Hypothetical Questions for a Keeper of Canon Purity Test

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I shall now bless ILxor by creating an unholy merger of two "geek obsessions": "Purity Tests" and "Music 'Posuerdom'"; My Question is this:

If someone were to create a "purity test" to test for "Keeper of the Canon" contamination, what questions would be in it?


Details are below, courtesy of Nate Patrin (who will hopefully forgive the act of blatant plagarism I'm about to commit.

____________________________________________________________________________________

KEEPER OF THE CANON:

The Northeastern Beard-Stroking Canon Keeper (Rockistum Anachronitis)

      Every so often Rolling Stone or some of the mainstream non-music magazines such as Time or Newsweek or Life will publish some sort of "Rock's Greatest Suchandsuch Of All Time" list crammed to the gills with very, very predictable entries. Every time you see Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Exile On Main Street or Pet Sounds listed as the Greatest Album Ever, the Keeper Of The Canon (KotC for short) is usually to blame. KotCs are straight-up boomer rock goons, the kinds of people who still insist that Woodstock was the best concert ever and music went right down the toilet when disco and punk showed up. Certain circles refer to these types of critics as "rockists" (defined as people who measure all popular music by the standards of rock and roll, which they consider in its purest form a genre that will never ever ever be bested in a million years especially by some sissypants synth-dance), and are usually worked up into a foamy lather at the typical decrees of said rockists ("Music today is all a buncha crap! The Doobie Brothers, now there was a band!").

      While KotCs are growing increasingly rare in today's new-youth-now culture -- rearing their heads mostly on VH1 specials or in five-star Mick Jagger solo album reviews -- they still have enough clout in the rock journo media to keep things nice and safe because god forbid someone out there thinks there exists a band better than the Beatles (doubly so if they released their first album after 1977).


Copyright 1999-2002, Nate Patrin Enterprises, all rights reversed.

Lord Luther Anarchiel Custos IX, Esq (Lord Custos Alpha), Sunday, 18 August 2002 01:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

New "has a record just for the sake of showing people he has it" answers, please.

Lord Luther Anarchiel Custos IX, Esq (Lord Custos Alpha), Sunday, 18 August 2002 02:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

people tell me that mojo is now the bible for this sort of thinking...but they run reveiws of acid mother's temple so...

a component question would be "have you established a chronological date when music died for you ?" ie after which you will no longer buy anything...

mike (ro)bott, Sunday, 18 August 2002 02:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

Dammit, why didn't I think to add Latin taxonomy?

Nate Patrin, Sunday, 18 August 2002 04:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

best album lists should be banned from mags permanently. they shouldn't include 'cannon'-type stuff or obscure. They just shouldn't exist.

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 18 August 2002 08:44 (twenty-one years ago) link

anachronitis isn't latin

mark s (mark s), Sunday, 18 August 2002 08:52 (twenty-one years ago) link

KotCs are straight-up boomer rock goons, the kinds of people who still insist that Woodstock was the best concert ever and music went right down the toilet when disco and punk showed up.

Then who's the guy who
    always
puts Trans-Europe Express, London Calling, Remain In Light and Nevermind on those lists? (not that there's anything wrong with that.... although London Calling is overrated)

Keith, Sunday, 18 August 2002 09:16 (twenty-one years ago) link

"always" was supposed to be underlined, not paragraphed

Keith, Sunday, 18 August 2002 09:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

Really, there is only one question: are you now, or have you ever been Jann Wenner?

Michael Daddino, Sunday, 18 August 2002 11:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

Mark s:anachronitis isn't latin

Well, you've heard of Pig Latin? This is Freak Latin!


M Daddino: Really, there is only one question: are you now, or have you ever been Jann Wenner?

The Prosecution will now prove that the defendant is actually Blob Guccione! (as he rips off the defendants mask)


Keith: Then who's the guy who always puts Trans-Europe Express, London Calling, Remain In Light and Nevermind on those lists?

I suspect a mutant strain called Rockistum Nirvanistus (and the even more depraved Rockistum Pavementistsus) are to blame. This is obviously the fault of mad scientist crossbreeding KotC's with Indie Thugs. (PS: a mix of KotC/Indie Thug and Pop Thug is what causes ABBA Gold to show up on the top of some recent lists.)

Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Sunday, 18 August 2002 13:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

Nate: Dammit, why didn't I think to add Latin taxonomy?

Well, considering that I stole multiple paragraphs from you to build these threads, you are well within your rights to swipe my pseudo-speciations and add them to the original essay I swiped it from. With my blessing no less. Go nuts.

In fact, does anyone have any speciations for the other two...um...breeds (Zeitgeist Obsessive and whatever the other one was)? (I'd post a hyperlink to the original essay, but I found the essay by accident and didn't bookmark it. Nate, if you are still listening, post a link.)

Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Sunday, 18 August 2002 14:06 (twenty-one years ago) link

freak greek?

mark s (mark s), Sunday, 18 August 2002 14:08 (twenty-one years ago) link

Sorry, I couldn't find one of the Berlitz "Learn a Language at Home" audiocassettes for Freak Greek. Apparently, it must be specially ordered.

Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Sunday, 18 August 2002 14:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

It's here. I'm not sure how well-known it is around here but it got some attention and I think it's the reason Joseph Larkin wants to kick my ass.


To be honest the whole article is a satire of both (a) the prevailing attitudes of certain segments of rock critic-dom and on a lesser but still important note (b) the need for music geeks to throw labels at each other (part of this article -- especially the Indie Thug vs. Pop Thug bit -- was inspited by various ILM postings, i.e. the "Indie Guilt" threads etc.). Almost every blog and website that linked to this article remarked "I wonder which kind I am", which I found pretty amusing.

Nate Patrin, Sunday, 18 August 2002 17:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

three years pass...
Does the nu-nu-nu-nu-ILx crowd have anything to add?

Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 10:24 (eighteen years ago) link

When Blur issued their new single "Tender" which was a readymade number one hit comeback single, but lost out to Britney Spears' first single.

America was clearly top nation, and pop music history came to a .

mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 11:18 (eighteen years ago) link


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