let's ignore press terms and hear it on the artist's:
AGC: What interests me about pop music and commercial imagery in the first place is that it has the potential to be overwhelming, extravagant and banal all at the same time. Not only that, but mixing "high culture" with pop culture has lost its radical edge to the extent that it's more or less mainstream. Challenging something's commercial nature is a commercial tactic in itself, and authenticity is a tricky currency that is often swayed by branding and advertising. I have nothing against this, and many people respond to this kind of stuff in a sophisticated way. Though it means that there is room for a subtler and possibly more compelling way of engaging with these ideas, where shock value and direct irony is replaced with ambiguity and uncanniness. My work's constant use of instantly gratifying elements such as kitsch imagery, catchy hooks, synthetic colours and fun sound effects feels inevitable, it's almost a compulsion rather than a choice. Saying that, I try to be thoughtful as to how and why I'm using these things, and I think my over-the-top use of structure and layout is a result of this. It's also what makes the work feel ambiguous. It's sort of communicating something, but there's all this extra stuff going on. By the time you try to figure out what it's about, you've entered a sort of immersive world of ideas and references. Making it difficult to navigate not only adds to this effect, but it's also a way of giving it the overwhelming, extravagant and banal potential of commercial work. It's a particular style of craftsmanship that I could perhaps afford to ignore if I ever ended up doing large-scale commercial work, but it's definitely a way of making a bigger impact with limited resources, like a virtuoso playing on a simple instrument or an outsider artist obsessively using a tiny object to make an enormous piece. Maybe it gives my work a kind of manic individual quality, despite the fact that it's also basically a slick collage.
― imago, Saturday, 30 August 2014 21:37 (nine years ago) link
I'd like my pop without first-year art student blather.
― Herbie Handcock (Murgatroid), Saturday, 30 August 2014 21:53 (nine years ago) link
the book is "The Circle"
― katherine, Saturday, August 30, 2014 9:56 AM (4 hours ago)
ty - haven't read it, but haven't read/followed eggers in quite a while
― Adding ease. Adding wonder. Adding (contenderizer), Saturday, 30 August 2014 21:55 (nine years ago) link
^ ...aaaand, yeah, i notice now that the answer was provided earlier. ty nonetheless.
― Adding ease. Adding wonder. Adding (contenderizer), Saturday, 30 August 2014 21:59 (nine years ago) link
except the "so what, or who, is QT?" bit *is* the artist's terms, plus a lot more people are gonna read that than some interview
― katherine, Saturday, 30 August 2014 22:12 (nine years ago) link
Then you're reading the wrong message board.
― everything, Saturday, 30 August 2014 23:30 (nine years ago) link
Nothing here is as bad as that quote.
― Herbie Handcock (Murgatroid), Saturday, 30 August 2014 23:33 (nine years ago) link
I disagree. Don't really see to much to complain about with the quote - it's articulate and is helpful to me at least. I guess he's being overly explanatory for people who want the mystery. But then as seen in this thread, the absence of information seems to lead them to bizarre conclusions about the motives of the listeners and the exploitation of the women involved. He can't win either way.
― everything, Sunday, 31 August 2014 01:13 (nine years ago) link
my 2c is that he's prob some rly awkward overintellectual weirdo
― Gay Fire Beautiful Dong (Stevie D(eux)), Sunday, 31 August 2014 01:32 (nine years ago) link
Rly awkward overintellectual weirdos r00l tho
― Basically / I Don't Wanna Be / An mp3 / 3-2-0 kb / ps (Craigo Boingo), Sunday, 31 August 2014 01:36 (nine years ago) link
Yep, he's got plenty of good company if that's the case.
― everything, Sunday, 31 August 2014 01:41 (nine years ago) link
xp otm
― Gay Fire Beautiful Dong (Stevie D(eux)), Sunday, 31 August 2014 05:18 (nine years ago) link
Vaporwave did this better
― 龜, Sunday, 31 August 2014 13:30 (nine years ago) link
Looks like the new PC Music drop has steered away from the seemingly controversial bubblegum-bass...
It can be found here:https://soundcloud.com/pcmus/western-beats/s-viika
― nxd, Monday, 1 September 2014 15:16 (nine years ago) link
ahh yes more insensitive, post-ironic web shlock
"no, you're wrong! it's actually fantastic"
fuck this garbage completely
― hackshaw, Monday, 1 September 2014 18:10 (nine years ago) link
insensitive?
― imago, Monday, 1 September 2014 18:15 (nine years ago) link
hackshaw I'd like you to explain your accusation
― imago, Monday, 1 September 2014 18:32 (nine years ago) link
new QT single rulz so hard
QT logo would make a kewl tat
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/460_Width/1408/yKZHuK5Y.png
― davey, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 10:56 (nine years ago) link
hackshaw has not returned to defend their intellectually decrepit statements
― imago, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 12:01 (nine years ago) link
What interests me about pop music and commercial imagery in the first place is that it has the potential to be overwhelming, extravagant and banal all at the same time.
O RLY
i mean, that right there is contempt for pop, as in how pop is rather than your pet imagined version of What Pop Should Be Because Actual Pop Is So Mainstream or whatever
― lex pretend, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 12:32 (nine years ago) link
most pop is a lot more overwhelming and extravagant than any of this shit, though PC Music certainly get banal right
― lex pretend, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 12:33 (nine years ago) link
personally I am shocked someone doesn't want to defend himself against someone who's called his opinion "intellectually decrepit" right out of the gate
― katherine, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 13:57 (nine years ago) link
nice, assuming it's a male poster
don't understand what lex's first post there is trying to say
― imago, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 14:45 (nine years ago) link
calling this music 'insensitive' is charlatanry of the most profound order though, post-popist grandstanding nonsense-speak that ideates a notion of pop authenticity that must be protected from deconstruction at all odds. in other words, the sort of shit that should have been extinguished on ilm long ago
― imago, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 14:46 (nine years ago) link
all the people who have said "authenticity":
- you and other people who are calling people's posts "charlatanry" or "intellectually decrepit" or "the most repulsive thing I have ever read" for, as far as I can tell, not liking the music as much as they should- the artist himself
― katherine, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 14:54 (nine years ago) link
ah, so we're doing away with context are we? let's hear how the artist mentioned it:
authenticity is a tricky currency
we're the ones making a mockery of any claims to authenticity, as is surely inherent in any accusation of making music that is insensitive
charlatanry/intellectually decrepit/repulsive referred specifically to posts that either ascribed the music's badness to some kind of moral deficiency or posts which projected that a singer would be 'far less famous/wealthy/on track for a career' than the producers she works with, which is entirely up to her to evaluate & demonstrates only the careerist, elitist priorities of the poster imo
― imago, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 16:14 (nine years ago) link
yep, you sure got me. how awful of me to hope that artists I find promising go on to a successful career.
― katherine, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 16:22 (nine years ago) link
Surely there's a msg borad for HR consultants somewhere?
― everything, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 16:26 (nine years ago) link
it'll turn out that ag cook is a figure of the patriarchy, using hannah diamond for as much as he can wring outta her before dumping her on the kerb as soon as the contract from universal's in front of him, and boy howdy how silly we'll feel then
― imago, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 16:36 (nine years ago) link
either you're deliberately trolling at this point or you've got some bet going to prop up as many straw men as possible
― katherine, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 16:49 (nine years ago) link
simply posting out of frustration that you'd reduce a collaborative piece of music to a projection of gender bias that you've admitted yourself is just a hunch, in order to find fault with it
really hannah diamond should come on right now and speak for herself
― imago, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 16:54 (nine years ago) link
...
― example (crüt), Tuesday, 2 September 2014 16:55 (nine years ago) link
you're right, no one should find fault in any music ever
― katherine, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 16:58 (nine years ago) link
i mean in an ideal world she would, i'm not being prescriptive :P
― imago, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 16:58 (nine years ago) link
"hey qt" is atrocious
― example (crüt), Tuesday, 2 September 2014 16:58 (nine years ago) link
yep
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Tuesday, 2 September 2014 16:59 (nine years ago) link
Yeah
― 龜, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 16:59 (nine years ago) link
find this stuff pretty cynical regardless of the transmitted earnestness in the uh artist statements
cmon katherine, that's a weak argument!
srsly, defend the idea that this music lacks merit because the singers are reduced to the level of cipher (any more so than in music you enjoy) - go on
― imago, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 17:00 (nine years ago) link
don't really need a mediated layer between me and pop music
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Tuesday, 2 September 2014 17:00 (nine years ago) link
isn't there always one?
― imago, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 17:01 (nine years ago) link
when you don't explain yourself you're "intellectually decrepit" and when you do explain yourself you're "the most repulsive thing I've ever read" so no, I get enough fucking hate mail as it is to invite more
― katherine, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 17:01 (nine years ago) link
so you're admitting to being hackshaw?
excuse me for not loading all hundred-and-something previous posts of this thread to copy and paste the exact way I was insulted
― katherine, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 17:02 (nine years ago) link
yeah but it's not totally necessary to the music functioning at all?
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Tuesday, 2 September 2014 17:03 (nine years ago) link
i didn't insult you, i merely said your statement was repulsive. possibly overdoing it a bit. everything aimed at hackshaw stands, though, unless hackshaw themselves can explain it in a way that makes any sense at all
it's possible to take this music at face value - when i opened up the youtube initially i did so purely within the context of it being music recommended by ppl i trust
― imago, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 17:04 (nine years ago) link
well bc that level of mediation is embedded in the music. this is pop but fuckkkqqqqqkked upppppppp mannnnnn, JUST LIKE POP AND CAPITALISM ACTUALLY ARE
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Tuesday, 2 September 2014 17:06 (nine years ago) link
it's not that fucked up! it works as pop imo
― imago, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 17:07 (nine years ago) link
wasn't insulting you, just saying the things you say are repulsive and intellectually decrepit!!
it's also possible not to 'take it at face value' so not sure what yr point is
― dyl, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 17:08 (nine years ago) link
in what universe is "the most repulsive thing I've ever read" not an insult?
as far as explanation, I've already explained myself at length, multiple times (including in a review with a 6/10 score! which is above average!) and do not feel the need to do so again when, as I see it, one side of the "argument" is "I do not hate this music but have reservations about it, which I will now calmly explain" and the other side is "YOU REPULSIVE CRETINS HOW DARE YOU DISLIKE THIS GENIUS SONG."
― katherine, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 17:08 (nine years ago) link