Simon Reynolds - C or D

Also I realized the lyrics I copypasted are wrong, it's "they ass be real fat when they goin through that phase."

1. Do any of you really think rappers can become superstars without a massive white audience?

2. Raise your hand if you listen to your favorite hip-hop acts in seclusion (be it in your bedroom in your mom's basement, or on your iPod she bought you for your birthday).

3. Raise your hand (don't worry, nobody can actually see you raising it!) if you touch your naughty places when looking at the oiled up shirtless poster of Tupac hanging on your wall next to your bed.

I FEEL LIKE EMINEM WHEN HE GOT ATTACKED AND DRAGGED THROUGH THE MUD FOR SAYING THE N WORD. YES I SAID SIMON FRITH WAS MY NIGGA FOR LIFE BUT THATS COS HE IS - WHEN WE GET TOGETHER WE GIVE EACH OTHER A POUND, GIVE EACH OTHER MAN HUGS, SLAP EACH OTHER FIVES, TALK A BIT OF JIVE, EXCHANGE THE LATEST STREET SLANG AND THEN WE PUT ON OUR BANDANAS, GET IN OUR LEX AND DRIVE OFF INTO THE SUNSET LISTENING TO THE LATEST DIPLOMATS MIXTAPE! AND ANYWAY AS THE RESPONSES MAKE OBVIOUS, IT DOESNT MATTER WHAT RACIAL EPITHETS I USE, I RUN TINGS ON ILM, I RUN TINGS ON DISSENSUS, WOEBOT LATCHES ON TO EVERY SINGLE THING I SAY, HAS MEMORISED MY ENTIRE BLOG WORD FOR WORD AND MENTALLY CATALOGUED ALL MY ENTRIES, AND MAN LIKE MARTIN CLARK STAY TRYING TO IMPRESS ME. I AM TOO BIG! SO CALM DOWN BLUDS AND BLUDESSES, RUDEBOYS AND RUDEGALS (YES I AM ALLOWED TO USE THOSE WORDS WITHOUT FEAR OF BEING ATTACKED AS A WIGGA, AS I SAID A LITTLE EARLIER, I AM TOO BIG! MY GHETTO PASS IS FOR LIFE RUDEBOY!). ANYWAY EVEN THOUGH I HAVE A FETISH FOR THE STREET SHIT (WHICH I KNOW ALL ABOUT BECAUSE AS YOU MIGHT KNOW, I AM PART COCKNEY, AND I AM NOT TOTALY WHITE EITHER, I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ASIAN CULTURE BUT I AM PART INDIAN SO THERE! MY ETHNIC PASS IS INTACT YALL!) BUT I GOT NO BEEF WIV ANY OF YOUS PLAYA HATAZ LOL WE SHOULD ALL GO SEE A SCREENING OF PRACTICE HOURS 2 SOON, AND WE CAN DRINK AND SMOKE TOGETHER AS BREDRENS, EMAIL ME IF YOU ARE ALL COOL FOR THIS COS THAT WOULD BE MASSIVE. BIG UP TO MARCUS NASTY AND ALL MY MANS IN LOCKDOWN, BIG UP TO ALL BLOGGERS DRIVEN OUT OF CYBERSPACE, STAY STRONG IN THE BLOGOSTRUGGLE, SHOUT OUT TO ALL CADBURYS CREME EGG MASSIVE, EAT YOUR YOLK AND LICK FROM INSIDE, BIGGLE!

YOURS, GRIMEY 'ENDZ 4 LIFE' SIMEY

2. i dont understand the implication that only 'street teamers' would like bad boy records. it seems to be a recurring theme on the internet, that posters dont really like popular music, that it is somehow a stance, somehow faux, as though ordinary people somehow don't use the internet. this is not limited to just this board. it is also interesting how bad boy records somehow came to stand for 'commercial nonsense' (whatever that is), in the eyes of 'purists' (whoever they are), and, perhaps more predictably, non hip-hop fans

3. i am impressed by the depth of knowledge grimeysimey displays about reynolds. but i think we are missing something crucial here, his (on the down low) love for mid80s butthole surfers

Roffle. Well done.

3. Raise your hand (don't worry, nobody can actually see you raising it!) if you touch your naughty places when looking at the oiled up shirtless poster of Tupac hanging on your wall next to your bed.

I call bullshit on that. Once again, my offer to take you to East Oakland and to Sweet Jimmy's stands. Your mouth's writing checks your ass can't cash.

metal shows
Harumph.

long live the American/Brit humo(u)r divide!

then return and continue to rip throats

thanks

i don't know whoever said that popism had won; and why would the p&j poll reflect this anyway? fuck knows who chooses who votes, and, given i don't even live in new york, i could care less.

but the key line is "And as I say, not talking here about the merits or demerits of these works (few of which I’ve actually heard), just purely about the value scheme that enfolds them."

OKAY THEN THANKS FOR THAT.

None of this stuff "mean[s] diddly outside the crit-bubbleworld", does it?

"looking at the grand decades-spanning scheme of American critical consensus, there’s a sense in which even art-rock is marginalized (the relatively low presence and this year and every year of instrumental or mostly-intrumental abstraction--prog, fusion, ambient, industrial and the more abstract forms of postpunk, post-rock, experimental electronics; the abiding suspicion of artifice in re. glam or New Pop). See, rather than art-rock, what the critically esteemed stuff really is, most of it, it's lit-rock: music as dramatic backdrop to words. "

has Simon been reading my blog for conceptual ideas ? ;-)

And I think that outside the crit-bubbleworld, music with rockist virutes means a whole lot to a lot of people. Certainly it has broader appeal than whatever it is that Reynolds is pushing.

Plenty of people love "music with rockist virtues" for non-rockist reasons though, wouldn't you say? It's just that only in crit-bubbleworld do we spend our time second-guessing those reasons and making pronouncements on their merit.

Naw, if anything, if there's any "serious" non-musical cultural form that rockwrite draws on, it's probably the cinema. Where do you think all that stuff about "the auteur" comes from? Who gets read more by rock critics: Clement Greenberg, Edmund Wilson or Pauline Kael? Does anybody really believe in rock-as-poetry anymore, even unconsciously?

i dont understand the concept of nu-rockism really. it seems to just involves picking up on things that old-rockism forgot. but, this doesnt make sense! rockism is an attitude is it not? deciding that some things fit into the schema, when they didnt before, isnt a new form of rockism, its just the same thing. the taste of 'a rockist' is tangential

i'm puzzled by the desire to, somehow, 'defeat' rockism. it is merely an attitude, i'm not sure it should be defeated. perhaps, it is perceived to have too great a power in the media. this may or may not be true, i dont know. but one look at the charts says...its not that powerful really! and 'rockists about pop', isnt that just another name for 'hi! i'm in the blogosphere!" ;)

Gareth: I agree.

I think I stopped trying to map taste onto political progressiveness some time ago, and so that tone of "we should be listening [to this] / [in this way]" strikes me as odd, now, and it's still about. I don't think there's a battle to be fought anymore, I think there's a conversation to be had. That's likely because I'm OLD and IN THE WAY.

Perfect Sound Forever - Simon Reynolds on post-punk
http://www.furious.com/perfect/simonreynolds3.html

All the debate about rockism over the years on ILM has made me realise that I haven't got a clue what it's all about anymore now the whole things has had several lifecycles. All I can conclude is that any notion of the pop/rock or popist/rockist divide is kind of redundant now and has been for years. I think it had a purpose back in 81/82 when people were trying to set up a context for nu-pop. Even then I think it was the punkist idea of having to be 'against' something that spawned rockism. Of course all the writers and nu-pop class of 81/82 were all punks in in 1977, so that's natural.

the blog screeds... I dunno, seems more like the urge to document ("here I am comin' atcha straight from the grime trenches at their realest") takes over from rational thought. complaining about the presence of "long-form Works that take effort and perseverance and time to unlock their depth and detail" on a BEST ALBUMS list, good god.

I quite like the use of imperatives! and exclamation marks! in fanzines!

It is sweet that you kept them, Tim.