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

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

http://www.derjonas.com/Niederknien.jpg

that's very astute, dom. all those pictures reference slaves in some way. good stuff.

stylus' death was not in vain

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

Very, very good.

Matt DC otm, really anybody who disagrees with Matt DC is big-upping the Soviet gulag system

Dom there's a li'l somethin' about Prince and Grace Jones that you may not have noticed

Yeah, the 80s was a mad time.

Look, I'm pretty sure that Kogan's happy someone's having a go at him without accusing him of cradle-robbing, let's just leave it at that.

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/060503/060503_predator_hmed_4p%20.hmedium.jpg

Paris Is Our Hansen?

No, Alan is

I'm distressed that this thread still bears my name.

is that paul reiser?? he looks like shit!

Alex T as usual said everything that needed to be said much earlier on:

"Back to the original poster: as ever I agree with the dissensus position insofar as it takes the claims of 'art' seriously, but I dispute their ability to identify art (grime?) as opposed to non-art (pop?). The idea of an ethics of decision in regard to what they listen to is an interesting one. I'd want to pose a Kogan-esque question and ask whether the ideal exponents of this position are teenagers, where musical taste may primarily be tribal and their are exceedingly strict and painful decisions involved in liking one thing or another. If you want a more autonomous version of this, Mark Sinker's account of punk ethics also reads punk as Kantian in this sense: what matters is setting the law for oneself, not taking it from somewhere else."

Alex's description of the "Kogan-esque question" strikes me as precisely what Kogan *is* trying to do in pieces like the one Mark K-Punk is talking about, and as such it has already moved beyond the conflict of pleasure vs the decision to see how the two things actually create eachother.

This was basically the point of my quote which starts the thread, which gets elaborated in the linked dissensus thread: that it's not a choice between censorship and pleasure - censorship is a component of the pleasure, and the pleasure is produced by censorship. The notion of Mark, say, rejecting a pop song he would otherwise like in an act of censorship in the name of a higher cause is precisely *not* how his brand of political pop critique works, because the kind of pop he likes will always have already somehow magically landed on the "right" side of the line - hence Rihanna's "Umbrella" is somehow justified and justifable. Likewise when Simon R linked to Mark's piece on Timbaland or Timberlake he described it as "refreshing the parts that 1001 pop(tim)ists can't reach", but in fact the article was precisely pop(tim)ist (although more auteurist than a post on poptimism would be probably). It made me wonder what Simon thought a pop(tim)ist take on timberlake/timbaland would look like such that mark's take was necessarily superior.

The differences only really emerge w/r/t what is hated - and perhaps when all is said and done nu-rockism is simply about asserting the freedom to despise Paris Hilton and M.I.A. I can almost appreciate why this is felt to be necessary, or at least w/r/t Paris and contra Frank - if only because (as always) he asks questions which are difficult to answer and (in the case of Paris) in an unusally hyperbolic (dare I say lexian) manner.

"Those Paris-shirt -wearin' DisLexians"

not quite what kant had in mind...

I think the bigger problem is the lack of engagement though: in all the big dissensus threads on these topics mark and simon (if not always the echo chamber posters) would ultimately come around to a much more reasonable position. It's only when they're left to stew to themselves that their tendential distrust of e.g. pro-paris criticism hardens and sclerotizes. Of course the reverse is also true - Tom made a good point on Poptimism that a lot of the posters there would be all "lol emo" if there weren't actual emo fans around to school them on it.

I started this thread? WTF?