pitchfork

argh sorry i dont actually want to have this conversation i just cant *deal* with tunnel vision people get when they talk about pitchfork

i think what the guy was saying, poorly, is that just like it was a big deal when Obama was not just the first black president but the first president who listens to hip hop, in 20 years or whatever we'll probably have our first President Tumblr White

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I, President Tumblr White, will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Doesn't seem like music is really as important these days as it was in the past, so maybe this guy's writing from a false premise, because the points he makes are kinda whatever.

Some of the points he does make remind me of a NY Times Style Section article. "The people I hang out with are like this, so the world must be like this!" Fart-sniffing and navel gazing, basically.

"Tumblr white": ?
Or is this a "if you have to ask..." sort of thing

Doesn't seem like music is really as important these days as it was in the past,

Evidence?

ex: hippie movement in the 60s, punk movement in the 70s, and the general rush of new types of music appearing in a small period of time. Things aren't like that anymore, and expecting it to be like that is applying past standards to the present.

Just seems like there's still this shadow of music's importance hanging over our culture when it doesn't really exist anymore. Like, music "should" be important, but ... it's just not, at least in my opinion. and I love music.

"Tumblr white": ?
Or is this a "if you have to ask..." sort of thing

― Scrutable (Ówen P.), Saturday, January 21, 2012 10:15 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

a white guy with a tumblr used this phrase as an insult on ilx a bunch of times recently

I like it, sounds like "Hustler White" + when you tumble dry your whites.
I'd just never heard it before last week

is any music at all central to the narrative of the nation?

One way to gauge this, albeit anecdotally, is what concert tickets would be accepted gratis by the broadest, largest strata of people? I'd suggest, beyond the usual Macca and whatnot, that someone like Gaga wins this, a top 40 act whose presence extends beyond the charts and into many peripheral facets of society. Like, my parents know who Lady Gaga is, probably. They've never heard of the Arcade Fire.

what on earth makes you think that NPR's audience "will someday assume leadership positions in american culture"??? NPR's audience is mostly rich baby boomers. they have already assumed "leadership positions in american culture"

i think the author was referring to the very real phenomenon of young whatevers, presumably eventually to make up a lot of the upper ends of the managerial class, leadership class, creative class, etc. (and probably already in careers in those classes), listening to npr 'indie' stations, reading about chicago juke and cascadian black metal on the npr website, etc.

this week i was working with a johns hopkins grad student who was really excited about going to see big freedia at a local hipster restaurant/venue

well my point is more about the idea that NPR listeners are in a position where they might someday assume something. im not sure what counts as a "leadership position in american culture" in any event

i'm gonna troll hard here, so forgive me...

my argument is that the interests of young, white, educated, "not poor", city-dwelling people are central to the narrative of the nation - whether or not those interests are broadly popular. broad popularity is beside the point. the tastes of the ruling class are not generally reflected in the tastes of population at large, after all. the ruling class typically takes a certain pride in enjoying exclusive, elevated, specialized taste.

the segment of the ruling class i'm talking about skews liberal if we're talking about indie rock, NPR and (god help me) pitchfork. and sure, i'm using the phrase "ruling class" in a loose and confrontational manner. arcade fire fans aren't necessarily rich or white or whatever. but indie rock is the voice of a specific culture, and that culture is largely white and hardly "poor and disenfranchised". the privileged, educated, culturally-engaged white audience that indie rock enjoys is hard to clearly distinguish from the writers/thinkers who construct the official record of our nation's cultural doings (i.e., critics and pundits). to say nothing of the fact that a not unrelated demographic typically winds up in charge of corporate and political america. given the organization of power in america, this makes indie rock culturally important, regardless of how much more enthnically and culturally diverse america's power masters may be now than they were in the past (not all that much, really).

indie likes to pretend that this is not true. it pretends that it is marginal and rankles when it is described as "white" or "privileged". it is clearly both those things. there is nothing wrong with this, but privilege is famously hostile to the discussion of privilege. the wealthy don't like it when you talk about money.

argh sorry i dont actually want to have this conversation i just cant *deal* with tunnel vision people get when they talk about pitchfork

well, tbf, at this point i'm talking more about the relationship of indie rock to a culture of white privilege than pitchfork per se.

yeah, reflective of the myopic, self-damning tone you find in many attacks targeted against pitchfork and indie culture.

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Saturday, January 21, 2012 1:04 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

feel bad for going all bonkers on this thread. can't help it sometimes. i get a feeling.

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Saturday, January 21, 2012 1:13 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you already ethered yourself here fyi

and i guess i shouldn't use the "indie rock" construction. at this point, indie culture has moved well beyond rock and even music.

I know people from all walks of life who like indie: people who grew up in poverty trying to make it, trustfund art kids, aspiring yuppies, etc. The only thing they have in common is that they like music and have an internet connection, and from what I've gleaned from them, they don't consider the music they listen to represent "where they come from, maaan", or where they want to go. It's stuff to enjoy from time to time, like a movie.

Associating music with cultural subgroups implies that it's closely related to those groups, which would make total sense in the past if one of the only ways to find out about that music were through people of similar class to yourself that you'd find yourself hanging out with, but with the internet that's not necessary anymore. So I don't think it says all that much.

you already ethered yourself here fyi

horseshit. i'm white and middle-class. i'm also pretty indie. so what? i'm not "damning" anything or anyone. i'm not operation from a position of defensive shame. i'm simply talking in a dispassionate manner about the relationship of white privilege to power and cultural centrality in america - and speculating about the relationship of my own indie culture to all that.

this should hardly be off-limits, unless you're actively interested in patrolling the "rich people don't like it when you talk about money" boundaries of the discussion.

Associating music with cultural subgroups implies that it's closely related to those groups, which would make total sense in the past if one of the only ways to find out about that music were through people of similar class to yourself that you'd find yourself hanging out with, but with the internet that's not necessary anymore. So I don't think it says all that much.

yeah, and hip hop has nothing to do with race. i wonder if this point would be so contentious if i were talking about country music? it's as white as indie, but a good deal less flagrantly urban/educated/middle & upper class.

i just meant that in a "'Alright, I will get out of this thread.' Then he posted eighteen more times." way

"operation" = "operating" in that xpost

yeah, and hip hop has nothing to do with race. i wonder if this point would be so contentious if i were talking about country music? it's as white as indie, but a good deal less flagrantly urban/educated/middle & upper class.

Hip hop's a totally different thing. You can make the same argument with 70s working class butt rock v. soul music. Don't think it really applies here since it's a different issue entirely, unless you want to expand the argument to "why do black people like rap, and white people like rock?", which totally escapes the scope of this debate.

i just meant that in a "'Alright, I will get out of this thread.' Then he posted eighteen more times." way

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=they+keep+pulling+me+back+in&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&sa=N&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1600&bih=817&tbm=isch&tbnid=wiHaOuXLsmROtM:&imgrefurl=http://jeffreypease.com/blog/&docid=sWEtT7WdR4JvMM&imgurl=http://jeffreypease.com/wp-content/uploads/godfather.jpg&w=265&h=255&ei=Yv0aT9TzIqOXiQKHseXZCA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1244&vpy=155&dur=1553&hovh=204&hovw=212&tx=87&ty=111&sig=103386430707884351249&page=1&tbnh=149&tbnw=152&start=0&ndsp=31&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0

supposed to be a picture of michael corleone there, but w/e

Hip hop's a totally different thing. You can make the same argument with 70s working class butt rock v. soul music. Don't think it really applies here since it's a different issue entirely, unless you want to expand the argument to "why do black people like rap, and white people like rock?", which totally escapes the scope of this debate.

i don't think any of this escapes the scope of the debate. and the comparison i'd make is not to "70s working class buttrock", but to stuff like john lennon, simon and garfunkel, paul simon, steely dan and yes. they're the 70s equivalent of NPR indie WR2 the cultural demographics. i mean, i'm not asking why privileged white people listen to certain kinds of music, i'm merely observing that they do.

probably should throw joni mitchell into that list up there, along with the eagles, CSN/Y, neil young, etc.

Wuh? You totally missed the points I made, plus making assumptions out of thin air, so not sure where to go from here. ;(

the funny thing about all this is that the voice of privileged white america skews so radically liberal, when privileged white liberals like to think of "the ruling class" as intrinsically conservative. unfortunately, there isn't much explicitly conservative upscale white pop out there. as a result, the soundtrack of white american privilege necessarily skews liberal, making liberal white musicians sort of the court jesters of american political, cultural and economic power. liberal whites get to pretend that this isn't true, that their beards and guitars signify opposition to the structures of power, because one of america's dominant cultural myths is that ostensible political positioning is more important than wealth, class and/or ethnicity.

no idea what is happening to contenderizer right now

Wuh? You totally missed the points I made, plus making assumptions out of thin air, so not sure where to go from here. ;(

well, help me out, spec. i'm not sure what points i missed :(

xpost -- It's...bizarrely fascinating.

no idea what is happening to contenderizer right now

um, i'm trying to explicitly politicize and racialize a discussion indie culture. around here, that = trying to create a clusterfuck, i guess...

meltdown

http://cache2.artprintimages.com/p/LRG/37/3710/K3YAF00Z/art-print/conrad-knutsen-enjoy-the-show.jpg

again, all apologies. i know that the arguments i'm trying to make aren't popular hereabouts. i don't mean any offense.

fwiw, i could easily poke holes in my own argument here. indie culture isn't a single, monolithic thing, nor is "white privilege". political positioning does matter. the voice of emerging (cutting edge or w/e) arts culture is overwhelming liberal, while conservative engagement with the arts tends, unsurprisingly, to be more backwards-looking, tradition-preserving. this suggests that the ostensible liberalism of white arts culture really is genuinely and functional a liberal/progressive voice, and there's plenty of real-world evidence to back that up.

i admit that i pushed too hard into simple trolling when i suggested otherwise. like i said, i get carried away...

dude the reactions you are getting here are TOTALLY not about you drawing unfashionable conclusions.

it's more about that fact that i'm compulsively posting crack-brained nonsense? yeah, that's a possibility.

maybe liveblogging my reactions to a think piece wasn't the best idea...

ZYPHEREAL: sorry for blogging
ZYPHEREAL: i think the bloods n gs will b poisoned if i am not in solitude
ZYPHEREAL: i need to be silent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vI0UcUxzrQ

Instead of striking out in pursuit of new musical forms, they tweaked or remixed the sounds of earlier music, secure in the knowledge that pedantic blog writers would magnify these changes and make them seem daring.

I would kiss any group that actually thinks like this. "Dude, this shit ain't next level." "Relax, the bloggers have our backs..."

get ready to receive some hipster kisses, vampire weekend!

Ezra Koenig has a plan, the pedantic blog writers his pawns.

http://themorningafterpills.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/ezra-koenig.jpg

"This blog's grown old and rusty..."

kinda figured that dropping that link in here would be a hand grenade

tumblr woot

thread really does miss whiney

I think its fair to say that indie has the patina of ruling class elites, its just music though

And I do disagree with the idea that music was more central to ppl's stories in the past, I think music critics were less aware of the multitude of musical styles going on then, or less concerned with covering them

Or really, their were fewer critics and journalists so a smaller range of music was covered

Dunno if people talked about this, but although the article is pretty fuckin idiotic, its really not that horrible, and the only inexcusable thing in it I think is disparaging allmusic at the bottom.