Simon Reynolds

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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)

Meanwhile the rest of us just get on with running the world.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:56 (nineteen years ago)

ha!

I like how many ripples the 'hilton wars' caused, given that a) it wasn't a war, but mostly a one-sided slagging match, and b) nobody from the poptimist camp actually participated, but rather smugly threw around terms like 'shitheads' at people who despise paris at least partially because they find her music intolerable.

this is illuminating...

My perception of the Paris progression would be thus:
-Person hears Paris record
-Person thinks is not awful
-At this point, progression splits into 'Paris fans' and 'Paris haters,' obviously we're talking about the haters to a large degree here and so that's what I'm talking about for the rest of this "progression"
-Person wrestles to reconcile opinion of Paris Hilton The Socialite Brand with Stars Are Blind The Quite Good Pop Song By Paris Hilton

...as if somehow her songs were objectively good, and it was only prejudice and media perceptions of her that obfuscated its greatness. a more accurate representation of my own perspective would be:

-Person hears Paris record
-Person thinks is really awful to a shameful degree
-Massively gushing Paris review, diametrically opposed to person's subjective experience, is given prominent position on website not generally populated by Paris fans and therefore inevitably inspires futile internet argument

― m the g, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:57 (nineteen years ago)

Well, if they were attacking her by calling her a slut, it would be misogynistic. Big difference (also in re: HITLER for cryin' out loud) is that Paris Hilton is not a political figure. Some sort of vague THE MAN-style politics is one of about a million things projected on to her to help people vent when they don't want to think very hard about why they get to be indiginant about the world they're living in (Paris is a really easy target and there's no accountability for saying anything about her, regardless of how fucked up it is).

It's my understanding that the sex tape was taken without her knowledge. That would make her the victim and the bad guy the video-maker, but I could be wrong about this (no one's ever told me otherwise, though).

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:57 (nineteen years ago)

or ruining the internet (xp2)

― blueski, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:57 (nineteen years ago)

The disco sucks movement was about music and could not possibly be called rascist. Most of the moneymaking people behind disco were white.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:58 (nineteen years ago)

(And look, there's a mini Paris War happening right now! So what's with all the "wasn't a war" talk?)

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:59 (nineteen years ago)

The tale begins with Alex Lucard’s name and a popular British author’s preoccupation with the occult and Lucard’s name (spell it backwards and add an “a”) . This obsession led to him harassing blogger Alex Lucard on his LJ blog for many years and not only going after Lucard, but leaving lascivious comments about Lucard’s LJ friends as well.

After Lucard contacted LJ support and explained his situation, the man in question, Sean Manchester, a public figure in Britain, who has appeared on radio, documentaries, and penned several books decided to turn the tables on Lucard by stating he had been publicly exposed (re: named as the stalker) on Lucard’s blog and that this was illegal. LJ sided with Manchester and suspended Lucard’s account.

Lucard told the Blogging Times:

LJ basically said, “We don’t care. You wrote his full name and it doesn’t matter that he has six books published, tons of books written about him and that even six months ago UK courts once again ruled him a public figure. We’re going to ignore legal precedent and suspend you because he complained about his name being written in your blog.”

Lucard writes:

Basically here’s the deal. If you read me, you know that for years, this guy named Sean Manchester has stalked me. He’s a self professed “vampire hunter” that’s been made fun of by everything from the BBC and Channel 4 in the UK to Ramsey Campbell and Neil Gaiman mocking him in writing. He’s appeared on radio shows, done documentaries and has 6 or so books published and probably three times as many written about him. He’s been listed as a public figure since the late 1960’s. That’s nearly 40 years.

Why does he stalk me? Well, spell the last name backwards and that’s a pretty good hint.

OMG! My name almost is an anagram for Dracula! Holy crap! Obviously I am the lord of the undead! Bring me human blood and a pile of earth to line my coffin with! Sigh…

At first it was just crazy ranting emails, but then it eventually spread to my livejournal. He’d attack me, attack LJ friends, and even attack other anon commentors that would turn out to be rival occultists/vampire hunters. He’s been considered a right nut for over three decades by everyone who has ever encountered him.

Eventually though he decided to play nasty. He would complain to LJabuse that his name was showing up in my LJ and that it was an invasion of his privacy. Never mind that all these conversations were started by him or because of his stalking, or that the comments he was complaining about were often HIS OWN. Somehow he decided a public figure shouldn’t be talked about negatively. Even though every court on earth has laughed him right out of it every time he’s whined.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:00 (nineteen years ago)

as if somehow her songs were objectively good

No one ever claimed it was objectively good, but that it was very good (the best and most consistent pop album of last year if that's the sort of music you're into) and that most people were actually avoiding the music so they could make their points about why they shouldn't even be listening to it in the first place.

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:00 (nineteen years ago)

Geir, fuck off.

Paris is an extremely political figure whether she likes/knows it or not.

My perception of her album was thus:
- Person hears Paris record
- Person thinks it neither awful nor transcendent; just pleasantly indifferent
- Person shrugs shoulders at all the fuss

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:01 (nineteen years ago)

The disco sucks movement was about music and could not possibly be called rascist. Most of the moneymaking people behind disco were white.

The Fake Geir has to try a bit harder than this surely? Surely he, of all people, would be able to spell "racist"!

― Tom D., Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:02 (nineteen years ago)

Massively gushing Paris review, diametrically opposed to person's subjective experience, is given prominent position on website not generally populated by Paris fans and therefore inevitably inspires futile internet argument

...as though most of Plan B's reviews were preaching to the converted! I thought these people liked to be introduced to stuff outside their radar? If the same album had been produced by an indie act from Hove there would have been no flame war.

― braveclub, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:03 (nineteen years ago)

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.

not exactly a million miles apart, I grant you, but england > scotland. they are most definitely different countries though.

but I'm not sure it's [i]good[i/] that I do this, it's just the way it's always been.

without wanting to get too much into it, I'm adopted, so I've always seen 'your people' as those you choose to be around or those who you can relate to, rather than those you're stuck with because you happen to have been born on the same patch of land or share a dim, distant common acestor. I have no idea where my roots lie genetically, so it has no relevance in my life.

bottle opener?

― m the g, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:04 (nineteen years ago)

[Removed Illegal Image]

GIMMICK POSTER

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:04 (nineteen years ago)

...as though most of Plan B's reviews were preaching to the converted! I thought these people liked to be introduced to stuff outside their radar?

GIMMICK POSTER MARK 2

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:05 (nineteen years ago)

Paris is an extremely political figure whether she likes/knows it or not.

I just mean that you can't attack "her politics" in the same way you could attack Thatcher's politics. She has no policies, she doesn't (consciously) put forward an ideology; it has to be guessed at, and most people do this pretty arbitrarily with her. (Or to put it another way, if Paris Hilton is a political figure, it's usually about her attacker or supporter's politics, not her own. So if my supporting Paris Hilton's album -- by, say, buying it, which I did -- puts me in a "political" position, then we'd need to argue about what politics I'm expressing in the first place, since I think I can buy and enjoy her album without being an arm of The Man.)

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:11 (nineteen years ago)

xp: How's that then?

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

xpost: the plan B site is pretty diverse, but it wasn't like an unknown quantity was introduced. in what way was paris 'outside the radar'?! fer gawd's sake, she was everywhere. even a hermit like me couldn't avoid 'stars are blind'. unfortunately.

and it's not only paris that gets slagged. there are always arguments - !!! and herman dune spring to mind in recent times, the former being particularly vicious.

― m the g, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:15 (nineteen years ago)

But we're not talking about people who _buy_ Paris Hilton's album , we're talking about people who make the fact that they've bought the album and, on some level, enjoy it, an integral defining characteristic of their personality and critical approach. If you do that, you _have_ to take some political allegiance out of it.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:15 (nineteen years ago)

But Plan B readers only like indie acts from Hove! The fluffier the better!

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:15 (nineteen years ago)

speak for yourself.

― m the g, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:16 (nineteen years ago)

Basically, people should stop listening to shit music and listen to more Warren Zevon instead.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:17 (nineteen years ago)

Dom - I don't think anyone other than the Lex (who is also the only one who talked about admiring Paris as a person) fits that description. Everyone else was just reacting to stuff. (Though this is heading into "he started it", "no HE started it" territory).

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:17 (nineteen years ago)

He's dead though (xp)

― Tom D., Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:18 (nineteen years ago)

Do you think that Lex speaks for more people that himself?
xp

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:18 (nineteen years ago)

Someone here is confusing Plan B with UNCUT.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:21 (nineteen years ago)

Not in this case, really!

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:21 (nineteen years ago)

If you do that, you _have_ to take some political allegiance out of it.

Allegiance to what? (Most signs just point to Paris herself, no one really gets at -- at least in any way that makes sense to me -- what this political allegiance or argument or whatever really is.)

The most characteristic and defining thing Paris's album said about my critical approach was that I had one when most reviewers shut theirs off without figuring out why they were doing it (like Simon Reynolds).

(Also, if you're Lily Allen, it is simply about people buying Paris's album.)

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:22 (nineteen years ago)

(But that said a lot about Lily's politics -- she supports the death penalty, for instance.)

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:23 (nineteen years ago)

finally a pop star in touch with the nation

― blueski, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:24 (nineteen years ago)

Someone here is confusing Plan B with UNCUT.

-- Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:21 (4 minutes ago)

I fail to see how a cockney rapper is like an uncircumcised penis.

― m the g, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:26 (nineteen years ago)

Are you sure about that?

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:27 (nineteen years ago)

Bellend.

― braveclub, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:27 (nineteen years ago)

I've always thought of him as a roundhead.

― m the g, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:28 (nineteen years ago)

I support the death penalty for Lily Allen, certainly.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:30 (nineteen years ago)

I'm going to put my foot through Kate Nash, and send Lily Allen the bill.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:31 (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."

basically i come to the end of the road here -- just can't believe it.

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.

ok, what's the difference there? "hear song, don't like it" vs "hear song, dismiss it". why's it even shitheaded not to take her seriously? there are lots of things i don't take seriously. can poptimism really be about taking everything seriously? that sounds kind of un-pop.

[i]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.

no, and without calling frank rude words, the shitheads Just Don't Like Her -- because she's a racist brat -- or her music, because there's nothing to like. the music wasn't made differently from plenty of music i do like. where is that shit coming from? god forbid we should have heroes vs villains stories. much better we have um stories about high school princesses or whatever lex's thing was.

[i]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.

what are these class politics?

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:39 (nineteen years ago)

But that said a lot about Lily's politics -- she supports the death penalty, for instance

I enjoyed her contributions to the debate about teenagers about "This Week", apparently their biggest worry is about growing up and not having enough money to send their kids to a good school

― Tom D., Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:40 (nineteen years ago)

I believe in yr disbelief Enrique but it still baffles me - it's an upbeat dance-pop record and the community in question is hardly lacking in people who like those!

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:47 (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."

Both paragraphs of this post are precisely OTM.

I haven't even heard Paris's album actually. Was there ever a second single after "Stars Are Blind"? I never heard it.

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:47 (nineteen years ago)

The one with the MCR rip-off video.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:52 (nineteen years ago)

I was wondering what discussion that SR interview would prompt (and I also knew most of it would be about the Paris Hilton reference).

I was actually thinking one particular thing about the interview -- the simpler formulation of SR's take was that he made the argument in the eighties that 'the sixties weren't everything,' taking 'the sixties' to mean the general culture of rock-as-priortized he's regularly outlined but implicitly acknowledging a certain place for it, and now he's confronted with...or has concocted, as Groke suggests, in strawman style...an idea that 'the sixties weren't ANYTHING,' which skeeves him. But I don't see how that viewpoint, or more aptly the fear that that viewpoint exists, could be any other way over a longer period of time.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:56 (nineteen years ago)

it didn't go top 40.

everyhit lol:

Position Artist Title Date Details
38 Paris Guerilla Funk Jan 1995
5 Paris Stars Are Blind Aug 2006

― blueski, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:56 (nineteen years ago)

she should definitely release a new track called 'Guerilla Funk'

― blueski, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:57 (nineteen years ago)

Eric and Paris Making Dollars

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:00 (nineteen years ago)

I actually think that if Lex had applied a similar level of hyperbole to an identical record by an indie synthpop band from Hove then there WOULD have been a similar furore. Look at the fuss there was over the MIA album (probably the actual Indie Band From Hove here.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:08 (nineteen years ago)

I mean, really, it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the album is Pop Music, it's because it's Paris.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:10 (nineteen years ago)

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Simon Reynolds - C or D