy.

But that's where ideas arise, from this uneasiness. Because that's one of the things that critics do, whether they want to or not: they call social relations into question.

Robert Christgau: "[Chuck Berry] was one of the ones who made us understand that the greatest thing about art is the way it happens between people." And music makes us understand that *ideas* happen between people too, but we need the page and critics to drive this point home.

Not that I don't have that reaction now. (In fact, probably more so after hanging out with you folks for the last few months.) But one thing that I am more inclined to think about now is the idea of "obligation" to one's readership. Kogan discusses how writing in a hallway-style is more similar to actual readers' lives. On principle, I'd agree. But shit, I tried reading that "Disco-Tex" essay and had no fucking clue what Kogan was talking about. Even though I generally think criticism would we wise to admit more personal/anecdotal content and more conversational style, I worry that this can be taken to an extreme and thus rendered not useful. (I also allow for the possibility that I gave up too easily, wasn't willing to meet Kogan on his own terms, etc.)

(since it's published on my website and all)

(jamie conway's Big Second-hand Theory of Theory is more interesting for the nine tenths it leaves out)

"a clear idea is a little idea"

So here is my argument against it: occasionally people who are bad (as in unconfident?) writers happen on a *good* new idea about something — or let's say the door through to a good new idea — which they then lose hold of, and they squish the life from it as they try and turn what they're saying into someone else's conception of good/clear writing (sort of the same as lots of rock bands get more ordinary the "better" they get at what they do). Intuitions w/o showing the working aren't intrinsically an anti-communicative idea (in fact I suspect "showing the working" generally needs difft kinds of expressive skills to "bold state the intuition", tho some are good at both, obv).

Fucking hell, I live inside that paragraph.

besides, if it's a BAD idea unclearly expressed you can always misread it yrself, and enjoy the better idea yr actually projecting onto it!!

it's win-win!!

trans. = "osmotic alien tongue pressure")

(this shd really go on the kuhn thread)

(since I wasn't trying to dispel anything nor leave you w/a greater appreciation of criticism, YOUR criticism is empty and petty)

not so for us mere finite lower beings, who wish to find out about stuff we know that we don't know, and are only too humbly aware that we may need to think about things we've never thought about before

does he just hang around with us to LAUGH at us? baffling are the ways of the arching gods to mortals

night oops (i'm on yr side on the war against boys thread btw)

um, i'm surprised you're arg against ''good'' writing bcz you have ranted abt bad writers in many other threads no?

From frank's essay: ''I've heard Marcus's prose attacked for being too dry. Compared to what, the Great Flood?''

Miccio didn't give any examples but this is why this thread has been so 'successful'. he didn't put a line where good criticism ends and academic crit begins and then where that ends and overacademic crit begins.

http://www.mtv.com/news/images/p/prodigy980507.gif

There's another group here (and I'm sure this doesn't exhaust things), of which I'm a member. Those who love the highly intellectual stuff and feel privileged to read the fantastic stuff here from Sinkah and Kogan and Nabisco and Jerry the Nipper and indeed Sterling - but who have not had the kind of education that means we necessarily have much info about Gramsci and the like in our heads. Kogan's Kuhn thread (on ILE) addresses this point explicitly, by explaining the ideas he wants to discuss. I find that I can generally grasp and follow the ideas reasonably well that people like those I just mentioned bring up, and can even make some attempt to address them at times, and that comes from seeing the ideas talked about, not from any previous knowledge of them (usually) or any knowledge of their originators (which I think is generally the least important bit).

I don't complain if someone cites Gramsci and I don't know what ideas they are referencing. Sometimes I might look something up, if I have the right books to hand. If I don't know, then (at least) that part of what you've said hasn't communicated with me, but there's no rule that says I'm the audience that has to be addressed. There are very many people who know far more than me here, and if you want good talk about Gramsci, you're obviously far better off talking to them than to me anyway. If you wanted to discuss some individual idea of Gramsci's, you've excluded some people who might have had something interesting to say, which seems less desirable all round (that's still far from being something to complain about, I should emphasise). Obviously intelligence doesn't perfectly correlate with knowledge of Gramsci.

Mark, I do see what you mean about the possibility of conventionally "bad" writing to contain nuggets of instinctual insight that "good" writing might obscure. My only caveat would be that writers strive for the instinctual insights rather than the confusion. If confusion results, so be it. But sometimes I get the feeling that certain writers like this willfully allusive style for its own sake.

Oops: "he lucidly explains things that I already had a instinctual grasp of" --> You don't find this valuable in itself? Or would you prefer to keep all your thoughts on an instinctual level? (Personally, I love when a writer does this; it helps me communicate my instincts to others.)