Class, etc Pt. 2: Indie vs. Pop Culture

I'll happily take the '90s over any other decade, incidentally, not least because I lived through them (I'll hold judgment on the '00s till they're further along, but so far I'm with you guys on 'em, e.g. they're grate). but Blount's point is interesting because moshing = dancing and rhythmic propulsion = urge to dance. considering the jock contingent's hostile takeover of alternarock by mid-decade (I remember seeing people mosh at a fucking Liz Phair show in 1994), you might also argue that static rhythms on the part of indie bands were also their way of discouraging it, putting a wrench in the works--not necessarily on purpose, but instinctively, as a reaction. this isn't to discount the fact that indie rock was never exactly Deney Terrio territory to begin with, but still.

There's styles and forms of dancing in 90's indie-rock that are consistent with its masculinist overtones, and if I'm being slightly over-determinist Sasha - I'm painting in broad colours to emphasize a point too often overlooked by male rock critics...

But to clarify one last missing term from the gendered reading. Indie-rock has a conflicted relationship to CONSUMPTION - the idea of 'selling-out', being commercial, being pop. This is a re-staging of the well-documented dilemmas of masculinity and consumption, something you don't find in pop because of its feminine orientation.

The idea of the body - which has somewhat led the thread astray toward dancing - was more a comment on the focus of consumption, 'technologies of the self' (ugh, Foucault) that are more compatible with the chart, boy-bands and teen-queens etc...

And btw, this is a well-rehearsed position in popular cultural studies. Gender/Music criticism does not merely begin and end with Sreynolds guys!

not quite.

Somehow those King Kong records slipped through.

indie rock has no RIGHT to "inject danceable elements" into their music, because indie dorks can't dance for shit, nobody wants to see them dance, and because they've resigned themselves to a right of cooler-than-thou inward-looking mopiness, they are therefore not ALLOWED to dance, either.

word bond.

"Wish Fulfillment"

"If I was a sick little kid, and I could have a wish granted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation, I would make them have the Neptunes produce a song with this structure: First verse, Stephen Malkmus on vocals. Second verse, Ghostface Killah. Sung chorus by Andre 3000. Third verse, Jay-Z. Chorus by Andre. Fourth verse, Mark E. Smith. Chorus by Andre, with outro vocals by Bob Pollard. And it would be amazing. I'd want the Neptunes to make a track not entirely unlike Mystikal's "Bouncin' Back", but a bit faster and bouncier."

Man, would I be like really out of line and gauche to ask SFJ to offer up some thoughts on what prompted his own band's pretty tepid and bloodless (but not altogether uninteresting) music? I mean this could be really helpful in terms of moving towards an answer to his own initial question. I mean, SFJ was there.
-- Mr. Diamond (diamond), Sunday, April 20, 2003 11:41 PM (4 years ago)

:-0

lol, i was looking for this again when that whole new yorker thing was raging.

Sometimes it really seems as though a lot of you just want to live in a world where all of the music sounds the same, means the same thing, and is made for the same reasons.

-- Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Friday, 25 April 2003 14:12 (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

Sometimes it really seems as though a lot of you just want to live in a world where all of the music sounds the same, means the same thing, and is made for the same reasons.

-- Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Friday, 25 April 2003 14:12 (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

Sometimes it really seems as though a lot of you just want to live in a world where all of the music sounds the same, means the same thing, and is made for the same reasons.

-- Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Friday, 25 April 2003 14:12 (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

Sometimes it really seems as though a lot of you just want to live in a world where all of the music sounds the same, means the same thing, and is made for the same reasons.

-- Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Friday, 25 April 2003 14:12 (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

Sometimes it really seems as though a lot of you just want to live in a world where all of the music sounds the same, means the same thing, and is made for the same reasons.

-- Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Friday, 25 April 2003 14:12 (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

Sometimes it really seems as though a lot of you just want to live in a world where all of the music sounds the same, means the same thing, and is made for the same reasons.

-- Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Friday, 25 April 2003 14:12 (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

Sometimes it really seems as though a lot of you just want to live in a world where all of the music sounds the same, means the same thing, and is made for the same reasons.

-- Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Friday, 25 April 2003 14:12 (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

Sometimes it really seems as though a lot of you just want to live in a world where all of the music sounds the same, means the same thing, and is made for the same reasons.

-- Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Friday, 25 April 2003 14:12 (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

Sometimes it really seems as though a lot of you just want to live in a world where all of the music sounds the same, means the same thing, and is made for the same reasons.

-- Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Friday, 25 April 2003 14:12 (4 years ago) Bookmark Link