Television #3 Vs. Van Halen #73 Vs. Indie Music Cred Conditioning

Early Wire's great too, btw.

I'm old, though. When those records were coming out, they were like candy. You didn't have to make any intellectual leap of faith to like them.

Good question, but that would be a pretty grim peer group.

And I say TV made #3 because of indie cred posturing and nothing more.

That's not much of a theory, and every time anyone challenges you, you viciously insult them ... gee, can I give you a grant?

I get where you're going with this, but your attempts to psychoanalyze Pitchfork are pretty tossed-off compared to this guy's.

http://www.fasteddiesbullet.com/images/stookie1.jpg

!http://www.his.com/~borgrav/web%20images%201/gber1.jpg

Neither, I would hope! We value them when we feel that there's good music being made that's obscure and complex.

My friend, a film buff (real person, by the way), names Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" as one of his all-time favorite films, even though he's seen it maybe three times. He also likes John Hughes "Sixteen Candles", which he has seen almost twenty times in his life. Both films blew him away when he first saw them, though of course he came to Kurosawa's film much later in life. If you look at his DVD collection, there are many similar classic/art type films that he has seen maybe twice each, at best, but few of the teen romps or action films that he's seen so many times that he can recite the script. Now, if you ask him for his list of favorite films, he puts all the classics at the top and leave the old favorite teen romps and action pics at the bottom, but why? Does he really prefer it this way, when the history of who he is suggests otherwise? My answer was/is that he recognizes that the mature, informed pick is supposed to be the classic over the romp, and since he truly does appreciate the classic and its artistry, and since his tastes have evolved anyway, in that direction, this is the obvious choice.

I'm suggesting that making this choice might also be a lie.

Iris Murdoch is my favorite novelist, but I've only read The Green Knight (my favorite book by her once) once. Do I like it better than some book I read five times when I was a teenager? Of course.

And Peter, I have NEVER felt any social pressure to like some music! Putting on airs about something so that I can participate in some social situation is not something that I've ever felt the need to do.

Does that mean you liked the two times you had sex with the "more your speed these days" art school girl in undergrad than the 50 times you did it with Wild Lucy in high school?

I'm suggesting that making this choice might also be a lie.

-- jsoulja (jsajd...), June 29th, 2004.

nobody REALLY likes art movies. they just say they do. you tell 'em soulja.

Are you suggesting that this can't be so???

no, he wants us to think that we all are just hair metal/low-brow movie freaks and won't let ourselves admit it.

i mean who actually listens to Television, right? Especially when you can rock out with Diamond Dave!

And to all those people who say I'm throwing out insults, um, if you read the thread, I tossed out an idea (perhaps roughly), but I didn't start throwing out anything until it was thrown at me, and I find the whole vicious sarcasm trend on ILM to be far more tiring than an IDEA (even if it's half-cocked in your mind).

For example, play "first thought" with someone: TV or VH? "TV"

Ok, that's the immediate truth.

Take the same game, same person, sleep deprivate them for 4 days, give them only limited food, loud noises, bright lights (yes, US military prisons) and ask same question: answer is the closest you get to the ecstatic truth.

Not my intended point, but I think that it's funny that, on a similar level, the likes of Van Halen are reduced to mere "cock-rock" on this thread when it's possible and even likely that to some portion of us that it was VH or a similar band that introduced us to rock music in the first place, and that the experience somehow takes a backseat to the later, artier and more cerebral discovery of Television. And one scoffs when I throw out words like "poseur" and "elitist"?

Pop art, on the other hand, is art that has the cause and effect in itself - the viewer's reaction is built-in. Anyone watching a teen movie knows when to laugh, when to cry, etc. People watching a more complex art film often have to put more cerebral thought into how they react.

Of course, this isn't to say that Van Halen is trash and TV is art for art's sake. But it's a useful illustration, especially in light of jsoulja's post about his film buff friend.

A better example might be found in their 80's list. For instance, putting Talking Heads "Remain in Light" over albums by the Smiths and R.E.M.

cheerleaders, man, cheerleaders!