Simon Reynolds

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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)

I fail to see how hating on a woman who's best friends with the founder of the Girls Gone Wild franchise makes you a misogynist.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:43 (nineteen years ago)

That was all an xpost to Dom.

A couple of years ago I'd have agreed with Frankie about childhood and suburban rootlessness - becoming a parent has changed my mind, or rather put nuance on it, because it's making me very aware of how place- and time-specific my own childhood (which felt in memory quite 'placeless') actually was, now it's what I have to measure against my son's.

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:44 (nineteen years ago)

It's about how this applied generally to people who are not Paris Hilton (though it's still sexist when it's being applied to her in the first place) ...I mean fer chrissakes Newsweek wrote a "health" article about PROSTITOTS, with the main "health issue" being "do skanky sluts like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan negatively impact our children?"

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:44 (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.

Hmmmmm, I don't know why Edwyn didn't realise that not singing like an asthmatic seal gave Nick Hayward a bit of an edge commercially

― Tom D., Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:45 (nineteen years ago)

If its a sexist viewpoint to oppose Paris with the ground some have taken, is it pro-female to support her on the exact same grounds?

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:45 (nineteen years ago)

I just mean when your foundational issue is "Interesting, this person is a skanky slut" and you build from there, I think you have some more thinking to do.

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:45 (nineteen years ago)

And no, I don't think it's pro-female at all (if I'm understanding you correctly). My main argument was that her "supporters" were spewing the same crap as her detractors because they started from the same set of assumptions and built from there.

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:46 (nineteen years ago)

(The most disturbing thing about that Newsweek article, though, was that this writer let her children read the New York Post!)

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:48 (nineteen years ago)

All those ugly eighties socialists having a misogynistic go at Thatcher!

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:49 (nineteen years ago)

Paris Hilton is a woman defined by the fact that her fame comes from a sex video though. If Jenna Jameson dropped an 12 track bloghouse album tomorrow, surely it'd be a fair starting point in your review to go "Hey, remember that one movie where she had sex with that black chick?"

xxp

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:49 (nineteen years ago)

maybe strawman "Popism" is utopian too. it just has a different utopian vision.

― acrobat, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:50 (nineteen years ago)

Rockism is a Utopian vision of what needs to be "done" to make things perfect, Popism is a Utopian vision of what needs to be "undone".

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:51 (nineteen years ago)

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Simon Reynolds - C or D