Simon Reynolds

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What I don't really understand is why Reynolds keeps going on about this stuff - obviously this idea he has of what "anti-rockism" is really annoys him or gets to him on some level. At first it was quite flattering and daunting, because I do still respect and admire Reynolds hugely and of course I identified with "popism", or assumed that he was talking at least in part about me and my mates. And I found the Dissensus people intimidating: I tend to assume they're cleverer than me, or at least better at following ideas through.

Then it became irritating, because I felt so disconnected from what he was talking about and I felt myself being turned into a straw man. He seems to think there's some kind of Popist Manifesto out there to war against - I've never seen anything so programmatic, and as Lex says I see a bunch of individual "popisms" or "poptimisms" rather than a hedonistic credo.* Maybe he's more talking about people like Kelefa Sanneh or Jane Dark now, I don't know.

And now it's more embarrassing than anything else, because he seems to be wasting so much brain energy on fighting a quite minor coterie of critics, most of whom disagree with each other a lot (though not with his inkie-veteran relish) and hardly any of whom get published much. It's an embarrassment for myself too: the impression I get is of two groups of friends, each using the other - who they have barely any contact with, even online - as a convenient intellectual whipping boy.

* and I haven't used the word "rockism" seriously for about four years, I think. One day at a time, sweet Jesus.

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:06 (nineteen years ago)

"nrq you should understand, you do what m the g does except you go further and strip out the music too :D

-- lex pretend, Thursday, April 19, 2007 1:26 PM (45 minutes ago)"

keeping up with shit is a big conspiracy. time is an illusion. in-built obsolescence. and all that.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:13 (nineteen years ago)

I made a conscious decision to see if ignoring all that stuff would lessen or enhance my music experiences. so far, I like it. a lot.

although, to be fair, this may arise from increased interest in genres that don't tend to be awash with promo shots, videos and interviews - improv, noise, experimental nonsense, old soundtracks, etc.

Yes but i don't think that interviews and promo shots aren't really what this is about.

Where do you live, m the g?

I think this ability to mentally reduce music to just sound, whether desirable or not, is really only possible via isolation. and not from interviews and promo shots, which are pretty easy to avoid! But by being in a city, hearing music in shops, tv shows, at the game, coming out of cars, coming out the windows of other houses, at work.

these too are 'real music played by real people' like on that other thread, and shows that pop music itself is real music played by real people.

i think in the suburbs and subdivisions this is less the case...and comes back to bubble living, social context is lesser, people are simply more dissasociated from the social sphere...many young people feeling unconnected to society..the desire to fit in somewhere to connect, but a childhood and adolescence that paradoxically gives them a desire to NOT be like everyone else, to not fit in, to be an individial.

― frankie driscoll, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:14 (nineteen years ago)

If Derek Bailey played a gig at the Little Theatre Club with no audience whatsoever, as happened more than once, was his music "real"?

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:19 (nineteen years ago)

I think in the suburbs you maybe have to work harder to create your own social context for the music - find people to share it with, talk about it, be proactive because the opportunities to absorb it and its existing social context are less. That's what I mean by imaginary communities, virtual communities, self-created communities. And of course you can opt out entirely - dissasociate yourself and enjoy it in isolation - but I don't think that's the norm.

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:21 (nineteen years ago)

xxpost:

you're quite right, it's music in a social context, but it's still music in something approaching a 'pure' form, i.e. not surrounded by marketing, image, etc. i.e. factors intended to influence how you hear it.

but not that I really recognise what you're talking about anyway...'disconnected' is one way to put it. I live in a large, major city, but work at home. I download countless mp3s at random. piles of CDs come through my letterbox. I walk the streets with my headphones on. they come off at gigs. so there is no 'real music played by real people', which is incredibly patronising anyway. (memo to self: buy new issue of the wire) it's something of a solipsistic musical universe.

I think fitting in and defining yourself is only really important when you're a kid - although, interestingly, my close group of friends dates from that time, but is diverse and entirely non-music based. I was all about the metal as a teenager, they were all about the U2 or the beats and synthpop, and never the twain shall meet when you're 16. in some ways that's levelled out now and there's a bit more common ground, but there are still fundamental differences. the point is that music is not alwas means of bonding, it can be quite the reverse.

but I'm no longer a teenager, so can't be arsed with worrying about my sociability, individuality, or how the two are related. I'm more worried about earning enough cash to buy bran flakes and magik markers CDs.

― m the g, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:34 (nineteen years ago)

[i[If Derek Bailey played a gig at the Little Theatre Club with no audience whatsoever, as happened more than once, was his music "real"?[/i]

Ask the soundman...

― braveclub, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:36 (nineteen years ago)

memo to self: buy new issue of the wire

Why?

― Tom D., Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:36 (nineteen years ago)

The person who Simon and Mark never confront in their anti-loony-popism is Frank, who loves Paris but is not anti-rockist or popist or anything (they even flee from him: Mark once made this weird pre-emptive dismissal of Frank who he admitted he'd barely read). The way in which the liking of Paris is conflated with this gone-too-far critical gesture seems to betray the nuance of the way they frame their nu-rockism elsewhere.

I've never understood why it is important that Paris being creatively bankrupt needs to "go without saying" - Simon's position on this particular issue implies that music crit would be a lot more robust if we could all agree on things. But music crit always strikes me as being most robust at sites of disagreement. Arguments against Paris are more interesting if they're forced to take the form of arguments, rather than mere invocations of some higher truth.

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:41 (nineteen years ago)

Who is Frank?

― braveclub, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:43 (nineteen years ago)

xpost: for reading pleasure. review section only.

― m the g, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:44 (nineteen years ago)

Frank Kogan.

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:49 (nineteen years ago)

robin - [Removed Illegal Link], also as seen on the rolling teenpop thread, poptimists and elsewhere

xp

― lex pretend, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:52 (nineteen years ago)

oh fuck nu-ilx! that was an amazon link to his book

― lex pretend, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:53 (nineteen years ago)

'real music for real people'...yes it is patronizing. it cropped up on another thread..im using it here as shorthand for social-music, genre-music, rather than individualist music

i think fitting in and defining of self are more important as children and teenagers but i think subconsciously they're still there throughout adult life, to larger and lesser degrees, you could ask, Why are there cypriot communities in england and america? Why do they need to be close together, why do they need to listen to the same music?

― frankie driscoll, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:54 (nineteen years ago)

there isn't any real disagreement over paris, tim, it's a concoction. what is there to be said? nothing i've read has had the slightest traction. i don't know it's a bit like wyndham lewis on hitler -- he just called it wrong, move along now.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:55 (nineteen years ago)

ie...for many people music isnt a cause of bonding..its a symptom

in anomic subdivision suburbia this really isnt the case, which is why you have rootless kids desparate to fit in, to identify, to belong, to define to something...Groke's 'virtual communities' perhaps

― frankie driscoll, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:59 (nineteen years ago)

"Of course, one interesting thing about the 70s and 80s was the white influence of white pop on black pop. That seems completely unimaginable now."

weird. id say black pop is very 'white' sounding these days.

― titchyschneiderMk2, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:01 (nineteen years ago)

How are separate urban communities less 'subdivision' based than suburban ones?

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:03 (nineteen years ago)

xpost:

I know what you meant - the 'patronising' wasn't directed at you, but at the original quote.

as for your second point...I know this is true, but have no real direct experience of it myself. nationhood and any notions of identity that spring from it have always seemed fairly arbitrary and meaningless to me. I currently live in a country that's not the one I was born and raised in, but I don't feel any more or less of an outsider or a fully fledged member of the community here than I did there.

I don't like that kind of 'me and my kind' mindset. it just breeds division and misunderstanding.

― m the g, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:07 (nineteen years ago)

SR and k-punk are like the smug kids at university who have read a little bit of Baudrillard and have decided that everyone else is living in thought-prisons. They use other people's critical positions the way teenagers use bands: you're EITHER an emo or an indie or whatever, you can't possibly like both this AND that. (If you defend Paris you must think that all judgements about quality are irrelevant.) Just as two schoolkids on the bus arguing about who's in their gang would be really fucking boring to anyone else, when SR is in that mood he is just tedious. This isn't ALL that SR does though, and although I don't buy the hauntology stuff (which smacks of having backed himself into a critical deadend and finding music to match your ideas, combined with his own personal distaste for most current music -- and hey, he's a dad now, he doesn't HAVE to be down with the kids, he can't have time to keep up, really, but so much of his self-esteem must be built on this sense of being critically on top of the zeitgeist, which is basically a lame idea in the first place) I'll keep looking at his stuff for when he does have something interesting to say.

― byebyepride, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:09 (nineteen years ago)

It's been an awfully long time since he has, though.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:11 (nineteen years ago)

the key thing about simon's writing for me, and lots of "rockist" writing is a sense of utopianism. this belief that certain music has certain meme's that once transfered into the world ("entryism"?) or into certain communities (blissed out is, to some extent IMO, about encouraging indie kids to change their supposeddly regimented behaviour). when music doesn't have obvious inbuilt "purpose" of this sort i think SR comes unstuck. my main problem with RIUASA was how he talked about new pop. he seemingly dismissed Haircut 100 with the a sentence along the lines of "they obviously grew up listening to The Average White Band rather then the Velvet Underground." is this meant to invalidate "Love Plus One"? i only briefly read the interview but they talk about "pleasure" not being enough on its own, which strikes me as bollocks and completely unrepresntative of how most people listen to music.

― acrobat, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:11 (nineteen years ago)

Well that's a major shift for SR 'cos he wrote to me enthusiastically about HC100 when I did them on CoM (late 2002?) and about how they had such great chops, etc.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:13 (nineteen years ago)

there isn't any real disagreement over paris, tim, it's a concoction

Dancing About Arguetexture

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:18 (nineteen years ago)

You see, that's what kinda made me leave Poptimists: people don't like the Paris Hilton. That ain't news. I mean, I'm pretty sure every album that's ever been recorded ever has had people that don't like it. I mean, yeah, sure the Hilton album had more people that don't like it that most albums with a promotional budget that size, hence its commercial death, but... this is what I mean. Dull provocation with no purpose really isn't helpful.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:21 (nineteen years ago)

Dom I'm having trouble parsing that.

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:25 (nineteen years ago)

But you're missing the point that several people posting on Poptimists really really liked it. It wasn't "dull provocation with no purpose."

Frank (Kogan) said this about it on that thread: When I nominated the Paris wars I said that the discussion was crippled by one side being total shitheads. By the way, the argument isn't between people who like Paris and people who don't like her, it's between people who dismiss her and people who are willing to take her seriously. The Shitheads were interesting, though, because they don't actually know why they dislike Paris, and instead of trying to deal with what the music does, they run to a Hero-Vs.-Villain Story about how the music is made, the Great Story Of Opposition And Capitulation To Authority, with a subplot involving the Work Ethic. And there are some complicated - and ugly - class politics as well. And put aside the fact that Paris is rich: the opposition to her is another variation on "Disco Sucks!" Which isn't so uncomplicated either.

Paris was about a lot of things beyond Paris herself -- it was exciting to talk about, given that you had no choice but to confront these issues by listening to her music. It wasn't about "ignoring the singer" or whatever else was floated upthread, it was about tackling the whole thing all at once.

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:27 (nineteen years ago)

(And several people posting to Poptimists didn't like it, or thought it was meh, or really hated it too)

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:28 (nineteen years ago)

How are separate urban communities less 'subdivision' based than suburban ones?

-- Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:03 (20 minutes ago)

ah, i think you misunderstand what i mean by subdivision. i mean one of these

[img][Removed Illegal Link]

― frankie driscoll, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:29 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.planningwithpower.org/images/photos/Aerial/subdivision-2.jpg

― frankie driscoll, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:29 (nineteen years ago)

yeah i'm not seeing the difference except that Poptimists was not as irritating as ILM on the subject of Paris generally (i have high Lex tolerance).

― blueski, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:29 (nineteen years ago)

a) I always had trouble understanding why people were flocking to an album of dishwater pop like "Paris"
b) Why fight a battle that only one side care about? If I thought that the last, I dunno, 36 Crazyfists album was a masterstroke, and my posts to ILX about this were met with "No it isn't", would that be the Great War of 36 Crazyfists?

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:30 (nineteen years ago)

Frank Kogan OTM

― braveclub, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:31 (nineteen years ago)

Ah, gotcha. Did you have an urban or suburban childhood by the way?

xpost

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:31 (nineteen years ago)

"they obviously grew up listening to The Average White Band rather then the Velvet Underground."

Nuthin' wrong with AWB

― Tom D., Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:31 (nineteen years ago)

The Associates excepted, Dundee's finest.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:33 (nineteen years ago)

I never thought people were 'flocking' to Paris as such. Just willing to consider it on it's own terms in the face of a bunch of old men slagging her off in all the predictable ways. PS I still think she mediocre.

― blueski, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:34 (nineteen years ago)

nationhood and any notions of identity that spring from it have always seemed fairly arbitrary and meaningless to me. I currently live in a country that's not the one I was born and raised in, but I don't feel any more or less of an outsider or a fully fledged member of the community here than I did there.

I don't like that kind of 'me and my kind' mindset. it just breeds division and misunderstanding

This is very good that you can do this, can i ask what country you are from, and which country you live in now? i think the ability to think of self as an individual and not someone with roots is very dependent on upbringing.

im not suggesting you're saying this but it reminds me a bit of that thread where people were saying they didn't see anything racist in a bottle opener, and the general pats on the back for englands ability to 'see past racism'

― frankie driscoll, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:36 (nineteen years ago)

to Groke: urban upbringing

― frankie driscoll, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:36 (nineteen years ago)

Why fight a battle that only one side care about?

Dom, didn't you frame your Infinity on High review with a discussion of why there's widespread "critical antipathy" to emo (which got second place in the arguetexture match)?

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:36 (nineteen years ago)

I actually framed it with a reference to the "eating horsehit with Three 6 Mafia" bit from Jackass 2, but that got cut in the final edit.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:37 (nineteen years ago)

i think his point was that THE MAN was taking over again rather than talented amateurs like Orange Juice, who are put into (false?) oppostion with HC100. in RIUASA the stuff about Cupid and Psyche 85 seems confused, as if he can't decide whether it's ok for him to like it, to simply enjoy it.

i guess for SR Paris is a modern manifestation of THE MAN. maybe?

― acrobat, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:38 (nineteen years ago)

x post

― acrobat, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:38 (nineteen years ago)

Also, few people like Paris Hilton, but everyone talks about her. Not as many people talk about 36 Crazyfists, so maybe there is a war, but it's not a Great War. (What if they threw a war and nobody came?)

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:38 (nineteen years ago)

I must admit I don't quite see the connection between the genuinely ugly racism underlying the Disco Sucks non-movement and some internet people thinking that Paris ain't all that, even if it's because she's rich/Republican/not much cop as a pop star/delete where applicable.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:38 (nineteen years ago)

Does actually defining yourself as a fan of "pop" music mean automatically siding with the establishment?

xxp

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:39 (nineteen years ago)

Also the Haircut/Orange Juice issue was old hat even when Edwyn Collins was moaning about it in the NME way back then.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:39 (nineteen years ago)

I didn't think the MIA album was anything much to shout about but I still thought the huge MIA arguments were some of the most interesting of whatever year it was, because they really sharply brought out questions which might have been kind of abstract otherwise.

PH did the same thing - it's obvious reading (say) Simon's interview and Enrique's posts that this is a dividing line record, not in a "is it any good?" sense (I think it is, you think it isn't, whatevs) but in a "we shouldn't even be ASKING if it's any good!" way.

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:41 (nineteen years ago)

How about the genuinely ugly sexism underlying a lot of the Paris discussion? There's a streak of misogyny in the talk that has little to do with Paris herself, though it's directed at Paris. xpost

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:41 (nineteen years ago)

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Simon Reynolds - C or D