Simon Reynolds - C or D

So you think Greg Tate should not write critically about what is said on rap cds, and that Julianne Shepherd should not be expressing her dislike for what she thinks is sexist in lyrics? Isn't there a middle ground somewhere between talking about only beats/hooks/flow and on the other hand the 'are these lyrics reflective of my morality or of the ethics of everyone in a certain economic and cultural strata'.

I wasn't suggesting that Sanneh had to point out every use of non-mainstream language in his review, but I was hoping he could have briefly addressed whether he felt that the use of such terms was sexist or not.

Maybe Reynolds will expand on his nu-rockism approach and clarify how or if he chooses to examine lyrics.

but really, what are the stakes in rockism vs popism anyway? what do they matter other than as markers in a very abstract aesthetic debate?

-- justsaying (jus...), February 2nd, 2006

Connecting it back to the insular P & J critics poll world, I thought it once meant is it ok to like a song by an American Idol contestant as much as one by Sufjan Stevens, but Reynolds is looking at it in terms of MIA versus abstract art-rock and certain types of grime and hiphop.

Well you would certainly think that looking at ILM. Is there even a rolling dancehall thread these days? Lame.

http://www.nctc.net/~hazard/conrad/album/sleeve2/

This is the primary reason why I've been so irritated by "nu-rockism" as a rallying point, it seems like an unnecessary allegiance which adds nothing to Simon's long-standing critical project. I'm glad that in Simon and Mark K-Punk's most recent posts linked to here they're both demonstrating some ambivalence towards the notion that the underlying conflict is between nu-rockism and popism (and I say that as someone who has done more than most here to give rise to the notion that most debates can be reduced to r vs p).

(as Matos points out: "given what it's surrounded with--several records I voted for included--who, precisely, thinks that M.I.A. got to no. 2 on the plastic-fun vote?")

is this what they call 'kicking it upstairs'?

I suspect that to understand Simon's occasionally confusing use of different approaches [...] the important thing to remember is that he fundamentally believes he is right

kind of sums it up!

(if anyone is starting it again, though, it is S REYNOLDS, though that blisspost is not so much starting anything again as STILL HARPING ON ABOUT IT)

i like ariel pink too! it is great hangover/stuffed-up-with-the-flu music.

it reminded me of that 'times' thing.

lex, i know about my ends, ur just romanticizing youth and dare i say it none-whiteness.

[that wasn't a reynolds quote above, more a paraphrase]

xpost - i live in brixton and well, ive never heard grime on any bus here, or from any car, or from well, anywhere really, except when i went to ministry for a grime night last year. i used to live in east london where again, i never heard it from any cars, except one time when i was in essex, a guy had boy in da corner playing, and in hackney, some kids were playing it from their ghetto blaster on the street.

by the way, ive seen tons of kids singing songs in public, its really fucking annoying. and now they play songs from their phones ALOUD on the tube, which is evn worse

-- okok (okok...), February 3rd, 2006.

it's a tru phenom. we've got two threads on it on ile.

i know one girl from action who "sometimes" listens to grime on the radio, but other than that, only quasi-hipster internet dudes.

Didn't the Lex go to public school and Oxbridge? I love how he has become ILM's street-representative!

-- Jerry the Nipper (jerrythenippe...), February 3rd, 2006.

i think u underestimate ILM's sense of hunmour sometimes.

and discussing Simon's take in the Frieze article seems more relevant than rehashing MIA (although yes Simon was the one who wants to do that and the items are connected and 'voice of the streets'...)--

From his Frieze article-

"The most striking thing about Pop in 2005 is how little conversation there is between black music and white music. Mainstream UK Rock, from Coldplay to whoever’s on the cover of NME this week has never sounded so bleached. The main effect of this (apparently, hopefully) unconscious drive towards sonic segregation is a grievous lack of rhythmic spark and invention. Catch some highly-touted Brit hopeful on the TV programme Later With Jools, and it’s instantly audible how the drummer contributes nothing to the music in the way of feel, tension, or dynamism, but instead just dully marks the tempo. He’s seemingly there simply because that’s what proper Rock bands have – a live drummer.

Things aren’t much different on the Rock underground, where the coolest thing around is Free-Folk (aka Freak-Folk, Psych-Folk … ). Ranging from beardy minstrels like Devendra Banhart to trippy jam bands like Animal Collective and Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice, Free-Folk is a recombinant sound that draws on a whole range of historical sources beyond the obvious traditional music and Folk-Rock ancestors. It just so happens that none of them (apart from a trace of utmostly ‘out’ Free Jazz) are black. Free-Folk’s accompanying ideology – a mish-mash of mystical pantheism, paganism, and sundry shamanic/tribalistic impulses – places it in the same continuum as the hippies and the beats, but, significantly, it has broken with Beat’s ‘white negro’ syndrome. Elsewhere in the leftfield, there’s the neo-post-Punk fad, fading somewhat after a good three-year run. These groups engage in white-on-black, Punk-to-Funk action, but only by replaying genre collisions from 25 years ago. Whereas the true post-Punk spirit manifested today would involve miscegenating Indie-Rock with Grime or Crunk."

I am also not sure how Simon's top albums reflects the above though.

i don't read it anywhere, and it doesn't sound like anything SR would write, to my ears. source?

"As a critic championing Grime, one of my angles – beyond the sheer excitement of the music, the brilliance of the wordplay, the charisma of the MCs – has been ‘you really ought to check this, it’s the voice of the UK streets.’ But I suspect that not many people actually want to hear what the voice of the streets has to say: partly, because it ain’t pretty, and partly, because most people honestly don’t give much of a fu k"

i'm not sure what this conversation is about, really. it seems more about twisting SR's words and biography into a version that everyone can easily despise.

No, it's what's called 'making a point that hasn't been made exactly the same way 64568765387576 times before.'

there's not much diff between paraphrase and quote, i just added the fact that i'm damned if someone who lives in new york is going to tell me what the 'voice' -- singular, ie 'unitary' -- of the uk streets is. how have i twisted anything?