Simon Reynolds - C or D

inconsistency is good

"When I self-identify as pop-ist (which I do sometimes) I want to chastise other people who self-identify as pro-pop for this, because it's largely what I complain about anti-pop people doing as well. i.e. everyone wants to be blind to the mechanisms of selection and sorting because it means confessing to what structures (NB: NOT determines) their own choices. But both sides are also quite resistant to talking about what structures their ways of talking about music too. "

I always liked the neatness of k-punk's line about rockism vs popism being about "a romantics of production vs a romantics of reception".

I don't think he carries it through though: a "romantics of production" is really about reception, or more specifically the reception of production. So when a popist/anti-rockist insists that reception has to be the starting point, it might be due to a "romantics of reception" or it might be a more broader point that is epistemological rather than ontological: when we're talking about music, our understanding is always affected (infected) by our enjoyment. So to even hope of getting to the kind of structural, scientific diagnostic critical position in the Althusserian sense that k-punk seems to advocate, you sort of have to traverse your own enjoyment, work out as near as possible what it is that is structuring your own enjoyment, in terms of both production and reception (what is the music's baggage, what is my baggage), rather than assume (per Althusser) that you alone have uncovered the scientific formulation for divining the difference between 'mere' enjoyment and something more real. Of course, the awful truth is that you never get to that point, it's a point of infinite regress. This is why every critic is a popist, they just don't necessarily know it yet.

I'm getting to the point where I never want to read the word 'Popism' ever again. None of the definitions here actually make sense - with the possible exception of Tim F I can't think of a single person on this thread who has never held an irrational prejudice against an artist or dismissed them out of hand. Whether it's Paris Hilton or the Arctic Monkeys or whoever.

Everyone has music they don't want to like before they even hear it. Harmless irrational prejudices are fun, admit it.

wow, that matt dc point ^^^^^ seriously OTM

Tim, I doubt that Simon has any idea that I like the Paris album (or that I'm one of those generalists who listens to country). I also think it's so obvious that when he talks about "popists" he's going after straw men that we really don't need to discuss it. If he's an interesting enough figure for such a long thread, it seems a waste to focus on his lazy and stupid statements. Of course, when someone intelligent resorts to laziness and stupidity, there's probably something going on inside him, but unless he's willing to explore what's really at issue for him (and what the "popist" bugbear is standing in for in his mind), I just don't see that we have anywhere to go with it. But I do have Simon's email address. It seems to me that if those of you most concerned with Simon's jabs at "popism" - Tom, Alex, Lex, Dave - do want to take it further - if it's still bugging you - then you should write him and tell him that he's going after a straw men and ask him if he's willing to engage with you on your actual ideas. Or do you think he's so far off the deep end on this issue that there's no reeling him in?

Tim, Paris's third single, "Nothing In This World," is the best Dr. Luke track since "4ever"; also, it's the only one that avoids what's becoming a really annoying trend in Dr. Luke, his tendency to pump up the sound so much that it's grotesquely musclebound: giant FUN hooks, BIG drums, HARD-ROCKING guitars. Whereas "Nothing In The World" goes for a gorgeous glide. Maybe Paris forced him to take down the sound, or maybe, given that she's not a belt-it-out diva, he really had no choice.

are you willing to explore what's really at issue with you, paedo?

I've e-mailed Simon on this topic before Frank (although I know I've lost his e-mail address because I wanted to e-mail him about Studio, I think he would really like them).

And it's a function of such communication that everyone's position seems (and ultimately becomes) much more reasonable - really Simon and Mark and Matt Woebot are 99% perfectly reasonable about such issues, and only get a bit dodgy when caught in a feedback loop with each other.

But it's not really the popism strawmen that concern me, it's more me trying to work out exactly where I stand in relation to what he calls "nu-rockism" i.e. his theory for his own taste. Of course because nu-rockism is explicitly defined against "popism" the two issues collapse into one another very quickly.

Simon has said before that "nu-rockism" is kind of a critical mapping of his taste, an attempt to devise a formula for what is good and bad in music based on what empirically he is into or not into (when set against the allegedly over-experiential popism this becomes something of a contradiction, but I'll leave that aside for now). I'm dubious about the notion of having a set formula for what works and what doesn't in music (both whether it's even possible and whether it's a good idea) but that doesn't mean that I don't spend a lot of time consciously or unconsciously trying to devise one, or relying on some half-articulated one that is most likely a combination of my own tastes and received wisdom. So I can't help but ask myself "if I had such a formula, what would it look like?" I think this is what makes this whole topic interesting to me: some sort of secret Oedipal process by which at the end of this thread (or all the others on this topic and related ones) I will have discovered the formula.

Ultimately i think a big part of one's position on these issues is how you perceive the current development of your tastes. I'm still at an age where it feels like I'm changing more than the music around me is - by which I mean, that my sense of music being good or bad has much more to do with how I'm developing interests in some styles/areas/artists/approaches and losing interest in others, and less to do with how music as a whole (or in specific areas) is changing from year to year. Such a position tendentially leads to a "popist" position I think, because I feel my reactions to be less reliable (because subject to change) but also more interesting (because subject to change).

Whereas clearly in the discourse of Mark and Simon, there's a really clear sense of them believing that it's less their tastes changing now than it is the world of music "out there" (outside their heads) changing. Especially when this particular change is negative, i.e. you're finding less music exciting each year, it would seem equally irresistible to drift towards a position where you want to impose some level of fixity or determination ("standards") upon questions of goodness/badness etc. based on your own tastes, because to recover that excitement you want the world of music to change in a different direction (often to "return" to a point [x]) to come into alignment with your reliable tastes. Simultaneously to your tastes becoming more reliable (because less subject to change), they also become less interesting as a site of enquiry (because less subject to change) - hence a further critical transposition away from asking "what is it about my experience of this music that makes me experience it this way" and to focus more exclusively on asking "what is it about the production (in the general, not sonic sense) of this music that makes me experience it this way".

Using literary crit language - isn't finding objective definitions for quality equivalent to New Criticism and critiquing music non-ideologically equivalent to something like New Historicism? There's a reason New Criticism is considered less useful now - because it is such a poorly reasoned critical theory. New Historicism or Stanley Fish's Reader Response (or whatever is in vogue in that area) may be flawed, but at least they admit their flaws up front. Ie: I like Paris Hilton, and I admit that's because my likes have to do with me. Or, Paris Hilton fits into the 2006 landscape of music and culture like this, this and this. But saying: "Paris Hilton is objectively great," or "Objectively bad," is intellectually dishonest.

So what's going on here that I'm missing?

I think Mark especially would consider what he does more in the vein of Marxist literary criticism, which did have pretensions toward being scientific, and hence objective.

My professors, and I guess that got passed to me, always maintained that idealogical criticisms - like Marxist literary criticism - work best in conjunction with other things. Because they are always going to give one-dimensional responses to the piece of work. You're stuck seeing it through the Marx-colored glasses. So you don't get to consider its other possibilities and meanings.

(Was Mark making the moral argument in another thread about condemning sexist hip-hop artists? Or was that someone else?)

Anyway, I just had dinner with Simon. Cool guy! (Donut Bitch says, "Yes, Ned is right.")

Also, I've always thought of Poptomism (or however you spell it) as an attempt to refute Derrida's hierarchical structures. God - Man. Man - Woman. Master - Slave. The Clash - Paris Hilton. Etc. JD's reading of Paradise Lost heavily relies upon the dissolving of those distinctions IIRC. But if Poptomism just means: I like Pop music - then it kinda loses it's philosophical implications.

I say Simon is OK... He is upper 1% of "music journalists".

Did K-Punk invent the phrase "a romantics of"? It's horrible.

Mordy, the thing is, poptimists are actual people who hang out at a livejournal community, and there's no reason to assume that they have an overriding purpose or a shared ideology or a similar taste, anymore than people who hang out at a particular bar have an overriding purpose or a shared ideology or a similar taste. Which doesn't mean they don't have a lot in common, just as people at a bar do - and of course the fact that Tom decided to call the community "poptimists" isn't meaningless either. But the poptimists are mainly there for the gab and the games. As for breaking down hierarchical structures, I don't know... is "People who break down hierarchical structures are better than people who don't break down hierarchical structures" a hierarchical structure itself? Or is it just an opinion? Are "the Clash are better than Paris" and "Paris is better than the Clash" hierarchical structures or just opinions? If they're structures, what are they structures of?

What do you make of the fact that most poptimist discussions occur on threads that are structured (or something) around games where some songs are rated better than others, or some players' songs are rated better than other players' songs? I wouldn't call this "hierarchical," but there is sure a lot of time devoted to saying that some things are better than other things. For some people (usually more people vote than discuss), the value judgment is the principal way they participate in the community.

all i really have to say is i think no matter how much music is a huge part of my life, in some way it seems clear that reynolds et al care more about music and so want more from it than i do. an ugly way of looking at it is those nasty stages of a bad break-up but they never end, where you keep talking through what you think you used to feel and why it isn't there anymore and asking for more and maybe not getting it, or even not getting it becuz its so desperate to beg for it and you know it, but still, there's the satisfaction of trying to hurt, which is also a way of showing affection and deep down you think it is this *other person* that is going to somehow heal *your* rifts because somewhere way back when they were foolish enough to promise it to you. nonetheless, it gives a structure to your emotions, even if an ugly one, and you feel that to abandon that would leave you adrift entirely. and your buddy sez to you "why does it have to be meaningful like that? maybe that isn't really it, and your partner can date someone else, and you can date someone else, and dating people is nice, but c'mon, do you really believe in the *one*? i mean, look at me, i love em and leave em and no feelings are hurt and maybe one day i'll find someone to settle down with and maybe i won't." and you look at your buddy with mute incomprehension and think to yourself "asshole."

so maybe its something like that.

Most of the games though are ones where the mass opinion of a song (within the very limited sample that is the Poptimists community) outweighs the individual's opinion. In fact the League Of Pop is the first time we haven't done this (which makes it more interesting, there's a lot more at stake in terms of a player having to justify their choices - in the mass poll-based games it's easier to hide behind an anonymous ticky box).

I'm not sure that SR (and others) care more (or less) about music, or that it is even about caring. I think its more a sense of...needing context..to validate. Without that validation its not as important, and the crux of this is that it has to matter

its kind of a weird paradox in a way, and perhaps his current feeling is his way out of the paradox

a) street/real/consensus music DOES matter...clearly..it has a social place, a function, a role..outside the original. scenes/cultures/groups...social glue

b) that very functionalism..theoretically negates it..inbuilt obsolescence, someone said. its role is the here and now. songs and tracks come and go..relentless pace. the music matters but the songs dont, or rather they do but only for a short period

constant continuity-regeneration. endless records that sound the same (not a criticism...the best music all sounds exactly the same). a racetrack for the critic...

...where can it all be pieced together...im reading in SR a desire for an end, a completion, a resolution. without it...things matter less. and hes not the kind of guy to write about bop or skiffle..

kind of related to the old and oft-proved-wrong idea that bubblegum music wouldnt stand test of time whereas classics would..but whereas classics (by their nature...or their reception anyway) often sound the same as when they were released...pop/bubblegum away from its time/context can sound disembodied and untethered, pure even

^^^ theres his hauntology right there if he wants it

What I don't get in that model is why the critic exists - what's the purpose of criticism there? The risks - of allowing interlopers and outsiders and eclecticists and dilettantes into the street-loop by exposing it to them - surely outweigh the benefits.

I don't really think its anything to do with risks or benefits!

OK, that's a crude way of putting it, but the question remains: if SR validates music through its social glue and sense of purpose, what's his role in the system?

I'm applying this specifically to how im reading SRs take on things...someone who has backed away from genres in recent years. the risks/benefits for him, for his approach...i'd say he's not in a place to care about that angle right now

as for others..i dont think there are any risks. there are benefits, theoretically, but...are there really? other than specialist critics? Where are the benefits for Norteno?

wrong way round! i dont think SR validates music! i think SR has always needed context/role in order for him to consider music valid! and maybe hes kind of realigning his position on that
i dont think he has a role, really

That is what I meant - this validated verb confuses me clearly.

oh i see. i think it has confused me also. that makes things different..but also the same. i dont think he has a role...except you are asking what is the role of the critic..rather than the role of SR specifically?

i dont have an answer

perhaps to bridge between subcultures and mainstream cultures. to open the door

but..i dont see this happening much..

Hi all. I just wanted to show you this, which appeared in today's Guardian and which says a lot of the same things Simon does in that interview. Rock as jazz - check. Classic values of revolution and transgression no longer part of pop's core brief - check. It's called "Meet the future of pop music".

http://music.guardian.co.uk/pop/story/0,,2060953,00.html

off topic: did reynolds like stock, aitken and waterman?

For what it's worth he's been the unreachable ideal for me as a writer from day dot. It was a SR piece on PE that started me reading the press - it was an MM front cover in 87. I recall the same issue contained writing on MBV, Young Gods, Dinosaur, Buttholes, Throwing Muses, Front 242 - all of which blew my mind. Without SR making those connections tween weird-alt-stuff and the hip-hop that was then my noise of choice I would never have discovered so much shit that changed my life. When I joined MM, though Pricey and Parkes were my main day-to-day heroes (and writers who I felt I could at least try and match - never did) Reynolds was like this dimly distant GOD to me because NOBODY'S writing came close to his mix of analysis and purely-pleasurable wordwankery. He's one of those writers (along with Pricey, Parkes, Stubbs) who can write anything and I'll read it - and blissblog is still pretty much the only music blog I read. Much of what gets written there simply towers over most of the stuff he links to himself within it. Can't fuckin' wait for 'Bring The Noise'.

I'm not sure about any of this. I don't think the above is pops core brief at all...musically at least. Imagewise, yes, its been a central plank of pop music to do this. But musically i remain unconvinced, and i'm not particularly persuaded by talk of the end of great leaps, because i'm not convinced by the concept of great leaps in the first place

visual transgression is central to pop, and always has been. its certainly still there, its perhaps more coded and sophisticated than previously. mainly because when it is 'overt' it gets called as contrived

if anything has changed its more the feeling that the world isnt going to be changed, that every gesture will be co-opted repackaged resold...its a cynical view, but its very difficult to refute. This is more tied up with rebellion. the imagery in popular music is of transgression , but no longer of rebellion. this is because the transgression is against other young people and genres...the narcissm of small differences. you dont rebel against those people though! rebel against who, the people that make money off you doing it?

i don't agree with the way that article conflates "revolution and transgression" with forward-looking music but i think it nails down british music 07 precisely, and explains why i think british music suxxxx right now. (i love amy winehouse but this is an anomaly in my taste!)

frankie (gareth?) otm above.

Also, I've always thought of Poptomism (or however you spell it) as an attempt to refute Derrida's hierarchical structures.

i think if we have to have a defn of poptimism this is as good and neat and concise as any.

visual transgression is central to pop, and always has been. its certainly still there,

I can't hear "visual transgression", and so I dearly hope that it isn't "central to pop".

The best bit in that article is where they ask the guy from Simple Kid about how disgusted he is with the music scene and he says something like "I thought every generation smashed its predecessors - I thought that was the rule!" (italics mine)

"How can you sleep at night when you're a washed-down version of the generation that went before you?"

Haha I had the same thought, Mr. Groke.

"YOU'VE BUILT A BOX INSIDE THE BOX AND YOU'RE THINKING INSIDE THAT BOX."

To tired to read that Guardian article but this comment from the last para...

So where does that leave us? In a world in which originality is viewed with suspicion, radicalism has been subsumed by the mainstream, and bands are happy to churn out facsimiles of facsimiles of original pop.

... is total bollocks. When did anyone ever think originality was good? Well there's a two hundred year history of talking about art in terms of originality which hides the fact that it has always been a history of repetition rather than progression!! When was 'radicalism' subsumed by the mainstream? When we started talking about originality, i.e. when Coleridge went to work for the Royal Navy or Robert Burns took a job as a taxman? While one stole from the folk tradition, and the other from German philosophers! FFS.

WHY DOES NO-ONE WRITING IN NEWSPAPERS THINK?

WHY DO I EVEN CARE?

I can't hear "visual transgression", and so I dearly hope that it isn't "central to pop".

-- mark 0, Friday, 20 April 2007 10:33 (10 minutes ago)

Yet every popular subculture of the last 50 years has had people dressing in ways that are instantly recognisable.

For the record, SR hated SAW.

SR's writing in '87 was great, but that was 20 years ago now and everyone he doesn't link to on his blog towers over him these days.

When did anyone ever think originality was good? Well there's a two hundred year history of talking about art in terms of originality which hides the fact that it has always been a history of repetition rather than progression!!

it isn't that homogenous. some artists are content to repeat, others strive to progress. certainly they draw on, are influenced by or react against what came before, but to imply that there's no progression is just nonsensical.

and originality is certainly something to be valued, or at least pursued.

never trust a sentence in an argument which includes the word "fact"

maybe there is nothing original in art. it's all just images and sounds and words, innit? same old shit.

Mingus had the best take on it: "There is always great value in originality. But not originality alone, because there is originality in stupidity."

but there can be great value in original stupidity.

it isn't that homogenous. some artists are content to repeat, others strive to progress. certainly they draw on, are influenced by or react against what came before, but to imply that there's no progression is just nonsensical.

A) If an artist sees themself as facing a choice between 'being content to repeat' and 'striving to progress' then my point still stands since the general parameters for talking about art are cast in terms of progression or its absence. In so far as the concept of 'art' is invented in the late C18th (i.e. the idea that there is some quality in common between literature, music and visual art, superseding the system of the arts), art and the problem of originality are intimately tied together.

B) 'repetition' and 'originality' aren't mutually exclusive.

C) Progress -- as opposed to development -- is a term that only makes sense with reference to society as a whole. There may have been artistic development, but with reference to the question of freedom/autonomy (on which the idea of progress depends) there has only been repetition of the failure to achieve progress.

D) I was being deliberately sweeping and provocative so OF COURSE I KNOW IT'S MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT!!!