Simon Reynolds is a gobshite

The way that his 'pronouncements' are raked over for hidden meanings and clues about what the future will hold is what really drives me nuts.

Personally, I think he's one of the three great music writers of all time along with Penman and Eshun. Changed my way of thinking on music in too numerous ways.

Of course there are things I disagree with: the afformentioned class- thing, Patti Smith, that reggae-article in The Wire, Big Beat. This actually makes it more fun.

THe drugs need to stay, I love that stuff he writes about them. As for 'Sex Revolts', I like the argument of the book, never came to a definite conclusion on the overall succes of the book *but* it contains some of his/their best writing: esp the chapters on Cosmic Mother Boys (but that's because I'm one myself ;)

I'm just going to say I have no opinion on Simon Reynolds. I find the long articles of his that Tom links to all the time damn near unreadable because there's just too much thrown in randomly at times, but the ideas themselves seem sound, as in he backs them up. I've never read anything by him besides those things though. I'm not big on music critics.

now re _sex revolts_: relies too heavily on pop psychology. the "oceanic mother's boy" bit is utter bollocks. also, they play a little fast and loose with the truth re the artists they discuss. e.g. they're quick to dismiss public enemy's "channel zero" as patriarchal based on a total misreading. they claim the song chides a black mother for watching tv rather than rearing strong black warriors w/o discussing the responsibility of fathers. this is nonsense. the song is, first of all, about a young "clueless vixen" stereotype who is never mentioned to be a mother. second, flavor flav's interjection "turn that shit off! i want to watch the game!" humorously divides the blame between men & women. they criticize riot grrrls for not "interrogating the phallocentric forms of rock itself." then, when they discuss kim gordon (who, one would presume, does do this) all they have to talk about is her lyrics.

as well, the basic premise that anything aggressive and driving is inherently patriarchal as opposed to anything soft and ethereal which is somehow "feminine" and oppositional is problematic and might even suggest a reliance on old-fashioned stereotypes.

all that said, i did find the first section about types of patriarchal strategies in rock convention and archetype to be quite helpful. the debasement of "women's work" *has* been a misogynist strategy. as well, the discussion of demystification and "mystique" postpunk oppositional strategies was also useful.

Sometimes I marvel at how small this intellectual world we inhabit on the internet is. I was interested in the above, as it sounded like it might chime in with some things I was thinking about indie kids last night (especially why it is they often like old soul and old mainstream chart records but not the modern equivalent in those genres). Something about romanticism.

So I did a search for "Against Health & Efficiency" on Google and it came up with three things, two of which were the pinefox and stevie t on the Belle & Sebastian Sinister list archives.

The section pf quoted:

[Indiepop's] return to romance is oppositional. Chartpop has grown ever more 'adult' in its treatment of relationships - either more explicit and suggestive or mature and 'progressive'. The idea of a redemptive / devastating love has come to seem a superstition in this age of yuppie self-management and self-sufficiency.... The indie scene is interested in precisely the jeopardising or loss of self through terror or awe, precisely the absolute investment of the self that is forbidden in this secular economy of self.... By a strange process we've reached the point where 'purity' seems more radical than libertinism, more transgressive than sin. The indie scene is obsessed by a dream of purity - of 'pure love', of a 'pure' or 'perfect pop' that evades the taint of the Eighties.... And where all these ideas converge is in two (very much linked) periods - childhood and the Sixties. The Sixties are like pop's childhood, when the idea of youth was still young.

, seems very to the point. Can I borrow a copy?

Sundar - You've stopped listening to rock music ? I don't get that impression from most of what you've been posting here.

well, obviously not altogether. (last album listened to: cinderella - _long cold winter_). i have pretty much stopped trying to like or listen to any current rock music, though. the only current pop-related stuff that interests me now is hip-hop and electronic. i'm sure it's just temporary though -- once rock starts treating me better, i'll speak to it again.

no, actually, "against health and efficiency" never gets i-get-more-pussy-than-you at all. sr was quite sympathetic to indie culture at that point. it does still have problematic qualities. the idea that romanticism is oppositional is somewhat dubious. like ilm, he never really defines what he means by "indie," leaving it to include everything from pop will eat itself to new york guitar noise to the smiths to all the british 80s bands i've never heard of that get c-o-d'd here. but nobody's perfect and it's an important work all the same. like _the sex revolts_.

It's a fabulous article of its time. Stevie T used to herald it to me on a regular basis, discussing its arguments and virtues, long before I actually dug up the book. When I did, I was so excited that I made about 10 copies for people I knew. If you still want one, Nick, I've probably still got one.

So if you type in, say, 'Alasdair Cook' on google, what happens?

who the fuck is this limey simon reynolds anyway? never has he spoke of sam the sham or kiss, as far as I can tell. never has he wrestled with another human being in the dirt. never has he listened to both Dust albums. never has he said ONE THING THAT IS FUNNY. he is a jerk, like most limey critics. every CREEM writer worth his salt knows that music writers from ENGLAND ARE THE ABSOLUTE WORST.... and they are the very reason we have all had to endure the likes of Oasis and Radiohead and, heaven help us, RAVES!! Simon Reynolds is nothing, I mean nothing: think of this--once i interviewed Sky Saxon who was undergoing a blood transfusion in Hawaii and he was so feeble he could barely talk on the phone and he talked about how shriveled his cock was and how he hoped one day that shriveled cock would become hard again so that he could once again perform "Mr. Farmer" with the fervor in which it was intended: well, Mr. Simon Reynolds IS NOT EVEN WORTH THAT SHRIVELED COCK OF SKY SAXON... he knows nothing of music but pretends he knows nothing of rock 'n' roll ranting, just that awful throbbing rave ecstasy crapola... & what's more, he's a limey who thinks he's smart (the worst kind)... THERE WAS A GOOD SIMON ONCE: SIMON FRITH (smart guy, good writer)--whatever happened to him, how come he's not on this website? PLEASE PLEASE do not waste our time by having to read anymore snotty SIMON REYNOLDS idiotic spouting...he has committed the ultimate offense: HE IS NOT FUNNY AND HE DOES NOT ROCK!

I just like the word "gobshite." Gotta think of a way to include it in my vocabulary somehow.

from a limey.

All that and Sky Saxon's shrivelled cock.

What I've read of "Against Health and Efficiency" is quite fascinating re: the childlike (not childish) air of indie-pop, the ethereality, the focus on memories and childhood and innocence lost... I do agree with SR that a drive for an "Edenic state of purity" (his words? it's a cliche anyway) is the real motive behind indie-pop... hence the phenomenon of kindercore and, if you look at mainstream emo music as being heavily influenced by indie-pop (and I do, there's cross-fertilization all over the place) you see it in things like chris carabba singing about "making out" at 30+ years old. This is not to say that such things are bad; it's just interesting to see an unofficial hypothesis of mine in print as an academic article, and done back in the mid-80s no less. Sort of reinforces my current opinions, gives me a wee bit of confidence.

What do you all think about that article?

Funny... had a conversation with a friend of mine over the interweb about this very subject... my eventual resolution as to the asexuality/coy adolescent sexual perspective is just kinda germane to this style of music, surmised in my idea that it just wouldn't sound right if pasty emo-rockers began to sing about "getting their freak on"...

i meant critics have got worse

indeed, indeed.

xpost They just seem like straightforward, stolid club bangers - not bad, just not especially enticing. The beats and flow seem pretty obvious and there's no real lyrical world to enter, just a few clever lines. Not enough charisma, basically. I'm not someone who wants all MCs to Say Something Important but I like to feel the force of their personality - a sense that something's a little off, that their brain works in an interesting way, and a voice to match. What can I say? They don't thrill me. It's like when I asked you why you didn't like the Beatles and you said "their voices" - you can't argue with that kind of gut reaction.

I kind of wish I hadn't made vague generalisations upthread re: the state of hip hop. I was trying to work out where Simon was coming from rather than stating a strong case myself because I just haven't heard enough of these MCs to judge one way or another, which is why I wouldn't presume to write an article on the subject, so I'm going to keep checking out the songs people mention on the hip hop and EOY threads and hope to be thrilled by some of it.

the reason hip-hop seems very much alive to me, even beyond the amount of straight-up great records being made, is how varied the good stuff is - you've got the old guard like q&k and raekwon, jerk girls with homemade beats and dance crazes, surrealists and wordplay weirdos like gucci mane and nicki minaj, more traditional/emotional hip-hop from pill, hip-pop like kid sister...

― lex pretend, Saturday, November 28, 2009 8:16 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

otm

dorian have you heard 'shine blockas'? i think you'd like it. it sidesteps a lot of current hip hops trends for a classic soul-sample propelled southern beat kind of a la 'intl players anthem.'

for these last three or four years, rap has been a desperately unmemorable procession of cookie-cutter ballers – Jim Jones, Gucci Mane, Yung Doc, Soulja Boy

http://www.resimvadisi.com/data/media/320/bugs_bunny1.jpg

eh...what's Yung Doc?

hahaha

http://ugandaninsomniac.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/child-doctor.jpg

stay out of my flickr

!?

doctor joke?

ie that is me, on my first day of school

u were sliding into 3rd base around then iirc

in slo mo

this thread is hilarious, btw, i wish Whiney and Deej could get Weird Science computers to create living embodiments of their respective constant stubborn talking points so that they could go out and eat ice cream and play video games while Talking Points Whinebot and Talking Points Deejbot battle it out

Reynoldsbot and Frere-Jonesbot would still get paid more $$ for their regurgitations though of course

lol i was thinking earlier about how this thread is basically posts very much in character 24/7

When people were saying "omg lol dance music is dead" back in 2001 a lot of similar critical moves were busted out: "All our old heroes - you know, the ones that put out big albums, have big live tours, well-known guests vocalists preferably from UK rock, and generally embraced by a mainstream indie-rock readership - are getting old and uninspired and relatively less successful, while everything else is rote filter-house and trance-pop or hopelessly obscure stuff that will never amount to anything."

Of course by 2004 dance music was in rude good health again, with its new creative and commercial success rooted in a combination of chartwise moves and the background of all that stuff dismissed as "hopelessly obscure" a few scant years before. You could say the story of 2004's success started (if it started anywhere) in 2001 - Discovery, electroclash, German house and techno...

so - if not "omg lol dance music is dead" - would you have agreed with the weak version in 2001? "ooh eck dance music's a bit boring right now unless you're deeply into it like"

No 2001 was a great year for dance music actually. Just not the kind that critics who only listen to a little bit of dance music (and then, like, The Chemical Bros et. al.) would think is a great year I guess, because The Chemical Bros, Underworld, Fatboy Slim et. al. weren't ruling the charts.

Basically the journalistic narrative hadn't caught up with what was actually going on, and when that happens, oddly, what is new is actually mistaken for same ol' same ol', in the same way (but oppositely) to the way in which commonly what is actually familiar and unshocking can be mistaken for being new.

hip-hop on the guillotine
because music like you
makes critics like Simon Reynolds feel so tired
when will you die? when will you die? when will you die?

2001-2004 now feel like a golden age for dance music. If anything house and techno is a bit uninspired now.

<3333 "go out and eat ice cream" btw. adorable

Dance music in that period is a best-case scenario for a genre really. The end of one era - superclubs and big crossover live acts - coinciding with the growth of fantastically potent and fertile new sub-genres. Very much the death of one version of dance music but, in retrospect, for the best.

If you told me 5 years ago that every hyped indie rock band in 2009 would sound like Ariel Pink, I would have said you were crazy

Sounds like paradise. Which bands are you talking about here?

that change in dance music was mostly the genre adjusting to the internet...prob a lucky time for a facelift

this thread is hilarious, btw, i wish Whiney and Deej could get Weird Science computers to create living embodiments of their respective constant stubborn talking points so that they could go out and eat ice cream and play video games while Talking Points Whinebot and Talking Points Deejbot battle it out

― henry man see u (some dude), Saturday, November 28, 2009 9:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what 'talking points' does whiney have? as far as i can tell hes consistently burt_stanton-ing w/ constantly misguided cultural mis-observation

well a lot of the time they are just deej^(-1)

yo dog...thanks 4 dat shineblockas tip

trakk iz bangin'

none of your medical mumbo-jumbo dr., just give it to me straight

you have 3 months to live...until you are suggest banned

The lack of "narrative" or "big new important thing happening" is different from there not being any good rap music. Obviously there's plenty of good rap music out there, and obviously there's a lack of any big new important thing happening in rap. The latter is Simon's real beef, because his best writing about the BNITH in popular music. He says there's good shit, but no narrative. There's plenty to listen to, but not as much to read about and write about and think about, at least nothing substantially different from what's come before. This is why all the hip hop mags are dead/dying, and why no one pays anyone to write about hip hop. Unless you are SR or SFJ.

i think things are happening but that its more difficult to tell exactly what those things are w/out the charts to orient yourself around -- it was easy to create a narrative when it was, like, "hmm these neptunes sure are popular."

pretty sure hip hop mags being dead/dying has nothing to do w/ whether or not there are existing narratives

the state of popular rap in 2009

Funnily enought, the company behind Zero Books is a wacky new-age crystals'n'meditation outfit. But I do think the imprint is a Good Thing (despite having a few issues with the whole k-Punk archipelago). I'm looking forward to N Power's One-Dimensional Woman.

― Stevie T, Monday, September 7, 2009 11:40 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

crystals'n'meditation'n'outspoken-anti-semitism outfit now

expand on that

publishing gilad atzmon