Simon Reynolds is a gobshite

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"...

justin s, I have an unproven theory that the accuracy with which one may define a genre has an inverse proportion to its relevancy. It sounds like the rap slang jess talks about in Dismemberment Plan songs serves to strengthen the genre boundaries in place rather than complicate them, at least the way he describes it. Not really an "Olé" as Frank might say. Which is why, at least on this front, I like Limp Bizkit more; when they drop slang it's not "realer" but it doesn't throw up a wall either, or ironically call attention to itself, it does something else.

it's not about keeping people down, it's just fucking obvious - it would be ridiculous for morrissey to start making cars and girls records like ludacris, and it's not out of order to say that he should stick to repression and bicycles... people have their own metiers and it's ok to push the boundaries, but completely overstepping them is never rarely too clever also the way in which sex is discussed usually corresponds to the overall aesthetic of the music in question, that's all i was saying... i mean for crying out loud how crapulent would it sound if chan marshall started to spit lil kim-style lyrics? both are pretty good when being themselves, but this kind of fusion would be pointless, unconvincing and daft...

Article Response: Indie Kids

Snrub, are you being funny. Google is your friend--you'll find Simon's latest book and his blog and maybe some articles for magazines.

"I also had to wonder again about where all these reactionaries actually are. Maybe I live in a rarified world, but I don't know anyone who thinks albums are intrinsically superior to singles. I'm not sure I've ever met a person who espouses that much-pilloried view about singers not having written the songs they sing being inauthentic and thereby lesser."

Yes Simon, you do in fact live in a rarified world. The attitudes you describe are still in full effect and believed by most consumers in a knee-jerk way. The reason people priviledge those things (or variations of those things) and treat those beliefs as natural is because they form the very basis of western values - i.e. rockism doesn't just come from the rise and study of popular music, it is a symptom of a larger cultural tendency. To think that rockism no longer exists in one form or another is a fantasy.

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