♥☮☯♫ PC MUSIC ♫☯☮♥ ☺☺☺ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°✌

http://pcmusic.info/

I really hated this shit for the longest time and now I think it is, like, my favorite thing
the source code is cute
the GFOTY Secret Mix is amazing and "KISS" (at ~6:00) is prob top 10 tracks of the year
it's only a matter of time before this sound permeates top 40 radio, right?

͡° ͜ʖ ͡°✌

https://soundcloud.com/pcmus/gfoty-secret-mix

yay, Hannah Diamond's 'Attachment' and 'Pink and Blue' certainly feature in my top releases this year, some great stuff on pc music, good visuals too

Nadia Oh's last album was so proto-PC Music

Fatima Al Qadiri is kinda not totally dissimilar too, right?

Big-time co-sign re: the Secret Mix--recent FACT feature on the label well worth a trawl-through, too.

The recent-ish Tielsie track ("Palette") might be my favorite thing they've ever done, at least this week.

Lots of greatness in here, a lot of it mix-only so I can't even remember what track's what.

The Radio Tank mix is the absolute bomb & all the GFOTY and AG Cook named stuff is amazing.

Agreed re-Tielsie too. Much greatness. Want more!

omg this is amazing!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6_ikWlJu_0

co-produced by SOPHIE and A.G. Cook

this whole aesthetic is so terrible sometimes but i occasionally like it. "hey qt" especially reminds me of some of the danish pop music from the late 90s that is probably not v socially acceptable to like these days (the kind that is sometimes termed bubblegum dance). but w/ a hip-'n'-decontextualized futuristic image i guess anything is okay.

this copycat label has, among other things, basically slapped the trendy imagery on top of some sped up teenpop songs that no one over the age of 13 has ever given a shit about but surprisingly the results are not bad at all. search this and especially this if you are so attuned.

That Ponibbi track is excellent. Am all up for this type of thing spreading wider.

Every generation gets the Aqua it deserves.

if this worthless shite was comparable to aqua it might actually succeed as actual pop rather than this contemptuous parodic approach

I don't think this is very contemptuous! I mean, obviously there is an element of idk commentary or detachment but I don't think there's any contempt

It's derived from the Happy House/Breakcore scene of the mid-00s and earlier. In that stuff there was definitely a disdain or playful disrespect for the sampled material and tracks they were mixing etc. But that has been removed here. As has most of the random, anarchic & offensive elements and overt expressions of hedonism. Here, the breakdowns and build-ups are highlighted and the beat almost never kicks in - then it's quickly removed again. That leaves some room for more emotional lyrics etc. I think Hannah Diamond's Attachment is a beautiful song and absolutely not cynical or contemptuous at all.

I do not think or expect this sound will blow up big though - like Happy House etc even the most commercial stuff has roadblocks for the general public - chipmunk vocals, denying the beat etc.

I don't see a way in which this *isn't* contemptuous, for what it's worth.

Yeah? No idea what you mean by that.

i'm not gonna pretend to understand the intentions of the people creating this music because i have no fucking clue, but based on what i know of the scenes from which this seems to have sprung i'd guess that a not-insignificant portion of ppl who like this stuff are probably disdainful of successful pop music, or they only show appreciation of such music if their enthusiasm will be read as somehow 'ironic'

Tell us more about yourself.

oh my gosh so much of my evil character has been revealed by my vague general statement about how a small subsection of people who like a genre seem to consume music

i'd guess that a not-insignificant portion of ppl who like this stuff are probably disdainful of successful pop music, or they only show appreciation of such music if their enthusiasm will be read as somehow 'ironic'

Really?? That is the total opposite of what I imagined this stuff was coming out of and it would really bum me out if all this stuff was just made by really smug assholes who hated tons of stuff

Exactly it's not. It's made by people who are deep into a wide range of "successful pop music" and all of the design and image tropes that go along with it. That's what's so great about (the best of) it - it highlights certain tropes, diminishes others and something new emerges.

The only people I know who are disdainful of successful pop music nowadays are really dullard indie-folk fans who I'm guessing think this is horrible saccharine unlistenable shit tbf.

But hey, wade into a thread and call people wankerz if u wanna

This is a bit like the "death to false metal" brigade hating on, I dunno, Dragonforce or whoever. Separating the fact that there is little in the music to suggest irony or contempt of anything, it's totally illogical that these people would spend this amount of care and attention on supposedly dissing something they hate via microscopically altering its elements.

basically, this sounds like some bad dave eggers "the circle" level satire of pop stars in 2014:

"So what, or who, is QT? She’s a sparkling future pop sensation - albeit one who is set to warp and stretch the notion of what a pop star actually is. It’s a drink, or more precisely a brand new Energy Elixir ("where organic and synthetic meet to stimulate an uplifting club sensation")."

Meanwhile Grimes tweets that she like a Supertramp song and the indie crew fall over themselves high-fiving each other about what a card she is.

There's the branding/aesthetic LOGO Magazine/Diamond Wright aspect which is common across all the PC Music roster, but that's just one aspect. This is more about demarcating a kind of pop futurism, everything super HD shiny and non-natural.

also if you want to find people disdainful of successful pop music look at any comments section of any article about pop music ever published, it's like shooting very indignant fish in an artisanal barrel. or pitchfork's facebook page/mentions etc.

"She’s a sparkling future pop sensation - albeit one who is set to warp and stretch the notion of what a pop star actually is."

hatsune miku vibes from this whole thing

xpost Posting an online comment = easy. Creating a super-cool range of songs with associated imagery, branding and marketing that all informs the aesthetic = hard. Also hard - keeping it positive and uncynical, which I believe all the acts mentioned so far on this thread do.

I guess that's where we disagree, then, because I can't help but see this entire enterprise as profoundly cynical. difficulty has nothing to do with that. it would help if the creators talked about hey qt et al as if they were actual people rather than pre-manufactured entities ("what is a solange" etc) and if I didn't get the sense that Hannah Diamond is going to turn out, if she isn't already, as far less famous/wealthy/on track for a career than the producer bros here. everyone went apeshit over that farrah abraham album and look what it did for her.

Must be hard for you to enjoy any female singers if you're going to wring your hands over the producers making $$$. Anyway, Hannah Diamond's music career looks to me to be her own thing - an accessory to her photography/design career. http://diamondwright.info/

So far on this thread we've had comparisons with Aqua, David Eggers and Farrah Abraham. And you're calling THIS cynical. LOL.

Contemptuous, cynical and disdainful has been done perfectly well already. It's played out in this scene. If anything this is a reaction against that.
eg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR7m2asp09o

One of the GFOTY mixes includes a Toy-Box track, that's practically an endorsement of Aqua innit?

I didn't make the Aqua comparison, but I think it's generally fair given how un-seriously people take Lene Nystrøm's career. The Eggers comparison is fair in that he's also a generally talented and well-read guy (no one is saying these guys aren't either) who wrote one very bad book of obvious, surface-level satire, and Farrah Abraham is fair in that she is also someone who recorded a pop album (if perhaps under different circumstances) people got into for the ironic lulz -- which, as it turns out, doesn't actually help an artist make money or have a career.

as for the "hard for you to enjoy any female singers," that would be a valid argument if Taylor Swift or Ariana Grande or whoever released music and anyone outside the Cheiron Studios fan forums talked about the music like "yet another slam-dunk from Shellback!" that said, for rising pop singers this does tend to be the case (if they're talked about at all), and it bugs me then too -- and you know, it'd just be cool if people trying to create some kind of ironic/alternative version of the pop machine wouldn't replicate its worst traits.

basically, I just don't enjoy cynicism! it's possible for this to be done well and not be cynical -- the josie and the pussycats soundtrack, a lot of vocaloid, at least interpreted by fans (Miriam Stockley's a voice for one); it usually involve the songs still pretty much working as pop songs. it's even possible for this to be cynical as hell and still be OK (among the most probably-embarrassing tracks I think are kinda OK: Cora Corman's "Slam" from "Music and Lyrics") for me, this isn't either.

(also, before anyone accuses me of coming into a thread and shitting on everything, I gave "attachment" a 6/10 and "pink and blue" was OK too; it's just when these guys start getting into the faux-satirical fake-pop fake-teen stuff like Lipgloss Twins and Hey QT that it puts me off.)

'Pink and Blue' seems closer to satire than 'Hey QT' to me.

xpost. I dunno, I can barely connect any of that with the actual music we're discussing. There's no-one on this thread giving it a thumbs-up who says they are into for "the ironic lulz". I said I thought Attachment was beautiful and I mean it. This music is not supposed to be satirical. "Meta" maybe. There is playfulness but it's not disdainful of anything.

I mean, accusing pop music of authenticity is a classic rockist thing. Can hardly be bothered addressing that. You don't dig it, fine.

"lack of authenticity" rather.

it's less authenticity I care about (I just admitted to liking the deliberately shitty "pop" songs from music & lyrics fuck's sake) than... I guess we're right back to "contempt," because the more I hear and read the clearer that sense becomes for me.

Google tells me that you are talking about a Hugh Grant romantic comedy film. I don't think that's necessarily relevant.

I was suspicious only initially (with 'Pink and Blue' and the LOGO aesthetics) but the more I hear I go the other way. The $eriou$ Thug$ stuff you could probably go more that way with if you wanted, but probably for more white hipster rapper reasons.

are the vocalists on sophie's singles credited anywhere

the way his producer name invites casual listeners to think that "sophie" is the person in the press photos/singing the songs combined with the QT press release raving about the producers and speaking about the vocalist as if she is an inanimate object weirds me out

not hating just saying

feel a lot of katherine's points itt

I think Cornelius fans might find a lot to like here.

deeply sorry i called u all 'wankerz' even tho i was expressly not talking about the intentions of the creators of this music, who are surely very respectful of & passionately into the influences that they wear on their sleeves -- even if the writing used to market their music is a bit cynical as katherine pointed out. not that it matters but as i stated upthread i do like some of this music ('bipp' was my most-played track of last year) & i am a huge fan of a lot of the music in the aqua/toy-box/crispy/smile.dk/papaya/bambee vein that quite clearly seems to inform some of it.

Katherine I am disagreein' w you so hard but am enjoying yr contributions to this thread.

basically, this sounds like some bad dave eggers "the circle" level satire of pop stars in 2014:

"So what, or who, is QT? She’s a sparkling future pop sensation - albeit one who is set to warp and stretch the notion of what a pop star actually is. It’s a drink, or more precisely a brand new Energy Elixir ("where organic and synthetic meet to stimulate an uplifting club sensation")."

My best friend who was also my boyfriend for 10 months is v much into this stuff and would totally write something like this super earnestly w/o any cynicism. It's just weird and inaccessible but I think easily parsed as cynicism

xp to my post above, as a sidenote re: that particular segment of hyper-cute bubblegum pop, some of it actually was created with purely cynical intentions. one example:

In the meantime I had done an assignment on europop hits on the Conservatory. I had always been fascinated by hits. How come one song makes a hit single and another does not? As part of the assignment I had to try and write a europop hit sounding like Aqua, which became "Mr. Wam bam boogie". A very light pop tune with a clear irony towards europop. Nevertheless it was recorded and released by Norwegian singer Bambee on the album "On ice" (CNR/Arcade, 1999). My first official release, but very contrary to my agelong musical principles and ideas of good music in general.

(that particular song was not a hit)

but in general i never felt uncomfortable w/ this music b/c it general was not marketed disdainfully or appreciated 'ironically' by the ppl who liked it

not exactly sold on a vaporwave/nightcore/girl talk-ified version of the popjustice aesthetic.

Funny thing is that Popjustice didn't like the track.

Maybe this is juvenilia or whatever from before they fully put together their style & design aesthetic (the fact that it's one of the only tracks not downloadable from their Soundcloud maybe bears this out? or maybe there's a hard limit on # of downloads and it's just been there the longest, I don't know) but <a href="http://brokenflowers.pcmusic.info/";>Broken Flowers</a> doesn't feel even a little bit insincere, mocking or cynical to me.

rgh
broken flowers

yeah some of the early stuff barely really fits in with what has actually gotten pc music to be (somewhat) popular

Liking fun pop music sure seems like a lot of work

Things were simpler when we were rockists.

what's the eggers book consisting "of obvious, surface-level satire"?

https://tmbgsongaday.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/mcsweeneys.png?w=640&h=392&crop=1

pop music altered to heighten the feeling of alienating uncanny valley surrealism

Haha this GFOTY mix is mad :D

think I could get with this in a fairly major way - I don't even care if it's impishly playing with convention while obviously enjoying itself; oh no my sainted Pop is being deconstructed! oh no! stop this! etc

it would help if...I didn't get the sense that Hannah Diamond is going to turn out, if she isn't already, as far less famous/wealthy/on track for a career than the producer bros here.

this is possibly the most repulsive sentiment I've read on ILM in a very long time

hey qt is great fun ofc; it's also p good songwriting. jfc i can't get over that post i just quoted though

if only "hey qt" worked as pop (it doesn't, it's a parody of everything mockable about teenpop stereotypes). it sort of reminded me of that terrible kid606 remix album of missy from circa 2001. no, i want to hear MISSY, not missy rendered unlistenable bc you think it's wacky or she's lacking in obvious strangeness.

pop regularly does a pretty good job of deconstructing itself tbh, this is only for people who need the comfort blanket of it being not-pop

QT might be OK if the vocals weren't embarrassingly tacky.

Serious Thugs = worst thing of all time

The jpop influences/kinship kind of seem more pronounced than any teenpop parodying.

I really like this. So simple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaV_Z2a_ZLM

This stuff is what the new Rustie album should have been.

That's a total fucking banger tbf

the book is "The Circle", I have no idea what the fuck is so repulsive about that statement

Its a statement that is more about the world than the particulars of anything to do with this thread

Hannah Diamond, A. G. Cook and SOPHIE are all on PC Music so if there's a way that this is unrelated to the thread I'd love to hear it

What about PC Music makes you think that the female contigent therein are more likely to be marginalised/under-rewarded than anyone else? Is this to do with them, or the culture in which they are received?

I am trying to understand what you are trying to say.

it's just a sneaking suspicion, it's not a Grand Statement. but it's my impression of the coverage of "Attachment" et al and how it differs from the coverage of other acts who are being covered for the alt-pop crowd, people like, I dunno, Allie X or LIZ or even Ryn Weaver (although my gut sense is that she's probably being marketed to more of a mainstream pop crowd, and even she's got her share of coverage that's like "BENZEL! CASHMERE CAT! CHARLI XCX! andnoneforgretchenweaverbye" although part of that might just be SEO). when the interviews for whichever EP or album coalesces from this come in, I'd be surprised if they didn't turn out to be pretty much what I expect (see: "the way his producer name invites casual listeners to think that "sophie" is the person in the press photos/singing the songs combined with the QT press release raving about the producers and speaking about the vocalist as if she is an inanimate object weirds me out"). if I think of everything in press terms it's because this is what I do for at least part of a living, and it doesn't switch off.

once again, this is just a small side suspicion, and people who are paying attention rather than declaring everything repulsive will note that none of this has made me hate the music yet.

let's ignore press terms and hear it on the artist's:

AGC: What interests me about pop music and commercial imagery in the first place is that it has the potential to be overwhelming, extravagant and banal all at the same time. Not only that, but mixing "high culture" with pop culture has lost its radical edge to the extent that it's more or less mainstream. Challenging something's commercial nature is a commercial tactic in itself, and authenticity is a tricky currency that is often swayed by branding and advertising. I have nothing against this, and many people respond to this kind of stuff in a sophisticated way. Though it means that there is room for a subtler and possibly more compelling way of engaging with these ideas, where shock value and direct irony is replaced with ambiguity and uncanniness. My work's constant use of instantly gratifying elements such as kitsch imagery, catchy hooks, synthetic colours and fun sound effects feels inevitable, it's almost a compulsion rather than a choice. Saying that, I try to be thoughtful as to how and why I'm using these things, and I think my over-the-top use of structure and layout is a result of this. It's also what makes the work feel ambiguous. It's sort of communicating something, but there's all this extra stuff going on. By the time you try to figure out what it's about, you've entered a sort of immersive world of ideas and references. Making it difficult to navigate not only adds to this effect, but it's also a way of giving it the overwhelming, extravagant and banal potential of commercial work. It's a particular style of craftsmanship that I could perhaps afford to ignore if I ever ended up doing large-scale commercial work, but it's definitely a way of making a bigger impact with limited resources, like a virtuoso playing on a simple instrument or an outsider artist obsessively using a tiny object to make an enormous piece. Maybe it gives my work a kind of manic individual quality, despite the fact that it's also basically a slick collage.

I'd like my pop without first-year art student blather.

the book is "The Circle"

― katherine, Saturday, August 30, 2014 9:56 AM (4 hours ago)

ty - haven't read it, but haven't read/followed eggers in quite a while

^ ...aaaand, yeah, i notice now that the answer was provided earlier. ty nonetheless.

except the "so what, or who, is QT?" bit *is* the artist's terms, plus a lot more people are gonna read that than some interview

I'd like my pop without first-year art student blather.

Then you're reading the wrong message board.

Nothing here is as bad as that quote.

I disagree. Don't really see to much to complain about with the quote - it's articulate and is helpful to me at least. I guess he's being overly explanatory for people who want the mystery. But then as seen in this thread, the absence of information seems to lead them to bizarre conclusions about the motives of the listeners and the exploitation of the women involved. He can't win either way.

my 2c is that he's prob some rly awkward overintellectual weirdo

Rly awkward overintellectual weirdos r00l tho

Yep, he's got plenty of good company if that's the case.

xp otm

Vaporwave did this better

Looks like the new PC Music drop has steered away from the seemingly controversial bubblegum-bass...

It can be found here:
https://soundcloud.com/pcmus/western-beats/s-viika

ahh yes more insensitive, post-ironic web shlock

"no, you're wrong! it's actually fantastic"

fuck this garbage completely

insensitive?

hackshaw I'd like you to explain your accusation

new QT single rulz so hard

QT logo would make a kewl tat

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/460_Width/1408/yKZHuK5Y.png

hackshaw has not returned to defend their intellectually decrepit statements

What interests me about pop music and commercial imagery in the first place is that it has the potential to be overwhelming, extravagant and banal all at the same time.

O RLY

i mean, that right there is contempt for pop, as in how pop is rather than your pet imagined version of What Pop Should Be Because Actual Pop Is So Mainstream or whatever

most pop is a lot more overwhelming and extravagant than any of this shit, though PC Music certainly get banal right

personally I am shocked someone doesn't want to defend himself against someone who's called his opinion "intellectually decrepit" right out of the gate

nice, assuming it's a male poster

don't understand what lex's first post there is trying to say

calling this music 'insensitive' is charlatanry of the most profound order though, post-popist grandstanding nonsense-speak that ideates a notion of pop authenticity that must be protected from deconstruction at all odds. in other words, the sort of shit that should have been extinguished on ilm long ago

all the people who have said "authenticity":

- you and other people who are calling people's posts "charlatanry" or "intellectually decrepit" or "the most repulsive thing I have ever read" for, as far as I can tell, not liking the music as much as they should
- the artist himself

ah, so we're doing away with context are we? let's hear how the artist mentioned it:

authenticity is a tricky currency

we're the ones making a mockery of any claims to authenticity, as is surely inherent in any accusation of making music that is insensitive

charlatanry/intellectually decrepit/repulsive referred specifically to posts that either ascribed the music's badness to some kind of moral deficiency or posts which projected that a singer would be 'far less famous/wealthy/on track for a career' than the producers she works with, which is entirely up to her to evaluate & demonstrates only the careerist, elitist priorities of the poster imo

yep, you sure got me. how awful of me to hope that artists I find promising go on to a successful career.

Surely there's a msg borad for HR consultants somewhere?

it'll turn out that ag cook is a figure of the patriarchy, using hannah diamond for as much as he can wring outta her before dumping her on the kerb as soon as the contract from universal's in front of him, and boy howdy how silly we'll feel then

either you're deliberately trolling at this point or you've got some bet going to prop up as many straw men as possible

simply posting out of frustration that you'd reduce a collaborative piece of music to a projection of gender bias that you've admitted yourself is just a hunch, in order to find fault with it

really hannah diamond should come on right now and speak for herself

...

you're right, no one should find fault in any music ever

i mean in an ideal world she would, i'm not being prescriptive :P

"hey qt" is atrocious

yep

Yeah

find this stuff pretty cynical regardless of the transmitted earnestness in the uh artist statements

cmon katherine, that's a weak argument!

srsly, defend the idea that this music lacks merit because the singers are reduced to the level of cipher (any more so than in music you enjoy) - go on

don't really need a mediated layer between me and pop music

isn't there always one?

when you don't explain yourself you're "intellectually decrepit" and when you do explain yourself you're "the most repulsive thing I've ever read" so no, I get enough fucking hate mail as it is to invite more

so you're admitting to being hackshaw?

excuse me for not loading all hundred-and-something previous posts of this thread to copy and paste the exact way I was insulted

isn't there always one?

yeah but it's not totally necessary to the music functioning at all?

i didn't insult you, i merely said your statement was repulsive. possibly overdoing it a bit. everything aimed at hackshaw stands, though, unless hackshaw themselves can explain it in a way that makes any sense at all

it's possible to take this music at face value - when i opened up the youtube initially i did so purely within the context of it being music recommended by ppl i trust

well bc that level of mediation is embedded in the music. this is pop but fuckkkqqqqqkked upppppppp mannnnnn, JUST LIKE POP AND CAPITALISM ACTUALLY ARE

it's not that fucked up! it works as pop imo

wasn't insulting you, just saying the things you say are repulsive and intellectually decrepit!!

it's possible to take this music at face value - when i opened up the youtube initially i did so purely within the context of it being music recommended by ppl i trust

it's also possible not to 'take it at face value' so not sure what yr point is

in what universe is "the most repulsive thing I've ever read" not an insult?

as far as explanation, I've already explained myself at length, multiple times (including in a review with a 6/10 score! which is above average!) and do not feel the need to do so again when, as I see it, one side of the "argument" is "I do not hate this music but have reservations about it, which I will now calmly explain" and the other side is "YOU REPULSIVE CRETINS HOW DARE YOU DISLIKE THIS GENIUS SONG."

it's not even genius, it's just kinda catchy and clever, well made

my argument is not with you disliking it or the fact you have reservations, it's the way the reservations have been expressed, within what i regard as a lamentable stardom/success narrative

hackshaw's intellectual decrepitude is a different matter entirely - calling this music 'insensitive' is absolutely preposterous and after hackshaw failed to respond to my initial challenge i felt i'd up the stakes a bit

i'll take back 'possibly the most repulsive thing i've read on ILM in a very long time' though, because that's almost certainly a gross exaggeration

as far as explanation, I've already explained myself at length, multiple times (including in a review with a 6/10 score! which is above average!) and do not feel the need to do so again when, as I see it, one side of the "argument" is "I do not hate this music but have reservations about it, which I will now calmly explain" and the other side is "YOU REPULSIVE CRETINS HOW DARE YOU DISLIKE THIS GENIUS SONG."

from that description I'd say that this music passes the pop test with flying colors (nb: I haven't listened to it yet)

i'll admit my previous post was a little (read: a lot) off base, imago. I've enjoyed "Pink And Blue" previously which is exponentially more heartfelt and irony-free than this new one. I feel as if the nudge and wink is lost on "Hey QT" to the point where it comes off as slightly cynical, and yes, insensitive. take that as you will

faaaair enough well i'll disagree on the word itself but that's a dignified response & i shall retract some of the more vituperative language aimed your way

why do you guys have to over-intalectualize everything? i thought this website was called "i love" music

yah bummer thread but fwiw i luv QT's one song b/c it's fun and silly and i can enjoy it both ironically and sincerely, and rlly it's been p funny to see all the 'serious techno' and pop critic types going into conniptions over it

it's not that fucked up! it works as pop imo

― imago, Tuesday, September 2, 2014 5:07 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

since when has whether something "works as pop" been important to you?

(and it doesn't really)

(it doesn't work as a "deconstruction" of pop either; pop is a pretty good genre at regularly "deconstructing", refracting and commenting on itself, but of course if you don't like or don't listen to mainstream pop you wouldn't know that, so of course you'd think this was something really clever)

A great new Mike Paradinas mix which has a handful of these tracks with a bunch of Planet Mu stuff

I think it works best in a mix like that. ie other non-pop (as Lex insists) non-dance electronic music.

defensive overreaching itt feels like ppl street teaming for a middle tier streetwear brand that recently gifted the emperor with some new threads

some truly grody posts imo

Thread is setting some new records for ad hominem attacks I'll give you that.

why is sparkling future pop sensation qt addressing qt in "hey qt" idgi

Some of the greatest records ever made are completely banal but that banality needs to be delivered with sincerity rather than with a knowing smirk.

Nah, there's plenty of good records that are banal and smirk.

yes but it's 2014 and the knowing smirk is the new sincerity!

i love this stuff

fwiw, the 'possibly most repulsive sentiment I've read on ilm for a while' was in fact inspired, I now confess, by a slight misreading

it's still bad imo (how can you presume to speak for hannah diamond & judge her success on such material terms as well as atomise what was clearly a thoughtful collaborative process into 'producers & singers' acting individually for their own ends) but it is true that a lot of individuals working in the pop industry (which PC MUSIC is tangential to) are exploited for their talents while not receiving the plaudits they might deserve (i can imagine this happens to a lot of women)

I read your post initially as judging the artistic success of the song on how famous & minted its singer got, which is obv repulsive but not quite what you were doing - judging it, however misguidedly, on how exploited the singer seems is much fairer

this has obv cut deep so seems fair to clarify

Phil Sherburne weighs in - http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/485-pc-music/

I got nothing from that article; it just kind of explained what it is and how other people feel about it in a very music-writerly way but didn't really say all that much

Well, "weighs in" is probably the wrong phrase for that link. Maybe Sherburne writes profile with faint praise, says they are not the worst, would have been more accurate.

lots of controversy in RA forums over this sort of stuff

RA forums might actually be the worst tho.

The artwork for this stuff is pretty awesome. Really digging the stuff on Hannah Diamond's web site too. Haven't heard the music, not really planning on it bcz I genuinely don't care for "actual" chartpop

if you don't care for actual "chartpop" you are the target audience of this music, you might as well give it a shot

ugh, the RA comments on Ben Aqu@'s mix are so terrible/hilarious.

this is a pretty good read: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2014/09/23/350580589/a-rational-conversation-is-pc-music-pop-or-is-it-pop

i'm not going to cosign any of those RA comments but i too find this stuff repulsive

this stuff is so perfectly art school lol
a lot of ideas about itself but its all a lil too ~thought out~ like the narrative is the point rather than an incidental exercise for historians after the fact

very well put

such a statement can only ever be a projection of one's own experience. one may dig the narrative and the raw dumb sensation of hearing. the two aren't completely discrete, even

but cool if that's what u think, w/e

i mean you're all much much cleverer than them so

OTMFM

Unlike most pop music I like, it doesn't make me want to dance or sing along, but I like listening to some of it because it's like listening to a bunch of funny jokes.

Yes! I asked my friend Julianne Escobedo Shepherd if PC Music is like "Weird Al" Yankovic for hipsters — the idea that it's an inside joke that we can all be in on, but that's still catchy and fun to listen to. She said that the precise difference is that Weird Al isn't cynical and that PC Music is cynical.

Cynical in what sense?

Cynical in the sense that PC Music's manipulation is possibly just too manipulated. It's like trend forecasting to an almost scary degree. As in: If you combine these X, Y and Z nostalgia points that the internet cares about so much, you're going to have a hit. It's like seeing what's culturally trending, combining them all together and of course that'll hit big.

So as a listener are you supposed to laugh at their approach or the fact you're responding to it?

You're supposed to be proud of yourself for being in on the joke, on knowing the references. That's the wink-wink. PC Music is almost a double-wink. It's having the ironic edge of the wink, but taking it one step further and letting us know that you even know that being IRONIC is lame. I hate to say it's post-ironic — because I hate when people say post-racial or post-gay or WHATEVER — but that's what this is, right? It's incorporated the laugh track right into the beat.

I'm also incredibly interested in what PC Music's relationship to the larger music industry is, in the sense that it feels like the antidote to the post-Disclosure house music that is now everywhere. PC Music is like the anti-Kiesza.

Whereas Disclosure is hoping to revive electronic music's history of soulfulness, and in doing so has brought house music back to a gigantic audience, PC Music is kind of saying that electronic music is still an insider's club. If Disclosure is now played at every wedding party in New York City, PC Music is saying, "No, this music is for weirdos."

from npr piece jordan linked to above

also see the beginning of the piece for what i meant about misogyny, bedroom boys co-opting drag for transgressive points when they're the same churlish cunts they're always going to be.

what i meant about misogyny in the qt - hey qt thread

Never heard any of this but it cant be as that Kiesza record

weird al is super cynical, or at least he was back in the new wave era

also see the beginning of the piece for what i meant about misogyny, bedroom boys co-opting drag for transgressive points when they're the same churlish cunts they're always going to be.

― mattresslessness, Tuesday, September 23, 2014 10:12 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i am afraid this will not end well unless you explain yourself more clearly

oh it's already ended

i'm willing to concede that in person the pc music brigade are boring, self-obsessed, queer-culture-tonedeaf cunts, but they come off way more thoughtful than that & play with notions of pop and avant-garde in what is imo quite a fluent and mischievous way. 'coopting drag' is a really nice way of putting gender play though so kudos

i'm sure i'll be over all this soon, just don't get the vicious hatred at all, it seems consciously 'offended' in the most obnoxiously rockist way

*MAY BE boring, self-obsessed etc

this is probably the weakest shit you have ever hyped for being 'playful' and 'deconstructive' and thats saying

*sigh*

maybe i'll see the light @ some pt. mostly i find it irritatingly catchy ffs, the deconstructive element is mostly the discourse around it

just don't get the vicious hatred at all, it seems consciously 'offended' in the most obnoxiously rockist way

― Ѿ (imago), Tuesday, 23 September 2014 23:25 (2 minutes ago)

The 1975's shadowy record-label cabal told them to write about. "Write songs about...the city, money, sex, girls, clothing, maybe a sexual encounter, maybe settling down with a loved one...and keep the titles simple". Clearly these 1975 boys have the imagination of a breezeblock. Right, starting to really, really hate the music as well. I know it's IMPOSSIBLY NOW, and yet this knotty paradox compels me to rid myself of it before it might perplex me entirely! I shall listen until 'Sex' just to see if I really can rile myself up into some sort of homicidal rage. Oh Christ, dear God. I shouldn't be listening any more. This is utterly loathsome, the textures of 'The City' long forgotten amidst shambling priapic aural vomit. FUCK OFF.

― 141 Jute Gyte - Discontinuities 142 drake - nothing was the same (imago), Thursday, January 30, 2014 7:12 PM (7 months ago)

oneohtrix point never is 7895437985x the artist they are in a musically compositional/deconstructive sense obv, fine whatever i'm going away under a fucking rock

hey i can't help my visceral gut reactions m8

ilm decides: is it ok to like a music?

fucking absolutely done with this thread & probably pc music as well, if this is what happens

their fault, ultimately. fuck them. they wrote catchy, playful songs that were transcendentally shit & i got badly captivated for enough of a dumb moment to take up cudgels in their honour, knowing scant it was absent

the rest is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eAZHnfe394

the deconstructive element is mostly the discourse around it

― Ѿ (imago), Tuesday, 23 September 2014 23:29 (19 seconds ago)

this goes to show that if these same exact tracks were just found eurotrash from a moldovan soundcloud page you wouldn't give them the time of day, yet since they have been authored and introduced into the discourse stream by discourse amenable partially educated wastemen it is now 'deconstructive' (subtype playful, the best type of deconstruction)

slightly harsh given i only found out about them by opening 'hey qt' sight unseen after steve d recommended & found it catchy, but since then i've found the 'phenomenon' and 'debate' of mild fascination, whatever though, i'm not gonna keep coming back

something i'm not clear on...imago, are you a fan of pc music or nah?

everyone fuck off and listen to autechre or black metal or fka twigs or w/e

i'm going to cofound a london-based movement called PC MUSIC whose lyrical themes will discuss cis male oppression, the fall of the gender binary and ableism. i will not be its leader, but i will be dubbed PATRIARCHY. it will be super positive & sincere & everything PC MUSIC (1) is not. alternatively, i'll trash my computer and go live in a hole

thanks for clearing that up

There's a number of people here who enjoy at least some of this music and are not going to post on this depressing thread about it (any more).

ILM at it's very worst.

weird al is super cynical, or at least he was back in the new wave era

― example (crüt), Tuesday, September 23, 2014 5:17 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

if you don't care for actual "chartpop" you are the target audience of this music, you might as well give it a shot

― dyl, Tuesday, September 23, 2014 1:03 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

right, i don't like chartpop therefore i would like this music that presumably sounds like chartpop... wait what?

It mostly doesn't sound anything like chartpop. It's more like early 2000 breakbeat crossed with the last couple of Cornelius albums.

ok i listened to a few tracks.. kid606 updated for the bass music era. no thanks.

Early pranky kid606 i should say

There's a number of people here who enjoy at least some of this music and are not going to post on this depressing thread about it (any more).

ILM at it's very worst.

― everything, Tuesday, September 23, 2014 5:58 PM (32 minutes ago)

As a strong PC Music partisan I'm going to try and speak for those people.
I got in a tad ahead of the curve with the label (by way of A.G. Cook's brisk remix of DJ DJ Booth's "Heaven", which I think kind of encapsulates what everyone's overlooking in favor of the "irritating" pitched-up vocals and trance stabs), so all I had to go on to figure out what they were was the mixes and A.G.'s Tank interview where he talks about how utterly serious he is about making fun pop music, and furthermore not acting like that has to go hand-in-hand with monster budgets or major-label backing. So, you know, not a Pitchfork recommendation. Just some weird thing on Soundcloud that ticked a lot of aesthetic boxes for me. And when other people started picking up on it, I was happy, because that's how you're supposed to feel when someone else falls in love with something you like. But because Pitchfork played a noticeable role in that I think it's thrown up some false flags for a lot of people. And because it's obviously what PC Music is closest to on the spectrum of things people complain about Pitchfork for, they've gotten caught up in the tiresome "authenticity"/"sincerity" debate. Actually, that's not really right - they were involved in that beforehand. But I think it's in a markedly different way than how they're currently being called out. Because the common complaint seems to be that they're using the trappings of art-school irony to pass off subpar pop music as something better than it is. Whereas I've felt - since day one - that they were bringing the jaded art kids out into the light. And it's necessary to think of this in terms of what's going on in electronic music right now: it's experienced a long-deferred step into the spotlight (in America especially) and belatedly developed, like all other genres, a "pop" variant that's visibly distinct from the splinters that previously made up the whole of it. And the splinters are displeased by this, consider the pop-accepted variant disingenuous, and, rather than try to compete with it, retreat further into the depths. Whereas PC Music look at this turning point and say, wow, isn't this wonderful, dance music is being born again on the pop charts, unfolding right before our eyes. Which it is: a generation mostly divorced from the old scenes are finding new ways to do things, and they’re getting sizable support from big-label dollars (ie, putting aside all arguments about quality, big room house is something rather without precedent in dance music, let alone the kind that sells). And what PC Music is doing – what I think makes them totally distinct, in fact – is taking music from the “splinters”, along with the neglected flotsam of dance music’s various other stabs at pop crossover, and treating it and themselves like a major label, with an A&R department and various in-house producers and vocalists. All the trappings of pop, including some of the things usually associated with its more pernicious aspects, divorced of the actual perniciousness. And they’re visibly having a blast with it. Which is why the NPR article, and its comments (as well as the reflections of their attitude within this thread) make me more than a tad uneasy. Two guys talking about how serious and anti-fun SOPHIE supposedly was at his MoMA show, and how he and all the PC Music people are co-opting drag imagery for their entitled pseudo-pop posturing and taking advantage of their vocalists when it’s not just them pitching their own voices up. So let me make it plain: I was at the MoMA show, it was a blast, everyone in the audience had a wonderful time (and you need not take my word for it: I filmed the majority of the set, mostly pointed at the crowd due to SOPHIE’s enforced anonymity, which I’ll upload at my nearest convenience). I saw him in the VIP section chatting up QT (who is, indeed, a real person, and one distinct from Hannah Diamond at that) and later ran into him in the refreshments area, where I briefly subjected him to my effusive praise of his music and then asked him a few questions (first and foremost: his next single is called “Fizz” – or “Fizzes”, it was difficult to hear over Evian Christ). Amongst my questions came one about who was in his place on the decks during his Boiler Room set, and he responded by motioning across the room to one of his friends from the VIP section – wearing a skirt-ish denim outfit, but currently out of drag. I could sense his genuine delight at meeting someone so obsessive about what he did. So, yes, I’m going to defend him and his affiliates because I like them. But also because I think they’ve earned that affection. Just keep that in mind before you try to argue that PC Music is a label for people who can’t enjoy anything genuinely.
Shout-out to Marcello Carlin, who began my love affair with pop music and is currently swearing off of ILX due to stress.

Apologies for the novel, though I'd say it about equals the amount of frankly depressing stuff I've read about the label.

i think i genuinely enjoy this music. it's like teen/kogan pop + vaporware mashup. i think lj is right that it's no oneohtrix, but idk these npr bros all fretting over the level of irony + distance they feel from the music. i hate to be like all sontag beyond interpretation but at some level u have to listen w/out the analysis. it sounds good (or it doesn't)

You're supposed to be proud of yourself for being in on the joke, on knowing the references. That's the wink-wink. PC Music is almost a double-wink. It's having the ironic edge of the wink, but taking it one step further and letting us know that you even know that being IRONIC is lame. I hate to say it's post-ironic — because I hate when people say post-racial or post-gay or WHATEVER — but that's what this is, right? It's incorporated the laugh track right into the beat.

^ this is so much more embarrassing than any PC MUSIC track i've heard

idk i feel like a lot of elements of the music and especially the presentation are practically begging to be analyzed

like i'm sorry so many of u are upset that this music is naturally going to mean different things to other ppl than it means to u

yeah i agree, these guys can't have it both ways--like it's either about fun pop music appreesh or it's about a carefully controlled image and aesthetic

Why are we assuming that they are co-opting queer/drag culture??? Do we have any reason to presume that they're straight? Bcz assigning them as such by default wd be really fucking offensive.

who's we?

personally this stuff offends my senses (and sensibilities) not my politics

I love this stuff, so if the main takeaway from my Pitchfork primer was that "they are not the worst," I'm clearly going to have to keep writing about them. I mean, that wasn't meant to be a gushing personal essay or anything; it was meant as an introduction, a who's who and what's what. But I'm definitely a fan (even though not unconditionally; like I said, I think QT is undercooked so far). Love Kane West, GOFTY, Danny Harle ("Broken Flowers!"), all the mixes, etc.

oh did you write that?

ok yr username, so yes

Once I realized it was just an intro for the unfamiliar (as noted by ": A User's Manual") and not, like, an analysis or something I warmed up to it a lot more; I spent the whole time reading it going like "YES YES I KNOW ALL OF THIS BUT THEN WHAT???" and then it was like "okay well this article's prob written for ppl who have never heard of this and don't know all of this" in which case it is a v solid piece of writing that does an excellent job of conveying their ~zhuzh~

it's either about fun pop music appreesh or it's about a carefully controlled image and aesthetic

waht, doesn't "actual" pop music encompass both of these things all the time

yeah i'm expressing myself poorly there, my point is that there seem to be an undue number of "just enjoy the music, maaan" type comments when that seems like the exact opposite of what the actual pc music ppl are presenting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0YD0awZQvo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT2jCmcTOwo

^^^^ video amazing

not a great article but i'm repping for that maxo feat gfoty track about halfway through in particular.

oh, er, this article http://noisey.vice.com/en_se/blog/the-best-thing-we-heard-on-soundcloud-this-week-theres-more-to-post-ringtone-than-pc-music

new hannah diamond :)
http://everynight.pcmusic.info/

This new Hannah Diamond track is really great, one of the best things to come out of this thing I think.

cant stop listening to this a.g. cook remix of how to dress well
https://soundcloud.com/howtodresswell/repeat-pleasure-a-g-cook-remix
~euphoria~

Similar but non-PC Music I think:

Penelope Strong - 'Penthouse Suite'

http://i.imgur.com/3RWFG9a.png

so many reasons why that picture is great

lol this is fun and i like it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqL6OH5oYts

i like it

Like bubblegum bass so much more when I can't understand what they're going on about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkYt2OxXAhA

probably old but this is madness...

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

from about five months ago is my guess

liking the new-ish a.g. cook & hannah diamond:

https://soundcloud.com/pcmus/drop-fm

shame this stuff comes out so infrequently

i've been blown away by some of the Danny L. Harle stuff lately. this was a good interview: http://www.dummymag.com/features/next-danny-l-harle-interview

Seconded. "Broken Flowers" is still my favorite thing they've ever put out.

I do like the Palette track and the title track from Spinee's "Pretty Green" though.

Now a video, with more product placement:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?t=136&v=1MQUleX1PeA

Ooops:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MQUleX1PeA

very good

On a Manicure tip, this Ponibbi mix that came out a couple of weeks ago is great:

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/23884/1/hear-manicure-records-hyper-intense-pop-mix

who were they trying to reach that hasn't heard the song already in filming a "hey qt" video?

not sure but i heard it on radio 1 the other night

video is great

love that this song is now 'a thing'

hurrah and huzzah!

the video is its own work and part of their performance aesthetic

https://www.facebook.com/diamondwrightimages/photos/a.1497775000495384.1073741828.1407025216237030/1557568591182691/?type=1

https://scontent-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/17898_1557568591182691_3744192224644487427_n.jpg?oh=04607f35fbcbecef1c44e809733fd3a8&oe=55ABE074

hahahaha

'Everything In Its Right Place' was actually the first one that sprang to mind when I read the thread title!

the skits on GFOTY's dog food mix are insane and hilarious

sorry to get all Chris Ott here, but it's unfuckingbelievable to me that I can count at least three "tastemaking" music websites staffed with living breathing 30-somethings can actually feign excitement over underdone, underdeveloped bullshit like witch house and chillwave.

― baout it baout it (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, June 14, 2010 11:57 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cf., "PC Music"

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, March 31, 2015 3:35 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

very much in character

GFOTY is kinda my fav rapper rn

Pfork review for PC Music Vol 1 is amazing
Don't know if the music can live up

everything she said was true IMO it just ... doesnt sell me on it being good

This piece has divided opinion. I enjoyed reading it.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/02/pc-music-dance-music-collective

things that just have to be tim and eric skits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36UUyQoYE1s

got invited to a big chanel runway show in seoul last night for an article, and they used a ton of pc music throughout the presentation. worked so well i'm tempted to say the clothes were directly inspired by them. hearing "beautiful" blare on a perfect system while watching plastic people/clothes strut by straight fucked me up :'(

xp: There's a natural affinity/influence. Wareheim introduced the sets when PC Music visited LA.

oh for sure

lolol of course they're using an Alessi kettle

"beautiful" is all i give a fuck about right now. guetta and skrillex influences are so clear in the best way possible

Listening to Vol. 1 whenever I get in the car. I know I'm going to burn out on it but listening to anything else just doesn't feel right.

if nothing else, am very happy 'Beautiful' is finally on Spotify
hadn't heard easyFun before, 'Laplander' is an awesome album closer

re: "beautiful," someone on lastfm said "it kinda sounds like air france (on plastic steroids)." <3 ;_; <3

i think SOPHIE is maybe only affiliated with rather than a full on member of the PC Music collective, but here's a live version of one of his songs with Charli XCX: https://soundcloud.com/prayzuz/make-it-right

deej otm

The crowd, skewing mostly young, included members who had driven from far out of town to come see the event. The internet was on everyone’s mind, and everyone’s lips. One duo of young men spoke of not wanting to miss the next trend, as they were “too young for seapunk”. Another member of the crowd successfully predicted that Dev Hynes would be skating up to the event about a minute before he actually did; he had just read the dispatch on Twitter

http://www.factmag.com/2015/05/14/pc-music-pop-cube-review-ag-cook-hannah-diamond-gfoty-qt/

the internet is on my lips

Based on that review, live show sounds really lame.

isn't part of the point of all this that it's taking the rise out of 'the next trend'?

“too young for seapunk”

The compilation is amazing, of course. In My Dreams is stellar. I want more.

Of course, it's all insensitive inauthentic shit made by privileged people that I should be ashamed about enjoying

are you trying for some latterday carlin of pissy triangulated resentment aesthetics here

yes

The crowd, skewing mostly young, included members who had driven from far out of town to come see the event.

huge if true

We can report that the crowd included women and, indeed, also some men.

meaghan garvey w/ knives out for this shit

http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/773-pc-music-hipster-runoff-and-the-year-of-the-internet-hangover/

If anything, PC Music’s current take on digital maximalism functions similarly to something like normcore, the wryly “neutral” cool-kid fashion trend that made headlines last year. To an uncritical eye, both are indistinguishable from the values and aesthetics of the mainstream; both use normative culture as their source material, repurposed into something that is supposedly more artful, unique, and valuable. (Thus: $200 mom jeans, or $20 cans of what is probably re-packaged Diet Red Bull.) ... these metamodern modes of expression and critique lose their purpose once they become indiscernible from the culture they reflect. "Divisive" as PC Music has set out to be (a designation that’s as much bullshit shorthand for "primo think piece fodder" as it is accurate), they subvert nothing, nor do they add anything to the discussion beyond noise. They merely reflect the flat, bright, incessant, corporatized banalities of the current age, with all the insight and nuance of clickbait—"This Woman Wore a Fat Suit to Understand Prejudice and You’ll Never Guess What She Experienced" levels of duh.

fucking idiocy

am neither here/there on pc music but many ppl are here, figured i'd throw it out

*out there

"they subvert nothing, nor do they add anything to the discussion beyond noise" That's pretty much my take.

The idea that it can be subverting the mainstream is laughable when most pop listeners don't even know it exists.

perhaps it isn't really trying to subvert anything

perhaps jaded music-critic types like ms garvey are incapable of recognising when fun is being had

That's cool. If it's fun it's fun. But a lot of the reviews and interviews pivot on this idea that it's subversive and that's what Meaghan Garvey's addressing. I'll leave aside the idea that only the jaded don't find PC Music enjoyable.

of course, but only the jaded could write that article

She actually says this herself btw: "Some of the songs are pretty fun and they’re definitely well-crafted, but it’s hard to consider them as standalone pieces divorced from the surrounding conceptual hijinx—which of course, they were never intended to be."

can't believe some people are comparing this crap to Aqua!

it's 4:30am and so far just skimming/will read in full tomorrow, but:

"Musically, PC Music’s artists bring little to the table not already existent in J-pop and K-pop (and American pop, etc. etc.) of the last decade-plus, especially those involving Japanese producer/composer Yasutaka Nakata: Perfume’s 2006 compilation Complete Best, or any number of Capsule’s mid-'00s releases, or more recently, the work of synth-pop surrealist Kyary Pamyu Pamyu."

so thankful someone finally articulated this point in a piece, with actual (accurate) specifics.

for what it's worth here are the producers themselves on how subversive they are being: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/pc-music-are-for-real-a-g-cook-and-sophie-talk-twisted-pop-20150522?page=5

(n.b.: I was originally going make a glib "would it KILL them to let the women do interviews instead of fielding the "some say you're appropriating femininity" questions yourselves, but it turns out they have: https://i-d.vice.com/en_gb/article/hannah-diamond-and-gfotys-beginners-guide-to-pc-music )

(this interview is mostly interesting because GFOTY is clearly more "in-character" where Hannah Diamond is talking more as a creator)

Is there an element of satire to what you do? Are you making fun of pop music?

Cook: No, I mean, I never set it up in that way. Everything can get interpreted as satire, in that very cynical way. But when we were doing Pop Cube with Red Bull, there was a really good moment quite early on where they wanted to scope out what we were like. Within the first minute, they could tell we weren't pranksters. We take it seriously. This is a big part of our lives. There's no way that satire could be at the core of anything.

Sophie: Why would you bother investing so much of your time and energy in something that's basically laughing at something and not contributing anything? I don't think that's a worthwhile use of your time.

Cook: One of our intentions is to try and push pop music and make it experimental and accessible, and put an interesting noise or personality as well as a good melody. Sometimes people just don't like how it sounds, and they're like "Oh, well, I can't justify this. It must be a joke." But we're really just trying to see if we can make something stick culturally.

Cook: I was the first person you let touch your laptop.

Sophie: Yeah. That was an important moment for me.

gone and used the wrong bbcode tags now :D

doesn't that count as an attempt at subversion, the kind of playing with convention that u r often so fond of?

did ILM ever talk about HDBOYZ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C5YAc6L_KQ

that meaghan garvey piece is really good, mostly for the internet weariness stuff. i'd've been harsher on pc music bc i don't think it's EVEN well-crafted. also my internet utopia years were like 3-4 years before hers and i always thought carles was irksome and boring

yeah I find that the wave of "he predicted everything about the internet!" plaudits is causing a lot of people to overlook all the gross and/or sexist shit he posted. there's satire, and then there's satire that still has the ultimate effect of putting more soul-deadening stuff into the world

does anybody else think that danny l harle's 'in my dreams' is fucking amazing

yes

for whom is that article written--i mean, for whom is "but in 2011, HRO started to eat its own tail" i. remotely relevant and ii. actually news?

i also ... blerg.

"Musically, PC Music’s artists bring little to the table not already existent in J-pop and K-pop (and American pop, etc. etc.) of the last decade-plus, especially those involving Japanese producer/composer Yasutaka Nakata: Perfume’s 2006 compilation Complete Best, or any number of Capsule’s mid-'00s releases, or more recently, the work of synth-pop surrealist Kyary Pamyu Pamyu."

so thankful someone finally articulated this point in a piece, with actual (accurate) specifics.

― soyrev, Tuesday, May 26, 2015 7:40 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean, i like kyary as much as the next nerd but ... if you a/b 'hey qt' with the three things she links and think to yourself, 'yes, this is a pallid copy of the wonderful glossy hi tech sound of j-pop, it can gtfo with its ... actual dynamics, sense of space, its drum programming that took someone more than five minutes, these are not the things that matter'

What's the story behind your stage name?
GFOTY: It's a way of life. Read the torah/bible w/e it will guide you towards your own name.

someone get this woman on ilx plz

@lil unit it's a good thing nobody said anything remotely similar to that! including garvey! (the most j-pop/mid-period perfume pc music thing has always been "bronze" btw; kyary and more recent perfume are an ambient influence on pcmus but it's the older yastuaka that's really fundamental)

also wow in general to your take on "the wonderfully glossy hi tech sound of j-pop" :D

A lot of awesome points brought up in the Garvey piece but I disagree with some of it. PC Music is hardly a rehash of J-Pop and K-Pop, and it's something that's been said ever since it started and it seems to discredit everything else that plays a role in their sound. You look at the list of influences AG Cook lists in the Tank interview and it's really clear what sort of music fed into the creation of the general PC Music sound. Yes, K-pop and J-pop play a role (love that remix he did of SNSD's Into the New World) but you have pop that's characteristically naive and/or weird with Ark Music, Farrah Abraham, and teen pop in general (all of which I recall Alex Macpherson mentioning before), various unfashionable dance music (eurodance in general, jumpstyle, nightcore, happy hardcore), and even specific mentions of Zappa's synclavier stuff and Nancarrow's player piano pieces. And then you have someone like Maxo who is indeed influenced by Nakata-produced stuff (albeit it only really shows in recent releases) but takes far more from jazz fusion, prog rock, and of course chiptune/video game music. And then there's Danny L Harle who's classically trained, and has a handful of 20th-century classical influenced compositions which I'm assuming somehow effects how he approaches some of those remixes, at least structurally.

I'm a bit confused by the responses to the whole QT drink thing. PC Music's approach to tackling ideas surrounding capitalism, advertising, pop culture et al is less about avoiding it as a means to suggest an alternative route but more so an embrace of it to allow other people to think about it themselves. Also, I am pretty sure there is no way PC Music could've been nearly as popular at the beginning of the decade as they are now. Like, poptimism is in full swing with this new generation of underground music fans and it shows with the popularity of a few select albums from the past couple years, the embrace of cheesier music in general (think: all this recent love for new age [Gigi Masin has a freaking album on PAN for crying out loud] and soft rock), and then all the vaporwave/OPN/Ferraro/newer Orange Milk stuff. Maybe I'm completely misguided on that part but I can't imagine the response to PC Music in 2011 being the way it is now, even with Glass Swords and all that other stuff around back then (which, i mean, i feel was also only so successful because of the 'purple sound' stuff that came slightly before that).

does anybody else think that danny l harle's 'in my dreams' is fucking amazing

yes. he's the one.

he seems to be operating on an incredible level, and this is just the start

shocked, shocked i tell you, that one of these posh white people turns out to be a racist idiot

http://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/gfoty-imessage-field-day-review?utm_source=noiseyfbuk

the relevant bit is now blacked out on that page

this is what it said:
https://twitter.com/theQuietus/status/607918655695945728

this was who was playing:

http://fielddayfestivals.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Toumani-Sidiki-Diabat%C3%A9-1-Youri-Lenquette-2014-300dpi-610x610.jpg

Toumani & Sidiki Diabaté

what the fuck

spelt carafe jesus woman

srsly tho that's v shit

she obv has a schtick that hinges on her knowing sabotage of the Young Woman 2k15 but this is a sabotage too far, not even the satirical excuse covers it

also, fuck Vice

Yeah, she's meant to be a troll but you can be a troll without actually enacting racism. What she is is a fucking wanker and this is gross.

"Part of this conversation has been taken out because it’s fucking awful."

interesting concept, cutting what people wrote, I wonder if there's a word for it

almost as though the editor had no idea it was racist until pointed out

Vice's manifold cowardice is annoying me more than her idiocy tbh; she will suffer now, deservedly, but it won't

remember when everyone tried to convince me that Vice wasn't terrible anymore, or at least their music section wasn't like OG Vice

The racism is the one thing that actually makes that whole string worthy of publication, I'd assumed it was an expose but apparently quite the opposite. Then again I zoned out before the blacked out section because it was all just so trite and enervating.

xp suspect that in past years they would have simply ignored objections to something like this, for whatever you might think that worth

calling it trolling or a schtick is being too generous. she's an ignorant piece of internet shit who has no grounds to speak about the Diabaté family at all.

I saw AG Cook DJ at Field Day. It was a lot of fun but I realised halfway through that it wouldn't have seemed inappropriate if he'd played Eiffel 65's Blue. No ironic racism in his set though.

also had no idea til now that gfoty = polly-louisa salmon, daughter of celebrity art dealer jeff salmon

always bet on posh yt ppl for casual racism or the enabling of it

http://i.imgur.com/GJGDgec.png

cool joke

I guess the joke is thinking that an African band is influenced by an indie band instead of vice versa but the blackface reference doesn't make sense and when your whole persona is a vacuous, obnoxious hipster a joke that tricky isn't going to translate.

Still, it's an unambiguous apology. She could have gone for the classic "I am in no way racist and I'm sorry if anyone is offended" non-apology.

I don't like the implication that if a white band uses the highlife guitar sound on a few tracks it's cultural appropriation though.

where's that blowhard who got mad at me up-thread for calling them insincere

get fucked!

or, GFOTY is obviously the jester of the crew, they're not all like that, learn 2 differentiate

"the jester"

how come your defenses always come to applauding the worst behavior, imago, and loudly complaining about innocuous things?

"how could you possibly insult this contemporary modern collective of dreamers! they are doing so many very special things"

that's what you sounded like

and yes they are posh white art-school shitheads

the fuck have I applauded this, read my posts upthread, she's been a complete idiot, even if her point is that Bombay Bicycle Club are appropriators

'jester' is not necessarily intended as a compliment

I think her point is that she wasn't consciously screening her dialogue and this is her lens

FYI ILM has managed not to discuss Bombay Bicycle Club at all in like five years so please let's not start now.

crazy that someone in pc music is a monumental idiot

I will say I am impressed by the unambiguous apology but I'd be more impressed if the apology hadn't been necessary in the first place

but the apology is ambiguous. it doesn't say "we published something racist". it just says "we published something bad"

Doesn't DJP mean her apology rather than Vice's?

ah

Part of me is thinking that it shouldn't really be us that she's apologising to but to the Diabates

remember bombay bicycle club?

someday my grandkids will ask me where I was when gfoty sent a racist tweet that mentioned bombay bicycle club

feel like the diabetes dngaf about vice or pc music - can't even imagine this is on their radar

cmon mordy ppl need this story!

it was more gfoty tried to call bombay bicycle club out on racism, got her feet in a tangle and ended up shooting the racism ball past her own social media goalkeeper, just in time for the women's world cup, while vice acted like utter cunts about it all with no shred of propriety

Eh I was just thinking outloud about the dudes on Twitter going 'hey awesome apology' and speculating that it's not really up to them to accept it

Pissy music.

The rampant Tory persona was bad enough, the grotesquery just about made it surreal enough, this is fucking pitiful.

delightful, Morbsian, house, music xp

Jesus, LJ, don't try to make excuses. This is unfunny idiocy and even with the apology is fucking awful. She's a fucking idiot. I'm not going to suddenly be "oh no I hate PC Music and refuse to dance to it ever" but just let a terrible thing be a terrible thing without trying to justify it.

no i know! it's quite possible to be a complete idiot & a propagator of awful racist 'comedy' while the intention is quite different. she played with fire while covered in the petrol of unexamined privilege & got deservedly burned. or in your words, acted the fucking idiot.

i've said racially moronic things on ilx in my younger days & learned from it (thanks to ilx's unambiguous response). she will too (one hopes).

it doesn't matter what her intention is

turns out this music might not be so PC after all

okay lol

orson-welles-slow-clap.gif

oh haha i thought someone had registered that dn name for the sake of the gag but .. ru actually james brooks?

who's james brooks

lmao

*stands and applauds lotic*

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CHAH4-AVIAAlMrk.png

Ten Walls was probably as big as any European house producer among black British audiences - Walking With Elephants in particular gained traction in places you would never have expected an Innervisions related producer to.

But then he's not particularly high concept either and there was nothing ironic about what he said, he's just a bigot and a cretin.

lotic isn't talking about ten walls except as an aside?

He conflates them together in a few places and they shouldn't really be except as examples of basically inconsequential musicians saying bigoted shit.

pretty sure you can explore a concept and genuinely express emotion and/or feeling at the same time. There's so much false dichotomizing in this thread.

lotic's third para is seriously pissing me off

this binarising of music that is 'vapid and conceptual' and music that is 'reserved for genuine expressions of emotion and feeling' strikes me as terribly reductive and even dangerous, especially when there's an implicit parallel along racial and sexual lines

extremely dismissive ('merely a vapid art school project by a handful of rich kids') and maybe that's to be expected after an incident of racial idiocy and apparently unchecked privilege but this argument makes me deeply uncomfortable. i get that it's subjective but i also don't get how liking pc music is at the expense of real music by real poc or queers? plenty of listening to go around in 2k15

oh sarahell said exactly the same thing lol

"who doesn't know who toumani diabeté is?"

hm

anyway, hands up if you have ever listened to elvis costello

ppl like lotic prolly need to drop any pretence of balanced analysis and admit that they're fighting jihad

is that supposed to be balanced analysis, though? it reads like preaching to the choir, which presumably it is, being a social media post?

But the fifth paragraph is basically saying he isn't making that false binary.

while continuing to make it, yeah

I get that it's important to consider the feelings of wounded art-school pranksters here.

god art-school pranksters, up there with Hitler in terms of people with whom we shouldn't associate right?

#notallartschoolpranksters

Objective Achieved

it just amazes me how reactionary and conservative ilx can be.

The thing is, you're turning his justified outrage against racist and homophobic comments into an opportunity to get defensive about people who, unless they are actually Ten Walls or a member of PC Music, aren't even under attack. He's allowed not to be interested in music by straight white people.

no one is getting defensive here, Matt. No one here is defending Ten Walls or GFOTY. lex posted a screenshot of lotic's post saying it was otm, and lj and I disagreed with some of what was said. Also, how it mirrors various opinions that have posed a lot of false dichotomies and binaries.

that have been posed in this thread.

(That was really addressed to LJ, using words like "dangerous" in this context when really it's anything but)

i think any kind of blanket bias & propagation of cultural false binaries is dangerous, especially when it leads to the implicit demonisation of stuff i like ;)

i guess the question is what is endangered?

a whole generation of bright-eyed progressives fighting the wrong battles? lol

i feel that ilx at its best does a good job of making me (and others) tease out the ideology from the aesthetic, and requires honesty when it comes to projecting distasteful politics and ideology onto things that i dislike aesthetically, because bad politics and ideology make for stronger arguments as to something's repellence. And vice versa, when it comes to excusing repellent ideological connotations of things i like aesthetically.

This thread is far far far from ilx at its best.

Hmmm... disagree, this thread is mainly about the things you apparently value about ILM. Last time I checked, the discussion of PC Music here is primarily about their cultural politics and aesthetics.

Also, please explain how condemnation of casual racism is reactionary and conservative, idgi.

there are a number of posters on this thread who are couching their dislike in statements like "art student blather" and various assumptions about "contempt" and industry-related things and what thinkpieces have been written. there are others that are honest and straightforward about what they like and what they don't like, and some ambivalence. I think the questioning of whether someone can "authentically" find this music "fun" was a low point.

reactionary and conservative comment had nothing to do with the racism -- pertained to the thread prior to that

i just looked up the ten walls thing and man, that's a whole other ballgame

Yeah, the Ten Walls thing is really vile. I was unfortunately a bit obsessed with it yesterday, like disaster tourism.

re: sarahell - OK, still don't get what's reactionary and conservative - unless you're suggesting that PC Music is somehow progressive...

thanks for putting it so well, sarahell - and yes, entirely agree that ilx's ideological catechism can help to frame aesthetics in a more coherent and insightful way, and even help to shape them - it has done so for me, and i'm very grateful

I was unfortunately a bit obsessed with it yesterday, like disaster tourism.

like watching a man's career being fed slowly through the chipper

It's also a question of which artists are awarded respect/credibility almost by default and which artists have to "earn" it - straight white dudes who went to art school are almost always in the former camp (initially at least, it can always be taken away). It's neither reactionary nor conservative to want to interrogate that, especially if it's coming from gay black artists (almost always in the latter group).

The Ten Walls thing is worse because that's just pure, deeply-felt hatred.

obv it behooves us to interrogate the critical/popular discourse surrounding minority artists but if we're going to do it in such a spectacularly thick way then it's rather an own-goal imo

or am i advocating respectability politics or something idk w/e peace

idk anything about pc music, but sarahell & lj otm that this is unhelpful dichotomization, for multiple reasons:

queer/poc
genuine expressions of emotion or feeling
——————
straight white
conceptual/ art project

"straight white" is that fancy espresso drink you guys are always drinking over there, right?

this thread sure is hard to follow

PoC Music

there are a number of posters on this thread who are couching their dislike in statements like "art student blather" and various assumptions about "contempt" and industry-related things and what thinkpieces have been written. there are others that are honest and straightforward about what they like and what they don't like, and some ambivalence. I think the questioning of whether someone can "authentically" find this music "fun" was a low point.

reactionary and conservative comment had nothing to do with the racism -- pertained to the thread prior to that

― Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Tuesday, June 9, 2015 5:54 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not even going to touch 90% of the latest fun developments in this barrel-o-fun thread, but it doesn't make someone automatically dishonest if what they like and dislike is informed by industry-related things, or what they've read, or even art student blather (which I do have time for, to a point!) disingenuous, maybe, but I don't see that here.

though it's probably a mistake to ask for much after someone compared a facebook post to jihad

do you know what jihad means

Do you?

struggle iirc

good work wikipedia brown

lj, you know lotic's own work is highly conceptual (while also being visceral, heartfelt, etc).

I might check it out, hopefully it's a bit more thought-through than his facebook rants

katherine I've been tutoring a kid in GCSE religious studies, no fronting ffs

"rants"

his/her/their idk

lex that is a rant & that is the nicest way to frame it because we all say dumb shit when we're angry

I couldn't tell you were angry

More rants from Lotic please, don't care if the semantics of the rhetoric don't add up to all-things-being-equal, master's tools etc.

The fact that ILX — an 11-year-old site that lived through chillwave and witch house — engaged with this garbage at all is some real "fool me thrice, shame on us all"

Like, you all knew how this story would end, right?

All stories end with WGW saying "told you so"

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Don't worry, these cretinous yawpers will disappear once their gap yah's over

I like their music. It is fun. Wouldn't listen to it every day though. Racists and homophobes can do one.

lotic's third para is seriously pissing me off

this binarising of music that is 'vapid and conceptual' and music that is 'reserved for genuine expressions of emotion and feeling' strikes me as terribly reductive and even dangerous, especially when there's an implicit parallel along racial and sexual lines

extremely dismissive ('merely a vapid art school project by a handful of rich kids') and maybe that's to be expected after an incident of racial idiocy and apparently unchecked privilege but this argument makes me deeply uncomfortable. i get that it's subjective but i also don't get how liking pc music is at the expense of real music by real poc or queers? plenty of listening to go around in 2k15

― the discussions, the slanging matches, the banter, the lot (imago), Tuesday, 9 June 2015 09:21 (6 hours ago)

idk who lotic is, or what music he or anyone else would hold as being antinomial to pc music

even so he is clearly particularizing his argument to pc music and whichever other fellow travellers in the world of conceptual minstrelsy

he even makes a defence of 'conceptualism' in the general instance to make this clear

so whilst you can say the art/soul vapid/real divide is usually fatuous, which it is, in this instance he is describing it does rather seem to hold; racist idiots get admiring copy while music he likes doesn't

music without a single leaf or branch is bound to involve self-importance and racism, this is why its best to steer clear of larger urban areas and hope they dont pollute the rivers or canals with it. As they have unlimited amounts of money there is very little we can do to protect ourselves from their presence

Do you guys have a vetting system, like a ticklist or something you do before you check out a piece of music?

Yes

If i have read about it or heard someone talk about it, then it is garbage

invariably

its best just not to know

lex that is a rant & that is the nicest way to frame it because we all say dumb shit when we're angry

― the discussions, the slanging matches, the banter, the lot (imago), Tuesday, 9 June 2015 15:11 (40 minutes ago)

no it isn't, his tone is mostly quite equable, he gets less 'pissed off' about racism and marginalization than you do about the (largely mistaken) belief that the shit 'conceptual' music you like is being written off en masse

Remember when four brown people made experimental electronic music earlier this year, and it was written off months before this racist pachinko machine music

Also, love the fake outrage and shame from Vice, who literally made $1.5B off the back of like a decade of ironic racism

no defending Vice, or GFOTY's humour choices

What four brown ppl?

i think they go by Present Brown now

Don't the same people who like Future Brown like PC Music, roughly speaking? Lex hates both of them at any rate, and for similar reasons.

also nakh I'm not getting pissed off about that, I'm getting pissed off because of what I see as pernicious trends in cultural argument regarding authenticity and emotion. the best pc music stuff makes me feel great and it is not liked for its 'intellectual properties', it is just rly thrilling for me

Anyway Future Brown is boring while PC Music is annoying. Crucial difference.

PC music isn't very PC

Can't we have a world where we can like PC Music and Dawn Richard

no

PC Music, Dawn Richard and Depeche Mode

"pc music, which is neither pc nor music"

how do I RT a post

how many more iterations of that joke are we looking at, here

"the discussions, the slanging matches, the banter, the lot (imago)
Posted: June 9, 2015 at 10:38:19 AM
no defending Vice, or GFOTY's humour choices"

Yeah see part of the problem here is that you still define this as her "humor" which at best means you still don't understand the situation, or at worst makes you complicit in the hand waving excuse train.

people have historically lionized big personalities and concepts throughout all genres of music but was/is pc music praised to save clubs? kind of confused by that. yea people overanalyze music but i mean the same thing happened with Heterocetera and to a lesser extent his mix from last year. the whole "congratulating mediocrity" bit reeks of the "fans of X or Y only like it ironically" sentiment that gets thrown around. third paragraph is a mess, don't understand how anyone could think no PoC or queer person cared about PC Music or Ten Walls (that EP on Innervisions was popular) and then it concludes by suggesting music is the only art form left for 'expression of emotion or feeling' :| it's obviously a personal/emotional write-up so whatever

sorry just rambling some thoughts on the lotic piece not really replying to anyone.
also, yeah i'd say it's safe to assume people who like future brown like pc music and vice versa, generally speaking. personally dislike future brown but like pc music.

how the f are you bent out of shape about the 3rd paragraph after reading the 4th and 5th

forget it, goole; it's jaggertown

also nakh I'm not getting pissed off about that, I'm getting pissed off because of what I see as pernicious trends in cultural argument regarding authenticity and emotion. the best pc music stuff makes me feel great and it is not liked for its 'intellectual properties', it is just rly thrilling for me

― the discussions, the slanging matches, the banter, the lot (imago), Tuesday, 9 June 2015 16:52 (5 minutes ago)

and he is getting somewhat less pissed off about what he sees as pernicious trends in cultural valuation, but he is mostly confining it to this case where you are holding him responsible for things said by others about other things too

what are you to do when his probably misguided notions of 'real' etc and his possibly paranoid suspicion that the culture industry favours good connections and minstrelsy are really affirmed in the case of people like gfoty?

sorry that is just how you feel about pc music though

not 'bent out of shape' goole, all i'm saying is that those two specific things i mentioned aren't true. they're not even major points either so that's why i'm brushing them off.

it was a general "you"

my bad

"but 'conceptual' and 'mysterious' usually turn out to be an abdication of responsibility"

this is p heavy

just dialed up lotic's music, holy shit. thanks lex!

do people think that authenticity automatically means something is more emotional?

lord

Maybe just maybe the bigger picture here is less the brutal assault on conceptual dance music that has been launched on one persons Facebook post and more "whoops, oh shit, this person I liked appears to be a jerk bag racist" but hey we all pick our battles I guess

Remember when four brown people made experimental electronic music earlier this year, and it was written off months before this racist pachinko machine music

― lil dork (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, June 9, 2015 3:09 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

might this possibly be because they released their album months before pc music

or are you telling me, as an editor, that you'd have commissioned a piece slagging off a bunch of bullshit artists before they'd released anything peg-worthy, because if you are then why didn't tell me at the time

the best pc music stuff makes me feel great and it is not liked for its 'intellectual properties', it is just rly thrilling for me

― the discussions, the slanging matches, the banter, the lot (imago), Tuesday, June 9, 2015 3:52 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the way the pc music defence oscillates between "it's so clever conceptually and that's why it stands out" and "it's not about the concept it's all about the music maaaaan" with barely a decent pause for breath

"but 'conceptual' and 'mysterious' usually turn out to be an abdication of responsibility"

this is p heavy

― goole, Tuesday, June 9, 2015 4:29 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and not the first time this year, cf that jungle band. faux-mystique suckers people in when all it ends up meaning is that someone has something they want to hide

his possibly paranoid suspicion that the culture industry favours good connections and minstrelsy are really affirmed in the case of people like gfoty?

sorry that is just how you feel about pc music though

― The Fields of Karlhenry (nakhchivan), Tuesday, June 9, 2015 4:20 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is the kind of suspicion that always makes one feel paranoid but the good connections you find out about just make you realise things do in fact operate like this much more than you knew: in this case, there's the obvious link between the editor who commissioned and edited (or didn't edit) this piece being on good enough friendship terms with gfoty to call her "babes" in casual text messages, and the fact that this entire piece has nothing to do with her music but is simply set up to reinforce her status as an important cultural figure of 2015 etc etc

the way the pc music defence oscillates between "it's so clever conceptually and that's why it stands out" and "it's not about the concept it's all about the music maaaaan" with barely a decent pause for breath

lol or ppl simultaneously hold the opinions that i. the concept is interesting ii. the music is ... also interesting

apart from the usual social media approbation loop that sarah identifies, probably the main problem with lotic's argument is that for all their good connections pc music really aren't all that favoured -- this racist shithead has a wikipedia page longer than that of the average early netherlandish painter or epl footballer but has only today crossed 5k twitter followers thanks to this racist episode

so other than being the fact magazine #1 label of 2014 they are not really coining it in

anyway, i will believe you lj when you say you sincerely likes this stuff but i suspect the gap between why you like things and why you purport to like them is often quite large: even bad art works mysteriously

here's the obvious link between the editor who commissioned and edited (or didn't edit) this piece being on good enough friendship terms with gfoty to call her "babes" in casual text messages

― lex pretend, Tuesday, June 9, 2015 12:39 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you'd think this but this is not always the case

maybe even that, i'm blowing my own mind here, the ways the concept is interesting ... reinforce the ways the music is interesting ... and vice versa ... shit ...

the way the pc music defence oscillates between "it's so clever conceptually and that's why it stands out" and "it's not about the concept it's all about the music maaaaan" with barely a decent pause for breath

― lex pretend, Tuesday, June 9, 2015 11:34 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

people ultimately only (deeply) like music for 'the music alone' though so the underlying sentiment seems true of all conceptual music. no one keeps listening to music because of a specific concept; people who hated what the new kendrick lamar album sounded like didn't keep listening to it because everything else about the album was interesting just like how people don't keep listening to experimental music if they don't find it sonically interesting. yea a concept can be 'clever' and make something 'stand out' but i don't think that that's usually at the core of why anyone loves art. maybe i'm wrong but that's generally what i've seen.

i guess this is maybe more specific to music though since it's really easy to engage with it passively which then puts more emphasis on the visceral experience

Imagine PC Music sans conceptual baggage.

So, Max Tundra then?

Nah, he's resurrected Daphne & Celeste, def conceptual, he's off the list

Maybe he could dabble in some racism to clinch his spot

I hate everything that happened in this thread.

Sonically it's Hixxy and Sharky vs Aqua.

Sending my apologies to Greer.

Greer otm. You're all terrible people and so am i

burn it down greer

this thread has been removed because it's fucking awful

man it's weird that Lotic (whose work I love and have been checking for for the last 5 years at least) is seemingly having his biggest exposure yet from a Facebook post.

Weird

Went to see him last week w/ vessel and there were only 30-40 or people there :(

https://twitter.com/pcmus/status/608257022891585538

That tweet is meant to be some sort of piece of conceptual irony, right?

This Death Grips song sums up the whole PC Music aesthetic in less than three minutes and has the advantage of not being boring bullshit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-c-zfOWmys

gfoty seems like an entirely redundant rehash of miss kittin's electroclash-era shtick without the music but with added racism and v pointless in an era of nell "hold my dick" diamond and the rich kids of instagram if one wants to laugh at un-self-aware caricatures of very rich people

OTM. I hadn't made the connection with Miss Kittin.

who was that home counties girl who did the spoken word over laptop casio thing a couple of years ago?

george pringle

https://twitter.com/SubvioletRcrds/status/608283452551643136?s=17

Never lose your charm, gfoty

tick.jpg lj

At the beginning of 2010, she supported the French band Air on the European leg of their tour.

Based in London, she has released 2 critically acclaimed LPs to date. "Salon des Refuses". (a conceptual poetry album) and "Golfo dei Poeti",( a conceptual soundtrack album).

George is currently an MA student at Goldsmiths University.
Releases

"Golfo dei Poeti" (album), March 2013 (self released) "Salon des Refusés", September 2009 (self released)
"LCD, I love you, but you're bringing me down", Sept 2008 (Trouble Records) "Poor Ep. poor EP without a name", March 2008 (self released)

It's no more than an unoriginal and meaningless mish-mash of the Would-be-goods and the Doodlebops imho. They are not even half as subversive as they think they are because it's all been done before by others. Fans of this are even more as self-deluded and culturally stunted as the people who make it. There's no need for this music when people could be listening to *insert random act*.

is that a serious comment

About as serious as anything else on this thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdLvp630plc#t=72

everything -- Maybe I'm inferring incorrectly but it sounds like you're implying that people should only listen to 'original' music? no one does that. And I'd say fans are less self-deluded and more so unaware of the acts that apparently make PC Music obsolete. There's a lot of bickering about how PC Music is unoriginal and not enough people posting examples of similar music that they should instead be listening to instead, a lot of which can be accomplished by talking about their influences. I posted some stuff upthread before the whole gfoty thing but, for example, I'd say it's pretty safe to say that someone AG Cook is clearly influenced by Scritti Politti, Frank Zappa's synclavier music, and Nancarrow's player piano pieces.

That 'culturally stunted' comment is silly. From your point of view it sounds like music is a competition for who can have the most cultural capital.

IT'S AN ELEPHANT YOU FUCKERS, AN ELEPHANT

ok fine, apologia time

while not entirely or rather unqualifiably white (cypriot) and while not entirely wealthy (scholarship kid) I grew up around white privilege, as many of my unfortunate early ILX encounters demonstrated

I said reprehensible & stupid shit and got ripped to pieces for it, but I didn't hide from this, with the result that the stupid shit I say now is considerably less stupid than the stupid shit I said then

GFOTY and PC Music as a whole might well be from a milieu of white privilege, and sure they might say stupid shit sometimes, but they are young, very young, and in their response to this furore they show the signs of wanting to reverse-engineer that privilege, just as I've been doing for the last 8 to 9 years

now because they are young they run the risk of saying something edgy which perhaps partially succeeds in its objective of zinging those from their milieu who are still ignorant and culturally bankrupt but crucially unearths a secondary objective they are unaware of: don't use deprivileged cultural signifiers as objects in your grand play or you'll exoticise them and emphasise your own privilege, not to mention offend everyone in sight

thus did gfoty fail, and thus did she suffer, deservingly. thus did she face the suffering, and perhaps thus did she learn

however, the court of ilx has seen fit to dismiss her as a terrible racist, and dismiss her crew as...well, many things

I'm not defending what she wrote. I castigate it in the highest terms. I think she's an idiot. However, I empathise with her. I have been an idiot too, a similar idiot. As have all of you, admittedly not all from such a privileged milieu, but all from a position of thinking you've got culture nailed when you hadn't considered another angle. Is some empathy too much to ask for?

By the way if AG Cook was really only able to draw a crowd of 50-odd people at a festival as hipster-saturated as Field Day then PC Music is completely culturally irrelevant and doesn't deserve a fraction of the column inches it's been drawing so far. Even if he was on at 11am or up against the headliner.

I mean unless he usually plays to packed out crowds in Croydon or Hull or somewhere, which I doubt.

Sophie sold out a pretty big club here in Vancouver last year. People here put it on the breakcore/jumpstyle continuum rather than a subversion of pop music or whatever the fuck y'all think it is.

This thread just makes me sad that ILM wasn't around when Kula Shaker were talking about how much they'd love to have big flaming swastikas up on stage.

Despite enjoying the experience initially, he left after a year; his arrogant ways made him unpopular with the other boys but they did enjoy beating him up.

they are young, very young

everyone in pc music is like 25 or older.....

just babes. vice guy said as much.

while not entirely or rather unqualifiably white (cypriot) and while not entirely wealthy (scholarship kid) I grew up around white privilege, as many of my unfortunate early ILX encounters demonstrated

I said reprehensible & stupid shit and got ripped to pieces for it, but I didn't hide from this, with the result that the stupid shit I say now is considerably less stupid than the stupid shit I said then

GFOTY and PC Music as a whole might well be from a milieu of white privilege, and sure they might say stupid shit sometimes, but they are young, very young, and in their response to this furore they show the signs of wanting to reverse-engineer that privilege, just as I've been doing for the last 8 to 9 years

now because they are young they run the risk of saying something edgy which perhaps partially succeeds in its objective of zinging those from their milieu who are still ignorant and culturally bankrupt but crucially unearths a secondary objective they are unaware of: don't use deprivileged cultural signifiers as objects in your grand play or you'll exoticise them and emphasise your own privilege, not to mention offend everyone in sight

thus did gfoty fail, and thus did she suffer, deservingly. thus did she face the suffering, and perhaps thus did she learn

however, the court of ilx has seen fit to dismiss her as a terrible racist, and dismiss her crew as...well, many things

I'm not defending what she wrote. I castigate it in the highest terms. I think she's an idiot. However, I empathise with her. I have been an idiot too, a similar idiot. As have all of you, admittedly not all from such a privileged milieu, but all from a position of thinking you've got culture nailed when you hadn't considered another angle. Is some empathy too much to ask for?

― the discussions, the slanging matches, the banter, the lot (imago), Tuesday, June 9, 2015 2:04 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I imagine imago reading this posts off a scroll standing on a box in the public square wearing a three-cornered hat

oh hear ye qt

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/DemosthPracticing.jpg

I'm not defending what she wrote. I castigate it in the highest terms. I think she's an idiot. However, I empathise with her. I have been an idiot too, a similar idiot. As have all of you, admittedly not all from such a privileged milieu, but all from a position of thinking you've got culture nailed when you hadn't considered another angle. Is some empathy too much to ask for?

― the discussions, the slanging matches, the banter, the lot (imago)

this is so purblind and risible

'let he who has not approved of the ronaldinho bottle opener cast the first stone' doesn't work when everyone has been young and not everyone has approved of the the ronaldinho bottle opener

My Back Pages def takes on a new meaning

Also you can't praise her for her deconstructivist vision while simultaneously acknowledging that she is the sort of fuckwit who would, in a widely read online publication, make a blackface gag about a pair of venerated musicians in order to make a point about a lame British rock band.

when did I ever praise her for her deconstructivist vision? never, that's when. i've never commented on her until now

Haha this GFOTY mix is mad :D

think I could get with this in a fairly major way - I don't even care if it's impishly playing with convention while obviously enjoying itself; oh no my sainted Pop is being deconstructed! oh no! stop this! etc

― imago, Saturday, August 30, 2014 4:36 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i fold

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/aez0sgfqssu2ciqlu9ig.jpg

i know the convo has moved on at this point, but what's the story behind the hdboyz video linked upthread? it's brilliant

Rolling Worst Music of 2011 iirc.

the hdboyz were all internet art/video art dudes, it was started by noted asshole ryder ripps. seemed super weak to me even as an art project. see also yentech (also hyped by dis magazine)

she should collab with boddika

https://twitter.com/shmuraya/status/603272486042611712

yep

gfoty seems like an entirely redundant rehash of miss kittin's electroclash-era shtick without the music but with added racism and v pointless in an era of nell "hold my dick" diamond and the rich kids of instagram if one wants to laugh at un-self-aware caricatures of very rich people

otm, I've been equating PC Music with electroclash since it plopped, same thesis same class of creators same synapses of enjoyment. If anything tho, that association has made me slower to criticize PC Music, EC was fun and dumb and problematic-in-hindsight but was also just a bunch of stupid kids who made some tracks I still love and play out. When we say "nobody cares about PC Music in 2016" it's like yeah probably no nobody cared about Jeans Team in 2004 neither

imago, your whole theory about these are just kids learning the world man falls the fuck apart because their entire thing is WE ARE THE INTERNET ON THE THE INTERNET GUYS INTERNET and so they've probably encountered some progressive, non-racist politics on whatever kinja site they read

she should collab with boddika

and lest we forget it was very obliging of kozelek to open up the proceedings for international month of the bigoted dickhead

on whatever kinja site they read

― lil dork (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, June 9, 2015 2:22 PM (5 minutes ago)

i have sincere <3 for both you and lj, but you're both competing for the gold medal in the self-clowning oven olympics right now

itt og plopping

Time for a new display name.

EC was fun and dumb and problematic-in-hindsight but was also just a bunch of stupid kids who made some tracks I still love and play out. When we say "nobody cares about PC Music in 2016" it's like yeah probably no nobody cared about Jeans Team in 2004 neither

mm i was thinking about that comparison and was electroclash actually that problematic? tbh you're right - all the fifth-tier electroclash acts evaporated from memory as soon as they existed, pretty much - and a lot of them everyone saw through instantly - and i guess electroclash as an era is looked on more favourably now because of a couple of key genuinely talented artists (felix da housecat obv, but miss kittin was a bit of a plot twist) and anthems like "emerge" that still hold up

The aesthetic focus on body-positivity, and generally equal footing for female and queer voices divested EC itself in my view, but it was still garbagey music made by garbage kids with garbage ideas and not a small amount of genre-appropriation. At least an afternoon of classic tracks though

What was the genre appropriation in electroclash? I'm not familiar with the term.

electroclash got a huge amount of backlash for being 'fake', 'disingenuous', 'a flash-in-the-pan fad' at the time and yet somehow it left a much deeper impression on the decade that followed, long after people stopped using it as a term.

i guess it was taking the futurism from electro and leaving the afro- behind?

garbagey music made by garbage kids with garbage ideas and not a small amount of genre-appropriation

all pop music from the beginning of time IIRC

For what it's worth - electroclash was coined by Larry Tee and associated with those NYC parties initially, but was also a convergence of a bunch of broader trends and styles from indie/queer/feminist stuff like Le Tigre and Peaches, italo/electro revival from I-F or International DJ Gigolos and a turn to "80s" pop in general dance scenes, and had a big influence almost immediately.

PC Music feels really small by comparison; if anything, I see it as capitalizing (belatedly) on vaporwave styles or James Ferraro/Oneohtrix Point Never by adding some vocals and 90s Swedish pop influences.

I wouldn't even care about it not being groundbreaking, if it was at least exciting or interesting. Or in any way appealing. The collective persona of PC Music strikes me as pretty contemptuous.

I wouldn't even care about it not being groundbreaking, if it was at least exciting or interesting. Or in any way appealing.

Yeah this is how I feel really. Wasn't aware of the background to electroclash, I haven't thought about electroclash in a long time even though I liked/like a lot of the music!

Electroclash was gleefully shallow though, it was art-school as hell but it never made any claims for any artistic depth and as far as I remember it didn't have any of PC Music's ludicrous self-invented 'theory' surrounding it.

I've not read anything about PC Music that has convinced me that there's anything more nuanced or intelligent going on around it than, say, a particularly hamfisted and unsubtle Banksy.

i thought a part of PC Music's image/stance is that it's quite deliberately reveling in plasticity/superficiality to an obnoxious degree?
i guess that's what electroclash was also about to an extent. But electroclash had this detached numbness, that chilly Euro android-gynous thing that Miss Kittin did so well which gets supplanted by PC Music's sugary lucre. Despite the ostensibly varied personae on offer, all the PC Music singers seem to have the same Shampoo-esque posh-Brit tone; an uncanny-valley clone effect - cute, creepy, disposable - much like the Innocent Smoothies aesthetic where a product tries desperately to be your friend. It's egregiously bouncy music too - like a radio ad produced by the Bonkers crew.

It's been said a lot now, but this is in itself a comment on a particular strain of post-hipster media-centric London culture that only really manifested around the time of the Olympics; and these guys are very aware how much of a hall-of-mirrors they're creating by holding up that mirror to themselves and the world they grew up and worked in. it's self-fellating, self-flagellating music, for and about media burnouts, and this follows in a very British tradition found in things like Nathan Barley and the Mighty Boosh, both of which held hipster culture in a love/hate deadlock.

What repels many about this music is exactly what attracts others - the OTT gaudiness, the vacuous messages, the uneasy, seasick feeling that lurches between moments of pure indulgence and utter cringiness. You can find this push/pull effect in all sorts of music, from punk rock to ratchet hip hop - the paradox of 'We're horrible, but you love us'.

FWIW, all the complaints currently being thrown at PC Music (other than the recent racist incident) were also made about electroclash in its day.

The discourse around dance music has become so much more theory-driven over the past decade though. When electroclash happened it was more like, "Oh, the vibe is bored, ironic jetsetters doing coke in VIP rooms. Got it." PC Music come with so much more baggage. Look at the P4k review - I don't remember reviews like that of Miss Kittin or Felix Da Housecat.

is there an argument to say that electroclash was the first 'high-concept'/post-modern dance music? other than futurism things like Drexciya etc..

other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.other than futurism things like Drexciya etc.

actually drexciya was pretty high-concept but not in any way the same way. not a good example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_techno

that may have had some influence on what followed - though not many people have heard of those guys

what are you doing?

afaict detroit techno is conceptual, but not in the same post-modern / self-referential / ironic way as electroclash and PC Music.

i'm not even going to bother because i have a life

LOL

is there an argument to say that electroclash was the first 'high-concept'/post-modern dance music?

...kraftwerk, afrika bambaataa...

is there an argument to say that electroclash was the first 'high-concept'/post-modern dance music?

smh.

i don't know enough about the history of disco and hi-nrg to suggest pertinent examples from those genres, but if you just want to restrict it to white art-school dorks, malcolm mclaren springs to mind

also aphex twin?

Things like Kraftwerk strike are obv highly conceptual, but modernist rather than post-modernist. Even though there's a commentary and conversation surrounding all these earlier techno and electro acts, there's a self-belief and sincerity to most of them that seems different from the postured 'dance music about dance music' thing people like Fischerspooner did, and which PC Music seem to want to take to an extreme. Maybe electronic dance music hadn't quite been around long enough to be able to reflect upon and satirise itself and its past, i dunno. Malcolm Mclaren is maybe the godhead of this - turning rebellion into money, then turning money into rebellion.

Xp

Although I'm not saying there weren't loads of examples of this happening before EC but it was one of the first times I was aware of a whole scene or genre in electronic music that hinged almost entirely on retro, on satire, on the fact it knew in itself that it was a fad and embraced this.

there speaks a man who didn't live through romo

dunno if sigue sigue sputnik were part of a larger scene but they seem to be v close to what you're talking about

yeah i wasn't around for those guys.

romo was an indie thing wasn't it? i was chattign with someone who was in a romo band a little while ago. prob loads of parallels in rock music - Steely Dan, The Darkness etc...

Great swathes of 90s commercial dance pop (including Aqua) was satirical, self-aware, engaged with the concepts of 'product' and 'disposability', etc.

I'd also argue that a lot of electroclash was very, very serious even if it wasn't always perceived that way. There was a big crossover with coldwave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQUIsgrlp10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAR8cq5Bl94

I'd also argue that a lot of electroclash was very, very serious even if it wasn't always perceived that way.

i agree. all of dl's points are just regurgitated stereotypes. electroclash was extremely serious, in a kind of rock and roll way, but it bordered a lot of other fairly serious house/techno scenes.

i don't think there's any music i've ever heard that i would describe as "ironic". i don't know what ironic means when connected to music - though it's only ever done at some distance by people who do not know a lot about that music.

hinged almost entirely on retro, on satire, on the fact it knew in itself that it was a fad and embraced this

what a load of shit. it wasn't a fad and it didn't "know that" itself. it had a massive influence on the ensuing years and it didn't come out of nothing either, the people making it were around beforehand - many of the people involved moved on to do other things.

as for "hinged almost entirely on retro" - how about 90% of house and techno music p much ever made?

the postured 'dance music about dance music' thing people like Fischerspooner did

electroclash was basically just a revival of electro pop with the added knowledge of 20 years of techno/electro/house. there was no posturing. it was some music people liked for a while and it was connected to fashion, just like the big crossover genre in dance music always is.

The enduring thing about electroclash was its ability to reach out to both the coldwave AND warmwave scenes, both of which were too small in themselves to really last, this really gave electroclash a year round appeal where it could be played in different temperatures. The fact that it was so aware of this was definitely part of this, you could see it in the wardrobe, retro skiwear with a modern twist, but also lyrca shots, it was music equally at home in St Tropez or Banff, it soundtracked everything from aegean orgies to bobsled highlights. I just think its something of a push to suggest PC Music has any of the above, I have a hard time believing that it can even be heard outdoors

what a load of shit. it wasn't a fad and it didn't "know that" itself. it had a massive influence on the ensuing years and it didn't come out of nothing either, the people making it were around beforehand - many of the people involved moved on to do other things.

if you even bothered to read my posts properly, LG, you'd see i made this exact point only about a page above. but a big part of electroclash AT THE TIME was about toying with ideas of disposability, plasticity, the ethereal, faddiness - which all went towards the dance music press (Jockey Slut, Mixmag) taking the bait and deriding it as being a style-over-substance passing trend. of course it didn't turn out that way because electro, 80s-retro and a lot of the latter themes went on to permeate so much of the coming years.

as for "hinged almost entirely on retro" - how about 90% of house and techno music p much ever made?

how about no?

great rebuttal. "no".

but a big part of electroclash AT THE TIME was about toying with ideas of disposability, plasticity, the ethereal, faddiness

it was fashionable and talked about fashion. this is not the same as "ironic" or "knows that it's a fad".

dance music has always been conscious of itself and referred to itself. there are probably thousands of records which include the words "house music" or "techno music" or whatever. see the two youtubes i posted - two p fundamental basic classics.

"a lot of questions have been raised, about this new dance craze, called acid."

great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".

also i read jockey slut at the time, just fyi as someone who actually knows about this music - and they praised electroclash and had a feature on its enduring influence a few years afterwards.

i would say the derisory comments were more from clueless outsiders.

Skimmed 20 pages of searching the ILx archives for mentions of electroclash in date order and I'm only as far as Oct '02; I mean, N1tsuh/Tim F/Andy K/Tom/Jess/(LG!)/etc (& uh Momus + Ott if that's to yr taste) were talking about this stuff in an intelligent fashion that gainsay yr received stereotypes, DL.

dance music has always been conscious of itself and referred to itself. there are probably thousands of records which include the words "house music" or "techno music" or whatever. see the two youtubes i posted - two p fundamental basic classics.

"a lot of questions have been raised, about this new dance craze, called acid."

that's so far removed from anything we're talking about here though. it's not the same thing at all. the whole point of acid house at the time was that it was futuristic, decidedly non-retro, non-referential, non-ironic, because those 303 acid sounds had never been conceived before, nor had any equivalent precursor come before it. similarly, a huge part of early house and techno (Juan Atkins, Drexciya) was future-facing, sci-fi-centric. electroclash used the past as its main jumping-off point; continually referencing the past, and deliberately making a deal out of its own retro-futurist outlook.

2 men look at the same hat one says thats alpine and the other says its too big

feel like there's tons of self-referencing in nearly all of the umbrella genres, if you like

ie you could easily fill a whole 24 hours listening to dance tracks about dance music, ditto metal songs about metal etc

also i read jockey slut at the time, just fyi as someone who actually knows about this music - and they praised electroclash and had a feature on its enduring influence a few years afterwards.

i would say the derisory comments were more from clueless outsiders.

― bureau belfast model (LocalGarda), Wednesday, June 10, 2015 2:24 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In that case, we obviously read different articles by different people in different editions of the same magazine at the time. There was definitely a backlash against electroclash, same as there was praise. And it's the same as PC Music. My point is, they're both being hailed/denigrated in much the same way as each other and for very similar reasons.

Most of the electroclash people I spoke to back then seemed pretty sincere, if provocative. I don't recognise your description of it dog latin. The backlash iirc mainly focussed on Fischerspooner's absurdly large record deal and accompanying hype.

I'm sure AG Cook comes across as sincere in interviews or if you speak to him IRL though.

Anyway, this is starting to get awry so I'll drop this line now.

Something I did like by PC Music was that video of a Danny L Harle DJing in front of a white-screen with booming commentary over thet top and a man dressed as a skeleton interrupting proceedings at regular intervals. Funny, weird, subversive and surprisingly not-too-smug, which made a nice change.

backlash against electroclash

backlash comes after the event. has nothing to do with perception at time

perceptions at time an be read on a number of sites including ilxor.com and electrocla.sh

backlash
ˈbaklaʃ/Submit
noun
1.
a strong negative reaction by a large number of people, especially to a social or political development.

you can't really link to ilxor.com and a specialised electroclash site to gauge general popular opinion at the time really can you? none of us can. but i definitely remember early articles in mixmag/JS being a bit 'lol, wtf is this stuff?' when electroclash first broke in, what, early 2001/late 2000?

OK, will check out that clip - out of curiosity, what else should I watch or listen to from PC Music so that I'm not missing anything in my blanket dismissal of them?

you could compare ilxor.com with ilxor.com and electrocla.sh with pcmus.ic

this song is the single biggest current factor in my defence of pc music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn7NT1dbem4

a huge part of early house and techno (Juan Atkins, Drexciya) was future-facing, sci-fi-centric. electroclash used the past as its main jumping-off point; continually referencing the past, and deliberately making a deal out of its own retro-futurist outlook.

― hongro strulkington (dog latin), Wednesday, June 10, 2015 2:33 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

juan atkins... he of "jazz is the teacher"

we could talk about what we think electroclash was, or we could talk about a perception of what strawpeople said about it at the time, none of whom appear to be here to defend the point of view we are attributing to them.

xxpost really like broken flowers by him too.

Record above is causing feelings of anxiety

The higher the proportion of written words to seconds of sound, the greater the abomination. Much like the EOY poll, this is the sound of flora and fauna being destroyed to make way for a new housing development. Each year there is a new fad and a new style, but the result is the same, the destruction of the environment

finally some sense

depressing that dog latin's inexhaustible vapidity has outlasted a lot of the music being referenced.

who are you anyway?

Danny L Harle - In My Dreams

Why are vocals are so.... not good? Is this part of the shtick?

why are you being so rockist about pop?

is it pop really? it's indie music innit.

Huh? This doesn't really sound like pop to me. The whole thing feels and sounds like a parody of pop music, hence the crappy vocals. And the lyrics...

Well, why do I like it as music, then? I think it's gorgeous.

you lie to yourself, imago.

I think maybe this music was designed to produce anxiety in way that electroclash wasn't.

tbh I've gained the distinct impression that ILM is full of reactionary pop snobs who believe in pop's proper values and who feel ~personally violated~ by any sort of lo-fi production values or musical intricacy

300 pointless posts by nightfall

listening to this song that imago describes as "gorgeous"

what I'm hearing is an infantile Jamie XX song with terrible vocals

I do not think this is "gorgeous"

You'd get those chord-changes and synth lines in a Jamie XX song? Kthx

Well, why do I like it as music, then? I think it's gorgeous.

― the discussions, the slanging matches, the banter, the lot (imago), Wednesday, June 10, 2015 11:14 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's spelled "bourgeois"

I also feel like someone listened to early Basement Jaxx and went "the problem here is that this isn't shrill enough"

to be fair, it wasn't

Is there such a thing as terrible vocals? Or just vocals you don't like? I suppose terrible vocals occur when a vocalist fails to do what they think they're doing, hut I don't think this is the case here.

The vocals sound "terrible" or crappy as an inherent part of the production strategy to me. They're deliberately out of tune and out of time, and then excessively auto-corrected to accentuate the fact. The euphoric lyrics "that's the feeling, I want it forever, all the birds sing, they sing together" is presented not only as completely fabricated and synthetic, but flat and banal; the vocals are utterly at odds with the content of the lyrics.

I mean, I really don't see how you could read it as anything other than a parody, at best, a blank parody, but still.

You don't think that there is any sincerity in the lyrics? That the lyrical sincerity plays off the nervous, melancholy production and tune to evoke something a bit more complex? You think it is just parody?

They're not out of tune, that's just how white British sing.

STOP TALKING ABOUT WHITE PEOPLE LIKE THEY ARE OF ONE BODY AND ONE MIND ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE ONE OF THEM FUCKING JESUS

you heard him, if you're white stop fucking jesus before you start to post

There's a kind of psychedelic aspect to what they do, which is the most appealing and possibly the least pop. But even that isn't especially pushed forward far enough to make it really grab me.

In all seriousness, are we really moaning about manipulated vocals in electronic music today?

I don't see how you can hear those synths and come away with flat, banal and parodic. Is PC Music's problem the privileging of the synth over the holy Voice?

Is PC Music's problem the privileging of the synth over the holy Voice?

its problem is the sound it makes

actually on-topic: vocal quality is subjective and out of the purview of this... discussion, but the problem with that song upthread isn't the vocals, it's that it sounds like an already bad stargate track sped up to get around copyright filters

vocals aside, i think that track is pretty brilliantly constructed, there are a couple tricks that make it sound a lot more complex than it really is (like each section starting with the last two beats of the progression, and where the chords change).

PC Music's problem is that their music is irritating.

Can you link the Stargate song in question, or an example?

I like the Danny L Harle track. it sounds like Eighth Wonder, I don't get why people would think it's intentionally made to sound crap

wait, no, not stargate, it's this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIh5AHxh-Ok

you have no ears

Imago, I'm not denying it's an energetic bit of music and fun in its way. I've got a fair bit of time for PC Music and I can't really see how the vocals are out of place here. But to call this parody-free is surely missing the point. It's clearly intended in many ways as a comic joke or a play on genre and I guess that suits some and not others.

*cosmic

to me it's not that far from Rustie playing around with cheesy trance sounds & rhythms in another context:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9z2SKcr7_c

xp

That music is even worse than the other one.

ha, i agree with katherine there, totally. but LMFAO is doing it completely one-dimensionally, whereas both the Danny Harle and Rustie tracks are referential without it just being a joke or parody, to my ears anyway.

xp

Obviously I have no problem with vocal manipulation for the record, except here it's presented in the form of a snarky meta-commentary.

Don't mind the synths half as much, they sound really cheap.

Come to think of it, there is another obvious frame for PC Music, which was mentioned above - punk and Malcolm Mclaren. Now mannerist Situationism.

to my ears, which admittedly were cut off years ago by an angry music fan, the track upthread is a lot of self-conscious frippery around a central synth line that is the kind of thing stargate (and their imitators) ran into the ground in the late 2000s/early 2010s, which is presumably when the pc music guys started paying attention. "miss independent" (ne-yo, not kelly) is another example

Far less mendacious and far more interesting than the Sex Pistols imo, although it does make me wonder what the PIL moment will be

as far as the referential/snarky/meta aspect I didn't care for that either when nadia oh did it; fortunately for the world and for me she didn't get critical attention long enough to say something stupid in public

I think people are referring more to things like the Duck Rock album than the Sex Pistols / PiL in this case.

Far less mendacious and far more interesting than the Sex Pistols imo, although it does make me wonder what the PIL moment will be

― the discussions, the slanging matches, the banter, the lot (imago),

..

Each year there is a new fad and a new style, but the result is the same, the destruction of the environment

― saer, Wednesday,

Since time began the serenity was under attack. Our reserves are low, and there are many of them, both in number and in thinkpiece

This thread has little to do with PC Music and a lot more to do with ILM's lifelong inability to get to grips with the more playfully extreme modes of eurocentric electronic music.

I don't think that having no time for arch Crazy Frog music is a failing, exactly

Our only hope is that they fade so quickly, giving up brief respite to repair our battered saplings before they regenerate, with a new name, a new manifesto and the cycle of destruction begins again

arch Crazy Frog music

dammit this is the first thing that makes me wanna hear pc music

There are some nice swirly synth bits in the middle of that Danny L. Harle track but yeah the vocals are annoying (as in, they annoy me - is that rockist?) and the whole song does feel like he's come up with this hook but has no idea what to do with it. Like the bit with the buildup just falls totally flat.

Interesting that Rustie came up in the Meaghan Garvey piece (and again today), was never won over by his albums but 'All Nite' and 'Zig Zag' are the closest things to PC Music I can think of that I actually really love.

"the discussions, the slanging matches, the banter, the lot (imago)
Posted: June 10, 2015 at 10:47:05 AM
You'd get those chord-changes and synth lines in a Jamie XX song? Kthx"

Bahahahahahahahaaa

Man constantly ascending line by steps is not the same thing as "chord changes" it's like fucking crazy pills town in this thread

Also just to get this out of the way,

"the discussions, the slanging matches, the banter, the lot (imago)
Posted: June 10, 2015 at 11:04:02 AM
Is there such a thing as terrible vocals? Or just vocals you don't like? I suppose terrible vocals occur when a vocalist fails to do what they think they're doing, hut I don't think this is the case here."

Yes. Yes, there is such a thing as terrible vocals.

Can't believe Gavin, Leeds is going to try to fuck the vocals of that PC music song

like each section starting with the last two beats of the progression, and where the chords change

i changed my mind about this, the downbeat is the downbeat, and the main synth rhythm just starts an 1/8th note note after the 1. i really like how this motif works in the track, the melody is super hooky & rhythmic too, it sounds to me like it was written instrumentally first with the words forced in later, which makes it sound awkward in a good way.

k thx carry on.

arch Crazy Frog music

dammit this is the first thing that makes me wanna hear pc music

― da croupier, Wednesday, June 10, 2015 6:24 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^

this thread constantly being bumped convinced me to listen to the new album. it sounds too thin to really enjoy but i could imagine every song here being on a sophia coppola sdtrk which is a good thing afaic.

the best of this stuff is perfectly fine as indie pop but is guaranteed to kill the vibe at an Actual Dance Party