Simon Reynolds

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there's a conflation here of pop and rock, a bit (rock always had much more of a brief to shock, to overturn, than other kinds of popular music), but even pop had musical moments of pretty indisputable transgression, i.e. taking old gospel choir tunes and having the words be about romance, for instance - i.e. shake off those old traditions and boogie! it makes me think of the bit in "century of the self" where curtis finds some old fashion sales film from the 1920s, where an elegant woman stands in the middle of a room of frowsy wallflowers and says something like "each of you is special. each is unique. and yet you dress all the same! you must realize that your clothes say a lot about you. open yourself up to the world, show the world how special you are." music, especially jazz and pop music and rock, were taken up into this system where we show others what we're like on the inside by virtue of these signs. "oh, he likes pavement!" etc. i think music and clothes still operate this way but the society we're living in has changed. we're not all lonely hearts still trying to get out of winesburg ohio, any more, the weight of tradition which used to be so total and crushing has splintered, or melted into air. so one of the great aspirational justifications for this kind of commodity-as-expression-of-individuality has vanished too, but the phenomenon persists.

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 20 April 2007 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

^^^ back to the punk thread. transgression/rebellion is a capitalist response to tradition. transgression and rebellion are capitalisms allies, not their foes

― frankie driscoll, Friday, 20 April 2007 14:28 (nineteen years ago)

well maybe not vanished, actually - it's still going strong, i.e. this IBM ad campaign:

http://www.ibm.com/innovation/guide/image/casehome/case_studies_home.jpg

and also that hair grooming ad with two kids from china, where they're stuck in stultifying, uniform classrooms and then secretly gel their hair up to look punky and western and crazy and then run jubilantly out of the school. but i think these ads trade today more on the (VERY) strong memories of this kind of thing, rather than on any current intensity of impulse.

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 20 April 2007 14:33 (nineteen years ago)

frankie that seems like kind of a blanket statement.

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 20 April 2007 14:34 (nineteen years ago)

"The first 60-second TV spot breaks Saturday during the NCAA basketball tournament. It depicts a stream of blue flower petals that emerge from a factory's smokestack and float over various settings, such as a cluster of office cubicles or the maternity ward in a hospital. The focus then shifts to groups of men and women who appear to be singing along to a song from the Kinks that speaks to the new positioning: 'I'm Not Like Anybody Else.'"

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 20 April 2007 14:36 (nineteen years ago)

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

-- Marcello Carlin, Friday, April 20, 2007 2:04 PM (5 hours ago)"

insanity

― That one guy that quit, Friday, 20 April 2007 17:04 (nineteen years ago)

"^^^ back to the punk thread. transgression/rebellion is a capitalist response to tradition. transgression and rebellion are capitalisms allies, not their foes

-- frankie driscoll, Friday, April 20, 2007 5:28 PM (2 hours ago)"

insanity

― That one guy that quit, Friday, 20 April 2007 17:05 (nineteen years ago)

I love how efficient we all are. When some of us go to sleep, others pick up the thread. When you guys take a nap, I'm awake and ready to go at it again. We're like... the army.

Frank, what makes, I think, the new Poptimist games so interesting is that they acknowledge it's about personal taste - so maybe you have a hierarchy, but there's an admission that it is personal, not factual (or whatever the opposite of personal taste is). After you decide to give every song a fair shake, you might still dislike some, but you've at least not dismissed any because of assumptions of hierarchy.

Though, that hierarchy runs both ways. I've heard so many times in the last year about bands touted by the British music press - as though the fact they were touted is reason enough to dismiss them (Arctic Monkeys, The Klaxons, etc). Ideally, one of the accomplishment of Poptimism would be removing any of these non-music considerations, but I think what ends up happened is that people see Poptimisim as Rockism for pop music - yet another ideology.

― Mordechai Shinefield, Friday, 20 April 2007 17:10 (nineteen years ago)

No Mordy, I don't acknowledge that it's about personal taste. I'm making value judgments, and in many instances I think my value judgments are right. Which doesn't make them "facts," either. "Personal taste" and "universal facts" are not the only two choices, and a value judgment is neither mere taste nor an undisputable fact. You're right that we try not to go in and dismiss something out of hand, and we like a cacophony of voices and judgments; but nonetheless the judgments I end up making (and sometimes revising) are usually based on ideas that I went in with as to what makes some stuff good and other stuff bad. And many of those ideas of good and bad preceded me on this Earth. "Going in with ideas of what's better and worse" is not the same as "employs fixed hierarchies"; still, the former is hierarchical: I think some stuff is better than other stuff. As does everybody, though not everyone is as opinionated about music as I am. (The statement "Nothing is better than anything else" is self-contradictory.)

― Frank Kogan, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:43 (nineteen years ago)

If one of my criteria for good music is that it makes the British music press choke on its own phlegm, then the Arctic Monkeys and the Klaxons make poor music. Of course, that's a boring criterion; but it's not obvious to me that someone who does use that criterion is bringing in a "nonmusical consideration." Such considerations are very much a part of music. Music is a social marker. We use our tastes in social differentiation. This is not something we have a choice about; and this applies as much to the pop audience as to the rock audience (who to a big extent are the same audience anyway).

― Frank Kogan, Friday, 20 April 2007 20:02 (nineteen years ago)

I don't know. I'm going to need to grapple with that, Frank. I have an acquaintance who frequently tells me that my taste in music/film/television is objectively bad. No matter how many arguments I give him for why I find value in those "objectively bad" things, he dismisses them by saying that since they fail his personal system of values, they are objectively bad. Now that's obviously poor thinking on numerous levels. First, he's implying that his value system is more "right" than mine is, with no explanation for why. Second, he's implying that there can only be one right response to a piece of art. Which ignores social dynamics significantly. This happens a lot around race - whether it's Matisyahu or M.I.A., who you are when you listen obviously has a lot to do with what you hear. I don't think you're disagreeing with this - I assume you'd agree that an intelligent music critic assumes that his reading isn't the only possible one. So where I'm getting tripped up - what makes this not your personal taste? Or if not taste, what makes this not your personal view? And if it's not personal because you have objective values you're bringing in, what makes your values anything but subjective?

― Mordechai Shinefield, Friday, 20 April 2007 20:48 (nineteen years ago)

The big problem I have with Reynolds is the way his books read like a collection of individual articles lacking much in the way of an overall narrative thread.

― The Real Dirty Vicar, Friday, 20 April 2007 23:07 (nineteen years ago)

Mordy, I'm saying that "personal taste" and "fact" are not your only two choices, and "value judgment" is neither one nor the other. If you examine your own behavior you'll probably notice that you don't treat your own value judgments as either universal facts or as matters of personal taste that are no better than anyone else's.

Calling something a "fact" is a way to try to cut-off argument about it (since everyone has to agree with facts, or anyway the claim is they will once they have all the necessary information and understanding, and if they don't they're mentally deficient or unqualified or something); calling something "personal taste" is another way to try and end argument, since if I say that I like broccoli and dislike asparagus but that that's just my personal taste and I don't think one is better than the other, there's nothing to argue about, unless you think I'm actually lying or deluded about my own preferences. Whereas (sorry about confirming [Removed Illegal Link], but this makes my point real well), if I say Hitler was a bad man, that's something that is not just my personal taste - rather it's something that I think is true, not just for me, but for the world, whether people agree with me or not, and I can and will argue for it - but it's something that I could imagine someone in possession of all the facts and knowledge disagreeing with. Which isn't to say that usage is settled about what constitutes a claim to be fact or value judgment or personal taste. E.g., if someone in the middle of a dinner party says "I'm bored" this comes across as a value judgment even if he claims he's just talking about his own inner preferences and he's not claiming the party is boring. Anyway, attempts to reduce value judgments either to facts or to personal taste rarely work, because the people surrounding the attempt don't cooperate.

(I'd get rid of the words "objective" and "subjective" altogether, because they're buzz words that don't explain anything. But that discussion would take us farther off-topic; there's an old, frustrating thread on objective and subjective if you ever care to look at it.)

― Frank Kogan, Friday, 20 April 2007 23:11 (nineteen years ago)

Though, that hierarchy runs both ways. I've heard so many times in the last year about bands touted by the British music press - as though the fact they were touted is reason enough to dismiss them (Arctic Monkeys, The Klaxons, etc). Ideally, one of the accomplishment of Poptimism would be removing any of these non-music considerations, but I think what ends up happened is that people see Poptimism as Rockism for pop music - yet another ideology.

I guess a last thought on this subtopic (which I do think is relevant to Reynolds, but still...) is that I don't understand your use of the word "ideology": why is "We can dismiss the Arctic Monkeys out of hand for being indie rockers touted by the music press" ideology, but "We shouldn't dismiss the Arctic Monkey out of hand" not ideology? Seems to me that both statements are equally ideological, just that the second one is better.

― Frank Kogan, Friday, 20 April 2007 23:23 (nineteen years ago)

(Oops, screwed up the Godwin's Law link; [Removed Illegal Link].

― Frank Kogan, Friday, 20 April 2007 23:32 (nineteen years ago)

Hmmm.

[Removed Illegal Link]

― Frank Kogan, Friday, 20 April 2007 23:33 (nineteen years ago)

Phooey:

[Removed Illegal Link]

― Frank Kogan, Friday, 20 April 2007 23:35 (nineteen years ago)

wow, wow, wow that subjectibity / objectivity thread. well, wow southall. perhaps there are facts about how we use music thou and sometimes these facts can be seen to be part of things (facts, states of the world) in the wider world that are deemed to be more (ahoy value judgement) important in some kind of wider context. sort of a use no meaning tip i guess. was reading about Rock Against Rascism and thinking that maybe it doesn't matter what noise Tom Robinson was making if some dude didn't get beaten up in Chepstow. there was that huge critique of RIUSA in, i believe, Radical Philosophy which sort of took that tack about how post punk should mostly be seen as a useful tool in defeating the resurgence of the NF. this guy laid particular vitriol on reynolds saying nice things about howard devoto (and his "celebration" of ambivilance). reynold's himself is sort of playing the same trick but with paris. RP dude took it back to a fact that some music had a causal connection with some fact about late seventies politics/society. or at least something he would hope there was local consensus on " racism is bad" "stuff that decreases racism is good," reynolds perhaps is trying to ground value judgements in something if not factual but more agreeable on to... but then this is the thing for me... who is reynolds writing for? are they likely to gravitate to his position cos it hinges on things they have already consented to as unworthy of discussion. i need to read back the interview but there is a lot more there than the one bit. the stuff about pleasure is especially interesting and maybe neglected here. blah.

― acrobat, Friday, 20 April 2007 23:50 (nineteen years ago)

i'd find it a lot more sympathetic if the position was expressed more along the lines of "remember when you thought music was a powerful force for change, that it could mean something, that it was something that came from ordinary people and expressed the hopes and sentiments of ordinary people and that it was rooted in and tethered to normal life and then one day you woke up and heard this album and realised it was just another plaything and hobby of the rich, a vanity project of someone to laud it over everyday people and celebrate the vast inequalities of wealth on our planet"

this kind of argument has been made much more succesfully in regard to football than it has to music. the argument that theres too much money sloshing around, that its untethered from society

that the winner mentality/aesthetic that comes from having to drag self out of poor backgrounds to succeed is unironically displayed in those already rich that can buy their way through life without having done anything to contribute. and that the very idea of celebrating that and perpetuating it..leaves a nasty taste in the mouth

― 600, Saturday, 21 April 2007 06:22 (nineteen years ago)

Erm hang on. "RP dude took it back to a fact that some music had a causal connection with some fact about late seventies politics/society." isn't a fact at all.

In what way was post-punk a useful tool in defeating the NF? It wasn't popular music for one thing. Maybe two tone helped a bit - but RAR mainly preached to the choir. Due to many factors (more and more SWP alignment in particular I suspect) meant that RAR wasn't really much of a force after about 1980.

And the NF / BNP were defeated? Much as I like to congratulate myself for going to a RAR gig in 1978 (Stiff Little Fingers / Mekons / The Freeze / 15-16-17 ), I can't really claim it ended the extreme right wing in the UK.

And people thinking Devoto's 'notes from underground' stage personna ( ok a "celebration of ambivilance" if you will) had anything to do with the NF is just - odd - he was in a mixed race band at the most basic level and never said anything much in his lyrics about the NF.

― Sandy Blair, Saturday, 21 April 2007 06:29 (nineteen years ago)

why haven't more people talked about breakups?

― s.clover, Saturday, 21 April 2007 07:18 (nineteen years ago)

*ok i should have put fact is scare quotes! also Post Punk is taken v v widely so it is including two tone, reggae and punk itself really. from the article (it's in the new statesman btw) peter hain says:

[i]"I thought it was a critical blow against the National Front. It mobiilized a generation of young people - students, schoolchildren and others, especially working-class kids. I remember vividly at that carnival punks and skins coming out against the Nazis. It was a dangerous time, and it could have gone the other way. I think it was decisive in running the NF out of town and it helped create a climate in which being racist was not acceptable."[i]

Tom Robinson says;
[i]"There was a triumphalist feeling about the event. Never before had so many people been mobilised for that sort of cause. It was our Woodstock. People who previously felt isolated realised that thousands of others felt the same and it gave them the strength to go back to their schools or workplaces and confront the racists and their gut-wrenching jokes. In 1977 and 1978 there was a great danger of the NF becoming a credible political party, and if things like the RAR and ANL carnival had even a small effect in countering them, it was worth it."[i]

― acrobat, Saturday, 21 April 2007 11:41 (nineteen years ago)

Ok i think both make it clear that some of the stuff they are saying isn't fact perse but value judgements on things that we should be able to agree on. no i wouldn't say either believe this music destroyed far right politics but if it went a small way to discrediting it in the minds of some then i think they'd argue that it is a good thing. i think it's things like this where objective / subjective gets really messy. c.f. derrida's defence of paul de mann's anti semitic writings:

"The discovery of de Man's anti-semitic writing made page 1 of the New York Times,[12] and an angry debate followed: Jeffrey Mehlman, a professor of French at Boston University, declared there were “grounds for viewing the whole of deconstruction as a vast amnesty project for the politics of collaboration during World War II,” [13] while Jacques Derrida published a long piece responding to critics, declaring that “to judge, to condemn the work or the man . . . is to reproduce the exterminating gesture which one accuses de Man of not having armed himself against sooner.”[14] That seemed to some readers to draw an objectionable connection between criticism of de Man and extermination of the Jews.[15]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_de_Man#Wartime_Journalism_and_Anti-Semitic_Writing

i think maybe SR possibly feels that (and someone has said this unthread) the anti-rockist project as a way to escape some of the social promises of popular music yet he can come in for very similar criticisms from those even further on the social action side of things. here is the Radical Philosopy article;
http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/default.asp?channel_id=2187&editorial_id=18378

about devoto:
"Reynolds detests the organized Left. Rock Against Racism is only mentioned in order to berate its ‘puritan’ dogmatism and to defend the ‘unaligned’ individual (in this case, the ridiculous Howard Devoto). In fact, it was the Left’s attention to punk that created his ‘golden age’ of music journalism. When Gavin Martin wrote sourly about the huge 1981 Leeds Carnival Against Racism in NME, the next week’s letters page carried nothing but indignant rebuttals. Reynolds opines that a single quote from Jerry Dammers ‘did more for anti-racism than a thousand Anti-Nazi League speeches’, but it was activists in the ANL who originally arrived at that conclusion! That’s why we headlined the Specials at the Leeds Carnival. It was precisely because the ANL was not centred around political speeches, but around gigs and street action, that it attracted support, and eventually smashed the National Front."

― acrobat, Saturday, 21 April 2007 11:42 (nineteen years ago)

oops that looks very messy. subjectively.

― acrobat, Saturday, 21 April 2007 11:43 (nineteen years ago)

acrobat - I have no idea what he means about 'Activists arrived at that conclusion' means. Or why it is a rebuttal.

Firstly he's doing a bait and switch, making anti-racism unfashionable in pop music had contributions from many people and the RAR gigs were a part and everyone supported the ANL (why not?) But we didn't need ANLs permission and Hain is taking way to much credit.

Secondly if you call Devoto rediculous you loose any argument. thats just the laws of physics.

― Sandy Blair, Saturday, 21 April 2007 17:37 (nineteen years ago)

After slogging through this thread I still don't have a fricking clue what popism is? Maybe it's simply when people realize that rock isn't and never was the highest expression of popular music and that all music performances are to some extent about faking the moment.

Oh, and money is never untethered from society ever.

― leavethecapital, Saturday, 21 April 2007 18:12 (nineteen years ago)

Ok, Frank. I got what you're saying. I still think there's a division between musical taste and other arguments though. I admit I have specific tastes in music (I'm drawn to emo music more than, say, indie), and sometimes I believe that the music is flawed despite my personal taste. So I think Good Charlotte is awful music - and to paraphrase you, I'd argue my point because I think I'm right. But if someone said to me: 'How can you like emo music? Isn't it whiny?' My answer wouldn't be: 'It isn't whiny.' My answer would be: 'Sometimes it can be whiny, but I don't mind that. Not only that, sometimes I like it.' We're then at a definite impasse. Because I said I like whiny vocals and that person said they don't. There's nothing more I can convince them of (unless I try to point out what whining lyrics can accomplish - but they might have an aversion to that particular noise). Real life example: I love Thursday, but my mother says that the drumming gives her a headache. There's nothing I can say to make her stop getting headaches while listening to their drummer. Charlotte on the other hand didn't like Thursday, because she thought the lyrics were too 'emo.' And then when I showed her what I thought the lyrics were doing, she was able to appreciate them.

― Mordechai Shinefield, Sunday, 22 April 2007 01:48 (nineteen years ago)

Re: personal taste as an obstruction to argument:

Relevant here is the point that there are few if any reasons for liking something or disliking something which listeners hold all of the time. I think Frank illustrated this superbly when he talking about liking one singer because her voice sounds like a babbling brook and disliking another because voice sounds like a babbling brook (maybe it wasn't a babbling brook though - I remember the point better than the specific example).

Presumably here (and this is my point more than Frank's) there are further variables, which governs the situations where sounding like a babbling brook is good and sounding like a babbling brook is bad. When you isolate those further variables, though, you find the same problem - both in reverse (these variables may signify goodness or badness only when brought into a relationship with babbling brooks) and by infinite extension (there are further variables that govern the use of those variables). In terms of your example, I highly doubt your hypothetical friend dislikes all music which anyone might consider to be whiny, although she might decide for herself that the music is either not whiny for some other reason, or its whininess is legitimate.

So, for me, "personal taste" exists to be interrogated, at least insofar as that our articulations of our reactions to things are based on a chain of analogies by which "X sounds like Y, therefore I think Z" wherein the meaning of "Y" is never final, and for which there is no ultimate grounding (this is the sense in which our tastes are circular and self-supporting). So even if you and a friend agree that "Y" applies to a given "X", it always applies differently. If we look at debates on ILM, it's incredibly simplistic to reduce them to being just about whether a given piece of music is good or bad - the debates are mostly about the legitimacy of the attribution of "Y" to "X", and what "Y" really means.

― Tim F, Sunday, 22 April 2007 02:46 (nineteen years ago)

ha i dont think anyone was ever suggesting that money is untethered from society!

― 600, Sunday, 22 April 2007 06:01 (nineteen years ago)

Anybody see Simon's presentation at the EMP Pop Music Conference?

― curmudgeon, Sunday, 22 April 2007 21:47 (nineteen years ago)

two months pass...

Sorry to dredge this up but it kinda bothered me at the time:

-------------------------------------------------------

How many/few records has M.I.A. sold out of interest?

-- fandango (fandango), Friday, 7 October 2005 10:26 (1 year ago) Link

Currently her album is sitting proudly at #378 in the Amazon chart and there are a lot of copies with promo stickers on them on sale in London's second hand record shops so that'll give you some idea.

-- Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 7 October 2005 10:29 (1 year ago) Link

Aroundabout 5,000 worldwide, considering her respective chart positions in the US and UK, and how I can't imagine any other country has gone for her.

-- Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 7 October 2005 10:30 (1 year ago) Link

For the record, I believe sales of ArularL to be *way* higher than "5000."

-- Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 7 October 2005 16:42 (1 year ago) Link

in this link they mention "Arular" having sold more than 100 000. Which sounds about right to me - Roughly what "Boy in da Corner" sold right?

-- Jedmond (jedmon...), October 8th, 2005. (Jedmond) (later)

That's completely wrong. "Boy In Da Corner" entered the top 40 on three seperate occasions (at #40, #39, and a Mercury spike at #23 later in the year). At a rough guess, it may have cracked the US top 200 as well? "Arular" still hasn't gone top 100 in the UK, or top 200 US. Before Antony and the Johnsons won the Mercury, he was at 15,000 sold in the UK and the album had just failed to make top 40 (42? 43? I forget. Obviously, now it's gone top 20, he's probably looking at aroun d80,000). Considering that album came out roughly the same time as "Arular", the idea that it would have sold six times the level whilst achieving chart positions of around 50 to 60 places lower is absolute nonsense.

-- Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 9 October 2005 13:49 (1 year ago) Link

The 100,000 figure for MIA was for worldwide sales, whereas I'm seeing multiple references for Dizzee having sold 100,000 each for both of his albums in the UK.

-- Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 9 October 2005 14:10 (1 year ago) Link

"Showtime" probably sold three times the number of "Boy In Da Corner". 100,000 without going top 20 is a longshot (read "near impossible"). He's not the Violent Femmes, you know?

-- Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 10 October 2005 08:53 (1 year ago) Link

----------------------------------------------

For the record, I know much of this exchange was referring to UK sales but here are the US actuals as of today:

MIA - Arular = 128082

Dizzee Rascal - Boy in Da Corner = 58106

Dizzee Rascal - Showtime = 16024

and for reference:

The Streets - Original Pirate Material = 181305 (my friend says imports were another 5-10K+ on this one)

― Spencer Chow, Friday, 13 July 2007 19:01 (eighteen years ago)

so... FACED!, or something.

― Spencer Chow, Friday, 13 July 2007 20:32 (eighteen years ago)

Are those the US sales for both the XL and the Matador version of the first Dizzee record?

― Alex in SF, Friday, 13 July 2007 20:36 (eighteen years ago)

My source doesn't have access to import numbers but thinks they're negligible in this case (less than 5%).

― Spencer Chow, Friday, 13 July 2007 20:54 (eighteen years ago)

"Anybody see Simon's presentation at the EMP Pop Music Conference?"

i did.

― scott seward, Friday, 13 July 2007 21:05 (eighteen years ago)

eight months pass...

http://www.lifesacharacter.com/cartooncharacters/rodneymoose.gif

― banriquit, Thursday, 27 March 2008 18:58 (eighteen years ago)

His new blogging style is discussed on this other link also-

simon reynolds: classic or dud

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 27 March 2008 19:03 (eighteen years ago)

one month passes...

lol reynolds links to reynolds clone who links to reynolds clone:

http://mentasms.wordpress.com/2008/03/

Jungle and Brutalism are instantly polarising to the newcomer and the dilettante. Unlike techno or house, where the subject succumbs and ‘gets lost’ in the music, letting its inner rhythm descend to the tribal repetition of its ancestors, jungle requires an active engagement, a wilful acceleration of the body’s rhythm, beyond the ‘natural’. To enter the Junglistic state requires both a commitment and a risk; once you adjust to jungle’s accelerated state, you may not experience anything the same way again. Jungle and brutalism demand and require belief; belief that culture and community can be better, that they will be better, provided a collective commitment to progress is made and honoured.

ysi?

― banriquit, Sunday, 27 April 2008 14:27 (eighteen years ago)

i got 'bring the noise' for £2 in the bookshop opposite the british library. s'well worth it, even if some of it is blog posts. it's more 'him' than RIUASA, which he says was initially going to cover the whole period (of indie and alt rock) up to 1997!

― banriquit, Sunday, 27 April 2008 14:33 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.ukstudentlife.com/Britain/Music/Lyrics/2003Q1/B00007MF8V.jpg

― Dingbod Kesterson, Monday, 28 April 2008 10:13 (eighteen years ago)

"letting its inner rhythm descend to the tribal repetition of its ancestors"--inner rhythms have ancestors?

"Jungle and brutalism demand and require belief; belief that culture and community can be better, that they will be better, provided a collective commitment to progress is made and honoured."--there was no moodyness at jungle nights ever, ok.

― Raw Patrick, Monday, 28 April 2008 10:28 (eighteen years ago)

Jesus, that parallel between brutalist architecture and jungle is so torturously wrong on every level. Based on the quote above I thought the guy must be inventing a new genre called brutalism but no such luck.

I have a lot of time for Reynolds but his followers like this guy or Dissensus Kru do him no favours.

― Raw Patrick, Monday, 28 April 2008 10:33 (eighteen years ago)

in the book, simey appends a little paragraph to each essay, deflating what he said (quite often), or saying "actually, i quite like the redskins/oasis/conscious rap now". he also says categorically that dance music has been in stasis since the publication of 'energy flash' -- so i'm more stoked than ever for the second edition. and it's got some intriguing bits of autobio, like he'd been living in new york all of 1993 but came back just because jungle was blowing up. that's quite an investment, if it's true; but then he finds he has a really shitty time in uk garage clubs because, shocker, there's quite a bit of conspicuous consumption and coke going on. ie just like the trendy london club scene he thinks acid house/ardkore ripped up.

wonder what he'd make of fwd.

― banriquit, Monday, 28 April 2008 10:37 (eighteen years ago)

if the guy grew up in a brutalist estate and feels that, ok, kind of have to allow it. but there's been a shitload of commentary from the left about the ways post-war housing did help the tendency toward social atomism blah blah blah. i'm not a great believer in architecture-determines-behaviour type stuff in either direction, but it's not as if the only people who have not enjoyed the "brutalist experience" are conservative architecture critics.

― banriquit, Monday, 28 April 2008 10:39 (eighteen years ago)

This Mentasms blog reads like Miles Kington RIP doing Blissblog at its worst.

― Dingbod Kesterson, Monday, 28 April 2008 10:41 (eighteen years ago)

This brief assemblage of slightly countercultural and embarrassingly outdated buzzwords

You said it, mate.

(aren't these people spelling "collective" with two "k"s and a "v" any more? Fancy!)

― Dingbod Kesterson, Monday, 28 April 2008 10:43 (eighteen years ago)

You need your own gang of ChurchOfMe Juniors, Marcy.

― Dom Passantino, Monday, 28 April 2008 10:50 (eighteen years ago)

familyguy_herbert_and_victorian_orphans.jpg

― Dom Passantino, Monday, 28 April 2008 10:51 (eighteen years ago)

Six years on, this revival has allowed me finally to read Edna Welthorpe's response to that nutter who started the thread.

― the pinefox, Monday, 28 April 2008 10:55 (eighteen years ago)

but it's not as if the only people who have not enjoyed the "brutalist experience" are conservative architecture critics

It's more wrong in the ways it links the aesthetics of the two. My dissertation was partially a defence of brutalism. (It was a shit dissertation tho.)

You need your own gang of ChurchOfMe Juniors, Marcy.

Dingo sees everyone as this tho!

― Raw Patrick, Monday, 28 April 2008 10:56 (eighteen years ago)

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Simon Reynolds - C or D