The Conservative Impulse in Chart Pop?

which is his "music" book? i don't like philosophy of modern music but quasi una fantasia is grebt

chartpop has a complex mix of conservative and radical impulses, just like punk and hippy do + tipper gore is not a republican

this reads like tenth-rate michael moore, and you "custos" are just as thick as he is.

Can you give us an example of a prefabricated robot who makes music?

now prove ME wrong, smartarse.

sigh why wasn't yr post signed "n*th*l*e?" :-(

but yes greBt pop is all abt EJACULATE (oh no! ROOTS! TRUTH! OH NO!).

erm, the song was taped and then they, like, took it to a pressing plant and made lots of copies of it, so it was manufactured, not like darby crash or gg allin who presumably made records out of their own scrotal overspill.

Manufactured Chart Pop stresses a top down power structure In the same way that democratic politics stresses a top-down power structure?

Any truly innovative Manufactured Chart Pop is the exception and not the rule: any truly innovative X is by definition the exception or it wouldn't be innovative!

Is this still that awful Fl*tt woman?

she's on maternity leave (that raised eyebrow on her byline pic always annoyed me) - andrew anthony's doing it at the moment.

how come this perfectly good post got trolled by Custos hataz? What's that all about?

Yes. Yes it is.

Mark, I was also planning to point out the Tipper Gore thing, but now I can't decide whether or not it's a legitimate defense. Her brief offensive-content crusade was very interventionist liberal-Democrat in action -- i.e., "the government must step in and help safeguard the lyrical sanctity of the American family home," just as it does with beef quality and over-the-counter medication. But surely the root impulse could still be described as a "conservative" one (in the broadest, most meaningless sense of the word).

This is why I love music.

which is his "music" book? i don't like philosophy of modern music but quasi una fantasia is grebt
Uh, it's called Music and.. well, rather expensive. I'll end up buying it because Adorno in Disguise is too cheap. ;-)

The charts if anything is just a scavenger with unpredictable taste. So whoever cared for that? I never check the charts, am disinterested in the charts... in short... why the hell am in this thread? heheh

Pop insofar as the term did capture an impulse in a self-aware fashion would havta be the pop-art movement of the 60s which is about the least conservative thing I can think of at any level.

Oh no, genrefuck, OH NO!!!

Ronan: Can you give us an example of a prefabricated robot who makes music?
Justin Timberlake?

Purity is shit. nothing good has ever come out of "purity" in music. everything worthwhile about music has always been "manufactured."
Who said anything about purity? I never used the word purity even once in my first post.
now prove ME wrong, smartarse.
What, exactly, do you want me to prove?

Custos could you comment on what I added to the Tipper Gore thing? And also elevate your term-usage at least past Dee Snider's level. Gore was neither a Bible-thumper nor a censor -- her crusade was for labelling, which as I said is more of a neo-liberal interventionist tactic (unless you think the FDA is "censoring" your cookies by mandating a calorie count on the side).

This really is the biggest problem: what do you mean by conservative? You seem to be conflating the "classic" definitions of the term with the modern U.S.-politics ones. E.g., laissez-faire is "liberal" in the old sense and "conservative" in the modern one -- but then in the modern that splits along economic vs. social lines, and since you're coming at the social by analogizing it to the economic the whole thing becomes a semantic jungle.

As a side-note I really am increasingly annoyed by the know-nothing Tipper Gore hatred that everyone on every music board seems programmed to spout. She heard her daughter listening to "Darling Nikki" and was shocked to find it filthy and wound up getting a little logo on certain records to save parents the trouble of listening to every record their kids buy on suspicion of potential filthiness, something which is not particularly different from the MPAA's rating movies for their age-appropriateness. Whether that was a good idea or not -- personally I think it was a well-intentioned waste of time -- it's silly to pretend she's some sort of Footloose-style Pentecostal brimstone-bitch who wanted to ban everything in sight and thought dancing was a sin (that's John Ashcroft, actually).

custos, would you just look at either thread that I started and COUNT how many times I said that NEITHER WAS MEANT AS AN OVERARCHING THEORY and acknowledged that "IT WAS A MIX" over & over & over.

URGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!

Custos could you comment on what I added to the Tipper Gore thing? And also elevate your term-usage at least past Dee Snider's level. Gore was neither a Bible-thumper nor a censor...
Actually, nabisco, she is. She was brought into the PMRC as the "token Democrat" by Susan Baker and Phyllis Schlafly who are biblethumpers of such grandiose scale that even Benny Hinn would think they were excessive.

-- her crusade was for labelling, which as I said is more of a neo-liberal interventionist tactic...
Actually, the PMRC's goal was to completely remove "smutty" artists from the airwaves entirely. And these are the same people who think John Denver is a Satanist and the Pet Shop Boys are way too intense for their kids.

(unless you think the FDA is "censoring" your cookies by mandating a calorie count on the side).
Hahahahaha. Cute.
Saying whats in your == Good.
Saying that your cookies are the Will of Satan == Bad.
(Disclaimer: this only applies to devils food cookies.)

This really is the biggest problem: what do you mean by conservative?
Well, actually, I'm just hijacking Fritz Wollners definition. I frankly think "conservative" and "liberal" are too vague and overused and nobody knows what they means anymore. (Quick, mark s. here's your chance to yell 'Conservatism does not EXIST!) I guess I'm using "conservatism" as a word to explain the over-processed, soul-deadening sameness of boy bands. Something about them gives me the creeps, and this thread is me thinking out loud "is it some kind of right-wing plot?"
I was curious if someone else has a theory on this.

You seem to be conflating the "classic" definitions of the term with the modern U.S.-politics ones. E.g., laissez-faire is "liberal" in the old sense and "conservative" in the modern one -- but then in the modern that splits along economic vs. social lines, and since you're coming at the social by analogizing it to the economic the whole thing becomes a semantic jungle.
Hmmm. This could be true. Can someone bring a machete, chop out the dead wood and then give us some accurate words to explain this.

my first post: "I know this doesn't work across the board"

lATER: "not trying to damn punk at all - it's the "popular image of punk as [jumble of myths]" that I was trying to get at. I know it doesn't work 100% (IT WAS A MIX!)"

LATER: "my real point is that this is myth-making, in fact IT WAS A MIX. There was so much else going on other than that conservative impulse - it just seems to me that the shorthand story of punk you get in documentaries & books is often the one outlined above ("Punk brought Rock back to its roots") & this is a gross oversimplification."

I'm just hijacking Fritz Wollners definition...I guess I'm using "conservatism" as a word to explain the over-processed, soul-deadening sameness of boy bands.

How in the hell do you figure that that is my definiton of 'conservative'??????

She heard her daughter listening to "Darling Nikki" and was shocked to find it filthy and wound up getting a little logo on certain records to save parents the trouble of listening to every record their kids buy on suspicion of potential filthiness, something which is not particularly different from the MPAA's rating movies for their age-appropriateness.
Okay, When will we start rating movies as "Occult", and who gets to decide which definition of "Occult" gets used as the benchmark?

it's silly to pretend she's some sort of Footloose-style Pentecostal brimstone-bitch who wanted to ban everything in sight and thought dancing was a sin (that's John Ashcroft, actually).
She may seem sensible on the outside, but the people she associates with spend alot of time filling her head with exactly the kind of "lets ban everything" fervor that gives us both the creeps.

anyway, they're all different. aj is the deep one, nick is the cute one, kevin is the moody one, etc.

I think I've had the argument with you before where pushing even for legislative mandates on the content of public airwaves is simply not censorship: it is public ownership. (But I seem to recall you were in favor of abolishing the FCC back then, which in a right-wind libertarian way might qualify as "the conservative impulse in Custos.") Never mind that this isn't even vaguely where their rhetoric led: people of any sort have every right to condemn whatever music they want for whatever reasons they want, and the only lasting effect of that whole moment was the introduction of a little sticker that seems to say both "hey kids buy this it's dirty" and "hey parents just so you know this has dirty words on it."

And here we go, BOO: I guess I'm using "conservatism" as a word to explain the over-processed, soul-deadening sameness of boy bands.

So this whole thread amounts to your saying "if we define 'conservatism' as meaning stuff like boy-bands, then boy-bands are totally conservative!" Excellent investigative work.

AKA "Amy Phillips is (awful)/(picked on) because she's a girl." Way to avoid the point. I don't think LC is being attacked because he dislikes chart-pop.

I purposely did not post to this thread last night, for fear of losing my sunny exterior completely.

Please defame one woman at a time, and bother to distinguish between then
Okay, Tipper pretends be a Yuppie. Shlafly doesn't bother with that pretense.

I think I've had the argument with you before where pushing even for legislative mandates on the content of public airwaves is simply not censorship: it is public ownership. (But I seem to recall you were in favor of abolishing the FCC back then, which in a right-wing libertarian way might qualify as "the conservative impulse in Custos.")
Post a link. This anti-FCC argument doesn't ring any bells.

Never mind that this isn't even vaguely where their rhetoric led: people of any sort have every right to condemn whatever music they want for whatever reasons they want, and the only lasting effect of that whole moment was the introduction of a little sticker that seems to say both "hey kids buy this it's dirty" and "hey parents just so you know this has dirty words on it."
First off, theres something you're not aware of: As soon as the stickers were in place, the Baker/Tipper/Schlafly wedge got a bunch of chain stores to stop stocking any CDs that had the sticker on it.
This blocks that artists access to a large sector of the market. Just because the singer had something agressive to say, and may have been a bit rude in how they said it, they are no longer accessible to a huge sector of the market. It doesn't matter to Baker/Tipper/Schlafly that the singer may have been RIGHT to say what they said. The singers ideology (and alot of times -- but not always --) their language got them removed from the marketplace.

this whole thread amounts to your saying "if we define 'conservatism' as meaning stuff like boy-bands, then boy-bands are totally conservative!" Excellent investigative work.
Uhhhh....noooo. What I'm saying is this: Boy Bands give me the creeps the same way that Republicans drones in suits give me the creeps.
Does this make the Boy Bands "conservative"; I don't know. I'd need to read minds to be able to tell that. So lets leave it at this: Boy Bands give me the creeps the same way that Republicans drones in suits give me the creeps.
And the points I offered at the beginning are just things I find to be eerily similar between the Boy Band and the Suit Drone.

(sorry but the middle section of this thread was so interesting and exciting that they had to send for ronan keating to sing me out of my coma)

(sorry but the middle section of this thread was so interesting and exciting that they had to send for ronan keating to sing me out of my coma)
Heeeeyyyyyy....waitaminute....you're Tanya, aren't you?

i hate yr guts, btw.

(Also congratulations on the giant leap from "the FDA censors my cookies by labeling their fat content" to "the FDA censors my cookies because they won't stock fatty food at the health food store." Moral indignation over "offensive" content tends to be exactly the same no matter who is expressing it, and no matter what sorts of rhetorical feints you want to assign to them the fact remains that in this instance the impulse was channeled into typical liberal-interventionist requests for labelling and for major retailers to institute standards based on that labelling.)

Saying whats in your == Good.
Saying that your cookies are the Will of Satan == Bad.
(Disclaimer: this only applies to devils food cookies.)

Where the HELL are you getting all this extra nonsense about the FDA? YOU brought up the FDA. YOU did.

Moral indignation over "offensive" content tends to be exactly the same no matter who is expressing it, and no matter what sorts of rhetorical feints...
What feints, Nabisco? Where?

...in this instance the impulse was channeled into typical liberal-interventionist requests for labelling and for major retailers to institute standards based on that labelling.)
Nabisco...what are you trying to prove here?

Do you know what a metaphor is, custos?

Or how about.....To Indie purists, Chart Pop is like a Republican - okay to like only nostalgically, once he's retired, as a "straight shooter".

Or try.....Taking Sides: Chart Pop Lovers on ILM vs. Reagan Democrats. Their demographics all say they should fall in line with Indie, but its tired platform no longer seems relevant to them, while Chart Pop as all the energy and ideas.

Or.....Part of the fun of turning Republican (Chart Pop) is pissing off all the orthodox liberals whose presumtuousness makes Democratic politics (Indie) so goddamn BORING.

Or not.

my god, this is absurd.
Do you know what a metaphor is, custos?
Yes. When somebody (me included) uses a metaphor that makes sense in this thread, I think we'll all be able to understand one another.
I guess we can't inject politics into music debate anymore, because we don't have any nomenclature that works.

Two people both make products. One product is a box of cookies, the other is a record. Both products have contents that society generally recognizes as having negative potential, contents people feel they should know about before consuming the product or allowing those in their care to consume it: in the case of the cookies these contents are fat and sugar, and in the case of the record it is lyrics that the public, right or wrong, deem inappropriate for children.

In the case of the cookies, the FDA intervenes on behalf of the public. They mandate a little tag on the side of the box that basically says "Just so you know, these cookies contain loads of fat and sugar. Just FYI." People are free to do pretty much whatever they want with that information. For example, if I were a store owner, and I thought it would be economically advantageous, I could stop stocking those cookies and advertise myself as a health food store, where products full of fat and sugar aren't sold. I could even do this without a thousand Custos's running around claiming I'm just to the left of Mussolini.

Now let's do some word-substitution on that last paragraph: "In the case of the (record), the (industry self-policing, actually) intervenes on behalf of the public. They mandate a little tag on the side of the (booklet) that basically says "Just so you know, these (lyrics) contain loads of (stuff you're not likely to want you children listening to). Just FYI." People are free to do pretty much whatever they want with that information. For example, if I were a store owner, and I thought it would be economically advantageous, I could stop stocking those (records) and advertise myself as a (family-friendly) store, where products full of (filth or whatever) aren't sold. I could even do this without a thousand Custos's running around claiming I'm just to the left of Mussolini."

That was the metaphor. The point of it, going way back to your bringing Tipper Gore into things, was that this isn't necessarily a "conservative" instinct: when it's done with any product other than art it's decried by conservatives as typical liberal activist-government nannying. (John Ashcroft, for instance, spends a chapter of his book complaining about the nutritional labeling on his box of chocolates.)

The point of it, going way back to your bringing Tipper Gore into things, was that this isn't necessarily a "conservative" instinct:
*sigh*. Nabisco...shes a censor. Only she knows what her real reasons are. You claim its merely parental concern. I've seen and heard enough evidence (most of it from her own mouth) to suspect that something more puritanical is involved. If you look at all the records that are stickered, eventually you'll start stumbling across records that have no dirty words (and a scant two or three that don't even sound "aggressive") but get the sticker because of the messages being imparted. Okay? I don't trust the judgement of the people who decide who gets stickered and who doesn't. I don't think Baker/Schlafly can make rational choices about who to sticker, and I honestly believe that Tipper's better judgement may have been tainted by the people she associates with.
And just to remind everyone yet again.

• These are the wrong people to entrust the stickering choices to.
  
• On a couple of occasions, they actually used the sticker as an excuse to block perfectly legit music from the market.
  
• Whether stickering is "conservative" or "liberal" is irrelevant, but you must all remember that the stickering campaign was the brainchild of the Christian Coalition and the Eagle Forum. This is a well documented fact. They don't even attempt to deny it. You may use a "liberal impulse" as another explanation, but its not one that conforms to the facts.

  when it's done with any product other than art it's decried by conservatives as typical liberal activist-government nannying.
  True. True. Good point. But there is one big difference. If the label says theres 10% of your RDA of Riboflavain in that cookie, any shmuck with a test-tube can empirically prove or disprove the Riboflavin content. The Parental Advsiory sticker is next to useless because all it implies is "This Record will Turn Your Kid into a Satanic, Crack-smoking Degenerate Gangbanger!"; and theres no proof one way or the other that any record could do that.

  (John Ashcroft, for instance, spends a chapter of his book complaining about the nutritional labeling on his box of chocolates.)
  Daaaaaamn. This is a guy who needs more fiber in his diet. (Luckily, the side of the cereal box can tell him exactly how much fiber he gets with just one bowl of Super Colon Blow.)
  

  ― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:43 (twenty-three years ago)

You also, as always happens on this board, seem to think that my pointing out your sloppy thinking means I disagree with the results. I've not at any point claimed that I think content standards should be applied to records, for exactly the reasons you waste time detailing above: there's no objective arbiter of it. This has nothing at all to do with whether the instinct to create one is inherently a "conservative" one.

But now you say that whether it's a conservative impulse is irrelevant, which prompts the question: what the fuck are you arguing with me about, then?

I've been trying to explain the second half of that point to you for nigh on three days now, and yet you seem to think this is an argument about whether labeling is good or bad. I think it's bad, Custos! This doesn't change the fact that its methods are neither inherently conservative nor even unusual.

But nabisco - doesn't it depend who these people are, and what positions of authority/power they occupy? I'm not US-side and don't understand the politician/organisation/history refs being made here, but don't you think there's a valid difference between ideas of 'top-down' pressure (which custos seems to be thinking of) and popular protests/boycotts (which you seem to be thinking of), given the complex/loosely coupled nature of the connections between populace and power? Or do you think that division is outmoded/meaningless?

I can't claim to have followed every single bit of rhetoric during this whole period, but I've not seen much evidence that at any point the main face of the movement asked for any sort of "top-down" legislative action to prevent sales of these items. (In part -- ironically -- because the actual prosecutions of sales and such took part on a local level, per "conservative" ideas about federalism.) (E.g. I believe city and county prosecutors in Florida charging stores with selling 2 Live Crew records to minors.) The only push on legislature, so far as I recall, was to possibly mandate labelling -- in other words, simply to tag products so that people could make their own decisions about buying them / condemning them / boycotting stores that sell them, etc.

So yeah, that's a useful distinction, but probably one of many that doesn't matter to Custos. I'd be curious to see if he'd apply the same arguments he's making here to, say, restrictions on sales of pornography, a field of audio/video sales where no one makes any fuss whatsoever about the idea that content should be clearly labelled (and actually unavailable to minors!). The distinction we all seem to make is that things like music and literature have some redeeming artistic value to them that should prevent us from doing such things -- but (a) that "redeeming artistic value" is just as subjective as the obscenity of a 2 Live Crew record, and (b) there are plenty of MPAA-rated films and plenty of records that are equally on the border between the two; why Custos is fine with the former being labelled by the film industry but incensed by the latter being labelled by the music industry has not quite been explained.

I would not be annoyed by Custos if he made any effort to think through those complexities, but he seems stuck on this idea that he's fighting a holy war against some sort of ridiculous musical Inquisition.

(b) Custos has at no point taken the stance that subjective labelling is always conservative and objective labelling is always not.
I can't take that stance because the only example of subjective labelling I've ever heard of is the PMRC parental advisory sticker. All the other stickers are stuff slapped onto the side of the box by scientists who want you to know whats in the box and have nothing to hide.
I don't care if the sticker-fiends are/claim to be 'liberal' or 'conservative', I just don't trust Fundamentalists stickering an album and then using that as an excuse to remove it from circulation.
Its not just that theres bozos putting stickers on my albums, I'm angry that the PMRC gets to do it. This is an organization I DO NOT TRUST with such decisions. I believe they have alot of bad ideas and I do not trust their judgement.

(E.g. I believe city and county prosecutors in Florida charging stores with selling 2 Live Crew records to minors.)
...and adults who play the record in house or in their car.

The only push on legislature, so far as I recall, was to possibly mandate labelling -- in other words, simply to tag products so that people could make their own decisions about buying them / condemning them / boycotting stores that sell them, etc.
Yes and the decision to boycott was already in motion; they just needed the stickers to legitimize what they were already planning on doing.

So yeah, that's a useful distinction, but probably one of many that doesn't matter to Custos. I'd be curious to see if he'd apply the same arguments he's making here to, say, restrictions on sales of pornography...
Depends on your definition of porno.
...a field of audio/video sales where no one makes any fuss whatsoever about the idea that content should be clearly labelled
If the video is called "Hot Ass-Reamed Nymphos" and the box is covered with pictures of people fucking, I think its kinda obvious that its porno. As long as it stays in the special shops that kids aren't allowed in, there should be no problems.

The distinction we all seem to make is that things like music and literature have some redeeming artistic value to them that should prevent us from doing such things -- but (a) that "redeeming artistic value" is just as subjective as the obscenity of a 2 Live Crew record, and (b) there are plenty of MPAA-rated films and plenty of records that are equally on the border between the two;
I agree.

why Custos is fine with the former being labelled by the film industry but incensed by the latter being labelled by the music industry has not quite been explained.
Because I trust the MPAA's judgement. I don't trust the PMRCs. The MPAA merely tags the movie and then washes their hands of it. The PMRC has a more intrusive agenda.

I would not be annoyed by Custos if he made any effort to think through those complexities.
I've been paying attention to and thinking about these issues for nearly 2 decades. After careful research I've decided that:
FDA cookie label == Useful
MPAA Movie rating == innocuous
PMRC sticker == partisan bullshit
I've made my decision. I don't expect you to agree, I just ask that you respect it.

...but he seems stuck on this idea that he's fighting a holy war against some sort of ridiculous musical Inquisition.
The Holy War is already over. We lost.

but anyway most of the music i listen to is so obscure and lyrically concerned with flowers and sweaters and record collecting etc. that i never had to worry about the pmrc

There should be sticker for that.

Nabisco is basically right about Tipper G. Ten years ago this month, a Goth acquaintance of mine told me, in all seriousness, that he was scared of a possible Clinton electoral win - over George Bush, for god's sake! - cos it would give Tipper Gore power!!

I disagreed. I still disagree. The clown.

now prove ME wrong"

Sure, John Cage and hoards of other conceptual'music is essentially pure and it's good.

Pinefox: a Goth acquaintance of mine told me, in all seriousness, that he was scared of a possible Clinton electoral win - over George Bush, for god's sake! - cos it would give Tipper Gore power!!
I disagreed. I still disagree. The clown.
Yeah. What kinda culture do we live in where Bush and Clinton are your only choices. ("Do you want the drone puppet on the left or the clone puppet on the right?") BAH!

"As you may know, in early 2000 Diva Zappa released a tune for the millennium, called "When The Ball Drops", which features Dweezil on guitars, and Tipper Gore on drums."

The link has a Real Audio file of the song.

I thought that last point about robots was particularly stupid. That made me laugh.

I think some people like him because they THINK he's an ironist.

True, which always makes me very sad.

I actually tend to think of him, like Bowie, as somebody who surrounds himself with the stuff he likes and occasionally becomes it.

Agreed, not as self-conciously tho.

Plus I think he's better at aping Ween and rapping funny than trying to be sad and beautiful (I think Sea Change is one faceless, monotonous experience)

Sea Power's not much cop but Mutations is gorgeous- Beck's very good at that whole C&W mournfullness thing.

My comment was more directed towards to the people who worship these acts over others than the artists themselves.

I kinda figured, but I find "you like Dj Shadow/Beck/The Avalanches because you are an arrogant ironist" as irksome a statement as "you like N'Sync/Britney/Destiny's Child because you are a vapid airhead"; I know that's not what you were implying either, but I hate getting lumped into that group when I tell ppl how muvh I love Beck.

To get back on point, the reason I can't stand people who put these aesthetes above "chart pop" is they get all their juice from "chart pop" but gain credibility by not surrendering to it. Beck's at his best when he's not afraid to be a fool, which is really rare.

Most important passages are these:

Pop has always been a reactionary form, in this sense, I think. The emphasis precisely on pop as a lifestyle accessory and extra-musical but nonetheless self contained signifiers makes it a way of life which does not advertise itself as such. Um, in another sense, it defines itself as the center, rather than seeking to engage the center. It doesn't talk about now, it is now.

So what then was the futurism of one year ago (which, as I've shown, is in decline today)? An accelleration of the eternal moment, if that makes sense. A growing into the possibilities of new tools where the tools momentarily became the stars. And in that self, we attained an actual progress in aesthetic capability which became too easily confused, by myself and others, with an aesthetic of progress. Now the production remains were it was, but the newness fades and so to do the concurrent signifiers of newness which the pop had adopted. We're living in 1990 pt. II, musicwise, where an era of uncertainty leaves pop not an escape from, but a retreat to. Authenticity is back in, because the bubble's burst. Hell, even J. Lo is telling us she's real. & the signifier of authenticity is the sound of '90 because it is not a rejection of chart music so much as a promise of continuity, a reification of pop's flux into the illusion of peter's rock.