ILM POLLS THE 20TH CENTURY'S BEST TRACKS ››› YOUR RESULTS THREAD ‹‹‹

"avant-garde" in the broader sense, and the sense in which it's usually used in ILX-world discourse, is a less ambitious version that applies to things that are new and interesting, and have pretensions beyond what has gone before in the genre in question. So yeah, Oh Superman is avant-garde in a pop context,

def

Kraftwerk is avant-garde,

probably

Soft Machine is avant-garde,

ehhhhhhh

Timbaland was avant-garde.

no.

For instance, Michael Jackson was experimenting when he brought a heavy metal guitar into "Beat It". Because that was very unusual in his musical style.

The fusion of high and low culture in ~1980 New York was important and new, and O Superman led to wider awareness of what could be done with electronic music, but it didn't change how people thought in a significant way. IMO.

― seandalai, Friday, December 3, 2010 4:00 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i'm not sure that this is so. prior to the fusion you're talking about, i don't think that late 20th century fine or high art had really interacted directly with the pop charts in this way. in that, "o superman" was, for a moment, rather avant-garde. it belonged to a fairly rarefied arts culture, but also to mainstream america, to pop. and anderson's performance was inventive and challenging in ways that went beyond the promotion of electronic music. these things may not have been so obviously present in "o superman" the pop tune, but it's unfair to separate the hit from its proper context in her work.

xxxxxxp again:

Ok, there's a third sense, which is what sarahel is touching on - "avant-garde" as genre. Post-Webern music in the classical lineage tends to get called "avant-garde" by default. In this sense, Laurie Anderson is an avant-garde composer.

xp - there's a difference between arbitrarily calling something or someone "avant-garde" or "experimental" - and referring to something or someone by those terms who has historically been canonized in that way! It's like arguing that "Freebird" isn't a rock song because you don't think it "rocks."

basically, as sean mentioned in the post before mine -- "avant garde as genre"

freebird sucks

seandali & sarah otm about certain strains of 20th century composition - at that point it becomes a fairly simple genre descriptor

but i kinda hate that use of the phrase

Gotta go now, see you later for THE FINAL RECKONING.

"avant garde as genre"

Yeah I see where you're coming from with this but "avant-garde as genre" is a very self-defeating concept. Once the barriers have been broken open it takes a long time to get to new barriers. Laurie Anderson is/was experimental but only after a large and comfortable space had broken open for that experimentation to take place.

I see where you and others who don't like the term are coming from, and LJ does have a habit of using questionable adjectives when describing music (he and I have an ongoing battle over appropriate use of the word "brutal" to describe various bands) -- but in this case, his usage of "avant-garde" to describe "O Superman" is perfectly acceptable.

yeah but stop using it

could have used "angular" instead

classic ILM argument about who likes a record the right way :D love you guyz

go back in time and tell that to 60s/70s/80s NYC

Geir you shd try listening to it all the way thru

go back in time and tell that to 60s/70s/80s NYC

Can think of one or two more important things to be telling them though.

I see where you and others who don't like the term are coming from, and LJ does have a habit of using questionable adjectives when describing music (he and I have an ongoing battle over appropriate use of the word "brutal" to describe various bands) -- but in this case, his usage of "avant-garde" to describe "O Superman" is perfectly acceptable.

^^^Agree with all of this (particularly the questionable adjectives bit, ha).

http://www.the-artfile.com/gallery/artists/duchamp/toilet.jpg

lovers VS. critics (forever)

this is a fun poll. I think all-time artists would have been even more so.

yeah I think artists might have been an easier/funner one to do, can we do that?

I would imagine the results of an artists poll would be even more trad-ILM than this tracks one.

Clean sweep for Nate Dogg IMO.

That's not the Elis Regina tune I voted for, but it's a good song, and I'm glad it broke the arty white dude domination.

― Tuomas, Quarta-feira, 1 de Dezembro de 2010 11:00 (2 days ago) Bookmark

That's puzzling. Elis and Tom Jobim are not considered white and arty outside Brazil?

Elis was not a dude, as far as I know.

you never know

Summary of the debate:

- O Superman is avant-garde
- O Superman is not avant-garde
- It depends on what you mean by "avant-garde"

- We forgot to nom Skynyrd!

the only skynyrd track I would consider voting for is "the ballad of curtis loew" and I wouldn't actually vote for it

All this avant-garde chat just makes me feel the absence of 'Revolution 9'

If avant garde means doing something completely new for the very first time that has never been done before regardless of genre, then "Revolution 9" was not avant garde. It may have been something new in a "rock" context (although Zappa did similar things on his debut album already), but not overall.

I think by this stage we have firmly established that avant-garde (or avant garde) means different things to different people!! when id the countdown starting again, it's now Friday afternoon here and I could do with the distraction from work...

*is

i can only think of a few certainties for the final 25. that's kind of cool.

I can think of a bunch of certainties, wouldn't like to try and call the top three though.

Hope Ghost Town makes it.

on reflection, i'm really stoked that 'cloudbusting' placed well here. incredible, moving song and it could have easily missed out.

Yeah, we need to get this thing moving, some of us are going out tonight.

I nominated 'Hello Earth', whose chances of placing now must be close to zero, and i'd've nominated 'This Woman's Work' if I wasn't working to a one-per-artist rule. I still think we'll see her once more though, very possibly first up today.

'running up that hill' has a reasonable chance.

just went back and read the ~500 posts I missed, including the whole "avant-garde" discussion, which was actually quite interesting (if ultimately a bit... academic)

or in other words, I like it when ppl get into arguments, because then they start trying to back up their position with evidence drawn from their personal experience, and in the process they reveal something about the history and context surrounding the music, and the way that it's been received, that I find incredibly valuable (esp. as a 23-year-old greenhorn muso). real talk y'all.

'running up that hill' has a reasonable chance.

It's a dead cert.

I think so. Not 'Hounds of Love' though.

voted 'hounds of love' myself... self-imposed one-song-per-artist rule helped me whittle it down to 100, and that was my (current) favourite from the nominations. don't think it'll show up at this stage tho.

lol xp

It will, but the Futureheads version instead.

Will resume in 5 minutes...

25. ALTHEA & DONNA "Uptown Top Ranking" (1977) [2,050 points, 20 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyK8mcuUIGI

awwww yeah!