Simon Reynolds

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I love Reynolds' belief that jazz arrived in, what, 1948. Obviously all of those prewar dance bands and chaps like Spike Hughes were engaged in folk music, or something. Also the bifurcation of would-be bohemians digging Ornette, 'Trane, Dolphy etc. while Ball, Barber and Bilk had the hits.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:53 (nineteen years ago)

Simon's argument kind of falls down when you factor in house music, even now, or dubstep or grime back in the day. All of these engendered that sort of reaction. I think what's skewed his perception here is that until recently hardly anyone applied 'intense jazz boy listening for innovations' approaches to very light girly pop music, the vast majority of listeners still don't and long may it continue.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:54 (nineteen years ago)

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

No, I want to though.

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:54 (nineteen years ago)

i quite liked that K-Fed ft. Britney track

― blueski, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:54 (nineteen years ago)

There were all these jazz clubs in the UK where intense young people (mostly male) would listen to all these obscure jazz sides and debate the merits of such and such a player, gauge innovations, etc.

Errrrrrrrrrrrr, where Simon?

― Tom D., Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:56 (nineteen years ago)

please could you explain "post modern resentment" please? it sounds interesting.

― acrobat, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:59 (nineteen years ago)

i think he's remembering the characterization of 50s soho in 'bomb culture' (def a reynolds fave -- don't think he actually gigs jazz).

xp

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:59 (nineteen years ago)

digs, i mean, daddio.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:59 (nineteen years ago)

The Melody Maker Jazz Polls

Selected highlights from the British section, 1964 - 1974

http://www.geocities.com/icnucleus/MMjazzpolls.html

off topic: what year did melody maker stop covering jazz music?

― djmartian, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:01 (nineteen years ago)

1994. Definitely Maybe totally killed it.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:02 (nineteen years ago)

i just find it very strange that his idea of jazz being active and bustling with subgenres is a period where intense young people (mostly male) would listen to all these obscure jazz sides

― deej, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:02 (nineteen years ago)

...in England

― deej, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:03 (nineteen years ago)

The actual answer is 1981.

Tom D xpost: the Glasgow Rhythm Club for one, to which both my late father and I contributed several such presentations. The clientele, though clearly intense, were anything but youthful.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:03 (nineteen years ago)

"please could you explain "post modern resentment" please? it sounds interesting."

Harold Bloom goes on a rant about how all of these blacks and feminists and their sympathisers resent Will Shakespeare's place in history so they pretend that Alice Walker (who Bloom believes is clearly inferior) is better. Interlaced with this is a rant about how foucauldians and other untrustworthy continental thinkers resent any one single person who was important, so they try to rob Shakespeare of his genius by saying it was caused by "social energies". He attributes to both actions a resentful desire to radically equalise everything in terms of value. The point of Bloom's rants is a defence of the notion of genius, a canon, the capacity to objectively distinguish between art that needs to be appreciated and that which doesn't; more broadly, he's trying to defend literary humanism from post-structuralists etc.

(I think that with the second rant he's talking about The Political Shakespeare, a collection of pieces on Shakespeare primarily by cultural materialists and new historicists. Anyway his position on Foucault is kind of an unfair strawman of Foucault's position)

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:05 (nineteen years ago)

Tom D xpost: the Glasgow Rhythm Club for one, to which both my late father and I contributed several such presentations. The clientele, though clearly intense, were anything but youthful.

Well yes, but SR is talking about when jazz "first arrived" - which I imagine he thinks is in the 50s sometime

― Tom D., Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:07 (nineteen years ago)

Tim that only really applies if you're talking about pop canon making and holding, say, the Beatles in the Shakespeare position. A very similar thing happened here a week or so again when M@rk R1ch@rdson suggested some Cure song was better than anything by Bach and he got slapped down by none other than Ethan and Dan pretty quickly, without anyone really arguing back.

I don't think comparing the pop canon with the literary canon is particularly useful really, in terms of attitudes or otherwise.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:13 (nineteen years ago)

thanks for that tim. i've only really come across focault etc through the incredibly unforgiving lens of analytic aesthetics so i find it all a little confusing. a little like the very first poster on this thread who is obviously 100% analytic.

― acrobat, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:14 (nineteen years ago)

oh so THAT'S what post-modern resentment is - hadn't heard of the term but anyone who's ever read the telegraph will be familiar with the concept. what they don't seem to understand (or what the post-structuralists maybe don't make clear) isn't that alice walker is AS GOOD AS or BETTER THAN shakespeare (insert scare quotes as nec) but that what she does is as important as what he did.

(am not (particularly) repping for alice w here, just using her as an example - bach/britney would be a good example! like, of course you can't compare them, but acknowledging the genius of one shouldn't prevent you from acknowledging the genius of the other)

― lex pretend, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:15 (nineteen years ago)

Important to whom? In what way?

Comparing the Cure with Bach certainly is unhelpful.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:16 (nineteen years ago)

important to their readers, in different ways according to who the readers are, where they are at, etc

― lex pretend, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:17 (nineteen years ago)

Well that's why this literary canon thing doesn't really make sense. It's all about the criteria by which you're judging. If you're judging by the criteria that says Shakespeare/Bach is the zenith of achievement, the Alice Walker/Britney noticeably fall short - it's pretty hard to argue otherwise.

If you're arguing by the criteria that state Britney/Walker are as important as what you do, it's *still* possible to make a case for Bach/Shakespeare being better. It may not be beyond argument but it's still possible. Unless you're arguing Bach is better to dance to or looks hotter in the Brandenberg Concerto video I suppose.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:21 (nineteen years ago)

The question isn't "which is better?" anyway - it's "which should we spend more time thinking about?".

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:23 (nineteen years ago)

It's not the defence of the canon that made me think of Bloom, but the way in which the opposition is described - which I can think can be summed up by the way I described the popist from the perspective of the nu-rockist way upthread: "they stand for nothing so as to fall for everything."

This is Bloom on the issue, though I'd have to hunt to find the really vituperative stuff:

"The School of Resentment is compelled by its dogmas to regard aesthetic supremacy, particularly in Shakespeare's instance, a sa prolonged cultural conspiracy undertaken to protect the political and economic interests of mercantile Great Britain from the eighteenth century until today... One sees why Foucault has won such favour among the apostles of Resentment; he replaces the canon with the metaphor he calls the library, which dissolves heirarchies. But if there is no canon, then John Webster, who wrote always in Shakespeare's shadow, might as well be read in Shakespeare's place, a substitution that would have amazed Webster."

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:24 (nineteen years ago)

"should" and "we" (xpost)

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:25 (nineteen years ago)

"oh so THAT'S what post-modern resentment is - hadn't heard of the term but anyone who's ever read the telegraph will be familiar with the concept. what they don't seem to understand (or what the post-structuralists maybe don't make clear) isn't that alice walker is AS GOOD AS or BETTER THAN shakespeare (insert scare quotes as nec) but that what she does is as important as what he did. "

hang on isn't it the other way round!?!?!

'importance' is maybe a bit more quantifiable -- ie shakespeare holds a certain position -- which can be argued with but all the same it's there -- in the national culture or indeed in english-speaking cultures. 'good' and 'better' are more subjective still. i can't see anyone saying the cure are 'more important' than bach. unless they mean 'more important to me' which is a bit solipsistic.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:27 (nineteen years ago)

I don't immediately see what's controversial about those words Marcello!

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:28 (nineteen years ago)

"more important to me" is the crux of the matter though, viz. my canon = things I like, liable to change hourly, and I'm perfectly happy with that.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:29 (nineteen years ago)

and also things I have loved all my life but I wouldn't expect anyone else (apart from those who matter most urgently in my life) to understand how or why.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:30 (nineteen years ago)

yeah i was about to post exactly what marcello posted re "more important to me"

― lex pretend, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:31 (nineteen years ago)

which isn't that you shouldn't engage with other "importances" as well, but "more important to me" is...the base

― lex pretend, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:31 (nineteen years ago)

the obvious irony is that foucault's boring anti-historical notion of the archive/library is as entrenched in the academy now as whatever it was trying to upset. go to a postgrad seminar anywhere and the same second-hand tat is still being chucked around three decades on.

"more important to me" is not what bloom is talking about. shakespeare or the bible or bunyan are "important" as parts of english-speaking culture over hundreds of years. "important to me" is another thing. i don't think it's the base.

to put it another way, if we were talking about the history of ideas rather than culture, some thinkers have had more meatspace traction than others, and that makes them more important.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:33 (nineteen years ago)

bottom line is does "more important to me" sell?

― acrobat, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:39 (nineteen years ago)

I tend to avoid relying on some sort of subjective priority in this area. It's not so much that Alice Walker is "more important to me", it's more that the question of "importance..." always implies a "...to whom?" and "...for what purpose?", which totalising statements to the effect of "the pre-eminence of shakespeare is beyond discussion" or "the worthlessness of paris hilton is beyond discussion" only seek to close down. The precise point is that the importance of Walker vis a vis Shakespeare is something that needs to be worked through in argument in order to come to a conclusion.

The funny thing is that Bloom is kinda right and inspiring in a lot of what he says about the greatness of Shakespeare, but it's only because the School of Resentment have been outrageous enough to take a different slant that he's been prodded into being so clever and creative and insightful. FWIW Bloom goes well beyond talking about "meatspace traction" and basically credits Shakespeare with the creation of psyche and personality.

I should note that not all arguments are necessarily worth having, but the worth of an argument doesn't come down to what is being discussed (paris, mia, shakespeare) but the nature and the form of the argument itself. As Tom noted, the arguments about mia were interesting regardless of what one thought of the music.

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:40 (nineteen years ago)

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

It already came out and it sucks. One reason I didn't like it was that K-Fed was rapping about his wealth, and how you should be jealous of him because of his social position. Paris doesn't do this (on her record).

See, that's the thing...Paris's album changed my perception of her (K-Fed's album didn't make me think that, say, he wasn't a big idiot). It was only after listening to her music that I bothered to even try to articulate what kind of political/gender/economic issues I had with her (maybe, tho I wasn't losing sleep over it) before...and I couldn't articulate them, really, they were vague generalities having to do with mutant capitalism etc. etc. (so why not put my energies toward the people who MAKE these policies instead of ambiguously representing them?) And I also noticed that other people couldn't articulate their positions, though they obviously felt strongly about them. And that they were ignoring (or, in the case of most reviewers, saying stupid things about) not just Paris but about a type, about a system of creation/production that Paris somehow typified.

(wow, xxxxxxxxpost)

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:42 (nineteen years ago)

"the obvious irony is that foucault's boring anti-historical notion of the archive/library is as entrenched in the academy now as whatever it was trying to upset. go to a postgrad seminar anywhere and the same second-hand tat is still being chucked around three decades on. "

Not that surprising. Literary humanism was around for a lot longer! But it's not like, Bloom aside, the pro-canon side have come up with any meaningful response since then. Unless you count snide obituaries every time a continental philosophy dies.

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:43 (nineteen years ago)

That should be, every time a continental philosopher dies.

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:43 (nineteen years ago)

"I should note that not all arguments are necessarily worth having, but the worth of an argument doesn't come down to what is being discussed (paris, mia, shakespeare) but the nature and the form of the argument itself."

you're noting that? i think you're just saying it, tim. i don't buy it. it makes sense on a messageboard, but nothing is at stake here.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:45 (nineteen years ago)

How about having no "arguments" and just listening to and enjoying music, whatever your poison, or is that too pat a "conclusion"?

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:45 (nineteen years ago)

just listening to and enjoying music

What kind of listening can avoid value judgments being made? It's not so much pat as it is impossible.

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:47 (nineteen years ago)

I'm talking about arguments about the relative worth of cultural products - if the argument is worth having it's first and foremost because the argument will actually tell us something rather than because of something intrinsic to the products... however, the likelihood of the argument telling us something may stem from the nature of the products themselves.

The real life thing I'm thinking of here is the old bugbear re "grad students writing theses deconstructing buffy". Like crabby old conservatives I actually find it difficult to take these particularly seriously, but my issue is not so much with buffy per se, but my skepticism that the thesis will end up saying anything illuminating - its the practice of critique which is flawed rather than the object of critique.

Marcello, you of all people surely understand the value of arguments!

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:49 (nineteen years ago)

yeah i agree with that re. buffy -- but partly coz the university system is more ummm politically important than the internets. everything comes down to funding -- i mean sure if people want to self-fund the typical 'angel as read through x-continental philospher' then that's great for them, but they may as well just come to ilx and do it for free for all the use it'll be.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:57 (nineteen years ago)

"enjoying music" of course being a "value judgment"

you mean there has to be a "use"?

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:00 (nineteen years ago)

criticising continental philosophy =/ conservative per-se. i'm not sure anyone's saying that it does explicitly but y know it kinda needs to be noted.

aren't kpunk and reynold's crit-theory to the max thou? they read their fave music through certain philosophies right?

― acrobat, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:04 (nineteen years ago)

"enjoying music" of course being a "value judgment"

I guess I just mean that once you try to analyze that enjoyment (or lack thereof) you're making an argument. (And with Paris, I'm not really interested in whether or not people do enjoy it, but whether or not they feel they should enjoy it.)

― dabug, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:09 (nineteen years ago)

All the culture of resentment arguments are ripped from Nietzsche. I think the 'resentiment' spelling comes from the fact that Nietzsche used the French word untranslated in his writing. N argues that egalitarianism implies a levelling of distinction (from Christianity i.e. we are all equal in the eyes of God) whereas hierarchies are essential for life (a truth we have forgotten). Someone like k-punk sees being pro-pop as refusing to accept that there are distinctions of value. This is why he and Simon can never hear the fact that pop-ists aren't against distinction (i.e. no-one ever argues 'everything is good' or 'everything popular is good'). Whereas I think it's fairer to say that the argument N. is really against is the one that says 'it doesn't matter what I like, it's only an opinion and everyone's opinions are equal'.

I find this interesting because in some ways the pro-pop arguments are like the admirable sides of the Christian / egalitarian tendency. If distinctions and hierarchies are essential to life, refusing them or questioning them (asking: is Paris Hilton's record art or not?)threatens life. Culture in the Western tradition defines itself as superseding that which is necessary for the survival of life, so the pop-ist position is at least exploring the possibility of culture, whereas simply being in favour of hierarchies (Paris Hilton's record obviously isn't art) is bowing to necessity.

If pop-ism and culture / egalitarianism are linked, we also have to factor in commodoties. In the Genealogy of Morality, morality is seen as arising out of economy and exchange: everyone is equal as a possible buyer or seller (I'm remembering this from a few years ago so I may be getting this wrong!). This need not undermine our idea of morality, just lead us to see it as itself a natural process (and therefore not as 'cultured' as it claims to be in e.g. Kant, basically N is here playing a sociological account vs. an idealist one). But on this account pro-pop would mean accepting that everything is already a commodity, so the interesting questions is no longer commodity art vs. non-commodity art. As someone says upthread, SR still believes in the aesthetic account of art as redemption from the fallen commercial world.

― byebyepride, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:09 (nineteen years ago)

this is a bit ill thought out. k-punk quotes N. against pop-ist arguments, and I am currently re-reading Beyond Good and Evil to try and think this one through.

― byebyepride, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:11 (nineteen years ago)

schooled.

― Tim F, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:14 (nineteen years ago)

reynolds read critical theory as a boy; but it's where k-punk eats.

marcello -- yeah there does a bit when it's publicly funded, coz you're talking about funding useful stuff vs funding useless stuff. obviously there's a whole 'but aaaaaaaaah, who's to say what's "useful"?' argument to be had but unless they do it by lottery *some* criteria of *some* kind are being applied, some value system is coming into play; it's just a question of whose.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:15 (nineteen years ago)

it's just a question of whose

Yeah it strikes me that the one anti-'popism' argument I *do* think has some weight is the chastisement of 'popists' seeming lack of interest in the mechanics of what music gets selected, marketed, promoted, and by who. (Obviously people who are critical of "commodity music" only explore this element very very selectively themselves).

― Groke, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:35 (nineteen years ago)

i dont know, that argument (the mechanics one) is the only one i ever really hear. and its a good argument. i dont think its quite as straightforward as that, other than that its a push/pull process. people who make decisions are a lot better at listening and watching than they used to be..

― frankie driscoll, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:40 (nineteen years ago)

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Simon Reynolds - C or D