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

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!

(This is where I also say that jsoulja's a spiff feller, having met him a few weeks back.)

I thought high art/low art was consigned to the wastebasket of the 17th century. I suppose there's Mr. Adorno and mass art. But I think we all know what he'd say about Television.

James

But by the same token, don't you think that people are also conditioned to like or say they like their ostensibly "direct" childhood pleasures (which are, invariably, hugely popular and heavily marketed mass media products)?

Once again, there is no magic barrier separating Van Halen from Television, but if you're going to tell me that putting a band whose lead guitarist doesn't even tune up half the time next to a band that consciously strove to be cerebral and artistic (never mind if they failed or if YOU don't think they're cerebral!), I'd have to disagree. VH is accesible, easy, fun. Television might have been accessible to you but how many people have you met that have even heard of it? More people know Van Halen than Television. Van Halen didn't strive to intellectualize its music. Television did (the allmusic review says this, so it must be true).

Interesting art? Well, a retro kitsch item is interesting now but was utterly banal when it served a purpose in the 50s, 60s, or 70s. And "interesting" changes with individual preferences, so it's not so much a convenient category as a recipe for cultural anarchy.

I would rank them higher, but I've never understood the point of ranking everything.

For me, tho, it does seem somewhat more defensible to like "Marquee Moon" more than a Van Halen album. It does seem a little more thought-out to me. Whether or not "thought-out" or subtle is a positive virtue is something rock and roll has made us all think about. But that's just me and I have to agree that this is kind of a tired thread--c'mon, haven't we gotten beyond this point? Van Halen is a nice populist something or another with, I must say, no discernible content, whereas "Marquee" does appear to be about walkin' around in New York or something, good. Van Halen, OK, it appears to be about riding in a convertible in San Diego or something, so I guess that's all right.

Slim Pickens OTM w/r/t everything he said in the last several posts! See, for whatever reason, I can't come out and make that kind of point without some inner tourettes (sic?) blurting out "yeah, and you an indie rock punk, too!" But I'm working on it.....

Cheers for the props, Ned!

The problem with that Pitchfork Top 100 is their lack of soul, funk, and reggae. But those indie guys did a decent list. They gave props to Sly's Riot, but to exclude Curtis and Marley in a 70's Top 100 is sorta stupid.

Low and Marquee Moon are some of my favs from that decade though. It was a fun Top 100 to read to me.

OK, Slim, but can you tell me what makes a bond "intrinsic"?

And what's up with the racial slurs? I understand the context, but still totally inappropriate.

Any list or compilation of lists that drops Marquee Moon as a #28 ALL TIME album is evidence enough that these "best of" lists are inaccurate and stupid. I don't really care about TV or VH to be honest, I was just interested in starting a thread exploring people's transitions from mainstream music to more left-of-center music and how it is that the latter ends up replacing the former in terms of preference.

But of course, as I suspected from the start, the whole idea of indie music cred posturing DOES play a major part in this, as we can see by so many people on this thread jumping all over me to dare to challenge the significance of a band as insignificant (in the grand scheme) but conveniently as indie as Television, while the more mainstream (but granted, equally insignificant) VH supporters take a more passive stance, because they're not worried about the POSE.

* Everyone's own taste will be paramount for them and them alone, though they might wish to communicate otherwise

* Lists will either be made or voted on

* Nobody has to care about them, but they're there anyway.

*shrug*

i would just like to point out, in a general sense, that there are many arguments, the individual parts of which can be disproven when considered individually and seperate from the others, that nonetheless stand and are correct when taken as a whole.

......but it IS OK to start a thread where everyone gets to bash on Dave Matthews Band.

Contradiction? Hypocricy? Huh?

PS I think DMB sucks, but that's just my opinion....

But when people respond by disagreeing and forming some sort of argument in opposition to what you initially suggested, you act shocked. If you make a claim here or anywhere else on an open web board, generally speaking you can expect some people to disagree with you.

x-post: the person who most consistently misses the point on this thread is you, jsoulja. You didn't just question the place of a Television album on a music list, you presented a psychological theory about what led to it being chosen.

The thing I am shocked about is how so many people found it unfair for me to dare suggest that Television's place on that list was somehow a form of indie rock name-dropping, and that this concept itself could not possibly have been attempted by the likes of Pitchfork staffers. I just don't think it's a crazy idea.

And yes, Marcel, there IS some conditioning involved with DMB. Sure, I think they suck, but the frat stigma attached to them also plays a part, even if you never heard the music.

Amongst a stack of CDs purchased in the midst of two very fair and even-handed ILMers not even a month ago, one of them saw a Death Cab CD in my pile and immediately said "You're getting that for your girlfriend, right?" Right there you have an example of conditioning. And I'm guilty of it, too.

Van Halen, according to jsoulja's assumption (which I agree with) that many Pfork writers grew up with it and absorbed it way before ever hearing of Television (unless, of course, there are millions of undercover TV fans openly listening to Van Halen).

Extrinsic: Originating from the outside; external.

As in, "Television, on the other hand, probably came to them through magazines, friends, or other sources, all of which probably made great mention of the band's cult status and pretensions to high art. Unlike candy, Television might not have been easy to swallow."

I do like to use big words a little too much sometimes, but most of the times they do make some sort of twisted sense.

(None of which should be taken to mean that there's anything wrong with VH or liking them.)

(OT: OK, Chuck, you're right about "Cold As Ice".)