Dissensus--c/d?

(haha xpost)

seriously, let's not do this.

started the same thread there, got no responses either

difficult to choose

Gareth have you heard/do you like Eclection?

who are eclection?

Indeed they are eager to please and maintain consensus, is this not ironic, insofar as they are called Dissensus, yet seeking consensus? This is indeed hypocrisy, and I sneer at them and walk swiftly from the room for such stupidity.

btw thats true jed...

By not talking about Lady Sovereign. Just kidding. It's a very nice alternative, nothing dud nor classic about it. Only a bit too intellectual for my liking but that's all my *fault* (low self-esteem/intellect). :-)

could also be the "hashing out" phase of a new discussion group.

-- djdee (ddrak...), April 3rd, 2005 4:24 AM.

This is hilarious. 10/10 ILM!

Dissensus IS surely quite easy to look at and navigate - just not as much as ILM. But then ILM is so simple retards could use it, and I think some have on occasion.

x-post: it also lacks ilm's "delightful" quippiness.

but i imagine that if someone's posted 10 things on that thread then he or she has viewed it at least 10 times, right? so what does 2500 views really mean?

I'd also like to say that I will gladly serve as the ILM popist straw man.

i think i *like* the quippiness here, it more or less serves the same purpose as the "theorizing" (deleuze say relax... but lacan say fix up...) you get on dissensus, which tends to be opportunistic at best -- ie this Master Thinker backs up This Point, but this other (and totally opposed Master Thinker backs up That Point... which ends up as point scoring, especially since it's so poorly worded that only the poster's imaginary seminar will understand... i still read it, but mainly as a source of strawmen.

also, hurrah for Tim.

I don't mind the judicious use of theory on Dissensus (although I agree it's also always simultaneously a credentials-establishing power-move, even or perhaps especially when I do it), but I think the sheer influence of Mark K-Punk as a founding father means that there's a real sense of there being the "right" critics and the "wrong" critics, which isn't nearly as strong on ILM/ILE even when the conversations do end up hi falutin. The music forum being a default grime forum is a similar example of how the board's origins have really shaped its preferences. On ILM there are certainly clusters of enthusiasm around specific areas of music such as grime (and the naysayers and the noize board might say that grime is a hivemind hallmark) but in a quantitative sense its coverage here is so much smaller. Something about ILM just tends more towards democratic diffuseness (and I don't mean to give "democratic" an automatically positive inflection there) - even when ILM was still considered an extension of Freaky Trigger I don't think such a confluence of values was so pronounced.

George W Bush.

dunno where to go next with that idea? maybe an idea of how to reconcile "grounding" with popcrit in a more productive fashion (tim's ref to "close sonic reading" is obv. a move in this direction).

[p.s. as good a place as any to drop my fav. new bon mot -- "music is more like language than language is like language"]

The attendant irony of hanging a purist meme on something like grime, which by SR's own admission started as pop and seems to have descended (?) into its own JAMC-style "little underground" (i.e. delayed kneejerk reaction to failure of second coming of New Pop, i.e. 1985 = 2005, i.e. OH GOD DO I HAVE TO GO THROUGH THAT ALL AGAIN??) need not be emphasised.

Marcello what's odd is that K-Punk in particular, though he's much less willing to self-identify as rockist, and confesses an aesthetic preference for pop, is rocking the Blissed Out position - theoretically championing music which allegedly resists being assigned a use value. But Simons' current position is all about a commitment to certain types of use values.

I guess what unites these two positions is that they presume the use (of lack of use) of a particular piece of music is self-evident and incontingent.

what I found disturbing about some of the anti-pop(ist) ideas at Dissensus was the simultaneous inflexibility and willingness to generalise - the insistence on value judgments (this persistent focus on 'community' regardless of whether it fits the music; the trumpeting of 'honour'), and the mapping of overarching theories on to genres characterised by fragmentation.

I think Reynolds' 'scenius > genius' statement which was the crux of his anti-MIA position is probably very important to understanding this, but it's still beyond me how to really comprehend it.

(xpost: thanks Tim)

While I'm here I might as well say that even though Dissensus' current focus and style doesn't draw me in I think it's a good thing - the more intelligent forums there are, the better.

I always feel as though, when K-Punk defends Pop, it's a (self-)defense mechanism: I'm not really a rockist, see I like POP purely for fun reasons, so don't you dare call me...

(Personally I think I... just use different rules when it comes to different genres.)

This baffles me.

I must say, the sight of a middle-class white Oxford graduate criticising a Sri Lankan refugee for having the temerity to go to art school and have hip friends was...distasteful, to say the least.

one thing about the last maya thread on MIA on dissensus was that just as it was moving into discussion of race, it was shut down. strange.

perhaps theres something to be guilty for....

I reckon K-Punk's most recent reply to me on that pop thread is actually very good indeed. I still have some issues with it (eg. dismissive references to middle-aged managers sitting in pubs listening to Kylie; as a quarter-aged manager who often stands in bars listening to Kylie I'm not sure that I feel all that different! If anything the closest empirical example of enforced unanalytical enjoyment that I can think of is the attitude towards Kylie by her only "real community", the gay market), but the formulation of rockism vs popism as being about Producer Romantics vs Consumer Romantics is very pretty.

i suppose part of the cheese debate is not just what were using as the barometer for musical cheesiness, but whether you think MIA isnt at all cheesy (i would venture that she is, actually) and whether you consider cheese in music to have genuine merit or not (not just in a smirky, ironic, smug way).

whoah tim, with respect i think that's being pretty simplistic and i don't think that's what he was saying at all. take into account the fact that a great many people in "street" music are revealed to have pretty middle-class backgrounds (kano being one in particular) and it becomes a moot point. it's not about that kind of "ownership" as that's actually really dodgy ground anyway (the logical conclusion being that only people of certain races should be allowed to make certain styles of music and then you wouldn't have panjabi hit squad, slimzee, zed bias, dogzilla, lady sovereign, steve gurley, god knows who else coz there are too many to name). the MIA problem, and that's entirely what this has become (again!), is pretty much the way that she's placed herself in this position where she represents *so much*. it's like she's become the acceptable face of global street music and for people to mention her in the same breath as lady fury, cecile and tanya stephens is beyond ridiculous, that's all. that's why it needed interrogating. as with the "brown skin" mentioned in simon's now-infamous voice piece, there are many many different shades of experience out there and for her to be earmarked as the ambassador for them all is extremely worrying. this is what you should be concerned about blahbarian, the fact that the media, music industry, even some of the record buying public still foster the kind of environment where a tokenistic one gets through, but the rest remain ignored.

"you're totally right though that MIA is of the same "class" as the bloggers and journos who celebrate street music... the difference is she's made a record based on those interests, whereas i, for one, haven't... that's a big step, there are loads of ways you can express enthusiasm for these street musics (writing about them, starting labels, promoting events) without actually making a record based on those styles

it's not about authentic/inauthenticity per se, it's about a different kind of energy and hunger that you get from these more insular scenes as opposed to the more eclectic, cosmopolitan sensibilty bred in art school (whose products generally have more options than music as a way of making it)"

that's what happens with every genre, though. nirvana were the grunge token. life isn't fair, unfortunately. people only have so much time for music. boo hoo. Plus, if MIA were actually selling any records, as opposed to just being hyped by various hipsters, the need to "interrogate" her might feel a lot more pressing.

anyway--as a longtime observer, what i find odd about these debates is how dominated/underpinned they are by genre. it seems to be the one thing noone ever questions.

Except, of course, she's done absolutely nothing of the sort.

and out they all crawl again. bye.

Anyway I don't think you are a creepy racist or an extreme rightist nutbag. If I've implied that I apologize.

well that might be because i HAVE NEVER ONCE SAID that she is at the epicentre of anything or even that she believes that she is. stop trying being such a smartarse and read whay i'm saying. she has positioned herself, by virtue of the sources she uses alone and then by the imagery/lyrical references she employs, as a filter for dancehall, grime, favela funk etc. given the way critics (some of whom i'd have xpected better of) have jumped on this aspect of her, this is a bad thing and will work to the detriment of those artists who *are* actually working at the epicenters of said scenes. that and the fact that i just flat-out think that both the album and the mix have sounded shitty.

;) kidding!

thats not MIA's fault, that's the idiocy of mainstream editors thats to blame.

Whatever.

"Whatever You Want" really is the best song ever, isn't it? I fear I will play it at every party I am even slightly involved in from now until i die.

The irony of course about Stelfox's complaints is that they map onto a critique of rockism not popism. There's nothing about M.I.A. that makes her more likely to shift across the board; there's a million things that make her more interesting from a broadsheet angle - only, funnily enough it's not that far from the stuff that made dancehall interesting from a broadsheet angle in '04 - good beats + dodgy politics - and from the four or so articles I've seen not many in the media are likely to give her politics a free ride. The extent to which she'll fare better than dancehall in such articles boils down to the following:

1) the liberal media condemn homophobia universally and uncategorically, but approach country-specific civil warfare and insurrection on a case-by-case basis and with a great deal of handwringing
2) plus critics have been waiting for booty music to become more vaguely lefty political since Public Enemy's demise so they're primed to liked M.I.A. (Public Enemy had a lot of dodgy politics too, lest we forget, and have historically also been given more latitude for their attitudes than their less revolutionary rap peers).
3) As an individual, M.I.A. can't really be equated with the negative side of her politics (obv she is not behind the latest Tamil Tiger bombing etc.), whereas the dancehall scene's rootedness in its own geographical/social/cultural collective identity makes it harder to distinguish between the artistic and practical expression of their dodgy politics (or, obv, also makes the two easier to conflate).
4) The combination of the above means that it's a lot easier for people to mediate between their enjoyment of the music and their uncertainty wrt to the politics and find a compromise between the two; this is distinct from the radical disjuncture which is required for an educated liberal Western individual to enjoy most dancehall, where the dodgy politics form a sort of black hole in the enjoyment.

Whereas perhaps the "Dissensus Position" is the opposite of this: having spent so long acclimatizing to the dodgy politics of dancehall/grime/hip hop and working out "strategies for enjoyment", having accepted that enjoyment becomes difficult in this fashion, M.I.A.'s more palatable (to the liberal media) version of the same seems suspicious and cynically seductive. I've always had the same problem with my friends who automatically liked Public Enemy and automatically disliked all gangsta hip hop! But I recognise that my resentment doesn't stem from some objective flaw in Public Enemy's music itself.

I have some more thoughts on this but I'll have to come back.

Whatever.

Alex do you absolutely positively HAVE to have the last word in everything. I just said, let's quite it because it's boring. If you want to be a cock, then you can do it on your own. I'm not playing any more.

I'm not seeing any irony here at all, tim. i'mnot seeing this as a rockist v popist thing at all. It's just about liking and not liking a record and the reasons behind it. I think rockism and popism are pretty unhelpful red herrings in this context, anyway, especially given my feelings on the pop thread on dissensus.

Oh I didn't mean because you personally were attacking popism. Rather because Simon has framed that M.I.A. debate in those terms but yr particular elaboration of the anti-M.I.A. position (originally invoked on this thread as a sort of skeleton key for decoding his new take on the rockist/popist split) kinda contradicts him while agreeing with him, if you know what I mean. This is a fundamental root problem with Simon's assertion that popists or M.I.A. fans (whether or not you conflate the two) will adopt and discard any justification to protect their enjoyment: if you treat the anti-M.I.A. camp as having a "position" it too will look entirely contradictory and anti-theory.

" It's just about liking and not liking a record and the reasons behind it. I think rockism and popism are pretty unhelpful red herrings in this context."

I totally agree!

I find Dissensus' slowness frustrating, and I'm a little too scared of the people there (o man they have blogs I read, they know about stuff, they can drop philosophy/crittheory into their discussions...) to ever think of joining/posting, but I'm very glad it exists and I like reading it, except when I get annoyed at eg the lady sov thread.

...I'd be fascinated to hear it if he did though!

Who is borderpolice? they are indeed amazing on that pop thread. A while ago I tried to register and get into it but it wouldn't let me and now the thread has taken a direction which makes me kick myself that I didn't choose a more interesting degree and thus be able to contribute.

"i've said it before and i will say it again SHE IS NOT VERY GOOD. 1) she makes shit beats 2) she can't rap 3) she can't sing 4) i don't admire her intentions"

That is a valid argument. However that was not the way he chose to phrase his argument. He made it kind of creepy and a wee bit racist. I have not followed Dissensus so maybe he better articulated his position there but from his blog posts and the voice article it felt as if she had not "suffered enough" for her art.

He then went on to post the fact that he was in fact part Sri Lancan (see I can't be racist cause I am one too) and make a point to show that her politics (whatever they are: something about purple haze and galang alang alang) were flawed by pointing to articles about how bad the Tamil tigers are.

or maybe I just didnt read the work correctly...

http://www.woebot.com/2008/01/farewell.html

No more Woebot blog or posting, but dissensus continues.

as all that kind of stuff went, i rather liked woebot. haven't read anything he's written in about two years, mind.

He hasn't really written that much in two years actually, just a lot of record cover posting and the Woebot.tv thing.

oh, magic! i've missed sod all, then.

d

furthermore it's one of the most tortuously-written, indulgent crocks of shite I've ever struggled through

I'm saying nothing.

Hi everyone! I hope you are well? Dissensus is, I'm sure we can all agree, brilliant.

-

In a weeks time on October 12th 2009 I need to pay $500 to keep this place open. Please see this thread for a more in-depth technical discussion and explanation for the reason of the steep cost.

Last year people dug deep, however although I achieved my basic aim, I paid more than I would have liked to. If you use and enjoy the forum please remember that many small contributions amount to a generous sum of money.

Please send dollars to my Paypal account al✧✧✧@hollowea✧✧✧.o✧✧ and make sure to post on this thread and tell everyone how much you have contributed.

Best wishes,
[Your Janitor] Woebot

Dissensus is, I'm sure we can all agree, brilliant.

I luv Woebot and all that but I never look at Dissensus anymore.

some lol posts from their 'hip hop references that fly over your head' thread

craner
Beast of Burden

Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 2,753
Posted 16-09-2009, 05:24 PM #72
Why did Prodigy go to jail? I thought he was a nice middle class chap.