the 1975

because every dog in the office has been barking for the past hour at this: i think this problem has become more pronounced on twitter (going back to tumblr maybe) but

yes i definitely think 1990s music discourse was 'unsullied'

this is a good example of what i mean by bad faith readings, though

whenever somebody complains about "twitter" or "tumblr" ruining something it is almost always a dog-whistle

(specifically talking in terms of how "toxic" or "unreasonable" etc. they are, not in terms of their actual problem with harassment, etc.)

because every dog in the office has been barking for the past hour at this: i think this problem has become more pronounced on twitter (going back to tumblr maybe) but

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Thursday, August 16, 2018 4:27 PM (seventeen seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pointing out that people get caught up in myopic algorithmic circles that feed their preferred pov back at them is not a jeremiad about social justice warriors; its simply pointing out that ppl project broader trends onto their immediate social environment, which becomes even more problematic when that environment is shaped by algorithms

oh, so it's a rant about algorithms instead

hmmm calling it a 'rant' is a dogwhistle...you're trying to associate me with dennis miller

I had to google who that was, so no

i was just joking

as far as nirvana's "polly," kurt cobain said this about the way (part of) his audience interpreted the song: "Last year, a girl was raped by two wastes of sperm and eggs while they sang the lyrics to our song "Polly". I have a hard time carrying on knowing there are plankton like that in our audience."

that was, for what it's worth, a sincere post, not a defense of how the song was received back then vs now

I haven't heard this song but this conversation makes me think about

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCFAzPl1QmE

except now "grab em by the pussy" is Joe Piscopo

i def have a kneejerk response to the idea that art needs to pander to the fact that a bunch of idiots are going to interpret it the 'wrong way'

like someone telling kendrick not to advocate drinking alcohol in 'swimming pools' or something

'polly' is an especially nutso version of this though... i mean i think the song is pretty important snapshot of an era and message, but i also can't imagine it coming out the same way today for reasons that totally make sense...its a super weird song

the idea that context doesn't shift meaning, that an artist cant repurpose these slogans

Those things aren't really out there as slogans (maybe "fuck your feelings", less so any of the other worst lines) the point is that they're repurposing them as slogans. Appropriately enough I'd suggest reading that line of the review in the context of the one afterwards. I don't think that you can't ever say terrible things as satire, just that it's hard for the benefits of seeking out and quoting not-particularly-mainstream awfulness to outweigh the costs.

Whether the song succeeds in its aim (which I think Deej successfully captures - though I'd add a nuance below) strikes me as an almost textbook example of a matter about which reasonable minds may differ.

It's not "bad faith" to fall on the "I don't like it" side. But I see why these discussions get heated. As with a lot of "does this work?" questions about music, the reason people can't see eye to eye or even acknowledge room for more than one answer is that they start with a disagreement about what the song is trying to do, with dislikers seeking to reduce or flatten the complexity of the exercise (this is just <insert>"). "An ironic slogan is still a slogan" starts with a reductive reading (and I use that word non-pejoratively) and then seeks to reduce it further. The implication is that there is nothing more to see, whatever more the likers are seeing is an illusion, or something they're putting there. And this in turn implies something about the music's audience even if that was never the speaker's intention, or they hadn't followed the line of reasoning that far. It is never just "about the music".

Of course the flipside problem is that the reductive reading is usually at least half-correct about something going on, which is difficult to acknowledge when everyone's guns drawn at 20 paces (and which, again, see below).

This all interests me mostly because I used to apply the above reductive frame a lot and don't do so much anymore, not because I think it's inappropriate but because at some point I stopped viscerally disliking almost any music (for unknown reasons), and at that point I'm less likely to question the music's aims even if I'm indifferent to the outcome. The sheer intensity of the binary positions on the Singles Jukebox review page is intriguing to me in a cultural tourism sense.

"reading this song as flat edgy "irony" misunderstands its effect imo .... the song is a harrowing feeling of being overwhelmed by disgusting popular culture mixed w politics & the current condition, & it captures that feeling in song, i don't think its supposed to be 'ironic', he is not being a mouthpiece for his own point of view (sincere or ironic), he is creating an artistic effect that is reminiscent of being bombarded with fucked up headlines & the entire subtext is "the world feels fucked and the feelings it creates are difficult to wrap your head around but this approximates the feeling" imo"

The additional thing I'd say is that I think there is a sense in which Katherine and the reviewer (Iain?) she is quoting are correct in saying "ironic slogans are still slogans": for me, one of the things that this song is about is the idea that contemporary society reduces the world to a permanent state of "We Didn't Start The Fire" - and whether Matt is a mouthpiece for the phrases in the lyrics or not is actually complex question. In my view the song is not merely about being overwhelmed by disgusting popular culture and current politics, but also about being implicated by them, about the fact that you cannot participate in popular culture while also holding yourself apart from all the toxic stuff and say "but I am not responsible for that". So you could say of the criticism "ironic slogans are still slogans", "yes, that is precisely what this song is about".

and I have a kneejerk response to the idea that just because someone is attempting social commentary, I am obliged to find it successful, or something I want to listen to, or that I am unreasonable or operating in bad faith if I in fact dislike it. particularly when it involves a man glibly singing the words of trump bragging about getting away with sexual assault — by these standards, that alex jones to the music thing of bon iver meme is also great music.

I've been working on a theory that the ALWAYS ONLINE class of musicians who let internet sewage into their art can be split into "posters" and "lurkers"

Posters
Grimes
Tyler the Creator
Azealia Banks
Kitty
Weezer

Lurkers
Death Grips
The 1975
Sophie
Charli XCX
Oneohtrix Point Never

Actually, scratch Banks from that, but she is very much a poster

I also have a kneejerk response to a bunch of men telling me what the appropriate way to feel about other men glibly quoting that sexual assault tape is — and I haven’t even touched the “suffocate the black men” line

That would be a great article actually.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/572d4fca4c2f85ddda8831ac/572e40128259b5058ce821ca/5ac6c890aa4a9945f380bc05/1522983921623/America.png?format=1500w

https://www.itsnicethat.com/system/files/032018/5ab3aa757fa44c58a4001128/images_slice_large/willo-perron_thirty-seconds-to-mars_album-cover_graphic-design_itsnicethat-apple.png?1521724168

Those things aren't really out there as slogans (maybe "fuck your feelings", less so any of the other worst lines) the point is that they're repurposing them as slogans. Appropriately enough I'd suggest reading that line of the review in the context of the one afterwards. I don't think that you can't ever say terrible things as satire, just that it's hard for the benefits of seeking out and quoting not-particularly-mainstream awfulness to outweigh the costs.

― Iain Mew (if), Thursday, August 16, 2018 5:51 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the entire point is that the awfulness IS mainstream!

Banksy's done it again

I also have a kneejerk response to a bunch of men telling me what the appropriate way to feel about other men glibly quoting that sexual assault tape is — and I haven’t even touched the “suffocate the black men” line

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Thursday, August 16, 2018 4:56 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i havent told you how to feel about anything?? im defending other possible interpretations, and arguing that your interpretation is coming from a place of misunderstanding what it's attempting in the first place... you can draw the exact same conclusion (ie that it fails at doing what I think it's aiming for) but it seems like you're denying the *very possibility* of other interpretations

like, how do you respond to an argument that it's not attempting irony? you just seem to reassert that, actually, it is attempting irony

The vaporwave bridge, these dudes are the /b/lue nile

or you acknowledge that maybe it is, in fact, attempting irony, i.e. not do the very thing you are accusing me of

like the fact that it supposedly isn’t, in this thread, is being taken as such a given that anyone who disagrees is obviously a troll/not in good faith

thanks kevin ... until the end of time katherine is going to keep arguing that everyone thinks she's a troll

i dont think you're a troll, but you definitely remind me of eeyore

there wouldn’t be a need to argue it were it not said, repeatedly and unsolicitedly

anyway I hope none of you ever post in that "why don't women post on ILX" thread because this is a perfect example of why

hmm

seems like you guys are hardening your positions based on miscommunication

sorry, cheap joke

tim f otm

my position is entirely based on being dragged, by name and Googleably, into a thread that I did not ask or want to be dragged into, over a blurb I wrote for a different website. and then, because I happened to think the song is a bad song, I get called a troll, insane, and listening/posting in bad faith because I think this is a bad song, unlistenable and cluttered as a piece of music, and toxic irony poisoning as a lyric, and that I would rather drown myself in a pool of acid than listen to men glibly quote the Billy Bush tape, "satire" or not. and then a bunch of dudes yell at me some more over that.

i think yer dope katherine fwiw, fuck this drivel

i didnt call you insane, ftr... i said a particular argument that you were quoting was insane, then backpedaled bc it seemed to make you upset & said that if you prefer, to assume i said it made me feel insane

(I also can't help but note that six other writers also disliked this song for largely the same reasons, yet I'm expected to believe that this interpretation is bad faith and unreasonable, because ???)

the reason i kept saying 'bad faith' is bc any time someone said anything that could be remotely interpreted as a personal dig you attach yourself to like its your personal brand so as to appear maximally persecuted

and if i sound mean right now, im legit sorry, bc im really not!! wanting to pick on you, and i actually do appreciate contributions of yours to many conversations, i just struggle w this concept of "toxic irony poisoning"

that post you just made is a perfect example of bad faith

this band isn't particularly ironic imo. can i be threadbanned from my own thread now

haven't liked any songs so far from what is presumably their upcoming album

i dont think you're an insane troll; that's never been the gist of anyone's real argument

i think the interpretive framework you've brought to this song difficult to digest bc it doesn't reflect my experience of the record, irrespective of the record's quality as a piece of art

"reading this song as flat edgy "irony" misunderstands its effect imo .... the song is a harrowing feeling of being overwhelmed by disgusting popular culture mixed w politics & the current condition, & it captures that feeling in song, i don't think its supposed to be 'ironic', he is not being a mouthpiece for his own point of view (sincere or ironic), he is creating an artistic effect that is reminiscent of being bombarded with fucked up headlines & the entire subtext is "the world feels fucked and the feelings it creates are difficult to wrap your head around but this approximates the feeling" imo"

The additional thing I'd say is that I think there is a sense in which Katherine and the reviewer (Iain?) she is quoting are correct in saying "ironic slogans are still slogans": for me, one of the things that this song is about is the idea that contemporary society reduces the world to a permanent state of "We Didn't Start The Fire" - and whether Matt is a mouthpiece for the phrases in the lyrics or not is actually complex question. In my view the song is not merely about being overwhelmed by disgusting popular culture and current politics, but also about being implicated by them, about the fact that you cannot participate in popular culture while also holding yourself apart from all the toxic stuff and say "but I am not responsible for that". So you could say of the criticism "ironic slogans are still slogans", "yes, that is precisely what this song is about".

― Tim F, Thursday, August 16, 2018 5:52 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

really well said tim, thank you

except that the point of "ironic slogans are still slogans" is that regardless of how they are meant, I still have to listen to them