Simon Reynolds is a gobshite

"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.

All I would add is that anti-rockism is exactly like deconstruction (or maybe simply is deconstruction?), useful in its historical moment, or as a stage in an individual's personal history, as an anti-schlerotic of thought... but very much about the elimination of reasons to value, care, feel passionate, get worked up, etc. Its logic is one of discrediting ie. eroding the basis of beliefs, and indeed of belief itself, in favour of a pleasure-principled agnosticism. The net effect tends to be a kind of negative egalitarianism: not that all things become equally valued/valid, but that all things become equally trivial. (And that logic dovetails with aspects of late capitalism, digital culture, mp3/ipod/etc etc).

I don't know about anyone else, but reading that take I think not only is there nothing per se negative about what he outlines to me -- as much as there are implications otherwise, obv. -- but that the idea of 'a pleasure-principled agnosticism' is kinda my idea of a dream!

-- Tim (tfinne...) (webmail), May 3rd, 2001 1:00 AM. (link)

Jeez, years later, but if you still think so, I would ask why you feel that radical feminist theory has to be taken into account. Or: How does radical feminist theory (if that is indeed what is being employed in this book) result in anything resembling fairness or truth in The Sex Revolts?

Much of the book seemed to me to be a ploy, framing male behavior as one of two possibilities: 1) PHALLOCENTRIC or 2) the womb-fixated baby. This is not feminism aimed at empowering women, but rather to merely disempower men.

I think you're right that the book (quite explicitly) splits male-performed music into those two ostensibly dichotomous positions, and in doing so it doesn't make any attempt to give a well-rounded assessment of the music in question, instead skewing it towards the notions expresed in the banner it has been grouped under.

...but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it "disempowers men". The message I got from the book was "gender fucks us up (men and women) and this can result in good, interesting music."

The idea that the book involves an underlying "ploy" of attempting to "disempower men" comes mainly from this branch of their dichotomy - painting males with a broad swath as "mother's boys," closet babies, "castrated," "sublimated," etc.

I don't think they argue that though. Their schematics are just one way to characterise the music covered. I don't think they're pretending that their readings in this book are anything other than highly specific, partial and explicitly not comprehensive.

That is what I got out of that book, which I like a lot in spite of its obvious flaws.

Or how about this:

"The leading edge in rock has been those bands that have intensified semiotic elements (chromaticism, noise) at the expense of structure (verse/chorus/middle eight narrative, the 'proper' ranking of instruments in the mix, which usually favors the voice and the lyrics). In fact, the emotionally regressive (that's to say, womb-fixated) seems to go hand in hand with formal progression: both share an impulse to transgress and transcend established limits."

I hardly see this as a partial reading. They are trying to suggest that ALL formal progression in rock is an act of emotional regression and code for womb-fixation.

Any melancholic music made by men (who have "castrated themselves" - taken "the soft option") falls in this category also: "For Kristeva, melancholy is 'the most archaic expression of a non-symbolisable, unnameable narcissistic wound'--in other words, the loss of mother." Again, I see this as a part of this book's ploy: painting men as closet babies.

All energetic music made by MEN, on the other hand, is, of course, "hormonal."

Trying to cram everything into their paradigm, they make very objectionable personal statements about artists also. To strengthen the womb-fixation paradigm, for example, they state that Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Syd Barrett and Sid Vicious were part of "a lineage of rock heroes who allegedly had an unusually charged relationship with their mothers."

"Allegedly"

"Unusually charged"

I think he lives in a rarified world.

expoused

dated for more

Alan Jones

Say what you like about Reynolds, but at least he can spell.

Otherwise I miss the point of your post, be there any. Seems to me that "nostalgic meandering" is right up your street.

"An approach that treats "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Chime", "One In A Million", "Who Am I?", "___", as equally exceptional--flashes of form that may or may not carry content in the traditionally valorized sense as part of their arsenal of impact, but that always create content through the audio-social ripples and cultural shockwaves they trigger.

I need to come up with a snappy name for this approach, this sensibility..."

... and I think, "yes, it's called anti-rockism!!!!"

(I know CoM is the elephant in Blissblog's living room, but even so...)

who does he think his target market is ffs? his whole steez is aimed at students of all ages -- that's fine, but who is he trying to kid here?

Marcello, I pretty much agree - Church of Me is an excellent example of how a music critic can be fiercely judgmental about music without having to limit yrself as a listener.

Haha, Marcello, I think there are so many elephants in Blissblog's living room right now there's hardly room to move...

UPDATE

* Hay Festival Saturday May 26; location-- the British Legion:
---6pm: 'To Hell with Mike Read' rock quiz with me (supplying postpunk questions), Nick Kent, John Harris.
---8pm: 'To Hell with Music Journalists', same as above discussing on British rockwrite/music press.
---9pm: 'In the Pines' some sort of folk-ish club: live bands of folk-ish persuasion interspersed with deejaying from the three crits (postpunk in my case)

* Borders with Don Letts Thursday May 31--event starts at
6.30pm. Free admission, tickets available from the store or telephone (t) 0207 379 8877 (not honestly sure why tickets are required if it's free but that's what it says in the mail-out)

Posted by simon reynolds at 11:37 AM

btw does anyone know where i can get hold of a copy of Reynolds' "Against Health and Efficiency: Independent Music in the 1980s" essay? Preferably online?

Did anybody here go to any of those events (Reynolds is plugging his latest book)

YAWN!!!

The odd nifty catchphrase and deft rhyme, but c'mon, this man was a pig---Notorious P.I.G. more like; Piggy Smalls, heheheheh-and with a little help from his buddy Sean he almost singlehandedly set rap down its current path of spiritual bankruptcy. And he had the most unappetising vocal timbre in all of rap- asthmatic and adenoidal and mucus-bunged-up and fat-fuck wheezy all at once.

The original Paul Kix, and still the best.

Casting *RESURRECT THREAD*
-- Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, March 14, 2003 8:03 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

The odd nifty catchphrase and deft rhyme, but c'mon, this man was a pig---Notorious P.I.G. more like; Piggy Smalls, heheheheh-and with a little help from his buddy Sean he almost singlehandedly set rap down its current path of spiritual bankruptcy. And he had the most unappetising vocal timbre in all of rap- asthmatic and adenoidal and mucus-bunged-up and fat-fuck wheezy all at once.

-- Dom Passantino, Wednesday, May 14, 2008 2:34 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

this sounds like latter-day martin amis.

WHAT IS REYNOLS VIEW ON THE SCOOTER ISSUE

"The odd nifty catchphrase and deft rhyme, but c'mon, this man was a pig---Notorious P.I.G. more like; Piggy Smalls, heheheheh-and with a little help from his buddy Sean he almost singlehandedly set rap down its current path of spiritual bankruptcy. And he had the most unappetising vocal timbre in all of rap- asthmatic and adenoidal and mucus-bunged-up and fat-fuck wheezy all at once.

-- Dom Passantino"

reynolds said this? regardless of who said it, what fucking nonsense.

Good call on spiritual bankruptcy in the middle of a paragraph of "LOL FATTEY" gags

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=__Php680jxM

http://image.blingee.com/images15/content/output/000/000/000/3ad/185270713_639848.gif

throw ya rollies in the sky

http://image.blingee.com/images15/content/output/000/000/000/3ad/185401720_456895.gif

Rub your titties if you love 2 girls 1 cup

I think the new shaved head/goatee/gaining two stone is a good look for him.

Goody to enter Indian Big Brother
Day 71, 11:21 BST

By Simon Reynolds, Entertainment Reporter

Rex Features
Jade Goody will enter the Indian Big Brother house, reports The Sun.

The reality TV star, who was accused of bullying and making racist remarks to Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty in last year's Celebrity Big Brother, has flown out to Mumbai to prepare for a stint on Big Boss.

A source revealed: "Jade wasn't sure when she was first approached because she was worried about how the Indian housemates and public might react.

"She was really upset about everything that happened after the scandal last year. People in India were burning effigies of her in the street.

"But she really wants to clear her name and prove to everyone that she's not a racist."

Goody will allegedly earn £100,000 for taking part in Big Boss.

"But she really wants to earn £100,000" morelike.

Wonder what her take is on Funky House?

The finest music journalist ever. Everybody secretly acknowledges this.