MASSIVE ATTACK - BLUE LINES (1991) POLL

probably not aimed at new listeners

bottom line for me is that popular music, its audience and its discontents, has been in a unique-ish position for the last 5-10 years. this nostalgia is not the same as nostalgia used to be.

bottom line for me is that popular music, its audience and its discontents, has been in a unique-ish position for the last 5-10 years. this nostalgia is not the same as nostalgia used to be.

I'm not sure I agree with this at all. We're all in our 30s or older (I think), and whilst we're obviously still engaged with popular culture, the popular culture we're engaged with is very much not the same popular culture as 13-21 year olds (as an example age split) are engaged with. We're not, I'd wager, listening to and watching the same things, using the same channels of engagement, the same mediums and technologies, even if, superficially, to ourselves, we like to think we are. I have the tastes and habits of a 33-year-old professional man; I haven't a fucking clue what 15-year-old kids are doing now (though I suspect it may involve Rizzle Kicks and drugs). I think our nostalgia (as an age group) is exactly the same as every other kind of nostalgia that went before it; pining for lost youth and feeling vaguely jealous but uncomprehending of those who are enjoying it now.

i don't claim to "get" what teenagers' experience of culture is now but i'm pretty sure that contempo popular music sounds waaaaay less alien to me than it did to my old man when he was my age, nevermind how 1965 must've sounded to most peeps born in 1925

it's the difference between stylistic tweaks of the established and fairly radical ruptures imo

also i don't have nostalgia for popular music in any meaningful way, certainly not half the crap that was in my milieu in 1992

feel like the alternative is a kind of Whig History of pop music which makes me shudder to even contemplate. that same Whig History is close to the mainstream narrative tho i fear

I think our nostalgia (as an age group) is exactly the same as every other kind of nostalgia that went before it; pining for lost youth and feeling vaguely jealous but uncomprehending of those who are enjoying it now.

why on earth give in to this? it sounds horrible.

why pine for your fucking youth unless you're dissatisfied with your life and your self as they are now?

why pine for your fucking youth unless you're dissatisfied with your life and your self as they are now?

Because people have kids and mortgages and stomach ulcers and bad knees and work stress, Lex, and without those things society would crumble and we'd all die and your magical zesty exciting life would go to shit, too. You can be entirely recobnciled to (and, indeed, happy, and actually heart-burstingly delirious) with all of those things, and still go a bit misty-eyed over dancing in the disco when you were 16.

Because nostalgia can be quite a pleasant thing in certain circumstances. Didactically dismissing it out of hand shows a lack of empathy for people who do engage in a bit of it. I doubt, in fact I know, that most people our age don't walk around in a permanent 90s fug, crying at the thought that no one will ever release a single as good as Unfinished Sympathy or Country House again. It's not the evil force that you seem to think it is. People's lives and tastes change, and every so often they want a reminder of how things were; and that's fine.

More specifically, I don't think many of the people who engage in discourse on ILM are the inveterate, helpless, perpetual nostalgia sufferers that you seem to be wanting to straw-man; that fact that we're here, talking about new music (and old music) says we're still hungry and engaged. My point is just that we're not engaging with the kinds of things that the actual bona fide youth are engaging with. Probbaly not even you.

why pine for your fucking youth unless you're dissatisfied with your life and your self as they are now?

some things become better, others are lost forever, it's the nature of life. nostalgia is hardly owned or dominated by the crappy reissue industry, lost youth or mortality is at the root of huge swathes of the greatest works of art ever made. it's a matter of debate which old things were better and which were worse.

ironically you're arguing that nostalgia today is worse than it was before...

there is a serious difference i think between nostalgia as a personal emotion/experience and nostalgia as a form of cultural expression/production. and i might concede that the former is an unchanging aspect of human nature (tho i don't believe it) but i'm certain that the latter changes thru time and social landscape

Lex is fronting on this a bit, I know full well that if he was at a house party and someone put on Relevee or In White Rooms he would lose his shit and maybe get a bit misty eyed about peak raving days. But that would be defended on the grounds that those records also sound great NOW and in the moment, and arguing about "nostalgia" seems to be denying Blue Lines that same privilege here.

Maybe there are 18 year olds listening to Blue Lines still, it's part of the core DNA of modern pop music, probably more so than the Beatles nowadays. Although if I had to guess which Massive Attack song is most popular among young people it would probably be Teardrop. But none of those kids will be buying the overpriced remastered reissue.

it makes sense to think of some places and eras as more culturally nostalgic than others, i think, even while we recognise that public culture is far from monolothic and human beings are not reducible to the product of a culture

In any case house music (and post-UKG British dance music) are constantly reappropriating and recontextualising the classics. Think how many times 'Show Me Love' has re-emerged over the years.

reissuing a record might just give it to people who hadn't heard it... it's hardly as if the only reissues that ever happen are massive canonical classics, but even so, not everyone has heard every massive canonical classic.

xpost not to mention all the 2-step revivalism that Lex likes.

i think people do that kind of thing to prove something to the world, like they've "put their money where their mouth is" in terms of their interests. a bit like a football supporter buying all the merchandise.

This and Noodle Vague's points OTM, I think there's an element of wanting to have your Absolute All-time Favourite Classic Album(s) stand above and apart from the rest of your record collection, buying something like that Screamadelica boxed set in the massive tin is one step removed from literally putting the album on a pedestal. It doesn't really bother me, I can never afford these things anyway.

I've no idea what '90s music young people listen to or where Massive Attack might fit in but would be interested to know.

At our university open day earlier this month I spotted four teenage boys wearing Beatles t-shirts, one wearing a Who t-shirt, and one wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt, but none in Blur or Massive Attack t-shirts.

why pine for your fucking youth unless you're dissatisfied with your life and your self as they are now?

the weird thing to me is that you seem determined to align your "life and your self now" with cultural commodities that are, afaict, very consciously made for people much younger than yourself. it's like your pining for/identifying with other people's youths in an effort to maintain a perpetual state of youthiness.

says the armchair psychologist

personally I don't think things were "better" in the 80s or the 90s or any other decade in which I was more directly/heavily invested in youth culture, but it is interesting to remember and reflect on things. this is a basic human reaction to living in a world where time only flows in one direction.

also curious about when lex's cutoff point for listening to a particular album/song is. 6 months? a year? 5 years? at what point is it no longer acceptable to listen to something because it's "too old"?

it's like your pining for/identifying with other people's youths in an effort to maintain a perpetual state of youthiness.

rejecting nostalgism can also be a way to try to retain one's youth. "oh I'm not nostalgic, that's for OLD PEOPLE".

Much of the most exciting music in the world is made by and for young people and has been for like 100 years. Shakey what's your cutoff for legitimately enjoying it?

also curious about when lex's cutoff point for listening to a particular album/song is. 6 months? a year? 5 years? at what point is it no longer acceptable to listen to something because it's "too old"?

i listen to old music all the time

getting excited about re-released box set nonsense is another matter

teenpop is for everyone

i first heard this album in 2010 and i'm listening to it an awful lot. i like to imagine how cool my life would have been, if i'd been listening to this in 1991. am i nostalgic? btw i'm old.

Much of the most exciting music in the world is made by and for young people and has been for like 100 years. Shakey what's your cutoff for legitimately enjoying it?

I'm not particularly concerned with the age of the people making music or when it came out, or even, really when I was first exposed to it. I do not, however, define "my life and my life now" (to use lex's terminology) by any age-related music criteria. I don't think listening to teen pop makes me younger or more closely identifies me with "WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW" or anything like that. similarly I don't think that listening to music that I first listened to when I was 15 is necessarily nostalgia - sometimes it's just interesting to revisit stuff.

it is true I don't like modern teen pop, primarily because it's working with a sonic palette that I find harsh and grating 9 times out of 10. That being the case, I don't feel compelled to listen to it just because it's made by young people/targeted at young people. I don't give a shit about that. My interest in top 40 pop stuff kind of depends on the era and some periods have been better than others - the current period just happens to largely be a wasteland imho.

I don't think you actually understand the point under discussion here.

I'm just needling lex for his weird critical foibles

what point do you think I'm missing?

You don't really have a handle on the critical foibles (partly because Lex isn't making himself particularly clear here) but also what we're talking about really is the commodification of nostalgia.

There's probably a side issue here that all-pervasive fetishisation of 'youth' throughout popular culture actually DOES lead to a lot of people feeling that they're past-it by the age of 30, which I suspect does the reissues industry no harm either, but that's another debate.

eh fair enough.

I agree with others here who have already pointed out that current nostalgia commodification efforts seem very much driven by the industry just following the money ("who still buys music = old people! what do old people like? old stuff!") and in that sense yeah I have no use for it either. the only reissues I buy are things I was not able to previously get my hands on for whatever reason. I don't need a Screamadelica or Blur or Massive Attack or Stone Roses box, I have the originals if I ever want to listen to them.

Wondering if remastering of acclaimed albums will dramatically drop off in a few more years as we get to 20th anniversary of 'over-compression'.

Maybe they'll remaster What's The Story (Morning Glory) so it's quieter and more spacious and you can actually hear Bonehead strumming a lute in the background.

I thin Shakey's hit something there though, in terms of why Lex hates nostalgia so much - it seems like a hatred beyond just the commodification of the concept. If Lex thinks its bad because its about pining for your youth to the point of recapturing it, or trying to, then isn't staying au fait (and deeply involved) with the pop cultural loves of people much younger than you a similar kind of way of trying to recapture / perpetuate youth?

Also, Lex might say "teen pop is for everyone" but I have a sneaking suspicion he'd be grossed out by, say, David Cameron dancing to Azaelia Banks. Which is not beyond the realms of possibility.

But yeah, I'd totally not be surprised by remasters in a couple of years trying to make things more nuanced and less squished.

AZB is not teenpop
I'm amused by the Cameron appreciation of it. Better than all those Labour MPs tweeting shamelessly about indie

I agree that teenpop is for everyone in the sense that all music is for everyone, sure. but old people engage with teenpop in a different way and for different reasons than teenagers do - an old person who acts/thinks/feels like a teenager is a distinctly creepy and sad thing, for ex.

the other irony is that people like lex who obsessively lionize/romanticize youth are precisely the kind of people that become excessively prone to nostalgia

perhaps fetishize is a better word there

I don't think Lex is consciously fetishizing 'youth' specifically, but rather a set of attributes which all signify 'youth' when you add them together.

okay sure

gonna stick with youthiness

Jesus Christ you guys if you can't be arsed to engage with swathes of modern music because you've mentally bundled it into a package labelled "Youth culture - past that now - don't understand" that's on you but at least recognise that not everyone wants to do that past the age of 30. And you're not actually in any position to draw any real conclusions on the people who don't do that because you're not actually engaging with any of the music they're listening to.

if you can't be arsed to engage with swathes of modern music because you've mentally bundled it into a package labelled "Youth culture - past that now - don't understand"

http://www.redtelephone66.com/albumart/aasm.jpg

uh lol hueg sorry

It's hardly strawmanning, it's what you're both doing in this very thread.

If Lex thinks its bad because its about pining for your youth to the point of recapturing it, or trying to, then isn't staying au fait (and deeply involved) with the pop cultural loves of people much younger than you a similar kind of way of trying to recapture / perpetuate youth?

Or...

I have the tastes and habits of a 33-year-old professional man; I haven't a fucking clue what 15-year-old kids are doing now (though I suspect it may involve Rizzle Kicks and drugs).

As if 33-year old men are a monolith.

I'm not even trying to Cap'n Save-A-Lex here because I think he's basically wrong about nostalgia here but some of the attempts at trying to rationalise what he's saying deserve a serious eyeroll as well.

can't be arsed to engage with swathes of modern music because you've mentally bundled it into a package labelled "Youth culture - past that now - don't understand"

but nobody's really said that? shakey said he doesn't like the aesthetics

Matt, dude, I'm not rationalising, I'm trolling.

It's hardly strawmanning, it's what you're both doing in this very thread.

those aren't my posts bro

fwiw I agree w the first bit quoted, the second bit not so much, that's Scick Mouthy's POV