"Those hairshirt -wearin' Dissensians", pleasure vs. morality, rockism vs. popism, Finney VS. Reynolds

you know how i do

but who is gershy?

Me on The Pop Group (for younger readers: the kind of thing folk had to make do with before pop reached its glorious zenith with Paris Hilton and Backstreet Boys) in Fact.

man he sounds really bitter, which might even be OK if the people he thinks believe that about Paris and BBs actually existed.

i think he's ghost rider?

that k-punk article really rankled many at Fortress Poptimist

-- blueski

http://www.randomtuesday.com/pictures/drwho/dalekpush.gif

i have no idea what you're saying

epicharmus
2007-08-23 12:38 am UTC (link)

You know, I have to admit that when British people start talking about class, education and their attendant shames, my brain kinda turns off. I don't really know how else to put this, or if I'm making sense, but discussion about these subjects seem like a mere hobby -- sort of like putting ships in bottles or collecting Beanie Babies, only without their real-world relevance. They only get talked about because everyone knows they don't really matter.

What an utter cunt.

nah he's right

http://www.comedycentral.com/press/images/distraction/jimmy_carr_3.jpg

Is that is the biggest picture of Jimmy Carr you could find?

Is that a challenge?

This is still the most tedious 'debate' in the history of the internet. Especially with neither side bothering to engage with one another.

Could we pitch this idea at Channel 4, y'think? (xpost)

and also there not even really being sides xp

i need to make gif of toyko being crushed underfoot by giant strawzilla

it maybe tedious, but on the upside it isn't a flash-in-the-pan. been going on since honeys was earing sassoon.

kpunk should launch more scathing broadsides on livejournal communities. maybe in a couple of years he'll get onto facebook, man the shit 'll hit the fan then.

Bit late now that Facebook no longer requires you to be attending a university.

mark is right about some things, i think, especially frank's "paris is the new vietnam" column, which is disappointing in how rigorously illogical it is. what i think mark's wrong about is his base assumption that (quote-unquote) poptimism represents a tangible long-term worldview. i associate the phrase specifically with late 90s/early 00s and have always kind of thought of circulated throughout ilm (and larger crit circles) at the time. i have no idea if this is true or not but i've also always kind of assumed that the freaky trigger group's assumption of the phrase for events and things was kind of a tongue in cheek move, a catchy way to self-identify as being pro-pop and pro-fun, NOT a flag-waving call to arms against any (ghost-unghost) enemies.

i've never met mark but sometimes he strikes me as being almost fatally serious, often to the extent that others' capacity for being flip and tongue-in-cheek might elude him entirely. i think that's what might have happened with his interpretation of "paris hilton is the new vietnam" (the headline, not the body) and certainly with "poptimism".

argh, browser ate my post. again:

mark is right about some things, i think, especially frank's "paris is the new vietnam" column, which is disappointing in how rigorously illogical it is. what i think mark's wrong about is his base assumption that (quote-unquote) poptimism represents a tangible long-term worldview. i associate that phrase specifically with the late 90s/early 00s and have always kind of thought of it to refer more to an ideological corrective that circulated throughout ilm (and larger crit circles) at the time rather than as a proscribed way of seeing. i have no idea if this is true or not but i've also always kind of assumed that the freaky trigger group's assumption of the phrase for events and things was kind of a tongue in cheek move, a catchy way to self-identify as being pro-pop and pro-fun, NOT a flag-waving call to arms against any (ghost-unghost) enemies.

i've never met mark but sometimes he strikes me as being almost fatally serious, often to the extent that others' capacity for being flip and tongue-in-cheek might elude him entirely. i think that's what might have happened with his interpretation of "paris hilton is the new vietnam" (the headline, not the body) and certainly with "poptimism".

the common ground between kplunk and poptimists is chocolate bars of the 80s that you don't see in the shops any more.

Greil Marcus apart, I’ve never really tuned into much American pop criticism at all, which in my no doubt far too hasty judgement has seemed to be bogged down in a hyper-stylized faux-naif gonzoid mode that has never really appealed to me.)

Gosh, Mark K-punk is so intellectual. Hah.

But, in 2007, Nathan’s hoary old belief that only groups who write their own songs can be valid has been refuted so many times that it is rather like someone mounting a defence of slavery today

RATHER.

I mean for Christ's sake

Where do you hang out where people regularly mount defences of slavery, John?

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/NewAnswersControllerServlet?boardid=41

oh jesus.

Or is John making a grammatical critique of the use of the word "rather." I still hear some 13 year-old kids (friends of my son) and older folks criticize American Idols and other pop singers because they allegedly do not write their own songs. I guess I do not travel in the same circles as K-Punk.

"But in 2007, Ethan's hoary old belief that Li'l Eazy is not bumpin has been refuted so many times that it is rather like someone arguing on behalf of the genocide in Darfur"

i associate that phrase specifically with the late 90s/early 00s and have always kind of thought of it to refer more to an ideological corrective that circulated throughout ilm (and larger crit circles) at the time rather than as a proscribed way of seeing.

This post is basically OTM, but the term 'Poptimism' was only invented in about 2005 because Tom needed something catchy to call the new Freaky Trigger club night. He then named the LJ community after it in order to cross-promote the club. This is why loads of these attempts to argue against 'Poptimism' as a movement or critical school of thought seem doomed to failure.

But yeah, that slavery thing OTM as well. I think my problem with this debate is that the critical reception of Paris album is of minimal significance to everyone in the world other than 14 internet scribes taking potshots at one another.

ummmmm correct me if i'm wrong but i think what john might be saying is that it's a little fucking rich to invoke slavery as a means of supporting a silly rockist persecution complex? jesus people.

xpost

you're all obsessed with the anointed one

and also Jesus

ummmmm correct me if i'm wrong but i think what john might be saying is that it's a little fucking rich to invoke slavery as a means of supporting a silly rockist persecution complex? jesus people.

yes that's correct, I would think obviously so, not to say blindingly glaringly obviously so

I feel that the people who did not immediately take my meaning are morally comparable to the owners of slave ships, I'm sure everyone will agree that's an apt analogy

(Argh my post was appalling phrased, I meant the reaction to the slavery line was OTM, not the line itself).

(xpost)

http://www.allaboardtoys.com/assets/product_imagesm/BN-1058.jpg

Perhaps go with this first, move to reading arguments later?

xp

"Reward stickers" for understanding the difference between "most people agree that this is a dumb argument, like another famous dumb argument" and "LIKING POP MUSIC IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS BEATING KUNTE KINTE WITH STICKS"

"Engaging activities"

i'm serious as cancer when i say -isms are a dancercancer

wouldn't it be "hobbling kunte kinte"?

matt that's what i meant upthread, sorry. that 'poptimism' was at first a corrective and much later a handy catchphrase, but never an ideology.

this debate in a nutshell: on one side we have someone cheaply invoking the slave trade in an effort to grok public support for a war that nobody but he is fighting; on the other is someone who is so can't-see-the-forest-from-the-trees about pop music that he deems a dubious parallel between his 14-year old insights about vietnam and his 53-year old insights about paris hilton as valuable of his readers' time.

xposts

"i have my feet up on a slave as a type this"

The slave is doing the typing, surely.

i wouldn't let my slave touch my computer

I can't be alone in seeing parallels between Rihanna's Umbrella being toppled from its marathon stint atop the UK charts and the British army's decision to pull out of Basra.

we should put kogan and k-punk in the same house and make a reality tv show out of it

http://quizfarm.com/images/1109109207slave.jpg

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/15988.jpg

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000001FU6.01.LZZZZZZZ.gif

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/b/bc/Slavetothewagecover.jpg