Bad

I, pinefox, don't like contemporary Pop music, and harbour a shocking audacity to act like I speak for all humanity when I feel repelled by it.

c) you are into a specific genre: eg classical, although thats obviously not a genre, for whatever reason, and dont really get stuff that isnt in that genre

d) er, a different reason.

Ambrose: I do like pop.

Q: interesting thoughts.

It is not significantly better or worse than it was when I was 10 years old.

This was a big surprise for me, but the more I thought about it . . . well, why would it be any different? It's apparently kept pace to elicit the same reactions from me that it would have 14 years ago -- the same mix of surprise, annoyance, enjoyment, and nausea, all at very low levels. After a few weeks of listening, after I'd sort of re-integrated myself into the playlist so that I could think, "Hey, there's that song again," all it came down to was: pop music is just sort of there. Some of it's good, some of it's bad, but rarely very far in either direction. Occasionally something is fantastic, occasionally something is wretched. Just like any other genre, really, except that with pop you hear a whole lot of it, all around you, and are more likely to be aware of the crap than in some other genre where you don't have to hear what you're not interested in. (Okay, maybe pop's a tad worse, in that it's going to attract a lot more artists who don't really have any musical inclinations. But to that I say: psshaw.)

Summary of Nitsuh's New Opinion on Pop: It's fine. It's pop. There it is, like it's always been.

Having pondered the question for the last day or so, I can't yet escape that maybe somehow I'm too OLD to appreciate pop now. It's possible. Yet Mr. Sinker, of comparable vintage, sez (in the Spice Gurls thread) that the last two or three years have been the best for pop since 81-82. I can't see it myself, but I'd like him to expand on this. I started watching TOTP in 1970, aged 9 and my best periods have been 72-74 (Glam) 76-79 (punk/new wave, disco) 81-84 (let's call it 'new pop'). So I can hardly expect the thrill of hearing T-Rex or The Buzzcocks or Chic or the Human League for the first time, can I? But why the f@ck not? Some pop can still thrill - Daft Punk for example, (although of course it harks back to disco, soft rock, early synth), but nothing made up of NEW ingredients seems any good, somehow.

Ally's description of an osmosis of R+B and Hip-Hop into the whole of the US charts doesn't quite fit the UK charts, but there's still too much. R+B has always struck me as a prissy, airbrushed waste of space on the whole - sure the beats may turn a neat trick or two, but there is no melodic invention at all, ever, and the irritating warbling, quavering style of singing which most of these vocalists (male and female) adopt is tiresome. This style seems to have infected EVERY female 'pop singer' by the way. Hip-Hop, which promised so much, at the commercial end of the scale at least is just bloody dull. There is SO MUCH that you could do with a hip-hop framework - loads of space in the beats to use, lots of room to experiment that the glaring LACK of invention in most hip-hop based chart pop is criminal.

Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me 5 great pop singles from 2001, and tell me why they're as good as "The Look of Love" or "What Do I Get? or "Golden Years".

I like some of what Dr C has to say, especially about vocals. Vocals in modern chart-pop = major turn-off and abysmal all round.

And you make this sound like a bad thing. But more to the point, you are setting up a ridiculous caricature of what 'r & b' is supposed to be, which makes it easy for you to dismiss it. One might as well ask why the hell anyone listens to any sort of rock, with its rhythmic retardedness, its own unmelodic raspy-voiced singers, and its pathetically self-obsessed pseudo-poetry. "Wait!" you cry, "that's not all of what rock is!" *Precisely.*

As I think Nitsuh put very well above, pop music by its very nature isn't good or bad, and attempts to critically valorize a uniform golden or dark age will never succeed. Here you all are obsessing over a perceived problem when by default there are plenty of musicians whose work you *do* enjoy and appreciate, regardless of what airplay they get. So why are you wasting time setting up straw men to defeat? Are you that ticked off with the minor fact that not everybody's taste is your own, and are you that surprised that radio/TV/media only allows a certain selection of music to slip through at any one time?

"repetitive, dull programming, caterwauling amelodic vox, and exclusively reflexive lyrics"

lucky I try to avoid it most of the time - but it is played in shops, cafes, fast food outlets, booming car stereos and some radio stations such as Kiss and Radio 1. I hate it - the lot - the bleating vocals, inane repeating lyrics, lame smooth production that never changes, the languid programmed beats - horrible. The DJ that I despise most for supporting this rubbish - Trevor Nelson, plays ghastly 100 % inane music.

Room 101 material - RNB/swing/commercial rap/corporate soul/naff chart garage - lock it all in sealed soundproof room. [There is more emotion, creativity, spirit and production ideas in Carl Craig - 'More Songs About Food And Revolutionary Art' - than the entire top 40 chart catalogue of rubbish of above genres for the last 5/10 years on both sides of the atlantic]

I am standing "shoulder to shoulder" with the strong international alliance of free thinkers that is forming - Pinefox, Dave Q, DR C, Alex in NYC.

As Ally pointed out the current process seems to be more one of hip hop AND r&b AND pop all moving towards eachother - actually there's a huge amount of conglomeration within urban and dance scenes generally right now.

I have to disagree with Dr C's findings of zero creativity and wasted potential in commercial hip hop. Listen to a commercial hip hop track from the last couple of years and it's possible to hear influences from dub and dancehall, house and techno, jungle and garage, IDM, booty, Miami bass and rock, as well as the traditional swipes from funk and soul. Musically, commercial hip hop hasn't been more adventurous since the glory days of the Bomb Squad.

The problem with asking for five fantastic pop songs this year is, well, you probably won't like the ones I pick. But here's five anyway:

1) Basement Jaxx - Romeo

2) Philly's Most Wanted - Cross The Border

3) Sugababes - Soul Sound

4) Daniel Beddingford - Gotta Get Thru This (pop hit of da future)

5) Britney Spears - I'm A Slave 4 U

And pray, what is the difference between this complaint and the observation that you're talking about 'r & b' as a monolithic whole?

As for every ingredient -- but surely we've all gargled Drano. ;-)

I'm not obsessing. I don't lose sleep over the state of pop, but since the question was asked I'm attempting to answer it. It's a good question too, and one which FT/ILM should be interested in discussing since Freaky Trigger 'writes about pop'.

"There is SO MUCH that you could do with a hip-hop framework - loads of space in the beats to use, lots of room to experiment that the glaring LACK of invention in most hip-hop based chart pop is criminal.

...and I answered him. But I didn't need to to prove hip hop's brilliance. It wins on the grooves and the rhymes alone :-)

But is it a good question? Nothing against the pinefox, but to state again: the presumption behind it assumes a state of complete and clear opposites a la the Camp Chaos cartoons of James Hetfield ("Contemporary pop BAD! Something else GOOD!") which doesn't work. It draws too wide a focus and attempts to force an answer before the question is even complete.

most of the nay-saying above anyway still has no more actual content (beyond obvious subjective response) than "young black women are involved, therefore it is bland and worthless by definition": for me, it's already the realisation and more of a phase in industry soul-manufacture which never really came off at the time; the technology wasn;t rreally up to what was required of it, and when it plateau'd c.1984-5, it was knocked out of court by the arrival of rap (eg when Kashif producing Evelyn King on songs like "Love Come Down", or Maurice White's for the Emotions).

Basically, I really like the dialectic of power and potential in the vocal-group w.producer, and am currently bored by the mere lumpen collectivity of the rockband per se, which its own creative make-up for granted (who was it on the board said the the Rolling Stones could today only ever revisit their moment of true demonic force by recasting themselves as an Ancient N*Sync?)

Of Tim's list I have heard 1), 3) and 5). I like 1) quite a bit. I can find nothing of merit in 3) and 5). I'm sick of hearing about Spears as if she mattered one little bit. Tim - tell me WHY you think these are great singles.

Now I've seen everything.

thesis of movie ROCK STAR is that the longevity of metal is explained by fact that any given metalband = a tribute band TO ITSELF (but movie then fails to explore throught that this is a GOOD THING!!)

Dave Q - hip hop got dragged in because it's meant to be there - R&B and hip hop and pop all influence eachother hugely, and to some extent are increasingly one genre. See, for example, "I'm A Slave 4 U" - an R&B track done by a pop singer produced by The Neptunes, who generally make hip hop.

Why do I like *R&B* specifically? Since you mention "Caught Out There", I'll start there. I love the way Kelis' vocals move from restrained sass to unbridled harshness so naturally. I love her totally over-the-top lyrics. I love the spoken word interjections, like she's having a conversation with the voices in her head. I love the two-tiered rhythm - cardiac-arrest jitter-beats over a stomping latinate kick drum groove, like robots dancing a salsa. I love the decaying cathode-ray synthesisers - at once suggestive of the failing, decaying relationship, and the hellish rain of fury and revenge Kelis plans to rain down upon her boyfriend like a computer game star-cruiser dropping missiles. Is that enough? I can assure you I could give aesthetically-motivated reasoning for liking every R&B track I like, but I'd be here all night.

Pls don't get the idea that I think guitar/rock is superior either. Part of my disappointment with the charts today is that there's so much excellent bleeps n beats stuff around that it's frustrating that none of it seems to influence chartpop. The guitar-based stuff which pops up in the charts is as bad and seems to be of two varieties : 1) Coldsailor whining or 2)that which remains after the turd named grunge has been wiped up (Wheatus, Weezer, cartoon metal nonsense). Both are contemptible. What's happened to guitar-pop?

Tim - I'll check out your blog. Your words above on "Caught out there" (whatever it is) are inspirational. I want to hear it, even though I may not like it.

This is often said. It may or may not be true. Why can't you? Why can you dismiss, say, Travis's whole career (in all its infinite variety; no, no, I don't mean it) but not the whole genre of rock? What's the difference? Where is the line drawn?

>>> Especially not when the genre is pop, one which pretty much encompasses aspects of all the others all at once. Pop is the magpie of the music world.

My definition of pop, as stated before = pretty much everything in post-c.1955 tradition(s) (to go no further back). (I know that definitions are a can of worms, and don't mean this one to be an issue - there are other threads on the subject.) It certainly includes 'rock', or most of it. There are narrower definitions around (fine - as synomymous with, say, 'chart pop'), but re. this particular thread I meant it in a very broad sense.

Like Dr C I am saying - among other things - that Coldsailor don't seem to bespeak the great musical moment that people are going on about. Unlike most of you I *also* think that goes for the other (non- rock) music discussed above.

The thing is: I think we're at a point where neither of these musical cultures can write off the other. We're also at a point where one of these musical cultures -- the "urban" one -- has the pop charts almost entirely in its possession, which makes it easy for folks from the rock/pop musical culture to write off its "urban" counterpart as inane or manufactured or soulless. But turn the tables for a second: seven or eight years ago, when the charts were momentarily recaptured by the rock tradition, how would you have responded to the same charges coming in the opposite direction? Would you have defended Sleeper?

And that's the root of it all, I think -- one culture's image of the other comes only from the material that's gone pop enough to be heard everywhere. The average hip-hop fan's image of a rock fan is going to be, well, a dumb white guy with an unnatural interest in loud guitar noises -- an image not significantly more complex or developed than the images of r&b and hip-hop (via "pop") that we're seeing here. (Part of the danger of evaluating another musical culture through what becomes pop is the tendency to view everything in that genre as aspiring to pop, even though all rappers aspire to be Jay Z not much more so than all rockers aspire to be Aerosmith.) For a good example of this: there's a track on Mos Def's Black on Both Sides in which Mos essentially tries to diss white rock bands for stealing black roots, namechecks Fishbone and Bad Brains as wonderful while saying "the Rolling Stones don't mean shit to me," and then -- as if to back up his comments -- the track momentarily "rocks." But here's the thing -- the part of the track that rocks is shit. To anyone familiar with the rock listening culture, it completely disproves his argument -- it demonstrates that there's something about what rock is that he's just not seeing, just as there are bound to be things about the "urban" musical culture that we (like I said, I come from the rock side) aren't going to be able to see.

Part of my radio-listening experiment, described above, is just a realization of this. And I'll tell you right now -- just two weeks of listening to a big black station and taking it at face value instead of sneering and disdaining it -- two weeks of actually engaging with it, and looking for reasons to take it seriously -- and my ability to see past the musical-culture gulf has increased tremendously.

Tracer H then offers the pf (me) an apocalyptic scenario:

>>> The art of song-making is in decline, along with the other arts. It's natural. Everything grows, lives, and eventually deteriorates. If you like songs, pf, then: have songs! But 1955-now may have been it for the particular kind of pop you're on about, or at least will be on about any second now. Everything has to die sometime.

There may be counter-arguments. But I think Hand is on a winner here. I think this may be the answer I have been looking for: people are not interested in songs anymore; the song is on the way out. That's strong, and negative, enough for me. Thanks.

Nitsuh writes with characteristic intelligence, but I can't really go along with what he says. Why should hip-hop = 'urban'? Rock'n'roll is supposed to be an urban form, no? 'Urban' takes away too much from the rest of us.

>>> one culture's image of the other comes only from the material that's gone pop enough to be heard everywhere. The average hip-hop fan's image of a rock fan is going to be, well, a dumb white guy with an unnatural interest in loud guitar noises -- an image not significantly more complex or developed than the images of r&b and hip-hop (via "pop") that we're seeing here.

This may go for a lot of people. But allow me for a moment to take it as applying to / addressing me. The mistake is to imagine that I would like hip-hop and friends if they were more 'experimental' and less 'poppy'. Of course, this is not the case. I don't like those sounds, period. Plus, go back to what Hand says: I like 'songs'. Presumably your cutting-edge 'urban' people are less into songs than anyone else. So: no, this is a no-no for me. That is, the idea that 'chart caricatures' are the problem is mistaken.

I might add that I have nowhere said that the ONLY thing I like in ALL music is 'the song'. Nonetheless Hand is talking a deal of sense, as Barry Davies might say.

Hold on, Pinefox -- I don't like the terminology any more than you do. This just happens to be what the music industry has taken to calling the broad swath of hip-hop, r&b, and pop made primarily by black people. Don't blame me for it.

The mistake is to imagine that I would like hip-hop and friends if they were more 'experimental' and less 'poppy'. Of course, this is not the case. I don't like those sounds, period.

Hold on again -- I'm not implying that you would like this music if it were more anything or less anything else. I'm saying that you're coming from a musical culture and a fashion of listening that is not the same as those of this music we're discussing, and that as such your very concepts of what "experimental" and "poppy" mean might not apply very well to a lot of these artists. Surely you'd agree that just because, say, Punjabi folk music didn't appeal to you personally, that doesn't mean that none of it's good -- you just don't have enough experience of it to differentiate between what's good about it and what's not. I think what's going on with you and what I'm calling "urban" music -- not "pop," because you're obviously okay with rock-tradition pop -- is the same sort of thing, on a smaller scale.

What interests me is your saying "I don't like those sounds." What sounds? The only sounds I can isolate -- those that appear in stuff you don't like but not in stuff you do -- are the sounds of black people rapping and singing.

Fine. I have never heard it. It's probably a US thing.

>>> your very concepts of what "experimental" and "poppy" mean might not apply very well to a lot of these artists.

Fine - but (with respect - to you, not them) I'm not interested in applying them.

>>> Surely you'd agree that just because, say, Punjabi folk music didn't appeal to you personally, that doesn't mean that none of it's good

Surely this is the oldest chestnut in the book: subjective vs objective. It's a vast subject, as you know, and possibly irresolvable. I don't have an answer. I know that our pal Raggett pops up every 5 minutes to tell people that what they are saying is actually a subjective response. Quite possibly he's right. Either way, I don't want to go down that road - we both know it is endless.

>>> you just don't have enough experience of it to differentiate between what's good about it and what's not.

Hey - at this point, Raggett should pop up and chastise *you* for implying that anything is 'good' independently of a particular listener's judgements.

>>> What interests me is your saying "I don't like those sounds." What sounds? The only sounds I can isolate -- those that appear in stuff you don't like but not in stuff you do -- are the sounds of black people rapping and singing.

On the face of it, that statement sounds, or looks, frighteningly racially-oriented: ie. "I don't like black people's voices, I like white people's." Such statements are liable to get people in a lot of trouble (perhaps because they seem to lead to other, more dangerous ones). So let me say very clearly: No - I have never said, or even thought, such an inflammatory thing.

The 'sounds' I have in mind are primarily those of the backing tracks. But on top of that, I find the vocal style / sound of much contemporary pop unlistenable too. That might be singing by white people, black people, or anyone else. If you want I can give you a list of white pop people whose sound I can't abide. It would be awfully long.

Just to repeat before this theme becomes a cul-de-sac: the question, which unsurprisingly many people reject, implies not just that the stuff you call 'urban' is bad, but that everything else is bad too.

Pinefox, puh-leeze!!! What you're essentially saying here is you are not interested in any critical engagement with an entire genre of music simply because your gut reaction to it is a negative one. This is fine by me, but it's going to make you look stupid when you post threads asking why this genre is "bad." If it's only "bad" because you say it is, and you don't feel like getting into any discussion beyond that, then the only person who can tell you why it's "bad" is you.

Surely this is the oldest chestnut in the book: subjective vs objective.

No, subjective and objective aren't quite at issue yet. Assume for a second that there are objectively "good" and "bad" qualities to music, but these qualities differ depending on genre. This means that the qualities that make an indie rock record brilliant are different from the qualities that make a J-pop track brilliant are different from the qualities that make a hip-hop track different etc. etc. etc. My argument is that your blanket aversion to a massive portion of modern music may well have to do with not trying to engage with whatever qualities are actually there to be loved or hated in that genre. Surely you'd admit that it's possible for a person to "not get" something, and surely you'd admit that with a tiny bit of effort, that person could actually "get" that thing and love it from there on out. "Getting" a broad genre of the sort we're discussing is going to be a big challenge, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

The 'sounds' I have in mind are primarily those of the backing tracks. But on top of that, I find the vocal style / sound of much contemporary pop unlistenable too.

The reason I made the comment is that I can't think of a single "sound" in those backing tracks that's significantly different from sounds found within music I seem to remember you liking. On the hip-hop end of pop, most everything is built from samples of music I'm assuming you don't have much of a problem with, and loops, drum machines, and synths are just as common to rock. Perhaps I'm just not clear on what particular aspect of the sound it is that bothers you, and where you draw lines. What's the closest thing to this unliked-production style that you do like?

As for the racial divide of present pop vocalizing -- I don't know how the U.K. is, but pretty much everything in the U.S. charts, no matter the race of the singer, is sung in a fashion that's entirely derived from black music. (I suppose that can be said about pretty much everything about music these days, but it's clearer and more recent vocally.)

The question, which unsurprisingly many people reject, implies not just that the stuff you call 'urban' is bad, but that everything else is bad too.

Well, I think the material we're reading into the question comes from your previous statements around here. :) That and the fact that a lot of the pop that actually seems worthwhile, these days, is the stuff that's in the vein we're discussing. That and the fact that if you really mean pop music of all sorts, then you're question becomes a sort of weird one, which is: why don't people like better music? To which it can only be replied that with the odd exception, they never really have.

Oh, I almost forgot this, which is my central point here. You argue in favor of "songfulness," for want of a better word. So let's set up a continuum of traditional songfulness that goes: Gilbert and Sullivan >>> Lloyd Cole >>> Jay Z. How does your call for "songs" not have you listening to the Gilbert and Sullivan compositions and hating Lloyd Cole? If it's really old-fashioned "songs" that you're looking for, why not turn to late-70s AM rock or Peter Paul & Mary or Jim Croce? Or Frank Sinatra or Julie London? What is it that makes your personal tastes the exact right midpoint of tunefulness?

*pops up out of mound of reserve books* What, where? Uh, yes, yes it is. Learn to deal with it. Excuse me, back to work. *descends in cloud of dust*

No, subjective and objective aren't quite at issue yet. Assume for a second that there are objectively "good" and "bad" qualities to music, but these qualities differ depending on genre. This means that the qualities that make an indie rock record brilliant are different from the qualities that make a J-pop track brilliant are different from the qualities that make a hip-hop track different etc. etc. etc.

Mmm...I can't agree. See, I don't hear music in terms of these qualities, or perhaps more to the point it directly assumes that said qualities are fixed and intransitive. There are certainly aural signifiers with which we sometimes clumsily divide songs into genres, but there's something about this claim of yours, Nitsuh, which presumes, say, that your three examples could never borrow from/ incorporate material by/get inspiration from each other, however broadly defined. Surely in the case of J-pop, arguably an even bigger sponge for all over the place sounds than American chart pop as we know it, both indie rock and hip-hop have had differing but measurable impacts. However, this was perhaps not the intent of your example...

Uh, yes, yes it is. Learn to deal with it.

I did. That's why I used those vital words, 'Quite possibly he [= Raggett] is right.

Tracer H:

>>> What I am selfishly interpreting the pinefox to mean is that there is a specific type of pop song that grew from the huge fecund mass of sheet music and folk traditions in the first 50 years of this century (then-definition of "pop(ular) music" = a lotta people can play it, not buy it!), and this kind of pop song seems quite shaky these days. Total tossers like Elliot Smith get on the Oscars because they can write a song with a bridge in it, sing harmony, and play guitar.

Yes - I do mean something like that. You put it very well - again. Thank you, once more.

I feel that Nitsuh, despite his undoubted intelligence and thoughtfulness (on which I have remarked many times), is strangely (and aggressively) misinterpreting me, but (Dr C-like) have not got time to go into it now. (Will get fired if I do much more of this.) Suffice to say,

- I am prepared to go a long way with the Raggett line on 'taste'

- I think Hand is about right on 'songs'. That is: of course I know there have been songs for 100s of years, and may be songs for more years, if we don't destroy the world this week. What Hand brings out, though, is that a *particular tradition* of the song (or bundle of traditions, if you prefer) may just about have run its historically particular course; and that this is why I think Pop (in very broad sense, once again) is bad now.

- Who says I don't like Frank Sinatra or Julie London? I listen to both with great pleasure and interest, and have tried to learn from them too. I have gone on about old-time songwriting on plenty of other threads. This is what I mean re. weird misinterpretations of my position.

My overall view is still this: I can see very little of interest or excitement in pop (**!= hip-hop, 'urban music', etc: includes Coldsailor and Furry Stereo**) these days. I have seen no evidence here to change that, though there have been good contributions (for which, thanks) on how the situation may have arisen / what it may amount to. Only DJ Martian has proposed any really new musical answers, but he's bonkers of course.

If on *ILM* appreciation of pop often takes the form of rhetoric, it's possibly because resentment of it takes that form too (eg. "it's a cancer"). But since ILM is formally at least a Freaky Trigger-related discussion board, I'm surprised that you've missed the at once personal and critical appreciation for pop music that Freaky Trigger, NYLPM and many related websites demonstrate constantly.

And - to revive a neglected point - as for the fetishisation of process Dave Q mentioned way up thread, I fail to see how fetishising a rhythm's lineage (a practice I find annoying too) is any *different* than fetishising, say, singers who write their own lyrics (which is hardly a rarity in pop, B4 anyone gets the wrong idea). I'm happy to admit that pop fans, in wishing to deconstruct the dominant binary dichotomy, often end up advancing new ones by mistake. But again, that's a universal failing, and as such it's not really an indictable offence.

Because while I completely understand this complaint, I still think it's sort of an "our" complaint, not-to-be-generalized, and I have two arguments concerning that:

(a) Go back to the Punjabi music example. Punjabi music is completely non-portable to me -- and, I imagine, to everyone on this board. But it's completely portable to the people who consume it. Same goes for music from any other-culture tradition: I couldn't stand in a pub and sing a west-African folk song, but a hell of a lot of west Africans could -- west Africans who, unlike me, might not find themselves singing "Three Girl Rhumba" while making dinner.

(b) And the same goes for, say, hip-hop or r&b, except that their portability lies in individual vocal performance. You can't sit around a campfire with an acoustic guitar leading a Puff Daddy singalong, but I guarantee you there are people walking around all over the U.S. rapping under their breath -- and teenage girls in cars everywhere preening and diva-ing Alicia Keyes songs.

Point being: "portability" is sort of a relative thing.

One of the distinct differences between the music that gets played on the radio now and the music that was played 30 years ago, or even 10 years ago, is that so much of the music today has the living shit compressed about it. This may seem like a red herring, but I don't think it is. Part of what makes so much of what's on the radio seem incredibly oppressive to me is the massive amount of compression they use (both in broadcasting and in the original production), which robs the music of any "air" around it at all and basically squashes the crap out of it. It sounds terrible.

A friend of a friend who's a classical music fan (the friend of a friend is, that is, although they actually both are...never mind) once said something I rather like: that the reason he doesn't like the vast majority of commercial music is that it seems so hell-bent on telling him what he "already knows". In other words, classical music is in his view a world-conjuring music, one which invokes the imagination and creates things that didn't exist before -- not just musical things, but entire sound-worlds that, to some, carry the implications of ideas in other art forms, and even implications of philosophical and spiritual implications. For him, classical music can create in him a "rapturous ecstasy". Whereas pop music seems, to him, like it's about the relentless preservation of the status quo and crushing of the imagination, both lyrically and musically; not only does pop music sell us what we already know, but it distills it to its most base and commercial form and shoves it down our throats.

While I don't really agree with the classical/pop dichotomy here, I find that this notion makes some sense for me in the context of the history of pop/rock music over the last 30-40 years. When I listened to the Beatles, the Doors, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, or the Who for the first time (and those were the bands with whom I grew up, for better or worse), I felt like I was being told something I didn't already know. They felt indeed like discoveries, like windows opening to ways of looking at and hearing music that I hadn't considered before hearing them.

But the contemporary music on the radio then, and the contemporary music that's on the radio now, has never felt revelatory or alive. There's nothing there that could galvanize me, could wake me up from a sleep I didn't know I was in; instead, I feel like I'm being force-fed the same old shit, only in a nifty technologically-savvy package -- one that leads most people, especially the musically uneducated, to the seemingly endemic conflation of gimmickry and meaningful innovation (two things that are not by any means the same!). There was a very brief window, from late 1992 to sometime in 1995, when suddenly the music that was getting airplay was exciting to me: not as much so as the older rock I loved, no, but I still remember watching some MTV New Year's special and seeing Cypress Hill, The Breeders, and Nirvana in rapid succession and thinking, "Wow -- suddenly good things are happening again." I don't get that feeling now from what I hear, because, unlike what was on the radio then, what I hear now seems aggressively stupid and banal, seems to breathe from every pore a contempt for nearly everything that could speak honestly about the human spirit. In terms of its own spirit, the music I hear on the radio is either slack-jawed naivete (which seems to be more the province of post-alternative "Closing Time"-ery) or slick cynicism (more the metier of so-called R&B) or smug irony. I hear no hip-hop that comes even close to Tribe Called Quest or Digable Planets; the DPs were smart, but most of what I hear coming out now is pointedly, insistently dumb. There's little I hear that's witty, skeptical, intriguing or rich. And that sucks.

I will close with an especially provocative thought: I do believe that, on some level, there is a correlation between a person's attitude towards music, and their attitude towards other people. I do believe that a nihilistic, narcissistic, disposable music will tend to attract nihilistic, narcissistic, disposable people. I do believe -- and have repeatedly seen -- that music (or indeed any art form) of real quality and integrity tends to affront or enrage people whose personalities are impaired in some way. Defining where that quality and integrity lie, well, there's a matter for lengthy discussion in itself. But I believe that the emotionally dead and infantile state of so much contemporary pop music accurately reflects the emotionally dead and infantile state of a growing number of human beings.

And that, to me, is scary.

I do believe that, on some level, there is a correlation between a person's attitude towards music, and their attitude towards other people

1) "Music" should probably say "the arts." And 2) I don't mean to include people like my high school math teacher, a guy who would listen to whatever was on the radio. I more mean people who take a real interest in music (or whatever), and still find themselves drawn to the cheapest fixes.

(oh, and for the record, I sometimes feel like Mark S's aesthetic POV is the equivalent of my elementary school teacher's habit of forcing us to play "Musical Chairs" without taking any chairs away :-) )

Yes, I think you're right. Of course the drawback is that when it comes to specifics I like everything.

Well, I disagree, so ner-ner-ner-ner-ner.

Nonetheless, I think that Nitsuh, Tracer and the extraordinary Phil put their arguments with unusual eloquence. I don't quite understand some of the recent turns in the argument, but that's OK, other people do.

Nitsuh adds:

>>> It's just that I'm willing to admit that this feeling is personal and based on the musical tradition that I happen to be coming from

So am I. But splitting hairs over 'objective' and 'subjective', 'absolute' and 'relative', is such an old chestnut, I couldn't be bothered this time. Better to get discussion going by saying Pop Is Now Bad (which I believe, I hasten to add, as much as I believe anything else about contemporary culture - this is a thing I think a lot about, believe it or not). I know that loads of ILM people think Pop Is Now Good. I think I know that they and I are never going to convince each other of anything, and have not been aiming to do any convincing on this thread (or to be convinced that Pop Is Now Good). Pop Is Now Bad = a gut feeling in the pinefox which is more powerful and significant, day to day as it were, than most other things I have to say about music today. I think it deserves airing as much as any number of other things that get aired on ILM. Others will doubtless disagree with that, but sod it, there are plenty of other threads for them to write on.

Possible reason why I think Pop Is Now Bad rather than Hey, I Don't Like Pop Now = I cannot imagine not thinking Pop Is Now Bad. Pop cheerleaders 2001 Ewing / Finney et al - not to mention Stevie T - are fine fellows and fine writers too, but their belief, or gut feeling, or hunch, or whatever, that Pop Is Now Good is Barmy and Incomprehensible to me.

Also, let's note where the argument has shifted now, from what I was calling "portability" to the issue of "intelligence." "Intelligence," I think, is a completely moot point. "Intelligence" is about the most subjective quality you could apply to an entire genre of music, and people's perceptions of it usually have far more to do with their opinions of the artists and their behaviour than anything else. Rock as a genre has always been deemed unintelligent; punk is, on the surface, as unintelligent any music can appear to get. But I'm sure everyone here could point to hundreds of rock and punk bands whose music displayed a very real intelligence within those genres.

But let me just sum up by explaining why I'm so interested in this particular debate. I used to very much agree with the anti-pop arguments posited here; a few years ago, I may well have been on the other side of this discussion. But some time ago, I began noticing a whole lot of people whose intelligence and discretion I trusted starting to enjoy a lot of pop and r&b and hip-hop. And the more I talked to these people, the clearer it became to me that they weren't just being contrarian or following some ironic trend -- there really was something there that they were seeing and enjoying that I just wasn't. And so I've made efforts to actually engage with those genres, actually give them credit for just a little while, to figure out what that thing is. I'll admit that I'm not completely on board yet, but even just the tiniest bit of effort and openmindedness has allowed me to see just how much there is in there that's worthwhile or even vital.

That, plus I'm just really annoyed by sweeping dismissals of entire genres. Perhaps that's because it happens so often here on ILM to my "home" genre of indie rock -- a blanket dismissal implies an unwillingness to actually look into the genre far enough to see what's good about it and what's bad, who's doing it well and who's doing it terribly. And when that's the case, I honestly think the blanket dismissal should be traded for a frank admission that the genre Just Isn't For You, and you're therefore unqualified to judge it -- the way people who don't know anything about, say, Japanese noise bands seem content to just stay out of it. Hence my references to Punjabi music. I couldn't even tell one instance of it apart from another, which tells me just about everything I need to know about my readiness to start judging it.

In fact, this is my new rule: if you can't differentiate between the relative qualities of different examples of a genre, you're definitely not ready to make statements about the genre as a whole. And that goes for hip-hop, electronica, indie rock, Christian Country, or anything else you want to throw out there.

Actually, to expand on this point. If I played Nevermind the Bollocks... and Pink Flag for my father, back to back, and asked him which one was more "intelligent," I guarantee you he'd say they both sounded pretty dumb. Yet most of us, schooled as we are in the skill of differentiating between varying qualities of punk, would point to Pink Flag. We could reverse the experiment with traditional Ethiopian kraar players, and suddenly my dad would be laughing at our inability to form an informed opinion. I think this is the root of Pinefox vs. Pop.

Actually, this is better: Pinefox is like a guy who only drinks white wine, and claims red wine is terrible. On the other side of the table is a guy who does like red wine, and is revelling in the fact that hundreds of really fantastic reds have been cropping up lately. Pinefox's blanket dismissal of red is keeping him from taking the very substantial pleasure there is to be had in following it at that moment, no?

I think you have a point. I think people's attitudes to music can - not do, but can - reflect their general character. But - not knowing you aside from what you write here - what makes you think, Phil, that you are emotionally alive and mature?

(With most of the participants here, after all, I have their regular postings to ILE as some kind of testimony.)

Gradually, though, it becomes more and more difficult to find restaurants that will serve fine wine. Everywhere they go, people are trying to pass off Manischewitz and Mad Dog 20/20 as fine wine. Of course, the occasional sip of cheap wine can be fun, and will certainly get you drunk, but that's all it is -- fun -- and it gives none of the rich satisfaction of a fine wine (rather like the difference between, say, Wonder bread and a fresh-made baguette). Indeed, Pinefox-as-wine-lover was under the impression that everyone knew that Mad Dog 20/20 was a crap wine, good if you want to get smashed but otherwise...

But everyone is insisting, suddenly, that Mad Dog 20/20 and Manischewitz are it. It seems like the more educated they are, and/or the hipper they want to seem, the more they fall all over themselves to praise these sorts of wines. "Oh, Mad Dog 20/20 is every bit as good as any vintage wine from the south of France. If anything, it's better . Those vintage wines are so wanky, you know. Skill in winemaking is overrated and distasteful; the less skill, the better. We need to get back to a kind of wine that everyone can make and enjoy. To do otherwise is to be exclusionist." Indeed, you might even see hints that people who don't like cheap wine are somehow classist snobs, since of course only the well-to-do can afford fine wine.

And of course, large commercial wineries are thrilled: this stuff is cheap to make, requires no thought, and if it drives out all the fine wine, so much the better! Better to sell a million bottles of $5 wine than 10,000 bottles of $50 wine, after all. Clubs spring up discussing the niceties of the packaging of the wine, and how revolutionary it is that Mad Dog has started using these wild, space-age plastic bottles. "You'd never see a French vinery do that", sagely nod the cheap-wine cognoscenti. "That's proof that wine now is better than it's ever been."

And strangely, no one hears the faint cries of "But I do like and value a glass of Manischewitz, once in a while...but not all the time...and it's fun, but I can't pretend I think it's as good as the real stuff...and Mad Dog is just crap..."

High self-esteem (in some ways, anyway) and a yen for introspection?

;-)

That's a tough question to answer, but I'll give you a sincere if overlong reply: when I look in the proverbial mirror (and I'm self-analytic to a fault), when it comes to my character, ethics, emotional intelligence, and so on, I feel reasonably good about what I see, and the feedback from other human beings generally seems to confirm that I'm not totally delusional about it. I take pride in having earned the trust of people close to me, and in doing my best to be worthy of that trust. I try to treat the people around me with sensitivity and compassion, and their reactions lead me to believe that I succeed more often than not. And I'm generally able to deal with conflict without making enemies or being cruel, and am able to keep my neuroses (we all have them, after all) from causing needless pain to any of my friends or loved ones.

I'm sorry, but no, this analogy stinks. It predicates a distinction that *does not exist* when it comes to music, especially if you're trying to bring in comparisons of price analogies. Your fine wines cost more than yer cheap ones, sure. That does *NOT* hold in the pricing model of music. Generally speaking a Lloyd Cole disc sells at the same basic price as a Britney Spears one, say. Indeed, for many Artists who are Not Working For the Man and Self-Releasing Their Visions, the price of their CDs when self-sold via the Web or the like often is much *less* than the N'Syncs of the world. Sorry, Phil, but I find your whole comparison odious, even downright insulting and contemptuous. You are clinging to an absolutist model of enjoying music, one that I honestly think is showing no sign of trying to engage Nitsuh or Tim's points, among others, directly.

The choice is not between pop and everything else; the choice, as Joe seems to his credit to understand, is between listening to and enjoying current pop and not doing so, whatever else you enjoy. I do enjoy current pop - it gives me something no other music does. I spent a couple of years groping in print after what that something was, and I think I should probably have kept my mouth shut.

(That sounds, reading a minute later, nihilistic and narcissistic, which rather proves Phil's point, I suppose. Though somehow I don't imagine that if I had spent the last two years listening to Coltrane whenever I listened to Britney I would feel one iota less miserable than I do currently.)

The price part wasn't meant to be so literal, tangentially. (Indeed independent CDs often cost far less than major-label discs.) But I can certainly see where you got that impression!

Sorry, Phil, but I find your whole comparison odious, even downright insulting and contemptuous. You are clinging to an absolutist model of enjoying music, one that I honestly think is showing no sign of trying to engage Nitsuh or Tim's points, among others, directly.

Hmmmm. It appears I wasn't overtly humorous enough in my post -- and that furthermore I failed to make it clear that I meant to depict what all this can feel like (rather than how it "is"). But in any event, I don't agree that I'm "clinging to an absolutist model of enjoying music"; what I'm railing against is this purely relativist model that places Britney Spears on a par with Bach and Miles Davis and the Beatles, and -- notwithstanding Nitsuh's comments to the contrary -- this contrarian spirit (I tend to have a very hard time believing it to be genuine!) that seems to lead people to celebrate incompetence and banality whilst turning up their noise at craftsmanship and subtlety. I don't think that musical quality is purely a matter of opinion and total subjectivity, and though I try to keep an open mind, people's apologias for the likes of Britney have not convinced me in the slightest, nor has the music.

I should add that I come from a college where the nadir of incompetence is all too often celebrated as the height of brilliance. As a result, my willingness to re-evaluate what seems at first glance like musical mediocrity isn't what it might be, especially when there's so much good music out there to which people are oblivious, or worse, of which they're contemptuous.

Also, I like pop -- love it, actually, as my record collection will attest, though it is strongly slanted towards 1967-1977.

I just don't particularly like the form of it that's become dominant over the last 5-6 years. It is against that that I'm railing -- and it was that which I intended to Manischewitz-ize, if you will. It's not that I despise current pop -- some of it I find offensively stupid, but I can generally find something to like about a given song if I try hard enough. (I even find myself appreciating Limp Bizkit now and again, instrumentally anyway -- the outro to that asinine "my way or the highway song" is surprisingly attractive.) But it just seems so pallid and banal to me by comparison with prior pop eras -- 1967, 1991, even 1985; it bewilders me that anyone could feel otherwise, and I've read very few arguments that leave me feeling hopeful that my position might change. When, simultaneous with that, the music I myself love is repeatedly belittled -- and this is music I believe to be good in some way that isn't purely subjective (or solipsistic, anyway) -- it's hard not to feel like the people in question are motivated by a contrarian spirit, or by a desire to cultivate ironic detachment, or something that in any event doesn't make any sense to me, since I still don't understand how a person can't put on "Julia" or "Won't Get Fooled Again" and not say, wow, this is really beautiful.

Maybe in a way that's the thing that bugs me the most: the infrequent sincere use of the word "beautiful", and the dearth of talk about genuine emotive-aesthetic responses to music. The music I love can move me to tears; I don't often see talk of that around here, and that's a shame.

turning up their noise (!)

and

1967, 1991, even 1985

Should be 1993; I don't remember much of interest going on in 1991, Vanilla Ice notwithstanding.

In this, I absolutely and whole-heartedly agree with you. Something I would love to develop is the courage to be emotive, corny even, about the music I love. With the older pop you mention, much of it moves me enormously - but it all comes with so much baggage, such an accretion of impression that I need to be surprised by it almost. (Thoughts about why this might be may have to wait for another day, though!)

I hope this doesn't seem self-serving. For some reason it feels like a good idea, but if it turns out to be otherwise, I'll take heed.

this contrarian spirit (I tend to have a very hard time believing it to be genuine!)

Herein the problem. Let me turn this around -- I have no problem at all believing that what you like moves you very greatly, as you have described at various points. There is no reason for me not to believe it. Do you see, then, why your own *disbelief* in my own potential reactions and those of others here on the boards is so frustrating? I can't read it as anything but an astonishingly willful attempt to envision a world wherein you claim to have found a universal rather than a personal truth in music. This completely goes against my own radically subjective vision of music, the more so because I honestly think you cannot answer my eternal question to those who would force any sort of objective standard -- namely, can you demonstrate to me that such a standard exists?

If you name songs that move *you*, that's great for you. If you name songs that move others as well as yourself, that's also great for you and them. If you think that someone who hears said songs and finds all or some of them wanting in appeal or worse, then does that change your mind on your beliefs about the quality of the songs? Certainly not. Then why do you obstinately -- and there is no other word to be used here -- cling to this idea that somehow a claim of praise for a song you don't like can only be insincere or contrarian? Why is your standard *the* standard?

I am not compelled to kowtow to either "Julia" or "Won't Get Fooled Again," for instance. I happen to own both songs, I haven't listened to either of them in a dog's age and while I can call both of them to mind, they don't particularly move me while in there. BUT I DO NOT QUESTION YOUR DEEP LOVE FOR THEM. Is it so impossible to grant the same courtesy in response? If not, then why should I care for what you have to say if all you can do is sneer, think that loving "Bootylicious" or "One More Time" or whatever from this year is nothing more than a mug's game? How can I see that as anything but a spiteful insult?

I don't think it was self-serving at all to put up music clips, that's quite well and good. But I have to say that if you seem to think my own opinions are only motivated by being ironic, then clearly there's no point in listening to your music and commenting, is there? So you might just want to vette every possible listener ever before formally releasing anything if you do -- and given how many people are on this planet, that could take some time.

1) you assume that the "myth" of wine is an unreservedly positive one. To me what would be far more appalling than liking cheap wine would be to buy the most expensive wine on the restaurant's board not because you like it more, but because it seemed like the right thing to do, and you're a bit ashamed to do otherwise. And anyway privileging expensive wine = commodity fetishism, and is just as big a part of the capitalist machine as coke is. There are musical analogies to be drawn here, quite obviously.

2) The wine comparison reduces music to a single narrative, as if there is only one set of values one can locate within music. Presumably you wouldn't accuse a celebrated Chinese chef with no appreciation of wine of having no "taste" (in either sense).

digital tec's omnipresence at macro-broadcast level has rendered the stave-music reserve army *irrelevant* (before — in re classical canon-formation — it was central-essential tho actually never mentioned/the classical canonists NEVAH NEVAH fought for its retention inm any realistic way): ie before the "medium" was ppl, now it's dots and loops in the thether, even when promulgating pinefox's music or nitsuh's grandparents' neighbhours' music. The question of who has workable creative access to the technology itself has *never* been relevant (most of "old-form" pop's fans DIDN'T read music).

cassette tech's place at thee of the pyramid makes it a. possible, b. overwhelmingly likely that mastery of stave-music as tercxhnics of portability can-will be end-run; and slots in sweet as a din-plug into the New Sony Order

omnipresence = only game in town = totality of expressive modernity, EVEN WHEN YOU'RE DISSENTING FROM IT eg sadness and beauty have their expressors here also, inevitably, if only to fill a gap in the market

stimulation is frankly more important to me than emotional snacking

For example, take the Artful Dodger's "Rewind" - recorded as a white label with absolutely no funding, sold directly to record stores, blows up and eventually hits number 2 in the UK charts. Incontravertibly chart-pop, and almost definitely reviled by Pinefox. Yet recorded for probably the merest fraction of a Max Martin record (though, it must be noted, that Max's asking price probably has a lot more to do with his past record than with the space-age hi-tech abilities of his studio).

The point abt compression was Phil's I suspect, not pinefox's, and is interesting in itself, but hardly an argument winner ("The Cure are rubbish becoz the record I heard them on was warped…")

I am not claiming *anything* we are arguing abt is made on a tape recorder, i am claiming that the unavoidable place of the tape recorder (ande upper range equivs) at the BASE [word omitted from claim above: oops, soprry] of the worldwide music-making pyramid (instead eg of trad music-makers, elders and keepers of lore, aka spinster music teachers in primary school who learnt to play piano instead of sleeping around haha) has simply cut out last-ditch NEED for stave-music learning, hence sent into exile zone of sensibility whereby pinefox-ism could flourish somewhere near enuff to expressive centrality. Becoz tapeworld slots to exactly into digitalworld, there is not mini-plateau on the pyramid at which stavemusic can reassert itself in terms of technological *necessity* (this was plainly not true in the 60s/70s). Its only recourse is to reassert itself culturally/aesthetically, and here I think it's trapped in a different way (equiv to Islam vs the "West", as you say), because in order to convince anyone but established diehards, it has to adapt itself to modes of argument and address which cede fundamentals to its opponnents.

Pinefox asked why is Contemp Pop so "bad": OK well I don't actually think it's "bad", but I totally agree it has changed, irrevocably. This is my response: a material technological sociological chain which explains the change w/o recourse to frantic handwaving abt which is morally better or worse. Assumptions abt my tastes are projections mostly. I like "craft" in music making, which = the CLASSIC case of the mixed blessing = the worm in the rose... Craft = a compromise with the (obviously sullied) past against the (threatening?) future = a Step Back from Optimisim which all of us make eventually

I just don't see much pop to love at the moment - IN WHATEVER GENRE. I have emphasized this *last* (capitalized) point repeatedly but the conversation keeps turning into Ewing-Pop (ie. a certain branch of pop which you, unlike me, like) vs Sth Else (Classical, Rock, whatever). That's fair enough if that's the conversation people want to have (and are having, very interestingly, etc).

(a) Changing my red/white wine analogy (red/white = different types, different points) to fine/cheap wine (fine/cheap = different amounts of value) in itself assumes other forms of music to be better than current pop, an argument that's being asserted quite frequently here but never supported.

(b) Case in point, the phrase: "seems to lead people to celebrate incompetence and banality whilst turning up their noise at craftsmanship and subtlety." Unsupported value judgements running all through that, particularly the "incompetent." Cheiron turning out dozens of top-ten singles in a row is surely the height of competence (and the height of craftsmanship as well). You're calling pop "incompetent" because it's not good at doing what you want it to -- you're not willing to believe that it might be doing something else really, really well.

(c) The "portability" issue does not imply that everyone has a sampler, as I explicitly stated -- it revolves around the boys standing in the subway rapping or the teenage girls singing in front of their bedroom mirrors.

(d) The repeated, unsupported dismissal of an entire genre as prima facia "banal" or poorly-crafted still grates. My challenge is this: the above contention rests on our believing that the people making it are actually paying attention to the content and craftsmanship of pop songs. So to those making it, please pick any five current pop songs and rank them in craftsmanship relative to one another. This will convince me that you really are engaging with the music and criticizing it in its own terms, rather than criticizing it simply for not being what you want.

I dunno, Nitsuh, this seems...implausible, perhaps is the word? How does one measure 'craftmanship'? Phil, I think terribly wrongly, is claiming that it exists as a measurable standard to qualify what makes music good. It seems your challenge merely replicates his claim, especially if he takes 'craftmanship' to mean *his* own standards.

Until you ruined it.

• the difference between thinking that there is an objective element to music, and thinking that objective element is EVERYTHING in music, and there is no subjective component;
• the difference between thinking that some people who like nu-pop are motivated by less-than-noble factors, and thinking that all people who etc.;
• the difference between thinking that my views on music aren't wholly based on the subjective (and thus can conceivably be subject to proof and argumentation and non-solipsistic debate), and thinking that my views on music are THE TRUTH and apply to everyone and that anyone who disagrees is a dupe;
• and in short, the difference between thinking that nothing (or everything) is a matter of opinion, and thinking that music exists in a mediated state, possessed of both subjective and objective elements, and with some aspects that are, and some aspects that definitely aren't, a matter of opinion.

You seem to be taking a lot of my comments very personally -- which I agree is understandable, given that you see yourself as a conceivable member of the group of whom I speak. But I suggest that rephrasing my arguments to be directed at you personally (particularly when my arguments are not being represented accurately) is a rhetorical device that does not, in the end, give a positive bent to discussion, nor does it serve a clarifying function.

why do you obstinately...cling to this idea that somehow a claim of praise for a song you don't like can only be insincere or contrarian?

Let me be clear that I don't claim that, at least not a priori. What I'm speaking of is, rather, that when I see people heaping praise on a song I think is totally devoid of even an attempt at value, and when their praise isn't substantiated with anything that comes from a value-system I find intelligible, I tend to get suspicious. When the praise is paired and intermingled with comments that (as far as I can tell) betray a value-system that's actively inimical to mine, I have a very hard time believing what the person is saying. Take, for example, Otis's comments above:

I don't really like emotions [...] and beautiful is not a word that I would ever use to describe anything, least of all music, and even if I did, there's no guaranteeing it would be complimentary, so I guess I can still like pop. [...] I would say that "Lucky" by Britney Spears or "What Would You Do" by City High are at least as objectively beautiful or touching as anything Sinatra or the Beatles [...] recorded

I don't mean to single Otis out or turn him into a soundbite, but these comments are extremely alien to everything I believe on an interpersonal and aesthetic level. It's difficult for me to read this paragraph (out of the context of any of Otis's other posts) and not think that either (a) Otis is to some degree kidding, or (b) Otis is really, really cold. If that seems judgmental of me, I apologize, but I unabashedly will admit to having an ethical world-view in which compassion reigns supreme (and the recognition of one another's humanity is the key to avoiding (mass) murder among other things), and an aesthetic world-view in which the beautiful is very much a key concept (Otis, I'm assuming you're demurring at the concept of "beautiful", not just preferring a synonym), and though I try to remain open-minded I really can't budge on those concepts without essentially betraying what I believe. In this light, his statements about Britney Spears aren't intelligible to me, because what came before them is so wildly alien to the way I look at the world that it literally doesn't make any sense.

By contrast, when Tom or Josh write about this music, I find myself interested, because there seems to be some attempt to connect the music of which they're speaking to something to which I can relate, aesthetically or otherwise. I don't necessarily agree, but I feel like there is, in fact, a chance for some form of connection, some way in which they can make what they're hearing in the music intelligible to me.

This completely goes against my own radically subjective vision of music, the more so because I honestly think you cannot answer my eternal question to those who would force any sort of objective standard -- namely, can you demonstrate to me that such a standard exists?

This is too deep a morass to go into right now, particularly since we already hit it somewhat in the objective vs. subjective thread (and oddly enough my own left hand is cramping up as well). Regarding my POV the short answer is, again, that music exists in a dialectic tension between the objective and subjective, and neither can be overlooked without fault. I will, however, say that the most immediate objection I would raise to what I take to be your POV would be that of lyrics, which can have a VERY direct relationship to any of the numerous postulates by which we live not only our aesthetic lives, but our personal ones as well. I'm reluctant to take the "use a painfully absurd example to prove my point" tack, but I will anyway: if someone audiotaped a simulated sexual assault, looped a jaunty beat under it, and added unironic spoken-word comments about how the victim got what (s)he deserved, does "radical subjectivism" posit, then, that the offensiveness of said track is merely a matter of opinion? (Johan, if you're reading this, I can hear you groaning: forgive me. :-) If you can honestly say that such a track is something that, conceivably, anyone can listen to (perhaps as "pure sound"?) and have any opinion on and that's A-OK...well, I'll be rather surprised. I personally think that the moment any textual or extramusical content is introduced into music, other forms of expression and their principles are automatically invoked, including the literary, the political, and yes, even the ethical. Whether they actually apply is a subject for debate, but the fact that Britney Spears uses words in her songs automatically knocks down the "golden wall" between the purely aesthetic and the remainder of human experience, because they're no longer "just music".

(Another thing I would invoke, by the way, would be the acoustic reality of music and its relationship to the human body, but that's something else and a whole 'nother 150k.)

Tim: you're right. It was silly to get into the wine thing. If anything, price in my analogy was meant to correspond in some convoluted way to the difficulty and/or subtlety of music, but it's just a total mess. I guess I found Nitsuh's initial analogy pretty condescending to Pinefox, or at least a pretty big oversimplification of his position. Pinefox isn't saying "I don't like it because it's different", he's saying "I don't like it because it's bad", and unless one rejects the notion of good and bad in art (and I think people who do are, well, wrong) and thus hold that calling anything good or bad is incorrect, then one can't criticize him for having that position in the abstract, one can only criticize his grasp of the details and concretes. And I do believe that, yes, an entire genre can be crap. Of course, there's a direct relationship between its scope and the likelihood of that being the case -- the bigger the genre, the more likely that sweeping generalizations will be off the mark -- but there's nothing magical about the title "genre" that magically guarantees that there will, somewhere in its membership, be something of merit.

Dave Q: Why is Davis unquestionably great?

If you have to ask...;-) Seriously, the easiest way to make that discussion something fruitful is to name someone else who you think stands as tall as Miles did in some or all of the same ways (instrumentalist, bandleader, composer, genre-founder/innovator). Thus can we invoke comparison, which strikes me as one of the most productive styles of discussion (which is perhaps why "Taking Sides" threads tend to be far more interesting than "Classic or Dud" threads).

Mitch: Surely the lack of craftsmanship that Phil perceives in nu-pop isn't what the nu-pop advocates are celebrating about the music?

I wouldn't venture to make assumptions about what people think here in that regard (especially not individuals). I do know, however, that in other forms of music, particularly certain off-shoots of the avant-garde, the notion of any knowledge or sophistication AT ALL is considered a bad thing. An otherwise sensible friend once said to me that he didn't see any reason why a person couldn't pick up a trumpet for the first time and have whatever came out of their horn be as valid as anything Dizzy Gillespie ever played, if only you knew how to listen to it. (Tangentially, that POV strikes me as inextricably tied to some obscene caricature of the guilty-liberal position, perpetually apologetic and determined to "level the playing-field" to a Harrison Bergeron-like level -- "excellence is offensive" and all that. You may laugh, but there are people out there who REALLY think that.) If everything is equally valid, nothing is meaningful, and the world looks damned grey. Sophistication automatically excludes, and the possibility of exclusion is not exactly something that the ueber-capitalist forms of pop music tend to like, target demographics aside -- but what I object to is, whereas sophistication and the simple seemed to coexist in the pop music of yore, thus providing opportunities for multi-layered listening (not unlike the way that great cartoons often have in-jokes that only adults will get), I see all too little evidence of those multiple layers in contemporary pop music. One might argue that part of craftsmanship is the ability to combine those layers, but I'm not sure that I've thought the implications of that enough to postulate it.

Nitsuh:

Cheiron turning out dozens of top-ten singles in a row is surely the height of competence (and the height of craftsmanship as well).

In my universe, the chart success of a record has little if anything to do with the aesthetic competence with which it's created.

You're calling pop [sic: CURRENT CHART pop, not just "pop"] "incompetent" because it's not good at doing what you want it to -- you're not willing to believe that it might be doing something else really, really well.

I am willing to believe it, but not to take it on faith. The music needs to prove it to me, and so far it hasn't. If you infer that that means I believe myself to be an informed listener, able to form opinions that need not be perpetually disclaimered in deference to those-who-know-more-than-I-do, well, guilty as charged...

Finally, Ned:

Phil, I think terribly wrongly, is claiming that it exists as a measurable standard to qualify what makes music good.

Again, part-objective, part-subjective. Part is a question of taste, part isn't. ESPECIALLY if we're willing to postulate that certain forms of music (and certain techniques of production and of performance) have specific goals, and that we can in part evaluate the music based on the success with which they achieve those goals. And I don't see how one can not postulate that.

You're changing the point, though, Phil. You referred to this sort of production as "incompetent." I'm simply pointing out that the last thing you can call Cheiron is "incompetent," given that they have near-100% dead aim on their target, which is the top of the pop charts.

Your argument isn't that they're "incompetent" -- it's that they're not even trying to be competent in the ways you want them to be competent. Hence my red wine analogy. You don't criticize a red just for being red -- you criticize it for being a bad red. You're calling pop incompetent as if its aim is off - - whereas its aim is actually dead-on, just on a target that you're not interested in.

That is my point -- that the things you're criticizing have more to do with the aims of the music than the skill with which those aims are achieved.

My own view is that there is presumably a good deal of craftsmanship involved in whatever records are in the top 10. Personally I have never sought to deny that - it would be like saying that people who fix cars or build nuclear missiles are unskilled.

I think that Phil's point about genre may be fair: why can you dismiss, say, a band's whole oeuvre, but not a genre? What's the qualitative difference? (Yes, I have already said this upthread.) I am not sure what the right answer is here.

Nitsuh:

You referred to this sort of production as "incompetent." I'm simply pointing out that the last thing you can call Cheiron is "incompetent,"

I never referred to Cheiron as incompetent, nor did my original phrase -- "seems to lead people to celebrate incompetence and banality whilst turning up their noise at craftsmanship and subtlety" -- necessarily predicate that. I don't know Cheiron, to be candid, and from your description it strikes me that I would be more likely to turn to the adjective "banal" if I didn't like his music -- and indeed banality was really what I should've put the emphasis on, in that sentence. Britney Spears (the whipping girl for this thread!) strikes me as a better candidate for something like incompetence, as she fails what I had thought were the usual tests of the genre for competence: she can't really sing, she can't really dance, she doesn't write her own songs, and she performs them in a desultory way. That to my mind is damn near incompetence, particularly when she's compared with other artists, and leads me to believe that the popularity of her music owes a tremendous amount to marketing, and all too little to any of the traits on which her music would be evaluated were it subjected to a blindfold test with others of its ilk.

the things you're criticizing have more to do with the aims of the music than the skill with which those aims are achieved.

There's some truth to that. I'm a firm believer in phrases like "It's crap, but I like it"; I have no problem with pop being pop and not aiming to be sublime, though I will also admit that I tend not to hear things disposably (regardless of how they're intended) and don't find the notion of disposable music appealing. On the other hand, I don't buy that "selling records" is a musical aim, though of course I know you didn't mean that as such, but rather "creating a kind of music that is infectious and appealing and thus will, as it happens, sell records". Again, I don't have a problem with that, really; I object to it when either it's done badly, or when people neglect to distinguish between those different aims, or the depth of aesthetic response likely to come from contemplation of works with different aims. The old "highbrow/lowbrow" distinction was indeed classist and snobbish, but there was something of truth there that went beyond class and elitism, and has a lot more to do with one's aesthetic aims than it has to do with whether you write for a symphony orchestra or a copy of Rebirth.

On a more practical note, as a composer and musician, if I sit down and say (for instance) "All right, I'm going to make something beautiful today", it's generally the artistic kiss of death -- as is saying something like "I want to write a piece that expresses my feelings about [fill in the blank]": some of the worst tripe I've ever written has been in that vein. At some point in the discussion, the focus always has to shift to the musical concretes as a point of origin of some kind -- and I think that music often suffers when a music-maker doesn't think in terms of those musical concretes when he or she sits down to make music.

Meant in jest, I should add.

I don't know Cheiron, to be candid, and from your description it strikes me that I would be more likely to turn to the adjective "banal" if I didn't like his music -- and indeed banality was really what I should've put the emphasis on, in that sentence. Britney Spears (the whipping girl for this thread!) strikes me as a better candidate for something like incompetence.

Except that, you see, Cheiron is the Swedish production team who are actually responsible for some of Ms. Spears' hits, among countless others. Your criticisms of Britney herself are largely valid, but part of appreciating pop, I think, is giving up on assigning credit and just enjoying the result as a likeable document in and of itself. Cheiron, in this example, are a part of that document -- and when you start talking intelligence or craftsmanship, I start admiring the fact that the same four or five guys can put the magic touch on hit after hit, from Ace of Base all the way through today. I mean, they're doing something right, and to pretend it's just pandering to public tastes is a bit churlish -- plenty of other folks pander and fail miserably.

And as for what difference it makes to my life: I'm a musician. If I ignore the craft of music, my music will be incoherent, and I will be unable to express the musical ideas I wish to express. The craft of other musicians is of interest to me. Why shouldn't it be? It informs my work as a musician, and my pleasure as a listener. My point isn't "let's imagine what the Wu said", my point is that we can take as a point of departure the fact that they, at some point, made purely musical decisions, and we can evaluate those decisions, can't we? You are, when you're riding around in your car and listening to them, whether you like it or not: you're enjoying the music not primarily because of Wu's biography, but because of the sounds coming out of your speakers -- sounds they chose to make. What about that isn't making sense?

I suppose I could theoretically infer their original intent from what I hear in the music. That's backwards, though: whatever was in their heads, the music doesn't reflect it, at least not to me.

Does the focus of Good Pop have to be art rather than commerce? Doesn't pop in conception have a closer allegiance to the latter?

I like listening in just about any situation to the pop that has strong elements of the non-commercial / aesthetically-resonant in it. I find that pop without those things is only of interest to me when I'm doing something else, like dancing or travelling.

Nitsuh:

I start admiring the fact that the same four or five guys can put the magic touch on hit after hit, from Ace of Base all the way through today. I mean, they're doing something right, and to pretend it's just pandering to public tastes is a bit churlish -- plenty of other folks pander and fail miserably.

I think you may be underestimating the self-perpetuating element, though, that often works to pop's detriment. And admittedly to its benefit -- didn't "Lady Madonna" make it to number one? But I'm reluctant to offer garlands for continued commercial success in and of itself, especially since access to technology (high-quality studio equipment) is such a big part of giving things that "magic touch" when it comes to chart pop, and is something that tends to be given to the people who either have a lot of money, or a proven track record. It's like Tom Hanks and the Oscars, only less egregious.

Sorry -- I didn't mean to be dismissive at all when I said that. I just meant to indicate that, when it comes to music criticism and the role of the listener's experience, there's a big range of opinions as to what degree of emphasis the listener should be given. Some say the listener is irrelevant, it's all in the work; others say the listener is everything, whatever they experience is by definition valid and correct; others are somewhere in between. That's all I meant. And I wasn't referring to your life-as-a-whole, only to how different critics might react to your Wu-experience.

The other stuff will have to wait -- I'm hungry and my hand hurts.

Phil, notwithstanding that that's an unsubstantiated statement (when does enjoyment become appreciation? Are we superior beings simply because we chose to write online? Or do we have to get a degree first?) I'd have to point out that the very same argument would apply to classical music, The Beatles, whatever, with equal force, so I'm not really sure what your point is.

"I'm reluctant to offer garlands for continued commercial success in and of itself, especially since access to technology (high-quality studio equipment) is such a big part of giving things that "magic touch" when it comes to chart pop, and is something that tends to be given to the people who either have a lot of money, or a proven track record."

Again, can I point out that the economic argument re: pop technology is indeterminable and therefore *irrelevant*. And anyway, once you start to question the capitalist relations behind the success of music the whole canon falls down.

Re: Britney - Phil you presume to judge her by pop's standards. Some of those standards are correct and I choose to disagree with you on your judgement. However Britney not writing her own lyrics is your standard and not necessarily pop's standard.

Dave Q - choosing the worst of today to compare to the best of yesterday is the one of the easiest ways to prove today's inferiority to the past, but also one of the least convincing. I refer you to Tom & Greg's excellent piece on the charts of today and 1981, where today's superiority was proven BY SCIENCE. ;-)

I think you are conflating a bunch of my beliefs into a grossly oversimplified mishmash

I have yet to see proof otherwise. But since you insist on a point by point breakdown:

the difference between thinking that there is an objective element to music, and thinking that objective element is EVERYTHING in music, and there is no subjective component

I allow for the fact you are at least trying to incorporate the subjective. I reject your claims of the objective beyond a purely technical level. Objectively, a piece of music exists, possibly recorded, possibly not. Objectively, said piece of music was created by its composer and composers and performed by its performer or performers, all of whom have their own subjective opinions on the piece of music, what they feel about it, whether they think they could have done better with it. Objectively, the piece of music can be heard by listeners. Beyond that, the quality of the performance - the quality of the performers as well - and the quality of the piece is purely, totally, absolutely subjective. There is no standard, there is no law. You have yet to demonstrate otherwise.

the difference between thinking that some people who like nu-pop are motivated by less-than-noble factors, and thinking that all people who etc.;

Perhaps. However, you seem totally and utterly resistant to anyone's statement of opinion on nu-pop that does not fit into your own completely subjective view of how to enjoy/interpret/discuss music. Thus this, to my mind, grotesque statement:

I don't mean to single Otis out or turn him into a soundbite, but these comments are extremely alien to everything I believe on an interpersonal and aesthetic level.

More about this later - but here you transpose acknowledgment of a different philosophy with automatic rejection of that philosophy's potential validity. Again, to turn this back around to a point you have a huge difficulty acknowledging - I doubt Otis questions the fact that you hold strong beliefs about music, emotional ones even. But you singularly, totally refuse to grant him the same courtesy. Now, here's the more later:

the difference between thinking that my views on music aren't wholly based on the subjective (and thus can conceivably be subject to proof and argumentation and non-solipsistic debate), and thinking that my views on music are THE TRUTH and apply to everyone and that anyone who disagrees is a dupe

To continue your thoughts on Otis' take:

It's difficult for me to read this paragraph (out of the context of any of Otis's other posts) and not think that either (a) Otis is to some degree kidding, or (b) Otis is really, really cold. If that seems judgmental of me, I apologize, but I unabashedly will admit to having an ethical world-view in which compassion reigns supreme (and the recognition of one another's humanity is the key to avoiding (mass) murder among other things), and an aesthetic world-view in which the beautiful is very much a key concept (Otis, I'm assuming you're demurring at the concept of "beautiful", not just preferring a synonym), and though I try to remain open-minded I really can't budge on those concepts without essentially betraying what I believe. In this light, his statements about Britney Spears aren't intelligible to me, because what came before them is so wildly alien to the way I look at the world that it literally doesn't make any sense.

Just listen to yourself - 'where compassion reigns supreme,' 'recognition of one's humanity,' 'the beautiful.' You briefly acknowledge at the end that this is the way you look at the world, but your language and terminology implies you and you alone don't merely have a corner on some very, very broad philosophical concepts indeed when it comes to music and its interpretation, but that someone who has a different view of the world does not share this corner, not simply on the subject of music but possibly a wider scope of affairs as well. Forgive me, but I find this unbelievably arrogant - there is no other word I can use. You deny possession of 'THE TRUTH' and then proceed to not really apologize for being 'judgmental.' Sorry, doublethink doesn't become you.

and in short, the difference between thinking that nothing (or everything) is a matter of opinion, and thinking that music exists in a mediated state, possessed of both subjective and objective elements, and with some aspects that are, and some aspects that definitely aren't, a matter of opinion.

Refer to my response to your first point above - the only aspects that aren't a matter of opinion revolve around the existence of the track itself.

You seem to be taking a lot of my comments very personally

Given the sweeping nature of much of your comments, the reverse should be true, I agree. But said comments by their very broad nature make them very widely applicable, how else should I react? You are not arguing into a vacuum here.

Let me be clear that I don't claim that, at least not a priori. What I'm speaking of is, rather, that when I see people heaping praise on a song I think is totally devoid of even an attempt at value

Contradiction, or near enough. It may not be a priori in complete terms, but your reaction is one where you are not respecting the opinion because you have already concluded about the work being discussed. That being the case, any attempts to sway you regarding the belief in the other person's opinion as legitimate should therefore be damned in advance. However, you then claim that, say, Tom and Josh's opinions somehow meet standards of acceptance for you -- your decision to respect some opinions and not others on music you don't like therefore strikes me ultimately as arbitrary, your protests on the matter otherwise.

I will, however, say that the most immediate objection I would raise to what I take to be your POV would be that of lyrics

Stop right there, and consider:

You hear a song in which there are lyrics - but they are in another language and you do not know what they are singing about. Is it impossible to therefore have an aesthetic reaction to the music? I think not. To turn your own potential example around -- in which you seem to be influenced more by performance art than anything, but I digress -- a non-English speaker hears the song with the simulated attack but cannot interpret the comments made. What if the listener enjoys the music regardless of what lyrical meaning or lack thereof can be taken away from it?

As it is, there is an English language example of your proposed example that exists, and has been in existence for about thirty years, Peter Wyngarde's "Rape." And it is quite jaunty in the music…

the fact that Britney Spears uses words in her songs automatically knocks down the "golden wall" between the purely aesthetic and the remainder of human experience, because they're no longer "just music".

A few weeks back some friends (including some board members) and I on a private list got into an extended argument over the nature of lyrics in music. No consensus was agreed upon, but I admit I was pleased to see that a number of folks agreed with me on a key point -- namely, that music can be listened to and enjoyed without explicit concentration on, interpretation of or caring about any lyrical content attached with it. I will only conclude one thing from this, namely that your own claim above is not universally agreed upon -- no matter how much you desperately kick against the fact.

And I do believe that, yes, an entire genre can be crap.

Then for all that you are trying to show you have some sort of higher ability to appreciate music, you are a lazy listener who stereotypes. Period. This claim of yours deserves no more response than that. If everything is equally valid, nothing is meaningful

An incorrect assumption. Everything is potentially valid in the ears of any particular listener, and therefore everything potentially can have meaning on that individual basis. You oversimplify drastically here.

I am willing to believe it, but not to take it on faith.

Your entire argument is based on faith! Your entire stance in based on a faith you have in your own belief to analyze something to come up with the correct decision. Which that decision is -- for YOU and you alone. Faith is playing a greater role here with your approach than you realize.

Part is a question of taste, part isn't.

All is taste. No exceptions, none. The intent, the goals if you will, of the composer and performer mean nothing to me. My interpretation is what applies for myself and myself alone. You are the exact same way, but you are frantically trying to suggest otherwise.

Britney Spears (the whipping girl for this thread!) strikes me as a better candidate for something like incompetence, as she fails what I had thought were the usual tests of the genre for competence: she can't really sing,

Your opinion only.

she can't really dance

An inappropriate mark for judging a piece of music.

she doesn't write her own songs

Irrelevant. The piece is what matters, not who created it.

she performs them in a desultory way

Opinion. All four of these points are your own stated beliefs, which is fine. They simply and solely are your own stated beliefs regarding competence, not a universal standard. Is that so hard to understand? Others may agree with you, others may not, that's all that this means.

I will also admit that I tend not to hear things disposably (regardless of how they're intended) and don't find the notion of disposable music appealing.

Implying that you automatically know when something is disposable. May I ask how you know that?

Perhaps I'm saying pop can only be great music (rather than candy) if it's self-transcending, and perhaps I'm saying that nothing in the music or people's arguments has yet convinced me that Britney, for one, has succeeded in that.

You succeed in missing the point entirely. We are not trying to convince you to change your opinion of Britney. We can't. Nobody can. Only you can. But since it seems that you aren't seriously treating 'people's arguments' to begin with, you therefore won't allow your opinion to be changed anyway…

At some point in the discussion, the focus always has to shift to the musical concretes as a point of origin of some kind -- and I think that music often suffers when a music-maker doesn't think in terms of those musical concretes when he or she sits down to make music.

In otherwards, you have the keys to the kingdom and others don't. How seriously is this claim of yours meant to be taken? How can you expect me to even think this is remotely applicable to individual critical judgment? These 'concretes' are as fluid and as flexible as anything -- what to you as a musicmaker is what appeals is to another what does not.

there's a big range of opinions as to what degree of emphasis the listener should be given

You obscure a truth that I think I realize is bugging the living shit out of you. You can't control people's reactions -- ain't no way. If somebody tells you they think your work is crap, you're going to whine and complain that they didn't understand your 'craft' -- well, tough.

Why do I like this music? What in it appeals to me? What concrete things are in this track that I could identify to look for other similar music?

All of which has nothing, nothing!, to do with compassion, humanity and all the other stuff you mentioned above. All of which is individual. Based on the listener. Subjective. Purely, totally, utterly subjective.

Which means you agree with me! But you took a while to come to that point.

That, in turn, seems to incense you and make you think that I am "arrogant" and the like. If that's the impasse we're at, I don't see how we're going to get around it. I refuse to give up my right to (again, potentially) "judge", if you will, though I do freely acknowledge that judgment is something best exercised sparingly, lest it transform into judgmentalism, and that one should always be open to new information and experiences that might change one's mind (and thus always be willing to say "I was wrong" at some point). You seem to believe that the act of judgment is inherently an act of unconscionable arrogance -- am I reading you correctly? -- as is the belief that one has grasped something of the true, since the automatic implication is that others who don't share your belief are wrong. (I would point out, tangentially, that "you are wrong" does not necessarily mean "I am right", and to some extent, vice versa.)

Otherwise your response seems to largely consist of personal attacks and insinuations that either I don't know anything, or am arrogant to believe that I do. These sorts of things are something very different from my earlier, largely general statements -- and are, I think, unworthy of you.

I reserve my right to potentially believe a person is incorrect (or foolish, or whatever pejorative adjective you care to name) to hold a particular point of view, aesthetic or otherwise, and think myself to be qualified to hold that belief

This in and of itself, I have said several times over, is not something I have a problem with. Opinions will differ, always. Your own opinion about what makes something work for you I have never and I will never question. But this:

in short, that I don't think that everything in aesthetics (nor everything in life for that matter) is a matter of opinion

This is something else again. The connection between these two assertions of yours is *not* automatic. There is nothing in your first statement to suggest that anything you believe is anything more than your own personal conclusion and opinion -- then you immediately deny it. Simple as that -- you are clinging onto a contradiction. You cannot hold both assertions at the same time -- which is it you truly believe?

that I have "first principles", if you will, that I believe to be in some measure correct (though I constantly admit them to re-examination and refinement, based on whatever life deals me).

In otherwards, your opinion, returning to the first assertion. Is this needless cycle ever actually going to stop? Which is it?

That, in turn, seems to incense you and make you think that I am "arrogant" and the like.

I certainly think so, if you're going to insist certain things in aesthetics are NOT a matter of opinion. Candy-coating it doesn't hide it.

If that's the impasse we're at, I don't see how we're going to get around it.

On the contrary, it seems quite easy to me.

I refuse to give up my right to (again, potentially) "judge", if you will

If the judgment is personal and does not pretend to unbending universalism, that's all right. Obviously I am repeating myself at this point, but I rather think I have to.

that one should always be open to new information and experiences that might change one's mind (and thus always be willing to say "I was wrong" at some point).

QUITE. In otherwards, what you say in one spot is not a matter of opinion...is.

You seem to believe that the act of judgment is inherently an act of unconscionable arrogance -- am I reading you correctly?

No. The act of judgment upon presumed aesthetic principles that exist beyond the status of opinion, however, is unconscionable and is arrogant.

as is the belief that one has grasped something of the true, since the automatic implication is that others who don't share your belief are wrong.

Yes, that would be terrifyingly arrogant.

As is all too well known by now, perhaps, my favorite song is "Soon" by MBV. The rapture it caused in me was and is indescribable. No other piece of music has come close, still. For me, it indeed gave me something of an overwhelming truth -- an overwhelming personal truth. No more, no less. I insist nothing from anyone else in terms of being positive about it, or avoiding negativity, or indeed having an opinion on it.

(I would point out, tangentially, that "you are wrong" does not necessarily mean "I am right", and to some extent, vice versa.)

So long as your claims of aesthetics beyond opinion exists, it frankly taints this statement of yours.

Otherwise your response seems to largely consist of personal attacks and insinuations that either I don't know anything, or am arrogant to believe that I do. These sorts of things are something very different from my earlier, largely general statements -- and are, I think, unworthy of you.

Let's see now about those general statements -- elsewhere, you have claimed that 'nihilistic, narcissistic, disposable music will tend to attract nihilistic, narcissistic, disposable people' and that 'music (or indeed any art form) of real quality and integrity tends to affront or enrage people whose personalities are impaired in some way.' I do apologize for only trying to focus on you instead of jumping to conclusions about a huge swathe of people all at once in order to justify my own personal stance. Clearly it was my mistake.

It's not company I find myself particularly troubled to keep.

I'm not clear on whether you think that "believing to have grasped a measure of truth" in realms outside the aesthetic (the ethical, for instance) is the height of arrogance, is perfectly OK, or something in between.

Indeed so? Then I guess I am, aren't I?

(The writings of Debussy, Beethoven, and Wagner, just to name a few, will bear me out on this.)

If that's the case, then yes, arrogance I call it.

It's not company I find myself particularly troubled to keep.

As far as I am concerned you may wrap yourself in the claims and theory of the ages, but I am not impelled to agree with that stance regardless of who holds it.

I'm not clear on whether you think that "believing to have grasped a measure of truth" in realms outside the aesthetic (the ethical, for instance) is the height of arrogance, is perfectly OK, or something in between.

The realm of individual philosophical, theological and ethical truth is to my opinion -- my opinion, I note ;-) -- separate from expressions of artistic conclusions. The quality of a person, I will always forcefully argue, does not depend on the kind of music they listen to, how they listen to it, or how they talk about it. That, it seems to me, is a ridiculous standard to hold anyone to.

I wasn't going to bring up Wagner, but you have -- very well then: Wagner, the Nazi's favorite composer, and yet to repeat it again, 'music...of real quality and integrity tends to affront or enrage people whose personalities are impaired in some way,' so you say. Yes, you say 'tends,' not 'always does,' I grant you. But clearly the love of Wagner's music of, I presume you would say, quality and integrity -- or the music of Beethoven or whichever of the classical greats passed the Nazi muster -- did not enrage or affront thousands upon thousands of rather impaired people, yes?

Judging quality of music appreciation as quality of the soul is a perverse method. I have known some absolutely intelligent commentators on music whose tastes happened to match my own who I am glad never to deal with ever again personally. I've known other people whose musical tastes are completely opposite to mine who are some of the best, kindest, most thoughtful people I've ever known.

But for your general question? If you have found a truth for yourself in ethics or elsewhere, I congratulate you, I am more than OK with that. I have no immediate reason to agree with your truth there either. I might -- but as with music, I do not have to. If you insist on it as the absolute truth without equivocation or discussion, then arrogance, again, is well and truly achieved. So do you?

Indeed so? Then I guess I am, aren't I?

Now, stop for a moment -- let's compare these two points of view:

Person #1: "I believe that aesthetics exists, and works of art exist, in a dialectical tension between subjective and objective considerations."

Person #2: "I believe that I am capable of passing judgment on the creators of nearly the entire cultural history of the Western world, and that they are unconscionably arrogant for not believing, as I do, that aesthetics are not entirely subjective."

If I were to put these two points of view before a given person, which of them do you think they'd be likely to select as indicative of arrogance?

The quality of a person, I will always forcefully argue, does not depend on the kind of music they listen to, how they listen to it, or how they talk about it.

I have never, ever said this (that a quality of person does depend on those things). If you believe my posts to have said this, you've misread them.

But clearly the love of Wagner's music of, I presume you would say, quality and integrity -- or the music of Beethoven or whichever of the classical greats passed the Nazi muster -- did not enrage or affront thousands upon thousands of rather impaired people, yes?

With Wagner we do admittedly have the complicating factor of programmatic content capable of being twisted to support an anti-Semitic agenda. But I will admit that my initial statement was too broad to be useful in any substantial way, "tends" notwithstanding.

Judging quality of music appreciation as quality of the soul is a perverse method.

May I reiterate, again and again and again, that I have never said that. Saying that people who suck in a certain way tends to like music that sucks in a certain way is NOT the same as saying that people who like that kind of music tend to suck, let alone that all people etc. That's an old logical fallacy, an SAT question sort of thing -- pandas tend to have fur, but generally, furry things aren't pandas!

If you have found a truth for yourself in ethics or elsewhere, I congratulate you [...] If you insist on it as the absolute truth without equivocation or discussion, then arrogance, again, is well and truly achieved. So do you?

Do I believe that my point of view on ethics or elsewhere is "the absolute truth without equivocation or discussion"? No, I wouldn't say that at all. (Did I believe that of my views on nu-pop? No.)

But Ned, that's not the point, anyway, and that's not what I'm saying as regards ethics. If your point of view were translated from aesthetics to ethics (a dangerous business to be sure), then as far as I can tell there would be no way of saying that, for instance, torturing and murdering small animals for pleasure is categorically wrong. If you do believe that it is in fact categorically wrong, and I assume you do, then from what principle do you derive that belief, and do you recognize, then, that the people who do torture and murder small animals for pleasure are, in fact, just plain wrong in their behavior, and by extension their point of view? It's not that you think you're perfect and possess the Almighty Truth, it's that you believe yourself equipped to make critical evaluations of other people's ethical POV (as represented by their behavior), and to act upon those evaluations -- in essence saying that their POV is wrong, correct?

(I can't stress enough that the preceding paragraph deals pretty much exclusively with ethics. Please don't for a moment think I'm using the torture and murder of small animals as a logical analogue for liking Britney Spears!)

It's misleading to paint my POV on aesthetics or anything else as saying that I think I'm perfectly right and possessed of universal insight. Nothing could be farther from the truth! What I'm opposed to, Ned -- most urgently perhaps in ethics, but also in aesthetics -- is what appears to be the belief (which you hold in aesthetics, but apparently not ethics) that the greatest cardinal sin is to believe that anyone else's opinion is wrong, ever (which would seem to follow from your belief that the only aesthetic truths are personal truths). I can't say I agree with that.

the entire cultural history of the Western world

"Cultural history" is a very inexact choice of term on my part. ("Aesthetic heritage", maybe?) I hope that, since I think we both know what I meant, we won't get snagged on this.

Person #2: "...for not believing, as I do, that aesthetics are not entirely subjective."

That should read "...that aesthetics ARE entirely subjective". Golly, I'm tired.

Mine, of course. What, that wasn't obvious? But now -- for once, at long last -- you are saying that your belief is just that, a belief, without strings attached. I didn't see that admission as being so hard. Regardless of what you have to say about objective considerations in that belief, said belief, while paralleling others' claims, is yours and yours alone -- and is therefore itself subjective, not objective, yes? End of discussion there.

I have never, ever said this (that a quality of person does depend on those things). If you believe my posts to have said this, you've misread them.

If the sign of an -- ahem -- inferior personality can be seen in the music they like or alternately don't like, then the two are part and parcel in your eyes. May I remind you that you were the one who brought ethics into this whole thing as an inextricable factor in music appreciation, which you then applied to people as a whole, saying nonsense like Otis is potentially 'cold' just because of a musical opinion. Claiming to be misunderstood is a poor defense when you were happy to casually fling around such terminology and implicitly damn god knows how many people just because they liked different music than you. A pathetically poor defense indeed!

With Wagner we do admittedly have the complicating factor of programmatic content capable of being twisted to support an anti- Semitic agenda. But I will admit that my initial statement was too broad to be useful in any substantial way, "tends" notwithstanding.

THANK you. But then:

May I reiterate, again and again and again, that I have never said that. Saying that people who suck in a certain way tends to like music that sucks in a certain way is NOT the same as saying that people who like that kind of music tend to suck, let alone that all people, etc.

And once more around the horn. "My words are being twisted!" I'm *so* sorry, I should have taken your implicit claim to know the heart of most potential listeners based on what they listen to completely at face value! How wrong I was to do so!

Do I believe that my point of view on ethics or elsewhere is "the absolute truth without equivocation or discussion"? No, I wouldn't say that at all. (Did I believe that of my views on nu-pop? No.)

And are you finally saying this and laying it on the line? YES. At long freaking last, YES. This is all I have asked for all this time, getting you to say that has been like pulling teeth!

But Ned, that's not the point, anyway, and that's not what I'm saying as regards ethics. If your point of view were translated from aesthetics to ethics (a dangerous business to be sure)

Which is why I don't recommend it myself. But you're insisting on it, so...

then as far as I can tell there would be no way of saying that, for instance, torturing and murdering small animals for pleasure is categorically wrong.

I'm not fond of the idea myself. I'm not particularly fond of the idea of killing anything, and yet I'm not a vegetarian, so clearly I have a moral hypocrisy to deal with. That is my own affair, but last I checked that had jack shit to do with whether or not I liked the new Jay-Z.

If you do believe that it is in fact categorically wrong, and I assume you do

It's not exactly on my list of priorities. That said, I don't happen to think there's an outside moral force of any kind passing universal judgment on the matter. Again, this doesn't have much to do with my thoughts on why N'Sync's "Pop" sucked as a song.

from what principle do you derive that belief, and do you recognize, then, that the people who do torture and murder small animals for pleasure are, in fact, just plain wrong in their behavior, and by extension their point of view?

Upbringing and consensus, neither of which are immutable, while your statement forces an answer rather than invites one. 'Just plain wrong' itself is conditioned by a lot of different things, after all. Couldn't this presumed animal torturer be someone with a mental problem or, dare I say it, defect? Is this person in control of the actions being committed? It's a possibility, after all. You are dealing in absolutes that might not in fact apply. And once more, none of this has much to do with whether I think Macy Grey is astoundingly overrated -- which she is.

It's not that you think you're perfect and possess the Almighty Truth, it's that you believe yourself equipped to make critical evaluations of other people's ethical POV (as represented by their behavior), and to act upon those evaluations -- in essence saying that their POV is wrong, correct?

Different and not my own, first and foremost. Being wrong is the secondary conclusion...and a matter of opinion.

Now, perhaps you're concluding I am some sort of amoral monster at this point who cares for nothing. Not the case. I turn the corner and see what's going on: some person lobbing kittens down a fifty foot hole to drown. I immediately react, try to stop said person, call the police, call animal cruelty. And why? Why, because I am doing the right thing...but why is it judged to be right, in the end? Because that's how I was raised and inculcated in that particular manner. It didn't appear out of nowhere. You learned it too.

(I can't stress enough that the preceding paragraph deals pretty much exclusively with ethics. Please don't for a moment think I'm using the torture and murder of small animals as a logical analogue for liking Britney Spears!)

Which as you can see is my point as well. And as I don't care to get involved in an extended discussion on ethics (either publicly or privately) I will leave this discussion at that.

What I'm opposed to is what appears to be the belief (which you hold in aesthetics, but apparently not ethics) that the greatest cardinal sin is to believe that anyone else's opinion is wrong, ever (which would seem to follow from your belief that the only aesthetic truths are personal truths).

That is indeed my belief. Completely. Couldn't have put it better myself! And you disagree, but you acknowledge that your belief is just that, a belief, and therefore subjective, while my own belief is also that, subjective. Again, and again, subjective, radically, totally, thoroughly subjective.

saying nonsense like Otis is potentially 'cold' just because of a musical opinion.

If I gave that impression, I wasn't clear. It wasn't the musical opinion that led me to make that statement -- it was the claim that he didn't like emotions. I couldn't make any sense out of that claim, and honestly, I still can't.

Also, glib as it sounds, "upbringing and consensus" is a pretty skimpy foundation for any set of beliefs about anything, let alone ethics. Though you may think otherwise, I do suspect your beliefs are almost definitely traceable back to a set of principles from which they're in part derived, whether or not you've articulated those principles to yourself.

The rest I shall leave alone -- which, I might add, should be taken neither as a claim of victory nor an admission of defeat: just a recognition that our energies would at this point both be better spent elsewhere.

I know what you mean Ian. "Ms. Jackson" is just so -- hopeless, nothing really upbeat or positive about it, is there?

But I really feel you about "One More Time." The disco brass loop is just so distant and stately, almost mythic in proportions, and Romanthony's repetitive vocals are almost like a chant, a prayer of remembrance... "One more time," and then it's all over for good, curtains.

Wow, I didn't realize until just now how much I like that song. But I'll bet a good part of my rapturous response was shaped by the breathtaking video, in all it's garish glory, at once laughably cheesy and unspeakably grandeurous. For you see, like most current pop singles, I was exposed to the song at the video for the first time, at the same time, forever linking my opinion of the two. This is the crux of a dilemma I have with the visualizing of music over the past twenty years; No matter how good any particular video is, music television on a whole is making it harder and harder to judge the music on it's own merits.

The tables are turning. In the under 30 set, I know few if any music fans that hate electronic sounds; they just hate R&B, synthpop, and, to a far lesser extent, hip-hop. That doesn't equate to disliking electronic sounds; For example, I can't remember the last time I heard someone say they "don't like drum machines," even diehard rock fans. In fact, most of the Tool/Korn/Staind afficionados I know are also into beats-for-the-masses like Moby, Prodigy, Crystal Method and Fatboy Slim.

On the flip side of things, I've heard opinions espoused in the electronic community, and on this very board, that literally equate guitar-based rock (specifically Blur and Oasis) with racism and fascism. It's usually not that strong, but there's definitely _plenty_ of prejudice to go around. Case in point: Whoever said that rock bands are inherently limited because they're "always" bass, guitar, drums and voice. In my mind that's akin to lambasting underground hip-hop cause it's "always" just sampler, MC and turntable.

On another topic, I'll freely admit to being a kneejerk 80s-hater. I can literally be instantly turned off of an 80s song by the massive, stupid snare smash so favored then by many pop producers. Not to mention the burial of the music in eight feet of reverb and echo. As a concrete example, I thought the Stone Roses' first album was overrated anyway, but good enough to buy, but ultimately I decided I couldn't live with the awful dated production. Re: Dave Q -- Hey, why ya pickin' on the Farm?? They're version of "Smooth Criminal" is at least ten times better than the original.

Re: "The Making of Enter The 36 Chambers" That documentary would likely be 100 times more interesting than the paltry selection of mostly crappy hip-hop films that exist right now.

Re: Ned Raggett, your favorite song is "Soon" by MBV? I'll probably slap myself in the face for not figuring it out, but who are MBV exactly?

PS. Dave Q - the whole point about the canon reference is that Phil probably thinks a canon is a worthwhile construct - at least the objective one he agrees with ;-) I have no problem with the canon being destroyed - in fact I wish Phil would at least acknowledge that the sort of social inequalities he pinpoints as stimulating current pop apply in different but equal fashions to any quality music he cares to name. As always, feel free to correct me on my bullshit assumptions, Phil.

And, for me, I can't fathom why this would be fantastic. In fact, this is precisely what I hate about music. God, do I hate R&B and rap. I saw the chick from the Fugees talking about how great this is. I saw an interview with Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton (that's his name, right?) for the new movie "Bandits" on the MTV. They asked what kind of music they listen to and Billy Bod's first or second album he mentioned was Trout Mask Replica and he mentioned Wilco, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. I thought, "wow, he's got good taste" and then Bruce Willis goes, "I listen to a lot of hip hop" and I almost puked. It's as if nothing is cool unless it has a smidgeon of hip hop in it now. Get yourself a hard rock song, an indie song, a jazz song, an emotional ballad-- whatever-- and then "spice it up" with a phat break thrown in for no reason. As far as R & B goes, I've always hated that style of singing.

Phil however has also made negative references to pop's role within an unequal socioeconomic system. This is a different point entirely, as I'm sure you'd agree, as for the purposes of this argument it is irrelevant how pop music actually *sounds*. Therefore I merely ask that for the sake of consistency (that word again) he admit that this equally applies to virtually any music in the Western Canon he might care to name. Either that or I get everyone to agree to a second, different moratorium on this sort of Culture Industry 101.

Because of the range of possibilities being expanded. Now before you freak, I'm not saying that every experiment will result in everyone being happy, of course not. Individual judgment, natch, rules all. :-) But the more possibilities, tweaks, twists, turns there are, the better, because there's more to possibly enjoy. It's so freeing!

Which is silly, of course. I'm sure there are classical afficionados who are adamant that no one can "really" like brainless rock n' roll.

But what I wanted to mention was a comment I found telling:

Perhaps I'm saying pop can only be great music (rather than candy) if...

Which led me to think: "Phil doesn't like candy?"

And I still think that's the crux of the pop problem here. Surely there are times when a really good piece of candy is just a great, great thing -- sometimes better than a fine pastry or a chocolate mousse. And surely there are certain candies that are remarkably good. They just happen to be good in a different way, which is the point Phil and the Pinefox aren't allowing for.

And note how all of their criticisms -- banal, juvenile, not even attempting depth of value -- can be applied to candy, too. And yet we understand that that's just not the point of candy, and yet we can love candy anyway.

I like candy.

But, of course, anyone who subsists on those things alone will probably have a much shorter and less healthy lifespan than a person who consumes a balanced diet, no? Not to mention that they're missing out on an entire nuanced world of flavor that most archetypical candy will never have, right?

So I don't think the subjectivists among us will really like your analogy, somehow.

Though I do. :-)

I _did_ misread your statement. I didn't realize you were disdainful of hip-hop elements in a song _itself_, in a false ploy to be "cool" or hip, as opposed to my supposition, that you thought Bruce Willis said he liked hip-hop because he wanted to be cool and up-to-date.

Nevertheless, your complaints against hip-hop and R&B are still dripping with the annoyingly close-minded sentiment.

Actually, I partly agree with you about your complaint the question-and-answer nature of hip-hop, at least as far as emceeing is concerned. Much of early rapping had a singsongy, almost "nursery rhyme" quality that could be monotonous, as represented by JJ Fad's "Supersonic." That song sucked anyway, but it's a good if extreme example of the style of rhyming that I don't care for. Times change, and rapping these days is _quite_ diverse. The most proficient of the MC's, like Ghostface, Scaramanga, Pharoah Monche, and D-E-L really stretch those rhyme patterns, and are all over the map metrically.

How much exposure and knowledge of hip-hop and R&B is necessary before I can legitimately voice my opinion that I don't like it?
And, I'll agree with you that a lot of rap has outgrown the question-answer style. First example I can think of is Eminem. A lame choice from the perspective of someone who really likes rap, I know. But, as far as his style goes, I've heard it as sort of a newer style of rap. What I mean by this is his tendency to have run-on sentences chuck full of rhymes that often rejects strict syllable uniformity from one line to the next in favor of surprising the listener by NOT putting the rhymes where you'd expect them. Do you understand what I mean? Okay, well, anyway, I just don't like much of it. Sorry if that offends you.

The other names I mentioned, JJ Fad, Pharoah Monche and DEL THE FUNKY HOMOSAPIEN are hardly obscure, as they have made/are making regular appearances on MTV over the years.

Yeah, pretty much, on both counts. Emotions are cumbersome and inconvenient, that's plain, and for that I don't much like them. They're also unavoidable, even for really, really cold people, which is another reason I don't feel a need to seek them out in music. But of course even current chart-pop elicits emotions, even in me, but not heavy, weighty, or otherwise bulky emotions, so they don't really count, do they.

Beauty is tired, I think its day has past. Let's be serious here, this is the 21st century, why should beauty still be relevant? I see something beautiful and I go "huh"; to me it's just there. The mountain is beautiful like the pavement is black, which is not to discount entirely the beauty of the mountain, by any means, but have a little sympathy for the pavement, why don't you - how much attention has it ever gotten for being black? I'm not flat-out demurring at the concept of "beautiful," that would be trendy and stupid (I'm no Tyler Durden, I would never say "I felt like destroying something beautiful" [maybe something ugly]), but I find use of the word in most cases to be misleading or immaterial. The only contemporary objects I could foresee myself calling beautiful are Catherine Zeta-Jones and Zhang Ziyi. Using the word to describe anything else is, for me, to mistake either the subject's appeal or what makes its appeal notable.

this is SO all abt MEAT & VEG

TAKING SIDES: grouse hung in a humid game cupboard for a WEEK!! vs hot battered saveloy (fr.the latin for BRANz0r)

Fake = good. Tha's why we read FICTION and watch ppl ACTING and prefer ROBOTS to DINOSAURS hurrah!! Real = good. That's why we er oh insert plausible example here gah i know SOME of you sexy fuckbuckets do real stuff for real reasons. That's why you prefer DINOSAURS to ROBOTS hurrah. (if you = Xtian for dinosaur read angel...)

Here, therefore, six days late and imminently redundant, is one I did last Sunday but was too depressed to send.

Bombs are falling on Kabul; I’m trying to find continued excuses to go on living; but here comes Pop-Eye, which has to be better than grieving. Odd singles chart this week, almost looking like singles charts used to, i.e. records going up or not moving, and records one would have expected to go in at the top end have gone in at the lower end.

1 The Blessed Kylie – what more can one say? Single of the year, in a dead heat with the Streets (see below) and this week’s number 15. Three weeks at the top; deserves another three.

2. DJ Otzi – in a moment of chemical imbalance I condemned this as a Ronan Keating cover some weeks ago. What the ‘ell woz I thinkin’ of? This Judge Dread lookalike doesn’t really bother me, and his album title “Never Stop the Alpenpop” has to be contender for album title of the year. Pity it’s only gone in at 92, though.

3. City Life – odd, fragmented ghetto-life ballad which briefly turns into “The Next Episode” 2/3 of the way through. Can’t make complete sense of it, which has to be a point in its favour. Unthinkable without the Watts Prophets, of course.

4. Steps – as usual with this lot, what’s the bloody point? Keep reading hype about Faye “going indie.” If they had real guts they could’ve done a cover of say “Kennedy” by the Wedding Present – just a thought for the next one.

5. Alien Ant Farm – wasn’t the original sufficient in itself? Still better than MJ’s new ‘un, although that’s like saying Admiral Doenitz was an improvement on Hitler.

6. Liberty – unique in that I forgot how the song went while it was still playing. Couldn’t they afford to sign up Darius or something?

7. Bell & Spurling – well we know where this came from, but really, WHERE THE FUCK DID THIS COME FROM? Chas and Dave live! Fools ‘n’ ‘Orses, guv! Queen Mum 900 years old Gawd bless ‘er et al. Still you’re not going to say the same about the forthcoming Frigid Vinegar featuring Les Dennis single. Are you?

8. Sum 41 – makes me see the good things about Bell & Spurling. Truly mock rock.

9. Bob ver Buildah - As with DJ Wotzit, can’t get offended. Rumours of cover of Arab Strap’s “Girls Of Summer” as follow-up completely unfounded.

10. Mary J Blige – erm, iss norras good as Sly Stone one, izit?

11. Uncle Kracker – aargh, it’s Deep Blue Something! Crash Test Dummies! Quirky Bob Harris soft rock from over there! They’re right sane, they are.

12. Jean-Jacques Smoothie – was expecting at least a Top 5 placing for this. Not ‘cos it’s any good – truly smoothie, for people who find Zero 7 hard work – but, yer know, Mirwais being involved and all that. His album’s been sitting in the Westgate Library for a year, y’know, and no one’s borrowed it.

13. Shaggy – Vanessa Feltz likes him! DLT thinks he’s right mad, him! What more can I say? Look out for “gap between tracks” as follow-up.

14. Elton John – actually, not too bad an effort, probably ‘cos of the echo-deprived production. Defeated as ever by Taupin’s over-arch lyrics, but I reckon “Songs from the West Coast” is easily as good as Ryan Adams’ “Gold” (he said controversially) – the difference, of course, being that “Songs . . . “ has gone in the album chart at number 2 (behind Kylie) whereas “Gold” has plummeted from 20 to 70. Life ain’t fair.

15. Supermen Lovers – the ghost of Michael Hutchence emerges within Mani Hoffman’s vocal. A single and hymn of the year.

16. Sarah Connor featuring TQ – she’s from Bremen, so presumably nothing to do with Terminator. TQ might have had a vaguely interesting concept two years ago (even though Tashan did the hardcore rap-soft soul crossover thing better 13 years previously) but this is a real chocolate-flavoured semolina of a tune. Also, fed up to the back teeth with absurd “featuring” credits – does TQ protrude from Fraulein Connor’s forehead or something?

17. N-Trance – Desecration and mutilation of what, in its original form, was almost a spiritual – the woman howling in the wind and rain, the van from the JAMMS’ “It’s Grim Up North” having irretrievably broken down on the hard shoulder of the M62. From a time (as recently as ’92!) when consumers were considered intelligent enough not to need every emotion underlined by a non-stop beat (Carlin you’re a carpet slipper – you’ll be calling for an Altern-8 revival next. Well it would be nice to have the album reissued on CD). The remix itself is at least four years out of date.

18. Right Said Fred – “You’re My Mate.” Oh I wish. Having dug out their “Up” album the other week, I really wanted this to work. All the ingredients are there – the chorus, the bagpipes – but the execution lets it down. Fairbrass mumbles the chorus as a basso profundo in a couldn’t-really-be-arsed kind of way, as in, well I suppose we’d better go in and record something to stop these call centres ringing me every evening to enquire about Mr Fairbrass’ monthly Amex payments. His heart’s not in it – hence the low chart placing.

19. Ken Diddy Dodd and Puff the Magic Drags On – Ha! Bad Boy For Life! Oh gee I’m like so scared. Jerky, uncoordinated “rawk-out” which is so untogether it could almost be Blue Cheer, if Sean “Puff” Hughes had the wit to think about something like that. I note that the record features “Black Rob” and Mark Curry! Bloody hell! Reduced from Blue Peter to walk-on parts on dodgy “rap” records.

20. Ash – Now here’s a real surprise. Not that I care particularly about the record – it just inspires me to drag out the Scott original in its ruined grandeur – but given that I’ve seen about six housewives singing along with it in various offices and supermarkets over the last three weeks, I really thought that this would be crossover time and that this would’ve done at least as well as “Goldfinger” (number five).

As far as the album chart’s concerned, one almost feels sorry for poor Mrs Beckham, who only just nudged out Macy Gray to get in the top 10. Beaten not only by the expected Kylie, Elton and Bob, but also by Ian Brown (a surprisingly high entry given the underperformance of his previous two albums) and – embarrassment of embarrassments – David Cassidy! In at number seven! Is Stuart Maconie buying all this stuff or what?

Desired chart battle for next week: Streets versus Pulp. Probable chart battle for next week: Michael Jackson versus Usher.

There we are! Proof that pop music is never is good as it used to be while you're living through it.

As for your other complaint: DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL

Yeah, you're right, I have been mentioning him. I think it has to do with me having an epiphany the other day: I'm a Del fanboy. I realized that not only do I have all his alums proper, I keep buying stuff with him on it, like the awful "Judgement Night" soundtrack (and his contribution wasn't even particularly good). This is the first time I've been suchly obsessed with a group or artist since my ancient Beatles and Pink Floyd stages (read: 4 or 5 years ago).

First, Ned just sort of accepted Phil's caricature of his philosophy - "I believe that I am capable of passing judgment on the creators of nearly the entire cultural history of the Western world, and that they are unconscionably arrogant for not believing, as I do, that aesthetics are not entirely subjective" - and concedes that he is being arrogant in sticking to this cultural/aesthetic/ethical relativism. Certainly, on first read, this does seem to be an unbearably arrogant statement. But may I please draw your attention to the "entire cultural history of the Western world" portion of the above sentence? I just want to point out the rather obvious fact that there are cultural histories just as old and rich and varied as the West's, and that these cultural histories have created their own perspectives w/r/t aesthetics/ethics that are not necessarily reconcileable with those that have been produced in the West. In other words, disagreeing with the creators of Western cultural history is par for the course for anyone who was not born and educated in the West. Not arrogance. Furthermore, acknowledging that your truths are not The Truth pretty much logically follows once you acknowledge that a) there are other cultures, b) they do not always agree with yours and c) they are not, therefore, evil or intellectually inferior. (While on the subject of cultural inferiority/superiority, it should be noted that it was not just Wagner's music that was linked to Nazism. Wagner himself was a proto- Nazi, a raving xenophobe and anti-Semite. I would also argue that there is a very clear link between said xenophobia and the presence of a "will to Truth with a capital T" in his musical philosophy, but I'll leave that for another thread...)

That said, I'm not sure I want to entirely agree with Ned's stance on this debate. Which doesn't mean I have found a way to articulate Phil's still ellusive "Objective TRUTH" in a way Ned could accept. What Ned's thus far said has been pretty spot-on, but there is an important point that's been left (mostly) unsaid, and might act as sort of a bridge between the two sides of the debate. I agree that everything is ultimately entirely subjective. BUT. Subjectivity does not evolve in a vacuum. Ned has already acknowledged this to some extent, but it deserves emphasis. My opinion, my means of making an aesthetic/ethical judgement are not innate, but learned. They are not my own, they are an aggregate of all the (sometimes conflicting) ideas I've been exposed to over the course of my life. What Phil is calling objective truth could perhaps be better understood as something like consensus. For whatever reason, there are certain ideas that groups of people, either as a family, a community, a culture, a nation, or (sometimes) as an entire race (I mean the human race, not people of a certain skin color) have decided to agree upon. We call these ideas truth. I think consensus is a better word, because it leaves things open for debate, acknowledges not only that someone else can have a different opinion without being wrong, but also acknowledges that those points upon which we all seem to agree (sometimes with such ferocious and blind adherence that we're not even capable of seeing that there is another viewpoint) are not eternal.

To bring this back to the subject at hand - pop music and its supposed badness. To discard the idea of Truth and replace it with something as flimsy as "consensus" may seem to some like a bold move, or a revolutionary move, or a foolhardy move, in that it allows too many foundations to be shattered at once. But in my opinion consensus is a pretty strong thing that takes a very long time to change. Looking at history, there are few (and, in my opinion, really no) single moments where everything changed. Just a lot of small little gestures that finally led to a major turning point. I think music in general is approaching such a turning point, and pop music is of course following.

What is this turning point? Where are we heading? I honestly have no idea. What I do know is that in the last 50 years or so there have arisen a number of (in my mind) connected approaches to music that are, when taken as a whole, entirely new. Mark S has, I think, done a good, though necessarily confusing, job of trying to articulate some of the ideas that are new to music. I say necessarily confusing because the aesthetics are new, and therefore our vocabulary must also be new (what, for instance, does "texture" really mean??). So Mark S has also sort of shed some light on what the "problem" is with modern music in general, and pop music in particular. Otis's post is also really illuminating in that it illustrates how difficult it sometimes is to reconcile the new music aesthetic with the old (no more connection to an extra-musical, ie emotional/intellectual/etc. reality - music as music without the baggage it has classically carried with it. Which isn't to say there isn't any baggage left, just that some has been discarded, some picked up...). In my opinion, we are not just talking about the problem of pop music in general (ie, in Nitsuh's words, pop music = candy), but of pop music at this particular moment, and why it is alienating for fans of the old pop like pinefox. Someone (in fact, quite a few someones - Reich, Stockhausen, the Bomb Squad, Carl Craig, Timbaland, etc. etc.) has introduced a new idea into our understanding of how music is made and how it is listened to. This idea is quickly gaining currency, becoming part of our aesthetic consensus (though not, in my opinion, necessarily usurping the ideas that came before it. ie "the song" is not dead). It hasn't quite gotten there, though. So we have a lot of people who love and understand this new music, a lot of people who don't understand anything and are just along for the ride, a lot of people who hate this new idea and want it to go away, at least one person who just hates it all (Tanya), and those who remain sort of ambivalant about it all. I put myself in the last category. Like I said, I still don't really understand what's going on, I have no real vocabulary with which I can process some of these new directions. I'm waiting to catch up (I think it would probably help to move back to a so- called "first world country" again - I still haven't heard "I'm A Slave 4 U" out here in Kazakhstan. And Britney's actually really popular here. On the upside, there haven't been any anthrax scares here...).

Finally, I can't believe I'm the only person to have been rubbed the wrong way by this Phil comment. "An otherwise sensible friend once said to me that he didn't see any reason why a person couldn't pick up a trumpet for the first time and have whatever came out of their horn be as valid as anything Dizzy Gillespie ever played, if only you knew how to listen to it. (Tangentially, that POV strikes me as inextricably tied to some obscene caricature of the guilty-liberal position, perpetually apologetic and determined to "level the playing- field" to a Harrison Bergeron-like level -- "excellence is offensive" and all that. You may laugh, but there are people out there who REALLY think that.)"

Know what? *I* really think that. Okay, no, excellence isn't really offensive. I really like a lot of "talented" musicians. But I also like a lot of musicians that some people might consider to be totally lacking anything resembling talent. I'm of the opinion that there are two things that go into creating art: inspiration and technical skill. Everyone is not only capable of, but experiences the former on a regular basis. Our ability to be inspired and to inspire is what allows us to appreciate music even if we don't create it - we are moved by art because we have felt what it expresses ourselves, but didn't (yet) know how to express it. Technical skill is what allows someone to actually express something. I think one of the great revolutions of this century is the downplaying of the technical skill side of things. To say that we are all capable of creating art is, I think, a really beautiful idea - not liberal guilt by a long shot. How is my thinking to myself, "hey, maybe I could do that, maybe I could even do better than that" instead of "this man is an untouchable GOD" when I hear Glenn Gould play the piano an expression of liberal guilt?? I'm not against "talent." I just don't think it's the beginning and end of musical expression.

Which is something (perhaps the only thing) that bugs me about the "pop elite" here at FT/ILM. There is something very cool, almost radical, about acknowledging as important the aesthetic judgements of people (housewives and high school students) that buy the records that end up on top 40 lists. I'm all for, as Phil somewhat condescendingly put it, leveling the playing field of aesthetic judgement. But by putting ourselves, as listeners, on the same level as all other listeners instead of always talking condescendingly about "their" taste in music, we are (perhaps unintentionally) elevating the artists themselves to an undeserved level. What is the difference between saying "Miles Davis is GOD!" and "Britney is GOD!" really? Why do we need gods?

V. good post BTW. I was also very surprised by Phil's implied assertion that b/c all ancient Western composers agreed on something it must be universally correct today.

I shall not comment on the epistemological and axiological questions which have been hotly, and perhaps impressively, debated, save to say that Nitsuh's claim that certain things are 'good' falls foul of Ned R's scepticism about absolutes and objectivity.

For my purposes (which are doubtless not the same as everyone else's), Mr Carlin's post is possibly a useful kind of response. He and I probably don't 'agree' about what's 'good' and 'bad', but at least he is pointing to contemporary examples.

So far I have seen nothing here - or more to the point, anywhere else - to change my view of, or feeling about, contemporary pop. I'm OK, though, cos I just found 20 Ethel Merman songs for £3 down the road.

Matthew: the antecedent of the "that" in "there are people out there who REALLY think that" was the notion of "excellence being offensive". (Sorry that wasn't clearer.) I agree with most of what you wrote in that paragraph -- I'm a fan of Wesley Willis, for criminy's sake! And deifying Glenn Gould, for instance, is not on my agenda -- though, on the other hand, I think that one ought to respect the amount of skill and dedication and talent it takes to that level.

Jumping forward to Tim -- my point, if you will, was not "30,000 Western composers can't be wrong", but rather that it seemed quite arrogant for Ned (a Westerner) to anoint himself judge of his own cultural past. I may or may not agree with those composers' stance, but that's not the point: if arrogance is our criterion -- and it was, after all, Ned who brought that word in -- then I think it's far more arrogant to accuse the past of arrogance for not subscribing to your agenda. Disagreeing with the past, one's own cultural past, is one thing; condemning it is another.

As for Wagner, his biography is complicated, convoluted, and unquestionably full of times that Wagner was an utter asshole or worse. Calling him a proto-Nazi is an oversimplification, though -- to put it simply, his writings were often virulently anti-Semitic, but his behavior towards Jewish colleagues was at times utterly in contradiction with that (i.e. helping them in various ways, etc.). There's certainly room for debate on this point, and there has been quite a lot of it over the years, but suffice it to say that the most dedicated Wagner scholar I know is Jewish, has been on the receiving end of anti-Semitism, and loves Richard's music with clear eyes and a clear conscience.

Jumping back to Matt's comments. It may be a beautiful idea to say that we're "all capable of creating art". The problem here, though, goes back to Cage (among others) and what a friend of mine called his "undialectical understanding of musical history". Technical skill is the means by which we're able to create the sounds and structures that give our musical ideas intelligible form -- in short, technical skill is what lets us (or a big part of what lets us) communicate, musically speaking. It's too easy to think of it as being able to play fast or somesuch; technical skill is bigger than that -- it's an understanding of, and ability to dissect and reassemble, the things that make up the craft of music. It's what lets us give voice to the musical ideas that are already known, and what gives us the power to successfully create something new -- to bring our inspiration to fruit, as it were.

So when you take the output of someone without technical skill, you're likely to get one of two things: a distorted form of extant music, or something completely alien and overtly unintelligible. The former can certainly be interesting, but if the person possesses no innate technical skill, and doesn't develop any, they're unlikely to be able to sustain or develop their ideas for any length of time, whether within a particular song or over the course of their lifetime. I love Wesley Willis, but he's a one-trick pony -- and the one thing he can do is fun, but that's basically it. (And I'm not, by the way, talking about the appropriation of material from one musical tradition by another tradition of "less skill"; that's an entirely different kettle of fish.)

So what about the other alternative, the "alien sounds"? Here my trumpet friend's argument comes up -- why isn't it possible that, if we learn to hear differently, any sound can be valid? Isn't it possible that it can make a kind of sense that we haven't yet learned to understand?

The problem here, though, is exactly the thing that both Ned and Matthew have invoked. Music gets its power from its dialectical relationship to history, part of what you've called "consensus" and what others call "social construction". Music is perpetually caught in a tension between what we've heard before, and what we're hearing now for the first time. From the past, we learn the signs and signifiers of our musical vocabulary, and so can begin to discern subtler and subtler relationships between musical elements (much as a student of languages does). The present gives us the new ideas, the exploration of unexplored relationships, that keep music exciting.

So the problem with my friend's idea is this: No one can ever have an ahistorical relationship to music, whether making it or listening to it. Every music-maker who wishes to articulate intelligible musical ideas writes with an intended audience, whether that person realizes it or not. Every form of music has signs and signifiers that create some form of expectation in the listener; if that expectation is always fulfilled, the music is boring, and if it's never fulfilled, the music is unintelligible.

Sure, you can say that a given sound might be intelligible to a particular person, but who's the audience? In whom will these sounds inspire expectation? It's like saying ten pages of "ASDJFAJS #$%#$M!!!" could be an intelligible statement -- of course it could, but to whom? Can you articulate what it's saying to you? Is there any reaction it's inciting in you that has any of the depth and complexity that can be inspired by (the literary equivalents of) Beethoven's Ninth, by Miles Davis playing "So What", by a Beatles song, by a Britney song? Or is it a completely superficial reaction, with no sense of temporal awareness, nothing to expect, and thus, nothing by which to be genuinely surprised?

And that's my problem with later Cage, and with my friend's idea. It substitutes a "self-satisfied shrug" for a critical and engaged reaction. Instead of providing the language with which to understand, it does away with understanding entirely. It's very funny how late Cage and the extreme serialists basically ended up in the same place, in a way -- their music tends to be a smattering of interesting moments, separated by long stretches of unintelligible and seemingly (or explicitly) random sounds, and with no overall unity or sense of purpose.

And anti-technique-ism generally has the same result -- it's interesting for moments, but you almost never get the satisfaction of hearing a complete musical thought carried through to a convincing conclusion. And that's because that's what technique is, at least in part. That's what we work to learn to do, that's why we learn about music as musicians -- because we want to be able to express our musical ideas in a way that makes sense, both moment-to-moment and as a whole -- and as listeners -- because we want to be able to understand things that are too complex, whose relationships are too subtle, for us to understand immediately, though we may intuit that there is something there that we're not quite getting. And that's what differentiates listeners, as well as musicians.

Music gets its power from its dialectical relationship to history, part of what you've called "consensus" and what others call "social construction".

Should be "Music gets a great deal of its power from its dialectical relationship to history, and one side of that dialectic is what you've called..."

OK, I don't agree with all the nuances, but the basic argument about anti-traditionalism as the driving force behind modern life and modern pop I cannot find fault with.

The idea that nu-pop represents a radical break with accumulated culture, musically or in terms of its "agenda", seems very off-the-mark to me. My reasoning for this:

1) Dave, if you cannot see where the continuity is between current pop and Spector-pop, synth-pop, electro, soul, house, funk etc. etc. etc. then I throw my hands up in despair. I'm loathe to refer to the intentions of the artists or producers here, but surely even they would be quite happy to confirm that they consider themselves to be within a tradition, albeit what often seems like a "tradition of futurism".

2) Was punk "ahistorical" in its rejection of prog (and, let it be noted, its reestablishment + intensification of previous musical values found within garage rock, freak beat etc.)? No. Any such rejection is terribly historical, because it is precisely the role of a dialectic process to throw up such conflicts (and your acceptance of there being a dialectic of some sort makes me think that a reversion to a positivist interpretation would be misguided). And nor, I should point out, were blues, jazz, rock, etc. "ahistorical" styles, despite all of these styles at their inception representing a much more radical rejection of accumulated ideas about music than nu-pop of any description (if you were talking about acid house you might have a better case, methinks, but it would still have problems - house as continutation and intensification of disco etc.) Note too that most of them were accused with possessing an "agenda" that was generally related to the corruption of morality, of conservative values. As far as I can tell Dave your interpretation differs from this only because you locate this morality, this emphasis on reasoned Burkian conservatism, within the structures of music itself.

3) the idea that people have to claim to like Britney to gain credibility in society or among "youth culture" - as opposed to on ILM, whose existence, let alone influence, I doubt the major labels would anticipate - amuses me. I'm fully prepared to admit that a portion of my pro-Britneyness is no doubt born of defensiveness resulting from the sneers of record clerks when I buy Britney albums.

Phil, I think we're talking about slightly different things w/r/t talent/technique. What I meant when I said I was willing to align myself with the "I hate excellence" camp, was that I really can't stomach the fetishism of excellence that leads wankers like Itzakh Perlman (sp?) to release an entire CD of scales and warming up exercises played really fast. (and, perhaps worse, that leads people to buy the damn thing!) And I had in mind as its antithesis not something like Wesley Willis but more something like Pussy Galore/Royal Trux or the Slits/Raincoats. The latter are groups of people with absolutely no musical training, but who are fans of a wide variety of music. Rather than resign themselves to being listeners, they decided to try and do it themselves. The results are, in my opinion, truly magical. A sum that is greater than its parts - those parts being both intention and accident, historical knowledge and ignorance, proficiency and ineptness. Really, these are the ingredients that go into any great art form, though leaning in this case more heavily to the right side (accident/ignorance/ineptness) of the axis than most of their musical predecessors. Also, there is a clear musical progression in their work - these were not one-trick ponies (unless you would also count Bach with his whole counterpoint hangup and Schoeberg with his 12- tone thing as one trick ponies). Willis sort of complicates the issue by being mentally disturbed/disabled. Is his being a "one trick pony" due to an inability to mentally conceive of another trick? As I can't answer that (I have no knowledge of the intricacies of his mental condition), I prefer not to use him as an example. In point of fact, I rather dislike Wesley Willis and distrust his fanbase immensely (It all seems rather mean-spirited to me. I gotta ask a cliche question here - are they laughing at him or with him?).

How can I put this so I don't end up making a black and white statement that I don't really agree with...? To be against excellence, against talent, is not to be against communication of a given art within a historical/linguistic/cultural context. Not only would it be silly to attempt ahistorical art, it would in fact be impossible. Even something as extreme as serialism, for example, derives much of its power from being played side-by-side with the musical tradition it sounds so different from. Furthermore, serialism seems to draw 99% of its inspiration from the music it’s supposed to be opposed to (I seem to remember Schoenberg writing that his 12-tone system was a logical reinterpretation of Bach’s counterpoint). It is not, in my opinion, in any way ahistorical. And, unlike the music of someone like Reich, it does not require a vocabulary/aesthetic outlook that is radically different from what we're accustomed to in order to understand it. When I listen to Boulez or Carter, I find that I can apply (for the most part) the same theories and emotions that I use to listen to Beethoven or Wagner (especially Wagner - just because he's an anti-Semite doesn't mean his music sucks or that Jews can't like his music. I like his music. I'm a Jew. He's still a goddamn anti-Semite.). But serialism is a weird example to support my thesis, as it requires a great amount of "talent" to write and play serialist compositions (but I'm not going to touch Cage, because I haven't heard enough of his work to have an opinion...). By the way, I find serialism to be just the opposite of what you describe – rather than only a few scattered interesting ideas that are not fully explored, I feel like there is an excess of interesting ideas and an intensity in their pursuit that is overwhelming, and often off-putting.

To go back to the idea that technique = the ability to communicate your ideas so that someone else can understand it. I actually like that, for the very reason that it supports what I'm trying to get at. This definition of technique seems to me to be pretty universally achievable. This is, compared to what you've said up to this point, a shockingly democratic stance to be taking, Phil. All that I would add is that the language of music, like any language, is far from static. And just as revolutions in the English language are not solely dependent upon the innovations of canonized folk such as Shakespeare, Joyce, etc., and are equally (if not more) dependent upon the intentional and unintentional innovations of people who are technically able to communicate in English, though not necessarily “talented” in this area, so it also goes with music. Thus I reserve the right to claim that I could sit down at the piano tomorrow and create something both more-or-less unprecedented (not ahistorical, just innovative) and understandable to someone other than myself, and that you might have to slightly alter your own understanding of what is music and of what makes it good or bad in order to understand just what I had accomplished. I doubt it will happen, but it could.

I. The time will soon come when we will not be able to remember the horrors of September 11 without remembering also the unquestioning technological and economic optimism that ended on that day...

VI. The paramount doctrine of the economic and technological euphoria of recent decades has been that everything depends on innovation. It was understood as desirable, and even necessary, that we should go on and on from one technological innovation to the next, which would cause the economy to "grow" and make everything better and better. This of course implied at every point a hatred of the past; all innovations, whatever their value might have been, were discounted as of no value at all.

(Yes, I take this to be the red. ad. ab. meaning of what you say, though admittedly you don't use quite as many adjectives.)

Please don't, that would be distressing.

oppression can look after itself, frankly

"Ayïeee!" Cahiers du cinéma
"Pah bah!" Empire

I hope you also recognize the absurd conflation, which I have attempted to point out time and again, of 'pop' (which I like, in vast parts) and 'nu-pop' (= that stuff that You like - but no, NOT the ONLY stuff you like, I appreciate that). Fact that they have been relentlessly conflated on this thread is circumstantial evidence for my view that Pop Is Now Bad, which nothing on the thread has altered save to confirm it (cf. 'circumstantial evidence').

>>> they wd be exposed as mere half-measure flibbertigibbets playing w.shiny pebbles on the shore of the Grate Rising Ocean...

Well, I like *that* bit - I think.

DQ's comments are way out there, but I like his Attitude, man.

>>> i. people sing other people's songs ii. people sing their own songs (for better or worse) iii. "song" fades into tempo and texture, so authorship irrelevant, yay?

Yes, in so-called 'nu-pop' - IF you say so (I don't know). BUT nu- pop != pop, therefore authorship / "song" are still issues for people who don't like 'nu-pop'.

>>> "overlooked marginalia within the arranged song" - i.e. those squiggly bits and the beginning and end of stereolab songs, my first clue that stereolab were actually crap.

Bonkers theory. My view, though, is even more critically unacceptable: I just don't like the way they sound, esp. the voices.

Roll credits.

Make the criticism and I or someone else can then engage with it. If you have a reason for thinking the entirety of pop is bad that applies to the entirety of pop, state it. If you don't know what it is you find objectionable generally, or can't be bothered making the argument, well, that's fine too. But don't be surprised if no-one feels particularly inspired to defend something about which no specific criticism has been made.

Dave Q, my sneaking suspicion that you have merely been trying to rile me and others for at least the last half of this debate has now been confirmed.

yes i spose sorta, billy, except it is rather more evident with cake that if yr nan merely handed ovah a slab of sponge that IMPORTANT THINGS WERE MISSING (and not the rubber bands either that old missus b from across the road seemed to believe were key to a good cake). And ditto w.a cake that's ALL ICING and no sponge. And also even the most bonkers chefs have never claimed that eg the jam filling constitutes a subversive critique of the political economy of bakery. (Didja know that Ho Chi Minh was a sous chef under Escoffier in the 20s? And that E said to HCM, "If you just gave up this politics nonsense you could be the greatest pastrycook in all Europe!")

As I have said before, the 'nu-pop' stuff that you like, I just don't like the sound of. (Possibly there are other things too.) It is effectively 'incomprehensible' to me (though that adjective still has too much 'rationality' about it) that you and Tom E (for instance) enjoy it. But my original question was also to say - what about other genres? Why is nothing interesting or momentous going on in them? I don't know whether or not you are interested in those genres.

I have no notion (/ intention) of persuading you (= a strong-minded character of clearly-defined tastes) to feel the same way as me about contemporary pop. Equally, you can probably tell that you are unlikely to persuade me of anything (should you want to, which you almost certainly don't).

FTR, my problems - which aren't that pressing, but I'll hardly let that stop me - with the sort of rock-style stuff that gets into the charts (leaving aside nu-metal for the moment) is how accomodatingly imageless it is. I like Lifehouse's "Hanging By A Moment", but I don't know if I could actually talk about it if I tried. In the UK you get a similar process with bands like Travis and Coldplay, where the "song"-section of the song sounds like it's been distilled to remove any impurities (stylistic individuality, "danger" etc.). I don't know what the alternative is, at least not a commercially viable one; my editor wrote an article slamming those two bands and holding up The Strokes and The White Stripes as the grand solution, but while I quite enjoy both I simply can't really accept that their carefully calibrated mixtures of song and image are really the way out of this cul-de-sac.

Charts are important. If it wasn't for the fact that Britpop dominated the charts in the mid-90s, the Supernaturals never would have been signed by Food, and "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" - one of the best albums ever - would never have been released.

The rockism debates have definitely gotten a lot more nuanced; I may be in a minority in thinking that some of the threads from last year on the topic were really interesting.

ha ha oops steve I read this as "(not least because it was a lot more rockist four years ago)"

Steve it is weird my memories of you as blueski seem like a very different person! I remember complaining that you only got into britney when she collaborated with the neptunes as this was not sufficiently rigorous for my orthodox popism, in retrospect this was unfair of me, you have marvellous taste.

Jeff - yeah that's what I mean.

Which is exactly why there was a market for Oasis in 1995, there is a market for Coldplay today, and there will be a market for similar acts in 2015 and 2025 as well. People don't want the well of songs to sing along to around campfires to dry out.

In the mid 90s, I was happy to see Britpop arrive, reviving the good old song. But then, Britpop ended quickly and I was afraid it was just as short-lasting revival.

However, the trend called "Coldsailor" by some people upthread here has now lasted since "The Man Who", and new bands within that same genre pop up all the time. The trend will change, and sadly it doesn't seem to appeal to the kids the same way "Wonderwall" and "Country House" did. But it is still there, and it is kind of evidence that new song-based music will still appear. So I am less afraid of the future of pop music now than I was in the past, knowing there will always be a market for proper melodic songs anyway. The song in its traditional form will never die.

Interesting thread btw, lots of interesting arguments from both sides. I do of course agree with Phil and Pinefox here, but both sides do make good points from time to time.

It's really weird/embarrassing to read old things where I'd be so tentatively taking the position that "hey, guys, I'm starting to think pop/r&b are kinda good sometimes, maybe?"

ya

Pinefox reject the commercial pop, and drift to the creative margins.

― DJ Martian, Monday, 8 October 2001 01:00 (13 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink