am wondering at this point if I'll go to my grave without having read Hugo
― J0hn D., Monday, 19 January 2009 17:48 (fifteen years ago) link
Hugo v. Baudelaire (re Valery's essay on Baudelaire)
Hugo = romanticism, values scope, breadth, vision, immensity, seeks to contain universes, no one work is perfect, often find clumsy patches, but the sheer immensity of the oeuvre is astouding
Baudelaire (in deliberate contrast) = classicism, values unity, formal perfection, free from glaring errors of taste, smaller in scale but more realistic/cynical, whole life's work can fit easily in a book (or two compact discs, as it were)
― hey man dont look at me i dont vote (Drugs A. Money), Monday, 19 January 2009 18:26 (fifteen years ago) link
ian curtis' voice is so horrible
― Lingbert, Monday, January 19, 2009 4:40 PM (1 hour ago)
― non-ironic safety helmet wearer (John Justen), Monday, 19 January 2009 18:28 (fifteen years ago) link
A bit embarassed to admit that not only have I never read Hugo, I'm unfamiliar with the essay in question. But yeah, I guess I'm paraphrasing Valery.
― Calling All Creeps! (contenderizer), Monday, 19 January 2009 18:36 (fifteen years ago) link
oh no embarrassment necessary...just found this collection of essays on Baudelaire at some college library fire-sale & picked it up for like 25 cents...I don't think I've read much more of Hugo than a few excerpts myself (I take it you all have read Baudelaire, though, hmmm?)
― hey man dont look at me i dont vote (Drugs A. Money), Monday, 19 January 2009 18:39 (fifteen years ago) link
okay i'll admit it...not only have I not read any real amount of Hugo, not only have I not finished Les Fleurs du Mal, I haven't even heard Closer yet...which is why I haven't voted yet...I was just happy abt posting "Sheep", alright!
― hey man dont look at me i dont vote (Drugs A. Money), Monday, 19 January 2009 18:42 (fifteen years ago) link
Went through a Baudelaire & Rimbaud phase during the unlamented poetry years.
Anyway, I overstated the Joy Div = pop modernism thing. That crown rightly belongs to Kraftwerk and Gary Numan, both of whom had the good sense not be Ian Curtis.
― Calling All Creeps! (contenderizer), Monday, 19 January 2009 18:50 (fifteen years ago) link
i think JD fits as far a sPopl Modernism goes, though this prolley has more to do with Messrs. Hannett than anything (I'm guessing, since yknow I've never heard Closer and have heard UP only a few times...)
― hey man dont look at me i dont vote (Drugs A. Money), Monday, 19 January 2009 19:04 (fifteen years ago) link
sPopl = pop (Wow!)
― hey man dont look at me i dont vote (Drugs A. Money), Monday, 19 January 2009 19:06 (fifteen years ago) link
Oh yah, they totally fit, it's just that I don't think they ran the game. Curtis' lyrics and delivery erred too far on the side of tortured-artist emotionalism.
― Calling All Creeps! (contenderizer), Monday, 19 January 2009 19:08 (fifteen years ago) link
George, please stop saying you haven't heard Closer. It breaks my heart every time you say that.
― The Undead Look (Bimble Is Still More Goth Than You), Monday, 19 January 2009 19:09 (fifteen years ago) link
Joy Division could have done a terrific cover of "Let There Be More Light" or any of the More soundtrack songs.
― Chris Barrus (Elvis Telecom), Monday, 19 January 2009 19:10 (fifteen years ago) link
alright Bimble lol
― hey man dont look at me i dont vote (Drugs A. Money), Monday, 19 January 2009 19:12 (fifteen years ago) link
please stop pigeon-holing Barrett as being all cutey-pie twee. And even some of the twee shit still fucking rocks as hard and noisy as anything did back then.
― dan selzer, Monday, 19 January 2009 21:53 (fifteen years ago) link
Couldn't quite get my head around Pink Floyd as Victor Hugo, I always tend to think of them more in terms of Salvador Dali - the early avant garde experiments, the collabs with filmmakers, all the iconic classic period works - 'The Dark Side of the Moon' vs 'The Persistence of Memory', flying pigs vs lobster phones, all of that major stuff pretty much kitsch at this stage. Dunno who this makes Joy Division though. Alberto Giacometti?
― Yehudi Menudo (NickB), Monday, 19 January 2009 23:08 (fifteen years ago) link
joy division is terrible, but I bet they get lots of votes
― CaptainLorax, Monday, 19 January 2009 23:25 (fifteen years ago) link
Yah. Assume they'll win by a huge margin.
― Calling All Creeps! (contenderizer), Monday, 19 January 2009 23:29 (fifteen years ago) link
Not that they're terrible, mind, just that they'll win.
― Calling All Creeps! (contenderizer), Monday, 19 January 2009 23:30 (fifteen years ago) link
Pink Floyd = Victor Hugo = lotsa albums, long songs = GoliathJoy Division = Charles Baudelaire = few shorts songs, two albums = David
that was it...any real cogent details or insights about either band were conveniently ignored in order to make these vague generalizations work...
― hey man dont look at me i dont vote (Drugs A. Money), Monday, 19 January 2009 23:43 (fifteen years ago) link
the thing is Joy Division's inevitable victory really really is the romanticized-past gesture that Pink Floyd's would have been circa 1985 when everybody would have been saying "sure Joy Division was a good band but they only made a couple of albums"
― J0hn D., Monday, 19 January 2009 23:49 (fifteen years ago) link
also, dan otm in re: Barrett, to call him "twee" is to say "I haven't really listened v. hard"
― J0hn D., Monday, 19 January 2009 23:50 (fifteen years ago) link
Eh, I've been listening to PF & Barret for nearly 30 years now, sometimes hard, sometimes not. And fucker really was twee as shit a lot of the time (See Emily Play, Matilda Mother, The Gnome, Jugband Blues, freaking Bike, tons of stuff on the solo LPs), not that Engwish whimsey was the only thing he had going on.
― Calling All Creeps! (contenderizer), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 00:03 (fifteen years ago) link
And, hey, "twee" wasn't even my word in the 1st place.
― Calling All Creeps! (contenderizer), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 00:05 (fifteen years ago) link
it's only the singer that makes me hate Joy Division, I beleive
― CaptainLorax, Tuesday, 20 January 2009 00:22 (fifteen years ago) link
Engwish whimsey
― open wide, come inside, it's apple butter (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 00:33 (fifteen years ago) link
Bike is twee, but it's visionary twee...but hurrah for Lucifer Sam which is nowhere near twee...
also, whatever the romanticizing tendencies of the fans, I was basically going by Valery's framework that Romanticism = sweeping gestures & grand statements, whereas Classicism = unity, focus, a small perfection.
I wonder if Valery's essay is on the Internet...
― when David becomes the new Goliath (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 00:56 (fifteen years ago) link
And they said this thread was stupid.
― open wide, come inside, it's apple butter (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 01:26 (fifteen years ago) link
I couldn't find it...
Valery = not stupid in the leastValery filtered thru Drugs A. Money = quite possibly verging on stupid :)
― when David becomes the new Goliath (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 01:29 (fifteen years ago) link
Your take on Valery's making me think that if PF's Dali then JD's not Giacometti but de Chirico.
― dad a, Tuesday, 20 January 2009 02:06 (fifteen years ago) link
kind of works...wiki describes him (de Chirico) as being influenced by Schopenhauer (not to mention his influence on Sylvia Plath, who certainly has affinities with Joy Division, and certainly would've been a huge fan had she been born in, say, 1962)
― when David becomes the new Goliath (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 02:12 (fifteen years ago) link
all i know is SOMEONE was listening to The Wall pretty heavy in 1979:
"Mother I tried please belief meI'm doing the best that I canI'm ashamed of the things I've been put throughI'm ashamed of the person I amIsolation, isolation, isolation"
― scott seward, Tuesday, 20 January 2009 02:21 (fifteen years ago) link
but hurrah for Lucifer Sam which is nowhere near twee.
Well it is about a kitty...
― Hideous Lump, Tuesday, 20 January 2009 04:31 (fifteen years ago) link
uhhhhhhhhhh joy division duh
― Someone Still Loves You Evan and Jaron (Tape Store), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 04:46 (fifteen years ago) link
i agree with geir (!), james polk, and sonofstan upthread -- this really ought to be a pink floyd vs. joy division/new order poll. the way it's set up now, pink floyd ought to be handicapped by lopping off the roger waters era ... or by tacking on the bernard sumner/new order years to joy division. otherwise, it's just counting on the fact that pink floyd didn't change their name after syd barrett left and overlooking the fact that new order WAS joy division (except without ian curtis).
― Ein kluges Äpfelchen (Eisbaer), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 10:36 (fifteen years ago) link
Saucerful of Secrets vs. Movement
― Ein kluges Äpfelchen (Eisbaer), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 10:42 (fifteen years ago) link
And fucker really was twee as shit a lot of the time (See Emily Play, Matilda Mother, The Gnome, Jugband Blues, freaking Bike, tons of stuff on the solo LPs)
Excuse me, "Jugband Blues" twee?!??!?!?
― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Tom D.), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 10:44 (fifteen years ago) link
he was awfully apologetic for speaking his mind on "jugband blues," you know ... which is kinda twee if one overlooks the possibility that syd was being really sarcastic (which I for one think that he was).
― Ein kluges Äpfelchen (Eisbaer), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 10:47 (fifteen years ago) link
Yeah, that works a bit better doesn't it? That whole aura of creeping dread. And used on the cover of 'Thieves Like Us' obviously. We just need him to have pulled a Jacques Vaché for us before he went all neo-classicist.
― Yehudi Menudo (NickB), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 11:00 (fifteen years ago) link
Twee of Jugband most apparent in the delivery of "I'll do my loving in the winter."
― Calling All Creeps! (contenderizer), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 14:54 (fifteen years ago) link
Still don't see it
― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Tom D.), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 14:58 (fifteen years ago) link
that's okay
― Calling All Creeps! (contenderizer), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 15:00 (fifteen years ago) link
All this earnest chatter and no-one has made a Joy Division Bell gag yet? Sheesh guys!
― Yehudi Menudo (NickB), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 15:07 (fifteen years ago) link
joy division's a great band but come on
― kamerad, Tuesday, 20 January 2009 23:36 (fifteen years ago) link
joy division was the shit for 2 albums but pink floyd was the shit for 10 or something and yeah i can only listen to ian curtis for so long before i just want to listen to new order instead.
― shook pwns (omar little), Tuesday, 20 January 2009 23:42 (fifteen years ago) link
i used to hate Atom Heart Mother and now it makes sense to me. Suddenly unfocused orchestrations sound pretty cool. And Joy Division became a greater revelation to me when I heard the pre-Hannett recordings on Disc 3 of the box...and I always liked the albums...and The Final Cut remains one of my faves, so apparently my taste is fucked but maybe later I'll listen to Ummagumma and really get confused.
― smurfherder, Tuesday, 20 January 2009 23:57 (fifteen years ago) link
smurfherder, "the narrow way" parts 2 & 3 on 'umma gumma' are the jam
― kamerad, Wednesday, 21 January 2009 01:44 (fifteen years ago) link
Tee hee. I love it when people get on an "I HATE [BAND]" tip, it's so young teenage girl isn't it? I mean when I was 14 I had an "I HATE CULTURE CLUB" badge, god only knows why, they didn't consume me with rage I just thought it was cool to have something to hate on.
And every era will have something of the previous that people will brickbat, tbh its suprising Floyd still have milage in that regard seeing as these days its cool to like Genesis and suchlike.
― Trayce, Wednesday, 21 January 2009 02:12 (fifteen years ago) link
BTW, FWIW I'm not much of a fan of Pink Floyd *or* Joy Division. I only own one JD album and I dont think theyre much cop.
And Ian Curtis really was a dreaful singer.
hey now. ian curtis was the scott walker of manchester
― kamerad, Wednesday, 21 January 2009 02:30 (fifteen years ago) link
And?
― EZ Snappin, Wednesday, 21 January 2009 02:58 (fifteen years ago) link