Do you ever read one of Christgau's reviews and go, What the hell is he talking about?

"Main Entry: 1af·fect
Pronunciation: 'a-"fekt
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin affectus, from afficere
1 obsolete : FEELING, AFFECTION
2 : the conscious subjective aspect of an emotion considered apart from bodily changes"

He's basically saying that once they studiously avoiding displays of emotion. Now they seem to be trying to inject some, but Christgau's not buying it.

i thought this was an example of how they insert the affect. how can they have their "heart in the right place" with it and yet its not meaningful. heart in the right place is weird. it seems like he's contradicting himself, but he's just using heart in the right place as their intentions were right...ok but isn't the problem the intentions. NEVERMIND! i'm probabaly lagging behind :(

and susan, i think heart in the right place just means, he's sympathetic to their effort even if he thinks they're not quite up to it.

1. Feeling or emotion, especially as manifested by facial expression or body language: “The soldiers seen on television had been carefully chosen for blandness of affect” (Norman Mailer).
2. To put on a false show of; simulate: affected a British accent.
3. To have or show a liking for: affects dramatic clothes.
4. Archaic. To fancy; love.
5. To tend to by nature; tend to assume: a substance that affects crystalline form.
6. To imitate; copy: “Spenser, in affecting the ancients, writ no language” (Ben Jonson).

None of these connote sincerity, but rather a simulation of it. Christgau's saying that they're tring to inject emotion thru AFFECTING it by way of an implied increase in musical sophistication, and that the resultant EFFECT is actually one of insincerity.

xxxpost

I don't think that is quite right either though, because later on he says that "inserting affect isn't the same as ... expressing (or even simulating) a feeling". In other words, Christgau is agnostic on the question of whether the feelings are real or simulated - that's not the issue. The issue is a subtle distinction between "feeling" and "affect" - which is perhaps that "affect" is more cerebral, ie., it leaves out the body.

I actually think that's one of his strongest reviews, in that each sentence is a restatement of his reading of the album's weakness.

Quoting one's self may be gauche, but sounds like everybody's still guessing.

Yes, Christgau's clear as a bell, quite easy to catch the gist. No extra effort required.

xpost, agreed about verb forms as well, it's interesting how affect can encompass both a total lack of sincerity and its opposite.

If Christgau had given one concrete example of what he thought was evidence of "affect" in Low-Life we'd know, but that would violate his oath of vagueness.

xpost

That's the verb form again. It's not paricularly recent - it dates back to at least 1661. What may be more recent, as I state above, is the corruption of the noun form by the verb form.

I'll stick to my original interpretation, which is based on the theory that Christgau is using the Webster's definition I quoted first.

Many compliments/insults have been hurled at Bernard Sumner, but being 'affected" is a new one.

Feeling or emotion, especially as manifested by facial expression or body language: “The soldiers seen on television had been carefully chosen for blandness of affect” (Norman Mailer)

Cf common terms like "Seasonal Affective Disorder" -- a seasonal disorder of the, umm, affect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect

It's interesting to contrast the various technical uses of the term. In psychology, it means the external signifiers of emotion (ie., the sense that Mailer used). In philosophy and neuroscience and artificial intelligence, it refers to the internal mental experience of emotion (ie., the sense referred to in the Webster's definition). Since Christgau uses it in a fairly context-free setting, it's hard to know which sense he means.

xpost

xpost

http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/csisp/PDF/deluze_spinoza_affect.pdf

If anyone can make heads or tails of this, please to summarize.

Substitute "emotion" and that seems relatively clear: "Sounding emotional on your record isn't the same thing as actually having emotions, and it isn't the same as expressing (or even simulating) emotions, either." It works even better if you plug in a specific emotion, like anger.

But I'll admit to not following what he's getting at with the "simulating" part. If you took it out, the whole sentence would read like he's saying New Order are simulating emotion -- i.e., "acting like you have feelings doesn't mean you have them, or that you're expressing them to me." By putting that "simulating" in parens, it's like he's trying to indicate that it even goes a little beyond that, that he has some little distinction in mind beyond what the sentence can tell you. And that's something that gets a bit Talmudic and annoying. If he doesn't have the space to unpack some really small distinction, it's easy to wish he hadn't mentioned it, cause trying to figure it out can be awfully distracting. It's like mentioning a joke but not offering the punch line -- it makes you think, sure, and pretty deeply, but sometimes you'd just rather they'd let it pass.

If the sentimental fallacy
of good American rock and roll
is roots,

the sentimental fallacy
of good British rock and roll
is amateurism.

Not that these veterans
distinguished themselves
from themselves

before Yank guitarist Brix E. Smith
righted husband Mark E.'s
feckless avant-gardishness.

Still, what they've
arrived at now is
cunningly sloppy,
minimally catchy
Hawkwind/Stooges

with each three-chord
drone long enough
to make an avant-gardish statement
but stopping short
of actual boredom.

And yeah,
it beats roots
by me.

With its technological mastery
and its conventional wisdom
once-removed,
this is a kitsch masterpiece--

taken too seriously by definition,
but not without charm.

It may sell on sheer aural sensationalism,
but the studio effects
do transmute David Gilmour's guitar solos
into something more
than they were when he played them.

Its taped speech fragments
may be old hat,
but for once they cohere
musically.

And if its pessimism is received,
that doesn't make the ideas untrue--

there are even times,
especially when Dick Parry's saxophone
undercuts the electronic pomp,
when this record brings its cliches to life,
which is what pop is supposed to do,

even the kind with delusions of grandeur.