Influence: red herring or crucial concept?
― John Darnielle, Sunday, 5 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
(john i am emailing you the 400 million words the 12 lizards branes trust so far devoted to these topics off-board)
― mark s, Sunday, 5 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Michael Daddino, Sunday, 5 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 5 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 5 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Kris, Sunday, 5 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Herr Wittgenstein: "Ahh, wrong kvestion, Herr Sinkah. Vee must ask, HOW IS ZIS WORD USED IN OUR LANGVAGE?"
(I agree with Herr Wittgenstein here.)
― Clarke B., Sunday, 5 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Tracing Lines, Sunday, 5 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
This also introduces the necessary element of chance. Eg. you invite this really cool woman you work with to the party but her husband ends up dominating the event (translates as: bands who say they take their cues from X but really miss what was good about X and instead sound like all the baggage * surrounding* X)
― Tim, Sunday, 5 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Tracer hand, Sunday, 5 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Badly.
― Alex in SF, Sunday, 5 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Yeah. If I was a musician (watch out, world!) i'd have to say my first and foremost influence would be all of y'all on ILM, obv.
― Tim, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― nathalie, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alex in SF, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Michael Daddino, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dave q, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
I think now's the time that somebody brings up bootlegs in this discussion, but I'm not the man to do it.
― John Darnielle, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
I find myself in some agreement with Mark S's deliberately perverse and counter-intuitive (and thus characteristic) rejection of Influence. Why? (I am trying to outline Mark S's reasons here, by way of mine.)
1/ It's a cliche - it makes thought too easy, stops us thinking what we mean, etc - OK.
2/ More specifically, it's too passive: as though creativity etc is done by people who are vessels for something else. ie: influence removes, or diminishes agency. Sometimes that's a good thing to do, but I think Mark S suspects that we need a more dynamic (+ agential?) model of cultural connection.
More:
A/ Cultural instances echo one another. Some of this is very deliberate - some of it may be accidental. Maybe that matters, maybe not.
B/ Men and women make culture, but not in conditions of their own choosing. Could the second half of that sentence summarize why we *can't* just get rid of Influence-talk?
C/ Culture can be a matter of picking things up and transforming them, and hence trying to rewrite tradition. 'Influence' is the wrong word for that (unless understood in reverse).
D/ David Q makes records that sound to me, at different (and same) points, like David Byrne, Kurt Cobain, Elvis Costello and Mike Flowers. Presumably 'Influence' is the wrong word for *that*.
E/ Search and Destroy: THE CANTOS
― the pinefox, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
But no no no authorial intention no. Artists are the last people to ask about what influenced them, all they want to talk about is what they wish they sounded like, which is another matter entirely.
Is this stance compatible with a music (popular music in all its guises, I mean) so focused on the star, the celebrity and the personality? Well, I don't want to say it's incompatible -- we've all got the freedom to approach music however the fuck we want, thank you. Maybe what I want to ask is that when not just music but musicians as well are a commodity, do issues concerning motivations, influences and intentions get necessarily get pushed to the forefront?
I love hearing strands and sounds and bits of stuff recombined and replicated from song to song. Calling those influence though seems a huge stretch and takes criticism into a realm I find very suspect and largely uninteresting, precisely because it is so artist rather than art based.
Ezra Pound invents hiphop (Canto VII, 1930)
― dleone, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
yes yes of course the problem is that several rival meanings for the word are being used here, and attached to them radically difft deep assumptions => i still don't believe that we couldn't just do without it (eg that we can find a different — routinely used — word to replace it in ALL contexts, and that the ambiguity lost has no useful function)
INTERVIEWER: Who are your influences? BAND SPOKESMAN: Your question is meaningless, lackey!! I: OK oh grate one, what are your beliefs? BS: Killing Joke and Karen Carpenter. AND THAT'S IT!!
This is a major improvement.
― pirateking, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Honour the Fire!
― Alex in NYC, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Perhaps that's too easy, but in certain cases, perhaps, also not wide of the mark? One problem I have with the use of the term "influence" is that it has the active work being done by the wrong party. Surely, the one "being influenced" is doing the active work, not the thing (ie., record) that is putatively doing the "influencing". Rather than say, "Band X was influenced by classic album Y", why not say, "Band X sensitively and perceptively extracted certain aspects of classic album Y and then combined them in new and exciting ways with other extracts, original ideas, etc., to form new album Z". Records by themselves can't "influence" anybody or doing anything else for that matter - they just sit there on the shelf until someone takes them down and *listens* to them (listening being another active behavior frequently mistaken for passivity).
― o. nate, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
"Usually the only time bands really talk about their influences is when they're being interviewed."
Usually the only time bands really talk is when they're being interviewed.
― http://gygax.pitas.com, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dave q, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Friday, 14 May 2004 02:34 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 14 May 2004 03:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jon Gotti, Friday, 14 May 2004 03:21 (nineteen years ago) link
I was broadly in agreement with Alex with respect to abandoning the idea of an 'artist based' concept of music, but wonder if he can elaborate on this bit (hopefully the Killing Joke mention will summon him)
"I love hearing strands and sounds and bits of stuff recombined and replicated from song to song"
What are the nature of the 'strands' that you like to hear, and how can a musical 'movement' be described without resorting to influence? (It's not that I think theres a problem, I'm just not very bright)
― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Friday, 14 May 2004 03:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 14 May 2004 03:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Friday, 14 May 2004 04:13 (nineteen years ago) link
I think influence can be shown musicologically. This rhythm comes from here, this chord progression comes from here, etc.
― Tim Ellison, Wednesday, 2 June 2004 01:22 (nineteen years ago) link
lots of musicians have made music under the influence
― latebloomer, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 11:37 (sixteen years ago) link
Old ILX: not just a bunch of people going "num num num" and talking about the Manics
― Dom Passantino, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 11:43 (sixteen years ago) link
"Influence" as a term of musical psychology, is indeed useless. However, "influence" as a term of musical history, is one of the tools by which the musical historian gives meaning to an otherwise unrelated series of notes.
― libcrypt, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 15:02 (sixteen years ago) link
the musical historian should choose a less silly word
― mark s, Monday, 31 October 2016 23:23 (seven years ago) link
ugh i am embarked on a project which is requiring me to plough through 20 million extracts all using this stupid word at its worst and laziest, it is such a fucking tell
― mark s, Wednesday, 9 October 2019 14:42 (four years ago) link
like they used to say nanotechnology would turn everything into featureless grey goo
― mark s, Wednesday, 9 October 2019 14:43 (four years ago) link
not only is influence a good word but we should replace the word art with the word effluence
― difficult listening hour, Wednesday, 9 October 2019 14:52 (four years ago) link
I was actually thinking about this subject this morning. As someone who writes songs, the influences I think of as most significant have more to do with methods of working. There was an appeal for me in how some people went about creating a body of work. Influences directly affecting musical materials seem to be hazier, more general, more subconscious.
― timellison, Wednesday, 9 October 2019 15:07 (four years ago) link
A prosaic interpretation of the word might be: band A liked band B, tried to write something a bit like them, then probably came up with something interesting in a different way, or if they didn't we wouldn't be talking about band A.
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Wednesday, 9 October 2019 15:44 (four years ago) link
Mark S's crusade against 'influence' has been going on at least 20 years, as this thread shows. I'm slightly amused and touched to be reminded of it, though ultimately I'm now not especially convinced by it; at least not by recent restatements of the cause.
3 notes:
1: FWIW I am quite sympathetic to deliberate attempts to use particular words less, as an intellectual exercise to sharpen thought. (I said this above, 20 years ago.) This wouldn't make 'influence' a special case, though. All kinds of words could be affected.
2: as far as I know, the discussion has talked surprisingly little about the etymology, which presumably implies liquid and 'inflow'. A tributary influences a river, and vice versa? Is this a good metaphor for human action or not? Mark S says not, ever. I think: more likely it sometimes has been (it seems likely that a great many etymologies originally encoded something suggestive, rather than inaccurate), but has also been over-extended and this has obscured the most useful instances.
Not very helpfully for my purposes, discussions of this also always talk about 'the general sense ‘an influx, flowing matter’, also specifically (in astrology) ‘the flowing in of ethereal fluid (affecting human destiny)’'.
Here it is worth noting the parallel term 'inspiration' which clearly derives from something 'receiving a divine breath'. That breath might roughly resemble the 'ethereal fluid''.
3: related, it still seems to me (cf 2002 post) that thought around this is clouded by a conflation of what, in dull words, I may as well call 'conscious' and 'unconscious' 'influence'. This would be the distinction between eg:
"yes, on this record we tried to sound like The Ramones"
and
"without really knowing it, this late 1970s band found their sound shaped by the other music and recording techniques of the period".
It still seems to me that the latter is closer to the original sense, as in the non-conscious flow of an enveloping force (cf water) which has effects on phenomena it encounters.
Actually I add a 4th note:
4: Mark S, still furious at 'influence' after all these years, alleges that it is a piece of magical hand-waving. This kind of allegation may risk becoming what it describes, and I am not especially convinced that 'influence', specifically, is a good candidate for this category. However, again, there is, to my mind, a hint of transferrable truth in what he says, in that *some* words do indeed function like this. A major instance would be 'Modernism' (more clearly, I think, than mere 'Modern') - I have probably never seen such a magical, wish-fulfilling philosopher's stone of a word.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 15 September 2022 09:47 (one year ago) link
Your third point is my preferred argument against the use - or lazy use - of the term, i'd expand it to include not just less conscious but less 'cool' influences or less obviously musical ones, e.g. some people they played with in school, some guy who taught them a cool lick, anything that might have helped develop confidence, attitude, ambition.
― ledge, Thursday, 15 September 2022 10:12 (one year ago) link
i have definitely happily raged abt the fact that "influenza" as a concept emerged from astrology
but possibly on LJ rather than here
"i put on the doors and influenza"
― mark s, Thursday, 15 September 2022 10:18 (one year ago) link
‘Influences’ also rankles me as it’s often the way for an “artist” sitting in leather trousers to claim instant connection with a self-selected hip canon and pantheon and place themselves firmly in it , in a Patti Smith/ Bobby Gillespie way: “My influences? Oh too many to mention but… Burroughs obviously, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Alice Coltrane, early Dylan, Suicide Spacemen 3, Lee Perry, MC5, William Blake“
― Luna Schlosser, Thursday, 15 September 2022 10:19 (one year ago) link
I readily believe artists who claim it's best to reduce your exposure to other art to preserve your own pure creative juices, to reduce the risk of contagion of ideas and motifs, to force you to cultivate your own art. At the same time, nothing comes out of nothing, you can't always be reinventing the wheel.
I take the conclusion of this thread that influence is a real but complex phenomenon for artists (you don't necessarily sound like your inspirations, you can learn the same skills from different artists), that the public schematizes very crudely, adding on top various misconceptions that being good equals being influential etc.
― Nabozo, Thursday, 15 September 2022 10:19 (one year ago) link
The idealization of being the first, the creator. That's what it all comes back to right.
― Nabozo, Thursday, 15 September 2022 10:20 (one year ago) link
"contagion" is a good word, ppl should definitely go with spread-of-plague style metaphors
music hack: "what is the colour of the sky on yr planet?"band member: "blondie and oasis!"
^^also an improved reworking
― mark s, Thursday, 15 September 2022 10:23 (one year ago) link
Something that I've talked about with a few artists I've interviewed has been the difference between "inspiration" and "influence," with influence being "Ooh, that's a really cool thing [other band] did, I should try doing that" and "inspiration" being "[other band]'s music is so awesome it makes me want to make my own music more awesome."
― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 15 September 2022 12:11 (one year ago) link
artists often refer to themselves as "influenced by" other artists. what do they mean when they say this?
imo the best definition of influence (in the context of art/music) is this functional one, rather than one found in its etymological roots in water metaphors, astrology, or epidemiology
i know a writer who keeps 3 books on his desk and each day before he works on his novel opens one to a random page and reads it. this is an extreme example in how deliberate it is, but i don't think influence that is less intentional or methodical is conceptually distinct
is it accurate to say his novel will be influenced by these 3 desk novels? he wouldn't do this exercise if it didn't have some effect on his own writing. presumably this effect is something he wants to impart upon the work
what's the effect? you can imagine two counterfactual novels, one written with the random-page-a-day method and one without. the former bears the "influence" of the desk novels in a way the latter doesn't
skimming the 2002 posts upthread and there's a kerfuffle over how the phrase "under the influence of" suggests the influencer has some measure of control. i.e., Pere Ubu dictating to Joy Division how to play guitar. i don't see it that way, a driver "under the influence" of alcohol is still "in control" of the steering wheel; alcohol has no agency of its own, but it does have an effect
it would be convenient for derivative artists if influence didn't exist, because they could pass themselves off as sui generis, like academics who claim originality but didn't read the prior literature. people like to dismiss artists who are not "more than the sum of their influences" as mere "pastiche". i personally like a lot of art that is considered derivative and don't really care when people say this. but i think it's a sign of artistic maturity to be able to acknowledge one's influences
― flopson, Thursday, 15 September 2022 17:46 (one year ago) link
it certainly helps to narrow down the meaning -- and render it a more useable and perhaps useful word -- if you declare by fiat that some of its confused overlapping and contradictory meanings just don't apply. i don't think it's as good as my solution -- "Use other words please." -- bcz my solution means thinking abt what yr saying instead of not thinking abt it, choosing yr phrasing carefully to pin down what you want to say instead of using a word that doesn't do this and then having to expand at length abt what you precisely choose it to mean and not mean (which others wil immediately contest). what not be precise instead of casual?
the random-page seeding practice you discuss is a case in point: why not simply describe this practice and NOT then muddle and blur it by scrobbling it all back into the ragbag of all the other kinds of relationship (some very distinct!) that art has with the context the artist was thrown into or painstakingly made for themselves
(again, i don't disagree this *is* a solution, it's just that i feel my editor's red crayon twitching)
also derivative bands LOVE the concept of influence! they reel it out non-stop: a mix between The Stone Roses and Primal Scream with the swagger of Oasis
― mark s, Thursday, 15 September 2022 18:19 (one year ago) link
declare by fiat that some of its confused overlapping and contradictory meanings just don't apply
I don't see how flopson is doing this in his post.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Thursday, 15 September 2022 18:45 (one year ago) link
not sure i buy this! you could make the same argument about people who check the horoscope every day - surely they wouldn’t do it, if the stars didn’t influence their lives?
BUT WAIT, you say! surely the act of checking a horoscope every day influences what you do? well, yes! everything you do has some effect on your future. andy warhol ate a can of campbell’s tomato soup every day at lunch (it was his favorite, and he loved routine). did campbell’s soup influence his work?
so i think the book reading probably does influence his work, but maybe not in the sense that the results would be different if we swapped the books for different books. and are the books influencing the writer, or is the writer … influencing himself? and why is the “picking a book” routine more of an influence on the writer than his morning toilet routine, or midday ham sandwich routine, or late night nose picking routine?
i’m not saying i have the answers to any of these questions, but i think they are interesting (particularly whether the influence is in the book vs the routine, cf andy’s tomato soup) and i think we start answering them with “use other words” vs just saying “come on that’s absurd, the ham sandwich has no influence on writing”
― the late great, Thursday, 15 September 2022 19:39 (one year ago) link
did campbell’s soup influence his work?
I mean, yes, pretty famously(!)
― mosh pit insurance agent (morrisp), Thursday, 15 September 2022 19:43 (one year ago) link
well duh? but would the work have been significantly different if he ate progresso chicken soup every day?
― the late great, Thursday, 15 September 2022 19:44 (one year ago) link
answer carefully because if you say “yes because then he would have painted chicken soup” i will lose all hope for western civilization, and who knows what might happen then
― the late great, Thursday, 15 September 2022 19:45 (one year ago) link
ha ha - well, it's hard to explore that counterfactual, isn't it? "If this artist had been a different person, would their work be different?"
― mosh pit insurance agent (morrisp), Thursday, 15 September 2022 19:48 (one year ago) link
you’re fucking with me, right?
― the late great, Thursday, 15 September 2022 19:50 (one year ago) link
Harold Bloom to thread!
― Jean Arthur Rank (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 15 September 2022 20:02 (one year ago) link
Oh wait.
And I see Aerosmith already mentioned.
― Jean Arthur Rank (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 15 September 2022 20:03 (one year ago) link
you are really positing here the existence of a human who might read a short description of that practice that includes the word "influence" and not understand precisely what is meant by the usage?
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Thursday, 15 September 2022 20:04 (one year ago) link
marketing term
― dyl, Thursday, 15 September 2022 21:25 (one year ago) link
― Jean Arthur Rank (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, September 15, 2022 4:03 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglin
Bloom (Looks Like a Lady)
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 15 September 2022 21:33 (one year ago) link
Honkin on Ho Blo
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 15 September 2022 21:39 (one year ago) link
“Under The Influence (She Told Me To Walk This Way)”
― big movers, hot steppers + long shaker intros (breastcrawl), Thursday, 15 September 2022 22:24 (one year ago) link
you’re fucking with me, right?No, haha! I guess I don’t understand your point.It seems clear (to me) that artists are “influenced” by the details of their lives, as well as other art; and an artist with a different life wouldn’t be the Warhol we know. And his art would different too; we just don’t know how. Is that wrong(?)
― Obviously Five Beliebers (morrisp), Thursday, 15 September 2022 22:37 (one year ago) link
I think I understand Mark's points: that agency should be attributed to the artist who is 'influenced' rather than the 'influencer'; that there are so many kinds of 'influence' that it is more informative to explain whether someone learned to play guitar by copying someone else's riffs vs whether they were inspired to make music when they heard someone vs whether they literally sampled them vs whether they wanted to achieve a similar mood etc. I'm just not sure, though, that I find these arguments convincing enough to consider "influence" completely useless as an easily parsed umbrella term.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Thursday, 15 September 2022 22:52 (one year ago) link
Not sure I do follow late great's point either, though, tbh.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Thursday, 15 September 2022 22:53 (one year ago) link
to speak to the specific point about warhol: i don’t really think his paintings of soup cans were specifically about campbell’s tomato soup, i don’t think those paintings would have meant anything different if he’d painted chicken soup cans instead of tomato soup cans
― the late great, Thursday, 15 September 2022 23:28 (one year ago) link
You said that’s what you didn’t want to hear!
― Obviously Five Beliebers (morrisp), Thursday, 15 September 2022 23:31 (one year ago) link
i never said that
― the late great, Thursday, 15 September 2022 23:32 (one year ago) link
i said the opposite: i didn’t want to hear that the art would have been significantly different if he’d painted chicken soup instead of tomato soup
― the late great, Thursday, 15 September 2022 23:33 (one year ago) link
i don’t mean to sidetrack this into an analysis of andy warhol though
― the late great, Thursday, 15 September 2022 23:35 (one year ago) link
also sund4r i think you do understand my point, inasmuch as i’m just restating what mark is saying. the agency is in the person checking the horoscope and choosing to follow it’s dictates, not in the astrologer or the stars and planets themselves. could make similar point abt the writer’s routine of picking up the books every day or the routine warholfollowed for lunch (that the agency is not in the book or the lunch itself)
― the late great, Thursday, 15 September 2022 23:41 (one year ago) link
ftr he painted all 32 delicious varieties extant in 1962 and revisited chicken noodle in 1986
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 15 September 2022 23:46 (one year ago) link
well there you go
― the late great, Thursday, 15 September 2022 23:50 (one year ago) link
So you think in a world where Warhol had no interest in Campbell's, he would have just made a bunch of paintings of Coke cans or another product? Don't know how you can say that for sure, but yeah no point debating the hypothetical.
― Obviously Five Beliebers (morrisp), Thursday, 15 September 2022 23:52 (one year ago) link
you’re fucking with me
― the late great, Thursday, 15 September 2022 23:55 (one year ago) link
Nope, still not!
― Obviously Five Beliebers (morrisp), Friday, 16 September 2022 00:03 (one year ago) link
https://whitney.org/collection/works/3253
^^ ??
― the late great, Friday, 16 September 2022 00:40 (one year ago) link
But I mean, that's a different painting, isn't it? Obviously he didn't think they were so interchangeable in meaning as to not be both worth doing
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Friday, 16 September 2022 00:44 (one year ago) link
Yes, exactly (that's actually why I said Coke cans - b/c he was interested in Coke, too - though I see how it may have have muddied the point)
― Obviously Five Beliebers (morrisp), Friday, 16 September 2022 00:49 (one year ago) link
I feel icky stooping to the copy-past-from-Wikipedia level, but here's some shit from there:
Several stories mention that Warhol's choice of soup cans reflected his own avid devotion to Campbell's soup as a consumer. Robert Indiana once said: "I knew Andy very well. The reason he painted soup cans is that he liked soup." He was thought to have focused on them because they composed a daily dietary staple. Others observed that Warhol merely painted things he held close at heart. He enjoyed eating Campbell's soup, had a taste for Coca-Cola, loved money, and admired movie stars. Thus, they all became subjects of his work. Yet another account says that his daily lunches in his studio consisted of Campbell's Soup and Coca-Cola, and thus, his inspiration came from seeing the empty cans and bottles accumulate on his desk.
― Obviously Five Beliebers (morrisp), Friday, 16 September 2022 00:52 (one year ago) link
In the great PBS American Masters on Warhol, it said that he had Campbell's soup virtually every day as a kid.
― clemenza, Friday, 16 September 2022 00:56 (one year ago) link
i posted that fact myself!
― the late great, Friday, 16 September 2022 01:03 (one year ago) link
don't think his devotion to Campbell's soup or Coca-Cola represented influence, though. more just subjects to impose his ideas on. I think Duchamp was a godfather to him in that sense
― Dan S, Friday, 16 September 2022 01:05 (one year ago) link
I think this is an interesting discussion about Warhol but I also think people are kind of deliberately missing what is typically meant by "influence" so that they can sustain a challop.
I would definitely not say the soup itself "influenced" Warhol. It may have helped inspire him or served as an emotional touchpoint. I would probably say that the graphic design of the Campbells soup label and other commercial design (a field he actually engaged in before he was Andy Warhol) "influenced" him though.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, 16 September 2022 01:10 (one year ago) link
people are kind of deliberately missing what is typically meant by "influence" so that they can sustain a challop.
definition of a challop imo
also good discussion but i hate the premise. everyone is influenced by everything. no idea's original. yawn.
― ミ💙🅟 🅛 🅤 🅡 🅜 🅑💙彡 (Austin), Friday, 16 September 2022 01:25 (one year ago) link
i mean, really. can we just get back to the music?
― ミ💙🅟 🅛 🅤 🅡 🅜 🅑💙彡 (Austin), Friday, 16 September 2022 01:26 (one year ago) link
but maybe i'm missing the point. wouldn't be the first time.
― ミ💙🅟 🅛 🅤 🅡 🅜 🅑💙彡 (Austin), Friday, 16 September 2022 01:27 (one year ago) link
I would probably say that the graphic design of the Campbells soup label and other commercial design (a field he actually engaged in before he was Andy Warhol) "influenced" him though
his subjects reflected his commercial design experience, but he drew from the history of art and his intention and style transcended that
― Dan S, Friday, 16 September 2022 01:52 (one year ago) link
Late Great: sorry, didn't read back, so missed that. Hope you've seen the American Masters episode, it's really great.
― clemenza, Friday, 16 September 2022 01:56 (one year ago) link
I would probably say that the graphic design of the Campbells soup label and other commercial design (a field he actually engaged in before he was Andy Warhol) "influenced" him though.To be clear, this is exactly what I was talking about – how he was influenced artistically by the cans – I didn’t mean to imply that the liquid itself influenced him to become a chef or something.I also didn’t see this as a challop – I thought it would be totally noncontroversial to say that Warhol was influenced by Campbell Soup cans, but maybe I truly am “missing what is typically meant by ‘influence’” (if so, it’s not deliberate!)
― Obviously Five Beliebers (morrisp), Friday, 16 September 2022 02:14 (one year ago) link
I was responding more to the lategreat post you were responding to than to you, the challop being more the whole "influence is a meaningless term" thing.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, 16 September 2022 05:26 (one year ago) link
Also (again in response to lategreat) I think it of course matters that he painted Campbells Soup cans and not Progresso cans. The cans are visually/graphically totally different from Progressive cans, they have different text, they have different resonance. To assume otherwise is to reduce the art to whatever you think the "idea" behind the art is.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, 16 September 2022 05:31 (one year ago) link
― the late great, Thursday, 15 September 2022 23:41 (yesterday) link
ok but we're talking about artists, not astrology. surely there is some 'meaning' when an artist happens to attract the attention of many artists who follow them. the meaning is never static & depends on context, but its not meaningless. 'influence' is not a one way street. and in many cases, the choices artists make in terms of who they allow to 'influence' them for lack of a better word runs counter to the conventional wisdom of ie critics at a given time. I feel like typically when someone mentions 'influence' they are pointing to artistic agency
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Friday, 16 September 2022 05:46 (one year ago) link
The cans are visually/graphically totally different from Progressive cans, they have different text, they have different resonance. To assume otherwise is to reduce the art to whatever you think the "idea" behind the art is.Dang – this nails the point that was rattling around in my head, so much better than I could have expressed it.
― Obviously Five Beliebers (morrisp), Friday, 16 September 2022 05:58 (one year ago) link
Those posts about what Andy Warhol would have painted if he had eaten something else for breakfast is the most inadvertently funny thing I've read on ILM. You guys !
― Nabozo, Friday, 16 September 2022 06:27 (one year ago) link
not sure i buy this! you could make the same argument about people who check the horoscope every day - surely they wouldn’t do it, if the stars didn’t influence their lives?BUT WAIT, you say! surely the act of checking a horoscope every day influences what you do? well, yes! everything you do has some effect on your future. andy warhol ate a can of campbell’s tomato soup every day at lunch (it was his favorite, and he loved routine). did campbell’s soup influence his work?so i think the book reading probably does influence his work, but maybe not in the sense that the results would be different if we swapped the books for different books. and are the books influencing the writer, or is the writer … influencing himself? and why is the “picking a book” routine more of an influence on the writer than his morning toilet routine, or midday ham sandwich routine, or late night nose picking routine?i’m not saying i have the answers to any of these questions, but i think they are interesting (particularly whether the influence is in the book vs the routine, cf andy’s tomato soup) and i think we start answering them with “use other words” vs just saying “come on that’s absurd, the ham sandwich has no influence on writing”― the late great, Thursday, September 15, 2022 3:39 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
― the late great, Thursday, September 15, 2022 3:39 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
iiuc your argument is about the inherent arbitrariness in drawing a boundary among all aspects of life, and saying "opening a book to a random page is influence, eating soup is not"
but if you ask me to use other words other than influence, what's stopping you from applying this same argument to the other words i choose?
if, instead of talking about influences, i simply talked about what books my friend was reading while writing his novel, you could ask "why stop at books? what about the receipt stapled to the chinese takeout he got the night before? what about the text message from his mother?"
beyond some kind of kantian transcendental deductive derivation of categories, there's no fundamental principle that tells you where to draw the line
i don't think my rule is so arbitrary tho. my suggestion was to take people's word for it. people have a private insight into their own creative process; if they describe something as influence, i trust they are referring to something concrete they feel
if andy warhol said he was influenced by campbell's soup, would i believe him? i'd probably think he was being facetious. but the album 'strawberry jam' by animal collective was influenced by a jam packet served on an airplane, and i 100% believe that
i personally have the feeling of having influences. i'm not an artist, so they're pretty easy to trace to hobbies i had while i was a teenager. specific periods when a certain mental pathway was forged into muscle memory. when i doodle, i typically draw an ugly face in a daniel clowes/charles burns style, because when i was a teen i drew indie comics and practiced at that style. if i pick up a guitar, i'll do a particular dissonant bending of the high strings i got from learning pixies guitar solos. there were other things i read or listened to but never absorbed as influences. because my skills are so limited, it's really easy to see where influences begin and end. for better artists, it's harder to discern, but i wager it's the same fundamentally
i actually think you have to operate at a very high level, artistically, to be influenced by mundane things like strawberry jam. that level of abstraction is impressive to me
horoscope was supposed to be a gotcha but it's a great example. i once had a friend, someone i'd considered really intelligent, who was single and lonely for years after the end of a major long-term relationship. at one point she started dating this sweet charming guy, all her friends loved him. but she broke it off and told us "i just can't date another sagittarius"
― flopson, Friday, 16 September 2022 07:59 (one year ago) link
"people have a private insight into their own creative process; if they describe something as influence, i trust they are referring to something concrete they feel"
i think this is true and i like these types of story -- i also think they shd use other words = remain at the level of the concrete specifics of what they feel (interesting! important! sometimes!) and not just let them be smooshed up as "influence" into a pigpile of other stories without specificity (which is why we tend not to listen to them)
― mark s, Friday, 16 September 2022 09:08 (one year ago) link
Influence has built-in vagueness. For example, in a chess game an unusually early advanced piece may have an influence over the entire board that both players need to take account throughout the game, but it would be tedious and impossible to put this into exact words. And it remains a (useful) shorthand term.
― Luna Schlosser, Friday, 16 September 2022 11:00 (one year ago) link
(In that context)
― Luna Schlosser, Friday, 16 September 2022 11:31 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcwz8-EfFYE
― Jean Arthur Rank (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 16 September 2022 12:32 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgDhlmf91pg
― Jean Arthur Rank (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 16 September 2022 14:17 (one year ago) link
Jerry Lewis, The King of Comedy: "A man said--listen to me...listen to me--a man said something very profound some years ago, which I later originated."
― clemenza, Friday, 16 September 2022 15:33 (one year ago) link
Anticipatory Plagiarists to thread!
― Jean Arthur Rank (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 16 September 2022 15:43 (one year ago) link
lolling at the image of thousands of yuppie apartments with poster prints of this in their entryway
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/N~oAAOSwvxBd9YIA/s-l1600.jpg
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, 16 September 2022 15:45 (one year ago) link
Make It Progresso or Frigid People Really Make It
― Jean Arthur Rank (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 16 September 2022 16:00 (one year ago) link
I think I feel about 'interesting' the way mark does about 'influence'
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Friday, 16 September 2022 17:01 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLdKU4JCYqg
― Jean Arthur Rank (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 16 September 2022 17:16 (one year ago) link
Revolver: Both 'Roxanne' and 'Can't Stand Losing You' feature another Police hallmark: pounding out the choruses and smoothing out the verses, which Nirvana and a lot of nineties band copied.
Sting: Yes, as a matter of fact, we were trying to influence Nirvana. That was the whole idea. I said, 'I'm going to influence this band in Seattle. I know the members are only about seven years old at the moment, but still..."
― ledge, Monday, 28 November 2022 12:54 (one year ago) link
sting gets it
― mark s, Monday, 28 November 2022 13:05 (one year ago) link
The best comeback of his career.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 November 2022 13:42 (one year ago) link
influence aside, does Revolver really think the Police invented quiet/loud?
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, 28 November 2022 14:47 (one year ago) link
franz josef haydn said, 'i know the members are only about minus two hundred years old at the moment..."
― mark s, Monday, 28 November 2022 15:02 (one year ago) link
Reminds me of a trope Marcello Carlin often uses in his writing: "Meanwhile, in East Wickham, a nine-year old Cathy Bush was listening carefully to this album..."; but he may be right! And it's certainly not absurd to think that any of Nirvana would have heard "Roxanne" or "Message in a Bottle" at 11 or 12?
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 28 November 2022 16:05 (one year ago) link
It's a lot more interesting to consider the Police in relation to Nirvana than talking about "More Than a Feeling" again.
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 28 November 2022 16:06 (one year ago) link
Sting actually made me laugh.
― clemenza, Monday, 28 November 2022 16:08 (one year ago) link
he gets it!
― mark s, Monday, 28 November 2022 16:09 (one year ago) link
Clearly this old nursery rhyme is the OG quiet/loud song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fovP6lAUVP0
― o. nate, Monday, 28 November 2022 16:19 (one year ago) link
Sting's statement is fine and Mark S's enjoyment is agreeable, but Sting's statement does not provide any disproof whatever of the phenomenon of 'influence'.
― the pinefox, Monday, 28 November 2022 16:21 (one year ago) link
I'd be very doubtful really that Nirvana were 'copying' The Police.
But if they were, then does the 'copy' concept (which is fine) contradict the 'influence' concept?
To me, not really.
As I've probably said all along - all these things exist and coexist, they're all fine, but in critical discourse it's better to use them thoughtfully, precisely and not excessively.
― the pinefox, Monday, 28 November 2022 16:23 (one year ago) link
what else should I beSynchronicitywhat else should I sayevery breath you take
― Fash Gordon (Neanderthal), Monday, 28 November 2022 16:29 (one year ago) link
Both 'Roxanne' and 'Can't Stand Losing You' Those songs aren’t even really quiet-loud, they’re more slow-fast… what a bizarre thing to say that Nirvana “copied” a formula from them.
― "Mick Wall at Kerrang!" (morrisp), Monday, 28 November 2022 16:47 (one year ago) link
agree with both posts.
― the pinefox, Monday, 28 November 2022 16:51 (one year ago) link
"There's a guy dropping out of UMass right now who's going to hear this record, form a band, and inspire a Seattle seven-year-old to eventually play quiet-loud-quiet"
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 28 November 2022 16:54 (one year ago) link
It also reminds me of an old interview with Fellini:
"Maestro, why did you have the characters in Satyricon do such-and-such?"
"I did it so that you would ask me why!"
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 28 November 2022 18:33 (one year ago) link
fellini gets it
― mark s, Monday, 28 November 2022 18:42 (one year ago) link
Come to think of it, there is a strong guitar chorus effect on "Come as You Are," a direct line from Andy Summers to Kurt Cobain. And Grohl came up with the name for Foo Fighters by way of the similarly anonymous/alliterative Klark Kent, plus Copeland inducted them into the rock and roll hall of fame. No Police, maybe no "Come as You Are," and possible no Foo Fighters (at least by that name). It's science.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 28 November 2022 18:50 (one year ago) link
Speaking of John Watson, there is an amusing exchange at the beginning of The Sign of Four, where Holmes is being insufferably pompous and Watson is entirely correct. Holmes' response is pathetic:
“There is no great mystery in this matter,” he said, taking the cup of tea which I had poured out for him; “the facts appear to admit of only one explanation.” “What! you have solved it already?”...."I have just found, on consulting the back files of the Times, that Major Sholto, of Upper Norwood, late of the Thirty-fourth Bombay Infantry, died upon the twenty-eighth of April, 1882.” “I may be very obtuse, Holmes, but I fail to see what this suggests.” “No? You surprise me. Look at it in this way, then. Captain Morstan disappears. The only person in London whom he could have visited is Major Sholto. Major Sholto denies having heard that he was in London. Four years later Sholto dies. Within a week of his death Captain Morstan’s daughter receives a valuable present, which is repeated from year to year and now culminates in a letter which describes her as a wronged woman. What wrong can it refer to except this deprivation of her father? And why should the presents begin immediately after Sholto’s death unless it is that Sholto‘s heir knows something of the mystery and desires to make compensation? Have you any alternative theory which will meet the facts?” “But what a strange compensation! And how strangely made! Why, too, should he write a letter now, rather than six years ago? Again, the letter speaks of giving her justice. What justice can she have? It is too much to suppose that her father is still alive. There is no other injustice in her case that you know of.” “There are difficulties; there are certainly difficulties,” said Sherlock Holmes pensively;
Damn straight there are difficulties, and Watson is entirely correct to point out that Holmes is overreaching by saying he'd pretty much cleared up the mystery, in fact the mysterious bit of the mystery remains entirely. His response really is very silly, and Watson is correct to point out elsewhere Holmes' vanity.
There's also this interesting exchange at the beginning of A Case of Identity
“My dear fellow.” said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generation, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable. “ “And yet I am not convinced of it,” I answered. “The cases which come to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and vulgar enough. We have in our police reports realism pushed to its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed, neither fascinating nor artistic.”
“And yet I am not convinced of it,” I answered. “The cases which come to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and vulgar enough. We have in our police reports realism pushed to its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed, neither fascinating nor artistic.”
Holmes here is in an enjoyably baroque and fantastical strain, and suggests he does see something magical in it all - the *outre results* of life. Watson, who is often accused of romanticism by Holmes, is enjoyably brusque in response, and again there's a lot to be said for his view.
I mentioned RLS's New Arabian Nights upthread and I really should emphasise how much of an influence they had on literary London (like Sherlock Holmes they were serialised in a London periodical). They are well worth reading. Conan Doyle was a big fan - The Pavilion on the Links (seven years before A Study in Scarlet) was one of his favourite short stories. They set the template for anything being possible in London, and the visits 'low disreputable corners and suburbia', ie beyond Camberwell. Both Machen (in his very bad, very good The Three Impostors) and Conan Doyle take its geography and cadences. The idea that the stories that emanate from the commonplace are more fantastical than those that emanate from the upper classes is here too.
― Fizzles, Monday, 28 November 2022 19:13 (one year ago) link
fuckit rong thread.
Sounds like it fits to me!
― "Mick Wall at Kerrang!" (morrisp), Monday, 28 November 2022 19:15 (one year ago) link
i was actually thinking as i wrote it 'mustn't use the term influence or mark s will be after me'.
fwiw, i'm of mark's view in this extremely enjoyable thread. clearly influence can be used to describe something, a relationship, but it's not very clear about that relationship - i liked 'WHO DO YOU BELIEVE IN' far better. or the old NME or the idea of the your unofficial curriculum (I think there's even a thread). i mean i use influence a lot obv, but think it probably skates over more than it reveals, might even be considered lazy.
― Fizzles, Monday, 28 November 2022 19:19 (one year ago) link
I am now questioning the use of "influence" everywhere I encounter it, and for that I can thank mark s., you've really had a major--ah, never mind.
― clemenza, Monday, 28 November 2022 20:37 (one year ago) link
“he put the ‘fluence ‘pon me”
― Fizzles, Monday, 28 November 2022 20:39 (one year ago) link
Q: WHO DO YOU BELIEVE IN?
a: mark s
― mark s, Monday, 28 November 2022 20:40 (one year ago) link
left a mark, you might say
― rob, Monday, 28 November 2022 21:00 (one year ago) link