OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

waterface, that's probably true that 'pop has always worked like that', but the context has changed because the current configuration/understanding of public/private distinctions has changed

i was struck by this bit from tiqqun's 'intro to civil war' this morning

https://24.media.tumblr.com/69183df6450cd55a81335de6e2c86b4a/tumblr_n422nhapvE1qcq6s5o1_500.jpg

in the sherry turkle book that ann powers refers to (re young people and their shame about what they should be liking vs not admitting to liking) a point she repeatedly makes is that people with networked lives, but especially the younger ones, are uneasy but fatalistic about the possibility of facts about their lives / private lives which are digitally accessible (usually because they themselves have volunteered them, in order to take advantages of the personal/social functions network technologies can serve) will be used against them in the future, end up being publicized, come back to bite them in the ass, etc. so there's a real confusion about where the boundaries of self are, what to make of the various pre-existing cultural understandings of self and society.

i don't know how accurate this is, but my perception is that some of the notable vanguard trends in musical taste/fashion of the past decade+, like noise, or field recording, or wandelweiser-style 'quiet' minimalism, or minimal techno, or extreme metal, are attractive partly because they look as if they could thwart the wrong kind of uptake into the public/pop/capitalist empire realm. (which makes pitchfork's uptick in metal coverage, or the phenomenon of black metal release features on npr, seem symptomatic.)

I didn't think Fleetwood Mac was ever considered less 'rock' than Steely Dan or the Eagles?

wow that's fucking horrible

Included mostly for the quote "Never met anyone who didn't like Rumors"

xxp No, I was being sarcastic about the idea that Fleetwood Mac were some unappreciated nugget until rockists re-appraised them.

I was responding to albvivertine. I got your sarcasm.

Well you incl the Monkees, which confused things

(forgot to say, the leveling of various genres/styles that goes on in pop seems especially significant, once it reaches kind of an equilibrium and shows that it's able to accommodate them all, because music is a sort of window onto social experience / society, and for the pop-media-system to suggest that it more or less doesn't matter what your experience is—because everyone's got their preference and every preference has its representative—that it's just one more bit of information about your taste-profile and consumption habits, is basically to suggest that the non-pop counterparts that you might also happen to have a preference for are null as vehicles for / windows onto social experience / society.)

I think the falling out of favor of "bimbo" in the discourse is at least a small step forward

And now sund4r you've reminded me of rock becoming same as pop for a while and that confuses things as well, corporate rock raises its head at some point

yeah i feel like nothing is really inescapable today!

What do you think has changed? Not saying you're necessarily wrong but it's not obvious to me. To me, it feels like pop music is inescapable to more or less the same extent that it always has been in my lifetime: you hear it in grocery stores, in malls, at the gym, at the office, at fast food places; songs turn up in movies and TV shows; pop stars are on the covers of magazines at the checkout stand; friends and co-workers talk about it. It's not like anyone was forcing you to listen to pop at home before the Internet. I'm quite sure my Mum had no idea who Cyndi Lauper or Paula Abdul were. (She does know who Lady Gaga is because of social media, on the other hand.)

in 2014 if you're 'overexposed' to any kind of media it's a result of yr own choices, everything is very very avoidable, ed sullivan died a long time ago
--balls

truth nuke

Dude if you don't work at home/wear earbuds outside the home, not true

xxp No, I was being sarcastic about the idea that Fleetwood Mac were some unappreciated nugget until rockists re-appraised them.

I don't know, I was born in 1981, the first time I was aware of FM was "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" as early 90s Democrat boomer campaign pop.

Unless you somehow go out of yr way to studiously avoid singers you've never heard of xpost

You can hear Lady Gaga on the radio in the supermarket and not go "Oh, is this Lady Gaga?"

I don't know, I was born in 1981, the first time I was aware of FM was "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" as early 90s Democrat boomer campaign pop.

Come on, I was born in 1979 and I've been hearing Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks on classic rock and AOR radio my whole life. "Rooms on Fire" was #1 on the US Mainstream Rock chart in 1989.

Otherwise I can't imagine any scenario where you're FORCED to reckon with pop music in 2014

xxxxxpost

all the grocery stores i go to dont play top 40, neither does the gym i used to go to

for one, so many ppl i know just plug their iphone right into the aux jack of their car stereo and avoid radio altogether...i don't think MTV proper really plays many videos anymore (of course ppl always said that but i think it's true now?)....radio listenership and rating in FM are downward trending...more people that aren't listening to their

phone in the car are listening to sports talk, talk radio in general is the moneymaker now....

i think that in general listening to top 40 radio was more prevalent that it was now....also simply the factors of what pre-recorded music is available to buy. i lived in a town where all i could buy was the tapes and CDs at Wal-Mart (i was enough of a dork to drive an hour to musicland but most weren't), so generally that was more top 40 stuff...now the same kid could go on Spotify and have literally limitless choices

i don't know how accurate this is, but my perception is that some of the notable vanguard trends in musical taste/fashion of the past decade+, like noise, or field recording, or wandelweiser-style 'quiet' minimalism, or minimal techno, or extreme metal, are attractive partly because they look as if they could thwart the wrong kind of uptake into the public/pop/capitalist empire realm. (which makes pitchfork's uptick in metal coverage, or the phenomenon of black metal release features on npr, seem symptomatic.)

― j., Wednesday, April 16, 2014 11:48 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

again this may be somewhat true but there's also the factor of it's easy to find things now, whereas in the late 80s or early 90s learning about black metal would have taken some serious tape trading or mail ordering....now if a kid is curious about noise or black metal or minimal techno, he can just listen to it, so it stands to reason that once obscure subgenres would grow in popularity

there is that. i was thinking that these are ones that would have a hard time ever becoming pop. (minimal techno sure, but what would it mean? the music leaves it a blank.) and part of the attraction to a kind of music can have something to do with social life. unless you think that the only reason genres become popular at all is their intrinsic soundyness.

guys... the beatles

just... the beatles

I somehow went a year without ever having heard Gotye and then heard it immediately upon stepping foot in a Subway

Wasn't there a long time where Sgt. Pepper was seen as too soft, to pop to take seriously?

20 years ago today iirc

you know if you leave the gotye cheese off your Subway, that's saves like 30 decibels

(also yeah lol The Monkees but the Sex Pistols were covering them less than a decade after they were A Thing, and not particularly ironically like with e.g. "My Way.")

(and no I don't want to go into the Pistols being as manufactured as the Monkees were)

I somehow went a year without ever having heard Gotye and then heard it immediately upon stepping foot in a Subway

― flamboyant goon tie included,

haha yes

I haven't seen Whiney in years so I need to step foot in a Subway.

xp
How did you know it was Gotye?

Or was that the first time you'd heard the song at all?

Funny that if you have no reference for the artist you could hear it repeatedly and still somehow tune it out.

presumably if you hear in passing that there's a popular song called "Somebody That I Used To Know" and then walk into a fast food chain and hear a guy singing "NOW YOU'RE JUST SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW" you can do the math

there was a gotye-alike on the radio a while ago, some kind of duet? with two dudes? i think? i never got to shazam the thing. i think 'on the radio' was a phrase in the refrain? my searching has surprisingly been fruitless. help me out here. asking for a friend.

Simon and Garfunkel?

gotye's albums are enjoyable listens imo, just the second one is overplayed is all

there was this really bad official press copy that showed up everywhere that said "Gotye (pronounced "go-ti-yay" or "Gauthier") is the alias of Australian electronic pop trickster Wally de Backer." That pops into my head and irritates me every time someone mentions Gotye.

I call him Goi-tah

it's the "trickster" part that gets me the most. I see his stupid face and I think "electronic pop trickster." What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

makes him sound like he's popping out of corners wherever you go wearing a goofy hat and making elaborate hand shapes like Mystery or Criss Angel or Jamiroquai

and saying "got ye!"

http://evil-inc.com/images/blogart/trickster.jpg

and saying "got ye!"
― christmas candy bar (al leong)

^^^^^^^^^^^^

really? I assumed that was what his name was supposed to be a play on.

wikisez: The name "Gotye" is a pronunciation respelling of "Gauthier", the French cognate of Gotye's given Flemish name "Wouter".

lol

xp considering how much I'd read about it I think I actually guessed based on the Peter Gabriel-y production before it got to the chorus. True story though, Aug 2012, and def thought of Whiney while munching

def thought of Whiney while munching
def thought of Whiney while munching
def thought of Whiney while munching
def thought of Whiney while munching
def thought of Whiney while munching
def thought of Whiney while munching
def thought of Whiney while munching
def thought of Whiney while munching

yeah I zeroed in on that as well

Whiney was at a munch?

Yeah he was looking for a sub obv