Manufactured pop, R&B, rap, and modern rock are bad

A paper should be submitted to a social scientific peer-reviewed periodical or the Journal of Irreproducible Results in hope of eventually snagging an Ig Noble Prize.
-- George Smith
Emergence of a Rockist World from Causal Quantum Gravity
Authors: C. Barrow(1 and 3), G. Smith (2), G. Hongro (3) (1) New Music Institute, Copenhagen, (2) Q University, Krakow, (3) Uncut Institute, Utrecht)
Comments: 11 pages, 3 figures; some short clarifying comments added; final version to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett
Report-no: SPIN-2004/05, ITP-UU-04/11
Journal-ref: Rockist.Rev.Lett. 93 (2004) 131301

Causal Dynamical Triangulations in four dimensions provide a background-independent definition of the sum over geometries in nonperturbative quantum gravity, with a positive cosmological constant. We present evidence that a macroscopic rockist world emerges from this theory dynamically.

-- the music mole

http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/eileen.html
http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/deadpop.html
http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/deathofpop1.html

A paper should be submitted
Like all good academics do, this paper is being milked for conference after conference and this idea is being milked for paper after paper.

someone give me a Britney/Brotzmann mashup MP3 and quick.

Yeah, you really have to ditch that U2 part. ;-)

Too provocatively "avant" in and of itself. It'd only play into the man's hands.

xpost

I think I've discovered a "jazzist"!

oh and damn you, Raggett! OC ain't far and this collector's edition of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is just proper enough for a beating!

I Wanna Be Adorno - The Stone Roses

Hey, you're mean! (Besides, that would mean you'd have to finally emerge from work for a meet-up with us all, ya punk. ;-))

Toads, beetles, Adorno, light on him!

Adorno would hang him, that salt butter rogue! He would stare him out his wits; he would awe him with his cudgel, it would hang like a meteor over the cuckold's horns. Adorno will always predominate over the peasant and shalt lay with his wife!

Five years later, she would speak highly of George Michael while railing against manufactured pop like Kylie.

Thesedays? Who knows.

Though I haven't read adorno's essay I don't think he gave any concrete examples of jazz he disliked. and I think that's one of the problems with that person -- what rock? what pop? If he starts engaging with the things he hates a bit more...after all he only really likes one type of jazz.

Yeah, but he's kinda RIGHT (apart from the free jazz part).

If there's one trend that really gets me on my soapbox, it's the elevation of the basest of popular culture to art. It's not art, it's a commodity, and a lot of performers have figured out that the quickest way from obscurity to a lucrative licensing contract is to crap out some junk.

I spent about a minute staring at this going "uh? LCD Soundsystem? guh?" but then I realised that mr king oliver probably meant it to stand for 'lowest common denominator' :(

The only other people I know who use that phrase without irony are my parents.

Well, I'm a parent myself, so it must be some kind of a symptom.

However, I'm not a particular combative person, and I'm not given to Christopher Hitchens-like bluster just to start an argument. I do believe that the things a society entertains itself with reflect the culture at large. I think that popular culture as a whole celebrates stupidity and cheap nihilsm. I think that the impulse to turn a blind eye to the crap that is manufactured and marketed to the "kids," is the same impulse that gets people like George Bush elected.
I'd like to see people use their sensitivity, intellegince and taste to champion things which challenge and inspire. It doesn't have to be some treacly pap, but I make no apologies for defending Coltrane over Jay-Z (just to illustrate a point).

POP IS MUSIC FOR THE NOT-ELITE, HE IS BOURGIE FCUK

you do understand that some people feel challenged and inspired by Jay-Z but not Coltrane, though, don't you? And some people feel challenged and inspired by Britney Spears.

It boggles the mind that there are still people who firmly believe that the only reason pop music is popular is because of marketing, not because it's good or that people might genuinely like it and feela connection to it.

Jay-Z is haberdasher.

Jay-Z v. Coltrane is actually a pretty forced analogy. It's the best I could do at the moment.

I used to walk by the Marcy Homes in Brooklyn everyday and see little kids being exposed to the most violent, misogynistic, hip-hop blasted from sound systems. Then my wife would have to go into the public schools and teach these same kids who modeled the behavior they saw in their homes and was reinforced through their popular culture. These kids were belligerent and rude to the point of threatening; they belittled their classmates who tried to academically, and so on. This is an anecdotal experience, and I'm in no way implying that hip-hop has even an iota of responsibility for creating the terrible environment that these kids grew up in. (Look, I may be a snob, but I'm still a liberal). But that's why I think Coltrane's better than Jay-Z.

"Lowest common denominator" may have been too dismissive of a term to use for the consumer of mass marketed junk (and I'm sorry), but there is an unthinking mimicry to people's consumption, and just because something earnestly appeals to them, it's not necessarily good for them. Lab rats will eat sugar until they die.

hardly any music is made "simply to derive a profit from kids who just don't know better." i would say none at all, but i'm sure there's someone out there cynical enough to think that thought. but that person is not making any of the records any of us are talking about.

This has always been true. It is a trait valued by Americans, cutting across the history of the country, class, sex, race, economic standing, education and place of upbringing.

unless we're all still listening to our ... Shaun Cassidy and Rick Springfield albums

And what of it?

What makes you think YOU "know better"?

Which of the two is more important when it comes to the music itself is very clear.

That last sentence is completely disingenious. Of course you're implying this. If you weren't, you wouldn't include any account of the music at all -- it'd be as trivial to your description of Marcy Homes as an account of the weather or the composition of the tarmac.

all of which, you can assure him, are manufactured exactly the way that all recorded music has always been manufactured: someone writes a song, someone arranges it for a band (or for a soloist, as the case may be), someone establishes some kind of beat, someone makes some kind of melody, and at some point the producer says "we're done."

this is the base criticism for a lot of art (e.g. 'Turner Prize won by guy who exhibited an empty room with the lights going on and off, bloody hell you and i could do that, where's the skill etc.), process is over-rated and misjudged by people all too often.

Because he can tell how it was created by listening, you see. Also, king_oliver: you're missing a point on manufactured music versus disposable music. There were a lot of songs that were definitely manufactured in the motown/stax era but are still widely listened to. On the flip side, there are some bands now that are completely authentic that will never be heard from again in a couple years.

me, i'm completely fascinated by the process. and part of what fascinates me is how SIMILAR is it across so many disparate genres and brows (from low to middle to high). the contents are different and the results are different but the process, the manufacture, is generally the same.

i guess you could make the case that "live" recording and track-by-track recording are, at heart, very different processes. but i'd be inclined to disagree with you.

Oh God, when an argument about culture reaches the "think of the children!" stage, you’re not dealing with a rational mind anymore. The best counter for that is “think of a world where everything was geared to the level of a five-year-old. WOULD YOU WANT TO LIVE IN THAT WORLD????"

i'm still completely fascinated by it, though.

Is this generally the case?

Even if this person says he is concerned about 'process' I'm guessing he likes the 'results' that are made once the process is carried out.

Unless he listens to absolutely nothing but free jazz, and he means he doesn't like composed music of any kind. Then, um, I guess he's entitled.

(I guess what I wz saying above is that process and result shouldn't be separated, btw)

If you want to get into a serious discussion with him about questions of "authenticity" and how they relate to free jazz you might want to look into Anthony Braxton's writing on the subject. He discusses the jazz establishment's emphasis on the "sweat" factor -- the notion that a performer must be up on stage sweating with furrowed brow, pouring his heart and soul into his horn. This bias leads to the criticism and dismissal of performers who are thought to be to intellectual, cold or academic and privledges performers who are thought to be authentically expressing raw emotion.

I saw Anthony Braxton play solo in a physics classroom. I liked the choice of venue then, but knowing this about him makes it even more excellent. And clearly not an accident.

Was he sweating?

It’s interesting to note, that on ILE, there was an earlier thread about not having a television, and the general consensus was that it’s no big deal not to own one. So I guess it’s ok not to watch the crap on tv, but it isn’t ok not to listen to the crap on the radio.

Because it's a stupid question; given that all music is manufactured and some pop music is good, OF COURSE MANUFACTURED POP MUSIC CAN BE GOOD.

I don't recall anyone on this thread saying that anyone had to own or even listen to the radio.

So basically anything that you would consider good pop music (let's just say Motown/Timbaland/Kylie?) is not disposeable, thus you can never be wrong.

Sgt. Howie: But they are... are naked!

Lord Summerisle: Naturally! It's much too dangerous to jump through the fire with your clothes on.

The Braxton show was in the late '80s at Brown University. I really want to think that there were still equations written on the blackboard, or at least still clearly visible after attempts to erase them with a low-functioning eraser.

I don't recall whether he sweated; I know I did.

The sweat factor is absolutely relevant to pop music. I think you're interpreting the term "sweat" too literally and connecting it to pop performers dancing around onstage. In reality the arguments against Britney Spears for example focus entirely on this issue of sweat or musical effort. Did she write the songs herself? Did she play any instruments? Can she sing in tune without digital help? Likewise much pop, rap, and dance music is dismissed because of the use of things like samples and drum machines. "How hard can that be?" "They just press buttons." The music is dismissed because of a lack of percieved physical input which is assumed to equal emotional expression. This is the root of statements like "Modern R&B has no soul."

But I brought up Braxton for a completely different reason. My point was that in arguing with this hypothetical free-jazz elitist it may be useful to focus the argument back inward to the realm of free jazz. If you could get the guy to question his assumptions re: authenticity as it relates to the particular scene and artists that he admires, then he may start question his notions of authenticity as they relate to other forms of music.

Those weren't equations. It was the set list!

Come on, just because the guy believes that the only good black artists are the dead black artists...um, never mind.

I think that all people can't stand the idea of another person thinking him/herself superior, regardless of that person's ability to act on that belief. One instinctually feels threatened by it.

Another thing: Why the wrath at King Oliver? He's not saying ban Jay-Z, he's not saying that the youth of America are being perverted beyond repair, and he's not being racist. That's a lazy card to play. He seems to be saying what he actually thinks. I can't really speak about the strangers on this forum, but some of the talk reminds me of folks I know who think themselves superior for being more egalitarian than others.

super xp

If I were to condemn every instance of intellectual laziness... shit, I wouldn't even get through with myself. Why did I overlook King O's? Because he was trying to explain his stance. Why didn't I overlook some other folks'? Because I thought they were making unwarranted personal attacks on King Oliver and, having been in situations like that, I felt obliged to defend him.

Also: I have a feeling most people think they're somehow better than most other people. I wish more people would just come out and say it like King Oliver did. And yes, I also think I'm better than most other people.

...because I didn't mean to imply that anyone in particular involved in this thread was a racist (though later in the thread accusations to that effect were thrown around).

I just think that this whole war between the bearded free-jazzer and "manufactured pop" is totally absurd. The free jazz fan's alleged elitism is in no way a threat to the pop establishment in the same way that a black person calling me a cracker is an empty barb. In each case the supposed "victim" is actually in a position of systemic power which renders the external attacks meaningless.

On the other hand Kelefa's "rockism" article made a much more interesting argument that showed how the white male biases of the music critical establishment marginalize and dismiss black, gay and female musical cultures. So I feel like the original poster in this thread is trying to relive the rockist battle on a personal level while totally misunderstanding the power dynamics that make the rockist debate relevant. In other words, leave the harmless free jazz fan alone. His existence is no threat to the success of Christina Aguilera's career.

good bye.

...and are unable/unwilling to justify these positions, and don't engage with the actual real points people bring up...

oh those poort artists, being forced to sell their work just to provide for their families!

I get testy when some self-professed "intellectual" would prefer certain genres aren't even allowed to be considered on an intelligent, equal level. What I like about ILM is that you can see very good arguments being made every day for all sorts of music, and rarely do you see entire styles being dismissed as unworthy of even being discussed.

indeed. the 90s Film poll has already encountered this attitude a little (i wonder if Tarantino would even have been nominated if i hadn't bothered)

-- The Lex (alex.macpherso...), December 2nd, 2004.

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find commercialism a corrosive influence on art making
oh those poort artists, being forced to sell their work just to provide for their families!

-- Frankenstein On Ice (stevem7...), December 2nd, 2004.

I'm trying to work through a particularly knotty question of how corporate influence uses popular culture to create an environment of blind consumption, and how that in turn creates a populace too stupefied and over-sated to even know how badly their getting screwed. As far as I'm concerned manufactured pop musicians, crummy television, tiresome athletes, and formulaic movies are little more than manifestations of Orwell's two minutes of hate.

My distrust of these elements, and my desire to strike a balance between being entertained and being marketed to derives from some of the same humanistic impulses that drove Emerson and Thoreau. Sorry if that makes me an elitist. I'm really just trying to find a way to live "off the grid," and find a way to participate as little as possible in a mainstream culture that I find negative and soul killing

We know, we've read No Logo too. But seriously, do you really not believe that someone can buy eg a Christina Aguilera album because they genuinely like it and it means something to them, rather than because they've been brainwashed?

i wonder if Tarantino would even have been nominated
Man, you found some dinosaurs who wouldn't put QT on a 90s film poll? Does that mean ILM is only antirockist when it comes to actual rock?

I find that an awfully simplistic attitude for someone who apparently makes a living at the intersection of corporate funding and the arts. What about industrial design? By this definition, an Eames chair or a Cassandre poster could never be art.

What's wrong with King Oliver's argument isn't racism or elitism ( though the "hip hop makes black kids bad" argument smacks of middle-class paternalism of the worst sort), but it's simple incoherence. As people have pointed out already, all music is "manufactured." Recorded music is necessarily a commodity. As are books, as are paintings, sculptures, etc. Commerce and art are inseparable and always have been. This doesn't make aesthetic distinctions impossible, but it does mean they must be made on something other than a "manufactured"/"corporate" vs. "real"/"non-corporate" basis.

Good morning everybody. I'm not a racist-far from it, and I never said the only good African-American, or non-white musicians are dead ones. I was listening to Herbie Hancock on the way into work, and last I checked he was still alive. I used the Coltrane v. Jay-Z argument to illustrate a personal point of deriving my own scale of aesthetic goodness v. badness. I certainly have no interest in defending myself to against baseless accusations by a bunch parochial undergrads hiding behind anonymous log in names. You don't know anything about me except I don't like hip-hop, and find commercialism a corrosive influence on art making. Therefore I'm a racist? Fuck you.

good bye.

-- king_olivef (bmcgover...), December 2nd, 2004 1:02 PM. (king_oliver) (later)

Crispian Mills (Kula Shaker) [paraphrasing here]; "People in India may not have much styff, but they're spiritually wealthy!"

I'm sorry some people living gets in the way of your artistic satisfaction. I'm sorry you're more interested in the spiritual welath of subjugated minorities than their social welfare.

Also, no such thing as soul.

Bullshit. He still hasn't engaged with the argument.

It's perfectly possible to enjoy Soviet Realism as an art form
Kevin, your argument is good, but is this really true? Any examples?

What's wrong with King Oliver's argument isn't racism or elitism ...
-- Paul Ess

I like Paul's argument, too and it brings up something that I hadn't thought of, entirely. I'm also trying to drop the affected airs of poshness that I was using as a defensive cloak yesterday, and I'm willing to engage anyone who isn't going to employ ad hominem attacks.

I wrestle everyday in one-way or another how culture and economics collide (and believe me, corporations don't support the arts out of their own beneficence). If my arguments are incoherent, it has a lot to do with the disadvantages of thinking off the cuff, as opposed to being able to prepare a detailed treatise. It's not like I can go scurrying to my reference materials and exactly check on when Coltrane kicked heroin, or whether or not Lee Morgan shot his wife, or she shot him.

Anyway, its not that manufactured music is a commodity, its how that commodity is distributed and how it helps reinforce negative aspects of commercial culture. As far as Christina Aguilera is concerned, I think that the market trades on her sexuality way more than on what ever modicum of talent she has, and while that isn't any new phenomena, the strength of the distribution machine commodities her to ever-greater outlets. The upshot is a two dimensional figure that projects a negative female stereotype, whose, "art" (ie the song) is only secondary. Are you going to tell me this is a good thing, especially in forum dedicated to music?

And I think that IKEA is the new Eames, and I think its great that design doesn't have to belong only to the realm of the wealthy.

I don't know - I like Soviet Realist posters and things, but not enough to know the names of anything (this despite doing propaganda posters as a class in Modern History at uni). But I don't think it matters - I'm sure some people enjoy them as art, and I'm not in a position to say they're wrong. Lots of the artists making these were great artists, and I'm sure they managed to express themselves even when confined to painting the glorious russian proletariat.

A lot of really mainstream pop music works good as music though, and then it is up to the composer credits to decide whether the credited artist deserves the praise or the praise should rather go to the people behind. For instance, I find "Showing Out" by Mel & Kim a great pop single, but for me, that just makes me view it as the pinnacle of Stock/Aitken/Waterman's creative output, and I wouldn't even dream of giving the Appleby sisters any kind of credit for it.

Also, saying that Christina has a "modicum of talent" is akin to saying that Debra Voight has a "modicum of talent". You are marginalizing someone who is at the top of her profession and who has shown time and time again that she can sing circles around anything you put in front of her; your statement says more about what you think of pop music than it does about Christina's talents.

Well, I think we already know what I think of pop music. But you beg the question of where a knack for singing is better than what sort of interpretation the artist does with the material. I'll take Cat Power in heartbeat over Christina. And I'll take Linda Perhacs over the both.

Oh, and I don't think being at the top of one's "profession" is any sort of yardstick to judge the aesthetic quality of any performer in the zero-sum "game" of marketing.

See, I disagree completely with this conclusion (I mean, I disagree with the premise as well for the same reasons as Dan above, but let'sjust go with this).

"Two-dimensional figure" - is the last thing Christina is right now; if she's been using 'image' rather than art for any purpose at all over the last two years, it's been to manipulate how she is perceived by the public in a variety of ways, shape-shifting from the OTT sluttiness of "Dirrty" to the vulnerability of "Beautiful" to the strength of "Fighter" etc etc, finally arriving at this 'sophisticated 50s starlet' look that she's currently rocking.

"Negative female stereotype" - I don't see how any of her images, slutty or not, are negative female stereotypes. Quite apart from the question of whether an artist has to be a positive role model (I don't think they do), listening to "Can't Hold Us Down", "The Voice Within" and "Beautiful" I really do think that if anything Christina is an incredibly positive influence. And what's more, I can see how some girls (and boys, and men, and women) might relate to the themes she covers. I certainly do.

"whose 'art' is only secondary" - I suspect her songs are only secondary to people who like to look at pictures of her, but who don't buy her albums. The majority of people who bought the album will find the 'art' the most important thing.

and, um, isn't that exactly what king oliver has been trying to tell us from the start?

er, re above quote from sickly..

The gist of what I am trying to argue, is that its NOT the performer per se (aside from my own personal preferences), it's the comodification there of. The artist doesn't have to represent shit as far as I'm concerned. It's how the corporate culture uses the "product." And all of Xtina's media machinations where done 20 years ago by Madonna, and it was trite then.

The gist of what I am trying to argue, is that its NOT the performer per se (aside from my own personal preferences), it's the comodification there of. The artist doesn't have to represent shit as far as I'm concerned. It's how the corporate culture uses the "product." And all of Xtina's media machinations where done 20 years ago by Madonna, and they where trite then.

but all artists are commodified, just in different ways by different people, including Cat Power (whom I also like).

Surely the best tactic for you, as someone who wants the music to take precedence over the commodification, is to criticise Christina on musical grounds rather than commercial ones? What is it about Christina's musical style that you don't like?

"how are the media machinations of john coltrane any less trite (nevermind dangerous as fuck) than xtina's"

In a culture that is both puritan and prurient, the comodification of sexuality to sell product is harmful, in my opinion. Especially when kids who don't have the advantages of full education have to wrestle with sexuality, birth control, and STDs. And as far as Nike, well, I haven't even begun to work through my issues with NAFTA and worldwide labor standards. I don't care if you kill yourself w/ drugs.

John Coltrane didn't work the media like Xtina (or her handlers), and has never had access to chanels of communication that modern pop stars did. If Alice Coltrane is making some money from licensing My Favorite Things, good for her. She damn well deserves it.

I can't; it should be totally obvious that I rarely watch tv.

And while I like Cat Power, I'll be the first to admit the New Yorker pic from last year was lame. As was that other Christina's (Martinez) posturing to peddle those dull Boss Hogg records. But if you want to split hairs, neither had the audience or affect of the Madonna/Brittany/Xtina faux lesbian kiss.

Why shouldn't we (beyond the fact that this is ILM)? An architect's vision is nothing without someone to actually build the building AND the architect's vision can be undermined by shoddy workmanship; your analogy does more to reinforce the importance of the performer than it does to reinfornce the supremacy of the composer.

(brickies can get plenty autonomy in choosing the brick bond for a particular wall, you know.)

Yeah, especially when their name begins with "C."
Putz

This is impossible to determine. I'll explain why below, but the reason relates to this statement:

>It's perfectly possible to enjoy Soviet Realism as an art form, without having to dismiss it because it's purpose was less then praiseworthy.

Sure, as long as you don't actually live under a totalitarian system. Portraits of Kim Jong-Il are sort of cool looking in a Laibach-y way, as long as you're not actually living in some shanty outside Pyongyang. In the same way, it might well be possible to enjoy a Christina Aguilera song for itself, but in order to do that you'd have to yank it out of the context in which it exists. The marketing of pop music, and its infiltration into/takeover of the larger culture, is so complete and omnipresent that there's no way to know whether you really like something you're buying, or whether you've been bludgeoned so hard, and so long, that you believe you like it. 2 + 2 = 5; Christina Aguilera = good music. The acid test would be to expose people from a culture that has little or no Western market-saturation to American ultra-artificial pop, and see what they think of it. If some of them like it, you can be reasonably sure(r) that their reaction is genuine, and not merely the result of incessant marketing. But I don't trust the tastes of anyone who's in a "target demographic." Lots of times, like when I bought Crunk Juice two days ago, I don't even trust my own taste. I know for sure that I've bought things in the past because I felt obligated to do so in order to be part of some sort of larger community that only exists in the heads of critics and posters on internet music boards. That's why I bought the Big & Rich album. I didn't think I'd like it, even as I carried it from the shelf to the cashier, but I felt like I should own it, like if I rejected it I was rejecting the values it theoretically espoused and that made me a bad person, a "rockist." So I bought it, and sure enough, I didn't like it. I have the feeling I won't like the Lil Jon songs I currently like, a week from now.

W-w-w-ait a minute. Didn't you just say the following:

The gist of what I am trying to argue, is that its NOT the performer per se (aside from my own personal preferences), it's the comodification there of. The artist doesn't have to represent shit as far as I'm concerned. It's how the corporate culture uses the "product." And all of Xtina's media machinations where done 20 years ago by Madonna, and they where trite then.

So, do we applaud the fact that Coltrane wasn't a media whore, or consider the fact (one way or the other) trivial considering that The Culture Industry makes victims of Coltrane and Xtina alike?

Personally, I thought the Cat Power pic was very delightful; as a performer, she's a horror. (The personas of women performers in indieland always seem MUCH more transparently a 'response' to horndog indieboy wish-fufillment than personas in popstars are a response to the wishes of *their* male fans; maybe because in contrast to the always-already well-articulated white elephant chick performer roles of people like Cat Power [unstable!], Madonna-Britney-Xtina etc. etc. are shape-shifting ciphers.

Why do people always pat their pet performers on the head and say, "oh, there there, you *deserve* finally getting some riches for your music, even if it's from ads for all those admittedly mean and nasty corporations" when they (and we) should be agitating for a government stipend a la Ibsen?

so why exactly is it that you don't trust your own tastes? something was marketed to you, you walked to the store feeling like a lemming, you laid down your cash, you went home to your capitalist abode with the tv and the stereo and maybe the subscription to entertainment weekly, and you DIDN'T LIKE THE CD. and why do you think the response of anyone else, in the same basic environment, who comes home and DOES LIKE THE CD is any less honest, and less real? if the system can't force you to like the big & rich cd, or the lil' jon cd, or the christina aguilera cd, what makes you think it can force anyone else to like 'em?

Also, lame joke about brickhouses was feeble attempt to bring the funk into this zone devoid of such.

I keep trying to respond to this but my brain gets stuck on just feeling really sorry for anyone who can't tell whether they like a piece of music or not. I mean, does it make you smile? laugh? dance? hit you like a ton of bricks in the solar plexus?

That's a test of an untainted aesthetic response? What if your hypothetical "savages" (sorry, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth) liked or disliked values in the music that perhaps no (or few) Westerners hold fealty to? "We don't like 'Dirrty' because it is taboo for women to sing in our culture." "We like 'Dirrty' because there is a repeated sound in it which is very much like the sounds we create to summon the good spirits of fire." Has this clarified anything about the songs worth? What if we played the music of Bororo Indians to Saharan nomads, or vice-versa, and they recoiled?

Daddino otm about indie-boy seeks alt-chick.

That's why I bought the Big & Rich album.
I started thinking what if? about that myself, but then cured myself by watching about five minutes of CMT.

DIDN'T LIKE THE CD
fcc, you've never had this happen to you? I mean, what if all of ILM starting drooling about, say, Foghat, would you be able to resist temptation?

just feeling really sorry for anyone who can't tell whether they like a piece of music
I find this a bit absurd too, Lex. You never liked something at one point in life only to disown it later and question whether you really liked it, or instead just succumbed to peer pressure/herd mentality or whatever the more fancy term is? Critical faculties fully formed at the age of five and never wavered since them? The control in the experiment is the things you were able to reown, first as Guilty Pleasures, and then later with even the trace of guilt erased by some sort of fancy theoretical scheme.

Fcuk, I messed up my tags. I must renounce myself.

Good lord no.

except half the ppl on thread don't know the 1st thing abt eg aguilera

xp yes christina isn't meant to be played in thin air

dude there's a difference btw liking something and years or 2 meals later disliking it, conscoiusly, both easily inexplicable i think, and not knowing what you think abt say a pair of pants

hell yeah, quite often i run out and buy, say, a broken social scene cd because ILM tells me i must, and then i run home and can't believe i blew 13 dollars on i. i'm not disputing the idea that marketing, peer pressure and other such stuff can goad you into spending your money. i'm disputing the idea that your like, or dislike, for what you spent that money on is somehow not genuine as a result.

Also, as far as North Korea vs Soviet Realism: Yes, it is different if you're being opressed (of course, not oppressed by art or artists, but by tyrants and armies), but couldn't you also compare that to liking jazz or hip-hop, but not being an impoverished and oppressed african-american? Or listening to south american jazz without having your democratically elected government overthrown by the US and replaced with a tyrant?

As far as acid tests go, I'm willing to speculate that the biggest selling western artists in the rest of the world are people like Britney and Michael Jackson, and not simply because of marketing or availability.

and yeah, Michael Jackson was huge because he released some amazing, amazing singles, and Britney is huge because she's released a few as well.

As far as Western influences in non-Western cultures; I remember reading a couple of years ago that Polynesian women who were exposed to Melrose Place after it was broadcast via satellite, suddenly started having body issues. Meaning what, I don't know, exactly.

I lead a public life, watch teevee, listen to the radio, & even have children, and I never feel bludgeoned by the omnipresent pop monster. In fact, listening to hit radio or watching viddies on MTV feels like a visit to a strange, alien scene that often yields up something rewarding.

xxpost:
I don't know Gear, I think they may just have a new set of peers to pressure them on what NOT to like.

I wish I had been more successful in avoiding the term "peer pressure." Any argument using it sounds like the spurious sit-com Mom logic trick "If your friend Billy was going to jump off a bridge, would you jump too?"

Heather Locklear is EVIL even in a foreign language.

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This is completely your damage Shakey, because NOT one person on this thread has said this.

there's no THERE there

welcome to 1945 or whatever

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x-post

I don't really get this...I mean, when you a hear a good song or good production, SOMEBODY MADE THAT, whether it's the artist or not. If you think that all Michael Jackson songs are poorly written or unengaging, that's one thing I guess, but at some level it's all just music. No matter how much money is behind a record, those ideas had to come out of someone's head.

Shakey Cuts The Knot!

As for Jordan's point - I mean a lot of times when I hear chart-pop, it doesn't even register to me. I think of what the beat sounds like, maybe where it's borrowed from, how the melody isn't catchy or simple, how banal the lyrics are, etc. - and then on another level I just hear what they're trying to sell, and I know it isn't to me, and I just tune it out. It becomes a gaussian blur of cobbled together elements that have no resonance for me.

And now to switch gears, on a larger level I've always found a lot of the Popist arguments on ILM to be more aggressively elitist than they really need to be. In the sense that y'know, you guys won - pop music rules the world. Railing against Rockists or "the critical establishment" or whatever seems like the equivalent of turning a flamethrower on a scarecrow - the hystrionic defense of Manufactured Pop that tends to pop up on ILM threads always strikes me as similar to the bully on the playground, they already rule the school and they're desperation to maintain their advantage seems both silly and unattractive. Beating up on indie, highbrow free-jazz beardstrokers, the rock "canon", it all seems so unnecessary and gratuitous. I mean there are a lot more pop fans than there are free-jazz beardstrokers. Why beat up on the little guy...

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They're trying to sell MUSIC. To EVERYONE.

I don't know, I listen to jazz and lots of weird stuff (which is mostly what I play), and pop-music. I don't see the ILM Popsters denigrating non-pop music, it's just an argument against anti-pop prejudice.

But I still hold to my position, which I never thought of as Marxist, but rather driven by the urge to compartmentize elements I find as harmful, similar to the manner in which Frederick Law Olmstead carved out public space in a depersonalizing urban environment.

I'm going back to lurking under my tattered moniker.

King O, while you lurk, you should go over to the jazz vocals thread where some folks were claiming Louis Armstrong couldn't sing.

Shakey Mo, RL="real life"

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The arguments against "anti-pop prejudice" are couched in the most apocalyptic of terms, as though the editors of The Wire are going house to house and confiscating everyone's copies of In The Zone for a mass burning.

But wait, you just compared Xtina-liking to 2+2=5 and The Big Lie -- isn't that pretty histrionic, too?

yeah and hip-hop is blamed for the downfall of inner cities by some people. Can we blame country music for rural poverty and alcoholism?

Eh, kinda, but I don't think it's going that far to point out that there are a lot of legitimate parallels between our current mass-media market and Orwell's conception of manipulative propaganda.

But I thought the whole point of pop-ism was that dignity and intellectual value were false values - that how a record makes you feel is more important than whether or not it can be intellectually justified (indeed, that how a record makes you feel in the moment is the only important thing at all). That's why there's such vitriol when the commercial end is brought up, because pop-love is at its heart infantile ("I like candy! Stop telling me it's bad for my teeth! Fuck you, dad!"), militantly refusing to "grow up" and just as militantly insisting that the whole idea of "growing up" is a con invented by oppressive fogeys.

I thought the point was that it DOESN'T have to be a "guilty pleasure", that it does in fact have integrity!

Did you hear that recent Le Tigre single?

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RL means Real Life

No, the point (at least, the point I've always taken away) is that there's no such thing as a guilty pleasure, there's just pleasure, and neither guilt nor justification are necessary or worthwhile. This is the message of Klosterman, Sheffield, Metal Mike Saunders when he's writing about Radio Disney, and I'm sure some other folks I haven't read. And it goes hand in hand with anti-intellectualism - the critics who champion pop in this way are, in fact, waging war on criticism. That's what I find so interesting about writers who attack rockism and bleat about the joys of pop - they're arguing for their own obsolescence. They're arguing that surrender to the media machine is not only inevitable, but to be welcomed. Why think? Dancing is more fun!

I, for one, agree that guilt is not a very useful or productive emotion.

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yes because they are totally mutually exclusive of course

That is really what I meant though, that enjoying pop music isn't a different class of pleasure from enjoying other music. And I think that good pop critics are anything but anti-intellectual.

(many x-posts)

I was recently listening to Nancy Wilson's gorgeous "That's What I Want for Christmas," and in it there's a great couplet: “Anyone can wish for all the trinkets in the window/Some can even buy the ones they see," and I thought does anyone in pop music still recognize that we all can't everything and that wanting might just be better/nobler than having? Do these arguments about the worth of pop culture come up because we increasingly expect to find our ethos in (or reflected in) our songs and movies? Should we? Have movies and music just become marketing engines for manufactured need?

Bush is a country fan, isn't he? I guess we can blame country music for George W. Bush then ;)

xpost:
It might seem anti-intellectual to some, but only to those who have never realized that those who want to épater les bourgeois are usually bourgeois themselves.

Probably in the same way that he's an Xian and a plebian: Rove told him it would make him more electable.

Corny Indie Fuxxor Rains Blows Down On Scarecrow in Cornfield Shocka!!

Because the beardstrokers tend to lash out a lot more, since they're in the minority. I'd like to think that there are some people in this group who love the music, wish others could love it, and are just trying to spread the word. They'd enjoy it if everyone on the planet was listening to their particular variety of free-jazz, skiffle, whatever. In reality, I think that more of them would hate if a majority of people liked their favorite music.

There are few pop listeners bitching about drug-addled noodling undertaken by fierce individualists who can't work with the rest of society.

(I'm listening to System of a Down at the moment FWIW.)

"I don't know karate - but I know ca-RAZY!"

(the great Payback debate)

derailed by, erm, "thuggish nonsense".
I'm starting to picture this beard-stroker as one of the characters in Mad Magazine's "Dave Berg's Lighter Side of..." Is his name Roger Kaputnik or some variant thereof?

My private Payback debate: I always thought that instead of "the payback", James Brown was singing a tribute to the beloved Lebanese-American actor who played the proprietor of Mel's Diner on TV's Alice - "Vic Tayback, revenge."

Skee-Lo? 'I Wish' was kind of self-deprecating. So is some of the Fresh Prince's stuff. Probably not the sort of rap you were thinking of, though.

Check out MC Paul Barman and then report back, please.

There's no Woody Allen or Andy Kaufman of rap, for good reason.

Yeah

(Chorus)
(Skee-Lo)
I wish I was little bit taller
I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good I would call her
I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat
And a six four Impala

(Skee-Lo)
I wish I was like six-foot-nine
So I can get with Leoshi
Cause she don't know me but yo she's really fine
You know I see her all the time
Everywhere I go, and even in my dreams
I can scheme a way to make her mine
Cause I know she's livin phat
Her boyfriend's tall and he plays ball
So how am I gonna compete with that
Cause when it comes to playing basketball
I'm always last to be picked
And in some cases never picked at all
So I just lean up on the wall
Or sit up in the bleachers with the rest of the girls
Who came to watch their men ball
Dag y'all! I never understood, black
Why the jocks get the fly girls
And me I get the hood rats
I tell 'em scat, skittle, scabobble
Got hit with a bottle
And I been in the hospital
For talkin' that mess
I confess it's a shame when you livin' in a city
That's the size of a box and nobody knows yo' name
Glad I came to my senses
Like quick-quick got sick-sick to my stomach
Overcommeth by the thoughts of me and her together
Right?
So when I asked her out she said I wasn't her type

(Chorus)
(Skee-Lo)
I wish I was little bit taller
I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good I would call her
I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat
And a six four Impala
I wish I was little bit taller
I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good I would call her
I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat
And a six four Impala

(Skee-Lo)
I wish I had a brand-new car
So far, I got this hatchback
And everywhere I go, yo I gets laughed at
And when I'm in my car I'm laid back
I got an 8-track and a spare tire in the backseat
But that's flat
And do you really wanna know what's really whack
See I can't even get a date
So, what do you think of that?
I heard that prom night is a bomb night
With the hood rats you can hold tight
But really tho' I 'm a figaro
When I'm in my car I can't even get a hello
Well so many people wanna cruise Crenshaw on Sunday
Well then I'ma have to get in my car and go
You know I take the 110 until the 105
Get off at Crenshaw tell my homies look alive
Cause it's hard to survive when your livin'
In a concrete jungle and
These girls just keep passin' me by
She looks fly, she looks fly
Makes me say my, my, my

(Chorus)
(Skee-Lo)
I wish I was little bit taller
I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good I would call her
I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat
And a six four Impala
I wish I was little bit taller
I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good I would call her
I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat
And a six four Impala

(Skee-Lo)
Hey, I wish I had my way
Cause everyday would be a Friday
You could even speed on the highway
I would play ghetto games
Name my kids ghetto names Little Mookie, big Al, Lorraine
Yo you know that's on the real
So if you're down on your luck
Then you should notice how I feel
Cause if you don't want me around
See I go simple, I go easy, I go greyhound
Hey, you , what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down
Ahhhh, yes, ain't that fresh?
Everybody wants to get down like dat

(Chorus)
(Skee-Lo)
I wish I was little bit taller
I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good I would call her
I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat
And a six four Impala
I wish I was little bit taller
I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good I would call her
I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat
And a six four Impala
Yeah

You know, you know, you know Skee-Lo
Wish you were taller wish you were a baller
Skee-Lo you know, you know, you know
Wish you were taller wish you were a baller
You know, you know, you know Skee-Lo
Wish you were taller wish you were a baller
Skee-Lo you know, you know, you know
Wish you were taller wish you were a baller
You know, you know, you know Skee-Lo
Wish you were taller wish you were a baller
Skee-Lo you know, you know, you know
Wish you were taller wish you were a baller
You know, you know, you know Skee-Lo
Wish you were taller wish you were a baller
Skee-Lo you know, you know, you know
Wish you were taller wish you were a baller

Beardstroker Kaputnik isn't gonna find them funny or ingratiating.

(nb I say this as someone who likes both of the mentioned acts.)

Michael Franti IS the Andy Kaufman of hip-hop: T/F?

Surely Biz Markie verged on self-deprecation at times- "The Vapors", "Just a Friend." But did the Biz ever cross the line?

This is true of all music which doesn't have some sort of explicit political agenda (and one which, at least in your view, accords with reality). If Modest Mouse were the highest-selling chart act in the world, would we be any closer to discerning the true nature of our political realities? The fact that culture predominantly obscures political realities is itself a political reality.

"Why think? Dancing is more fun!"

But thinking about dancing while dancing is the most fun.

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The appeal of the song played everywhere in 1984 is not appeal at all - it's the only musical choice available. The rockist who argues that "people" similarly have no "choice" about liking Britney are being disingenuous, because they are declining to mention themselves, and presumably a good deal of their peers and social networks, not to mention a huge portion of critical opinion the media. What they mean is that the populace has had their powers of critical discernment so dulled by the satiation of base pleasure that they no longer have the capacity to make an informed choice. This is Huxley's argument, not Orwell's.

Okay now all that's an x-post.

haw haw!

I posted the top 100 of the 90s list on some AOL message board, and the responses were illuminating. First of all, the top ten of the '90s lists people began posting were 100% white. And when they cut-n-pasted the albums they all owned that were ON the list, NOT A SINGLE PERSON owned a recording by a black artist, except for some "obscuranist" who listed two Ornette Coleman records in his top 100. This howler:

Henryh!ll51@aol.com:

"What an excuse for a list! Here's mine..."

Radiohead "Ok Computer"
Afghan Whigs "Gentleman"
Dinosaur Jr. "Where You Been"
My Bloody Valentine "Loveless"
Radiohead "The Bends"
The Pixies "Tromp Le Monde"
Pearl Jam "Ten"
Radiohead "Pablo Honey"
Pavement "Crooked Rain Crooked Rain"
The Toadies "Rubberneck"
Bush "Razorblade Suitcase"
Weezer "Weezer"
U2 "Achtung Baby"
Eric Clapton "Pilgrim"

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Yeah, have they only recently started teaching Orwell in US high schools? Young people, particularly on the left, seem to be obsessed with 1984...

(the Clapton album is indeed a headscratcher.)

Also I love Dan's post on dancing. When you dance you really, really have to think about the music a lot! Britney's choreographers to thread.

I guess they weren't that much into Lenny Kravitz then.

(Seriously, if they don't like rap or R&B, and lots of people don't, there isn't a lot of black stuff from the 90s to choose from)

has he changed his ways? he's in his 50s now