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

i can relate to the general premise above because i think mm is the "get out of jail free" cred card to play in crit monopoly. it's one of the man goober things you use so you don't have sit there trying to roll doubles and eventually pay $50 when you can't think of anything more shocking or noncanonical to put down in a top 100 list.

i actually prefer richard hell and voidoids better, but hey, my point: "HOT FOR MOTHACRACKIN TEACHER!"

dude,
m.

Sonny A. is OTM as far as taste is concerned, though this quote is missing an important part of the entire indie "psychological profile" (at the risk of being arbitrary). Sure, an up and coming indie/hipster/intellectual music listener will probably know a great deal about Marquee Moon's reputation even before they hear the goddamn album, and will therefore be pressured in some unmeasurable way to like it.

But an equally important part of taste-making is not just what you're pressured to listen to, but what you choose to listen to in the first place. As Sonny points out, everyone will devote different amounts of time to different bands based on individual taste. I used to listen to Sgt. Pepper while doing art projects in high school, and no matter how much I read about George Harrison's noble experimentation with the sitar, I refused to listen to "Within you/without you" after a few times. It might be the greatest song on the album if I give it time - I really don't know, or care. But the point is, musical taste is not just about what groups one is pressured to like; it's about the time and effort you want to invest in listening to music for appreciation as opposed to pleasure.

You say that "an equally important part of taste-making is not just what you're pressured to listen to, but what you choose to listen to in the first place." But how is this choice made? You have to hear about an artist first somewhere.

I just find the suggetion that there are people who read about Marquee Moon, buy it, don't really like it, and yet nevertheless represent it as being great to be questionable. Are people that cowed by others' opinions that they don't venture to speak up for themselves?

People aren't universally cowed by others' opinions but there's certainly a degree of uniformity involved. And if you're self-conscious to any degree whatsoever, you're going to feel somewhat defensive about making a top-100 albums list, and you will put certain albums in there no matter what. Who was surprised by London Calling?

I suppose when I say that it's important "what you choose to listen top in the first place," I mean that even aside from all the outside factors, on some gut level people's musical taste is based on what they like. No matter how influenced you are by critics, you might prefer 80's indie to 70's punk, or whatever. Every time you make a choice as to what to listen to, or what to purchase, you're making an equal choice to NOT listen to or purchase something else.

Um, yeah Tim, they are. Look at the entire fucking Democratic Senate during the Clinton impeachment, the certification of the 2000 election, the signing of the Patriot Act, the drum beat to war with Iraq. Educated people quite often roll over for fear of being the only voice of dissent.

So we can assume that via the inclusion of plenty of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and the like, Pforkers (at least I'm not calling them "Porkers") probably caught on to the rock/metal dynasties far ahead of the likes of Television, Wire, and the like

I don't think this naturally follows. Not necessarily anyway, because it probably does for some people. I got into both Led Zeppelin and old REM around the same time and loved both. The glossiness, the 'party mentality', the flash, and the near-total absence of blues or folk roots in VH makes them somewhat alien from both. Someone who values looseness, improvisation, earthiness, and noise in rock could easily find lots to love in Zeppelin and Hendrix as well as Husker Du and Sonic Youth but not necesarily in Van Halen.

jsoulja, I think this just happens to be your perspective. There has been no talk about HOW the first Van Halen album is thought to be better than Marquee Moon. I haven't heard the VH album in a long time, but if asked for an immediate reaction, I'd say that I honestly think that Marquee Moon is better.

And your comparison of critics to politicians was loaded.

By the way, we're talking about only six pitchfork writers out of fifteen who had MM in their top 15, four of whom had it in their top 10.

X-POST

That's actually really surprising. It seems that almost everyone I know in their 30s who's not an ILx poster was into them. And a lot of people in their 20s seem to be into the Hagar era. Are you in the UK? Did they not make as big a splash there?

Excellent point. So how does it end up #3? Even if you do the math, there had to be some allowances somewhere in the equation, and that is the heart of what I'm arguing.

And fine, even if you don't agree with me, it's lame to say the thread is a dud, because you were or are reading it.

Major problems I have with ILMers:

-Not enough response arguments or backing up of declarations.

-Making your argument "Yeah, well that's YOUR opinion!" (So weak...)

-Disclaiming the thread with "This thread is a dud." (Ok, off you go....)

Marquee Moon > Bitches Brew and Exile On Main St. = BULLSHIT

No fucking way that record is better than those two (among others), nor did it have anywhere near the impact, either at the time or posthumously. There you have two major milestones in music history by artists that Television can't even come close to touching. Really. It would be like saying Bret Easton Ellis's "Less Than Zero" is a better and more relevant existential novel than Camus's "The Stranger". Or easier: it's like saying that Dr. Octagon's debut (me being lazy) tops Paid In Full and It Takes A Nation....

Nope. No way. Not even close.

I really wanted to make my point with Van Halen alone, but there it is. Definitive proof. Sorry to the doubters and haters, but you LOSE.

When I heared Marquee Moon for the first time (ten stars for the single in Record Mirror (top mark was five)), it spoke to me directly. It took no smokes.

A friend bought the Van Halen album round, yes about the same time. I have no recollection of the album itself, only I remember thinking "This is well done, but I don't like it much".

I didn't not like it because it was well done, btw.

Van Halen always struck me as pathetic cock rock. That they are even being mentioned in the smae breath as Television puzzles me. But horses for courses eh?

fite!

yeah, "right now" is ASS PIMPLE CHEESE on crackers. indie cred aside, television on their worst night ever (drunk, asleep, and quadraplegic) is > van hagar.

seriously tho, the fist pumping fury of "hot for teacher man"... how can that be dull? have you no gutt? you're not deaf by chance? joke! bad joke. sorry. you're entitled to level it of course.
m.

oh boy.
m.

Meanwhile, Van Halen. "Jump." That's where my knowledge of the band begins and ends. What do you bet some of these Pitchfork critics just haven't heard that much Van Halen, what with all their indie conditioning?

this is what Christgau said about Marquee Moon when it was new:

I know why people complain about Tom Verlaine's angst-ridden voice, but fuck that, I haven't had such intense pleasure from a new release since I got into Layla three months after it came out, and this took about fifteen seconds. The lyrics, which are in a demotic-philosophical mode ("I was listening/listening to the rain/I was hearing/hearing something else"), would carry this record alone; so would the guitar playing, as lyrical and piercing as Clapton or Garcia but totally unlike either. Yes, you bet it rocks. And no, I didn't believe they'd be able to do it on record because I thought this band's excitement was all in the live raveups. Turns out that's about a third of it. A+

so that "after the fact" bizness is a little ripe I think

What jsoulja is really saying is more like: there's something suspect about liking music that wasn't released in your life time (unless it's continued to get mainstream air-play), or that you in any way would have to make a slight effort to find out about. And I still think that's limiting.

I wonder where college radio fits into this? Lots of music that many people have said they first discovered by reading about it, I originally discovered on college radio (which may have given it added punch, since I never even suspected that a lot of it existed when I first heard it). On the other hand, the DJs, in many ways, functioned as critics. They talked about how great various people were, and even they didn't explicitly say so, the tone in which they simply announced certain artists left no doubt that they held them in high esteem.

And in fact, I think I did kid myself into thinking I liked certain things I didn't really like under the influence of college radio. But I also think that only last for about 2 or 3 years. I have since gone through the process of wanting to like certain things so much, and trying to like them (whatever that can mean), in other genres, but after I've been listening for a while, I tend to spit out what I don't like, and keep what I do like. (Larry Harlow's Salsa may be a great album, but I can't get into it, and don't like charanga in general.)

Look at the entire fucking Democratic Senate during the Clinton impeachment, the certification of the 2000 election, the signing of the Patriot Act, the drum beat to war with Iraq. Educated people quite often roll over for fear of being the only voice of dissent.

Some of these examples are just not comparable, since so much more was at risk than indie cred. Take the Iraq example in particular. The U.S. public had witnessed a large-scale terrorist attack on U.S. soil. I remember having a conversation with someone I know during the lead up to the war, someone I like, but someone who I'm sure is more trusting of the government than I am, and someone who doesn't do a whole lot of digging for news. She seemed genuinely afraid of this "45 minute" threat business.

I don't remember the Clinton impeachment very vividly--I don't think I was paying much attention to the news at the time--but I would think a lot of senators were out to save their jobs.

this thread is a dud no matter which side of the argument you take

OTM.

I don't believe our tastes develop in a social void, since we don't live in a social void; but I also don't think it's as simple as "I heard that Sonic Youth are really great and important, so I'm going to like them."

ewww ... Crazy Horse is the grossest 40oz. ... makes you shit like crazy in the morning.

thus,
merlot > crazy horse.