Simon Reynolds

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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)

but matt i start hyperbolic threads on poptimists on the regular, and i've done loads of reviews/features which were at least as enthusiastic

― lex pretend, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:14 (nineteen years ago)

frank seems to be calling *all people who don't like paris* shitheads. unless he just means people who post that they don't like paris on the internet, or people who write articles saying she's a load of old rubbish. and that's just plain mean as well as kind of mad.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:18 (nineteen years ago)

aw did he hurt nrq's feelings :(

― lex pretend, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:18 (nineteen years ago)

i'm too emo for this world.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:24 (nineteen years ago)

though to be fair i've called frank a paedo elsewhere innit.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:25 (nineteen years ago)

Lex - yes, but you don't begin Gabriel Ananda reviews with a demolition of a strawman of people who hate minimal house though do you? I mean, your whole review itself arose from an ideological standpoint* rather than making a case for the album, and you never do this now matter how much you're enthusing about Ciara or Rihanna.

*The other thing is that even if you ARE perfectly willing to view the album objectively but don't identify with that ideological standpoint you're not going to take that opinion seriously. You would be exactly the same if a positive review of, say, Kate Bush, began by demolishing Paris and her fans.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:30 (nineteen years ago)

(What I'm saying is, I'm perfectly happy for reviews like this to appear, it's pretty much exactly what Steven Wells did for years with less capital letters and less swearing. But it's perfectly reasonable to react violently against them - if not, why are they written in the first place?)

― Matt DC, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:32 (nineteen years ago)

I meant to note here a while back that when I read Harold Bloom on the English canon and the postmodern "culture of resentment" it reminded me a lot of nu-rockism.

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:33 (nineteen years ago)

K-Punk used to throw the word "resentment" around a lot.

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:34 (nineteen years ago)

xxxpost

lex, it's not just about enthusiasm. it's a matter of the degree of disconnection between the positivity/negativity of a given review and the reader's subjective experience of the music.

glowing, effusive review + deeply hated music = provocative.
glowing, effusive review + not-so-hated music = no discernible effect.

et vice versa. praising or damning something people are ambivalent about will not cause a storm.

― m the g, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:35 (nineteen years ago)

no, no: "resentiment". not sure what the differance (dys) is but i think it's important.

xpost

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:36 (nineteen years ago)

sorry yeah it's resentiment isn't it. Is that like a differance style play on words?

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:37 (nineteen years ago)

I think I've seen both! But yeah I did probably assume one of them was a typo.

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:37 (nineteen years ago)

glowing, effusive review + deeply hated music = provocative

well this is the crux of the matter isn't it! why is paris hilton so deeply hated? is there ANY other popstar - britney, ashlee, beyoncé &c &c &c - who would provoke so much ire?

― lex pretend, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:38 (nineteen years ago)

I was wondering a bit earlier if Britney's crotch flashing and nervous breakdown will make her retrospectively more hated by people who hate paris so much, or whether it inspires more sympathy.

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:39 (nineteen years ago)

tim good point but britters is kind of retired now.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:40 (nineteen years ago)

if she came up with a bomb track, that would be a thing.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:41 (nineteen years ago)

While there's life there's hope.

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:41 (nineteen years ago)

because her record was peculiarly dreadful (<---subjective opinion alert).

it's not an ideological conclusion, it arises from experience.

1. hear record.
2. record sounds really bad.
3. .: wildly differing opinion is unfathomable.

― m the g, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:42 (nineteen years ago)

I was wondering a bit earlier if Britney's crotch flashing and nervous breakdown will make her retrospectively more hated by people who hate paris so much, or whether it inspires more sympathy.

oh def the latter. stage is ALL SET for triumphant britney comeback.

― lex pretend, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:43 (nineteen years ago)

I'm actually quite amazed that so many people who claim to hate Paris for being racist/slutty/all that is wrong with capitalism etc. actually (claim to have) listened to her record. Surely this wasn't just to win Paris wars on ILM etc.

Was it to enhance the enjoyment of the hatred?

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:44 (nineteen years ago)

"bloghouse"???!!

haha Tim did you just see "The Lives of Others" too?

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:45 (nineteen years ago)

You know, people are going to do exactly the same thing when the K-Fed record comes out.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:45 (nineteen years ago)

Tim - yes, people like hating, or at least mocking Paris. That's kind of what she's there for and she's made a very successful career out of it.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:46 (nineteen years ago)

you can't avoid big pop records that easily. i wouldn't listen to the whole album, hellllll no. but that's true even of bands i like, jeez.

xpost

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:46 (nineteen years ago)

because her record was peculiarly dreadful.

Well no, because many of the h8rs admitted they hadn't ever listened to it.

― braveclub, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:47 (nineteen years ago)

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Simon Reynolds - C or D