Old man calls us a "lone loony bunker"

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Aided and abetted by a citation from [Removed Illegal Link].

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 08:31 (eighteen years ago)

Huh?

Let's try it again: ...a citation from somebody else who hasn't written anything decent in 14 years...

http://blissout.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html#7728590621401140080

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 08:32 (eighteen years ago)

my feathers remain unruffled

is he now acknowledging that there is more than one lone loony, now?

― lex pretend, Friday, 23 February 2007 08:43 (eighteen years ago)

I think he means the bunker as a discrete entity of allegedly deluded popists.

SR's fingers-in-ears "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" concept of critical discourse is most unsexy.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 08:56 (eighteen years ago)

well it's the same attitude he takes towards listening to music too, so.

― lex pretend, Friday, 23 February 2007 09:00 (eighteen years ago)

I wish he would enable the freaking RSS feed on his blog.

― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 23 February 2007 09:01 (eighteen years ago)

Morley's wrong, Tennant's right, Reynolds is neither.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 09:29 (eighteen years ago)

[Removed Illegal Link]

What was 'illegal' about it?

― braveclub, Friday, 23 February 2007 09:56 (eighteen years ago)

Maybe he's AFRAID of us and SHAKING in his SHAKIN' STEVENS SHOES!
(copyright: form Levellers fan letter to MM circa 1991)

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 10:08 (eighteen years ago)

How do we know he means this particular lone loony bunker?

― PJ Miller, Friday, 23 February 2007 10:16 (eighteen years ago)

Once upon a time Christianity was considered a lone loony bunker and now there is Crockford's Clerical Directory REYNOLDS TAKE NOTE!

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 10:28 (eighteen years ago)

SR's fingers-in-ears "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" concept of critical discourse is most unsexy.

Marcello Carlin on Friday, 23 February 2007 08:56 (1 hour ago)

well it's the same attitude he takes towards listening to music too, so.

lex pretend on Friday, 23 February 2007 09:00 (1 hour ago)

coming from anyone else... :D

― fandango, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:01 (eighteen years ago)

i don't get it. tennant is right. who's feathers are ruffled? how do you know?

― Alan, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:08 (eighteen years ago)

tennant isn't right about a) "pop idol and reality tv rubbish" (ok a lot of this is dire but it's given us girls aloud, will young, a number of very good singles from minor acts, and I have a real soft spot for leona lewis), or b) the terrible nu-indie bands being good. but it doesn't matter what tennant thinks. he is old.

― lex pretend, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:26 (eighteen years ago)

You will be old one day Lex.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:30 (eighteen years ago)

a) girls aloud are the sole exception that proves the pop-idol-is-shite rule.

b) whether they're any good or not, arctic monkeys are pop, Pop and POP!

― m the g, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:30 (eighteen years ago)

Where does Tennant in that piece say anything about "the terrible nu-indie bands being good"? I mean, if you agree with part of his first point, and he doesn't actually say your second point at all, you pretty much agree with what he's sying, right?

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:30 (eighteen years ago)

FUCK THIS LACK OF X-POST NOTIFICATION.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:31 (eighteen years ago)

Girls Aloud are the only good "pop" act reality TV has produced in this country (Will Young and, when he can be bothered, Lemar aren't "pop"), and even they've lost it now.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:32 (eighteen years ago)

Arctic Monkeys were briefly pop until they started reading their reviews.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:33 (eighteen years ago)

Kaiser Chiefs are more pop than Arctic Monkeys.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:34 (eighteen years ago)

Iannis Xenakis is more pop than Kaiser Chiefs.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:35 (eighteen years ago)

Pop music is a genre of popular music distinguished from classical or Art music and from folk music [1]. The term indicates specific stylistic traits such as an emotional singing style, lyrics about love or sex, danceable beat, clear melodies, simple harmonies and repetitive structure so that people can catch on and join in. This is not just typical of pop music but a world-wide music tool to engage communal singing. Pop music often includes elements of rock, hip hop, reggae, dance, R&B, soul, and sometimes country, making it a flexible category. There have been examples of pop music that break the norm, such as songs about current sports events or with strong ethnic flavours. e.g. Dreadlock Holiday "I don't like cricket" by 10CC. Occasionally a purely instrumental composition makes it into the pop music charts. e.g. Music Box dancer 1970s by Frank Mills.

Well that's that sorted out then.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:36 (eighteen years ago)

Music Box dancer 1970s by Frank Mills never made it into OUR charts.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:37 (eighteen years ago)

Britain hates pop : (

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:39 (eighteen years ago)

I think you missed off the "Levi" at the end there.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:40 (eighteen years ago)

what everyone has said about pop idol/GA, and tennant didn't say they were any good, he said they were pop, even if they didn't think so.

still don't know what this is all about though

― Alan, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:42 (eighteen years ago)

he said they had fun images, and it was pretty clear he approved of them

whether they are pop or "pop" or Pop is the most boring argument possible, surely? they are no good, and that's all that matters

― lex pretend, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:47 (eighteen years ago)

Tennant has always had a populist streak along these lines - back in the mid-90s there was a thing in MOJO where he was saying "Come on, Oasis are pop - and their lyrics are great too, stop making so much fuss". As an ex Smash Hits editor I'm sure he's keenest on pop that's colourful and gives good copy. Does he listen to it when he gets home? Almost certainly not - he probably listens to Rachmaninoff.

― Groke, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:48 (eighteen years ago)

But like you said the other week, only idiots would look for right and wrong answers in music.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:49 (eighteen years ago)

xpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxp

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:49 (eighteen years ago)

'loony bunker' sounds spot on, maybe too kind.

― blueski, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:49 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.gasolinealleyantiques.com/celebrity/images/TV/bunker-cardgame.JPG

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:50 (eighteen years ago)

they DO have fun images, and i approve of them existing too. i don't much like them myself.

― Alan, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:58 (eighteen years ago)

whether they are pop or "pop" or Pop is the most boring argument possible, surely?

so 'they're INDIE and therefore bad, even though I haven't heard them' is a fascinating one?

― m the g, Friday, 23 February 2007 12:00 (eighteen years ago)

The point is Reynolds using Tennant's quote as further anti-pop ammunition. SAY NO TO WIRE DISSENSUS NANNY STATE!

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 12:05 (eighteen years ago)

Xenomania have lost the dressing room when it comes to the Wire/Dissensus crowd.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 12:07 (eighteen years ago)

The Wire/Dissensus crowd have lost the dressing room when it comes to the rest of the planet.

"The tide is turning"...turning to WHAT?

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 12:08 (eighteen years ago)

OUT: POP!, FREAK FOLK, "ELECTRO"
IN: EMO, NU-RAVE, DUBSTEP-METAL

― fandango, Friday, 23 February 2007 12:14 (eighteen years ago)

I've got four out of those six ticked.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 12:14 (eighteen years ago)

Any update on the Vini Reilly as Robot President situation?

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 12:16 (eighteen years ago)

This all reminds me of the pointless argument I had a few wks back with a writer who berated "popist critics" (placed in scare quotes because despite repeated attempts to draw it out of him, he refused to name a single one) for their apparent "hypocrisy" when it comes to American Idol. Meaning, any popists who dismiss AI as the mediocre crap it mostly is, are merely proving that they themselves clearly don't believe in their own agenda. You call yourself a popist and yet you don't wax enthusiastic about Fantasia or Taylor Hicks? What hypocrisy!! (Never mind that despising most AI music has nothing to do with principal, but rather, with evidence.)

All Tennant is saying in that quote is that it's foolish to think pop music begins and ends with reality television. In what universe are the Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand NOT considered pop?? In what universe is rock and roll itself not considered pop? Weird.

― sw00ds, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:13 (eighteen years ago)

It's the other one who listens to Rachmnaninoff!

I think.

― PJ Miller, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:15 (eighteen years ago)

Apart from one single Franz Ferdinand are rock, as such, rather than pop, as such.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:16 (eighteen years ago)

And even that single is debatable.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:16 (eighteen years ago)

"Take Me Out", "Matinee", and "Do You Want To" are all clearly pop.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:16 (eighteen years ago)

And yeah, as Marcello says above, what nonsense, trying to use Tennant's comment as proof that "the tide is turning." It's like as a known Pet Shop Boys hater he's engaged in all out warfare on the popists: "I've got Tennant on my side now you bastards!"

― sw00ds, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:17 (eighteen years ago)

(really wish this x-post thing worked)

Apart from one single Franz Ferdinand are rock, as such, rather than pop, as such.

What's the distinction, Marcello? I seriously dont' get that at all.

― sw00ds, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:18 (eighteen years ago)

As evinced by his writing in Blissed Out, he couldn't stand the PSBs 20 years ago either, which I immediately identified as a fatal flaw in his theory, but would he listen to me? Oh no...

It's unclear whether those FF tunes are clear pop or rock mimicking pop, whereas, say, "Sour Suite" is pop and "American Woman" pop (and btw, Scott, how the F did Burton C and the boys get from A to B?).

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:19 (eighteen years ago)

sorry I meant "American Woman" is rock...

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:20 (eighteen years ago)

What's more pop than pretending to be pop, though? Ie, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" is a more pop song than "Jump To The Beat"

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:21 (eighteen years ago)

Ah no, I'd call "Every Rose" rock because it crosses over to MoR status while bypassing pop entirely.

Or, to paraphrase one thing Reynolds did get right (or was it Stubbs?), the Mary Chain were pop and Nik Kershaw rock.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:23 (eighteen years ago)

the trouble is everyone is using different defns of "pop" none of which are consistent/coherent/interesting/important, and using them as a stick with which to beat everyone else.

nu-indie is pop in that it gets in the charts, is popular, inc with "the kids" (the lamer ones anyway) &c &c
nu-indie is not particularly pop in terms of production or (more debatably) how it's sold - you could not confuse it with samantha mumba, liberty x, steps, britney and so on (however this is probably where "it's pretending to be rock when really it's pop" comes in)
nu-indie is not pop sonically, if pop and rock are opposing sonic terms, though this is not helped by the way that they're increasingly not, and indeed "pop" artists like ashlee simpson and lindsay lohan are making music which is heavier and darker and rockier than kaiser chiefs or franz ferdinand

nu-indie is, however, thoroughly shit, of that i can be sure

― lex pretend, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:25 (eighteen years ago)

"American Woman"--hmm, I dunno, it was a top 40 hit, I can definitely hear bubblegum in the rhythm, there were all sorts of riffy songs like that going on at the time--it was part of a moment, in a way. Yeah, it's mostly thought of now as a "rock classic," but most rock classics to me are still pop. ("Sour Suite" is indeed a masterpiece however you look at it.)

― sw00ds, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:27 (eighteen years ago)

whatever you think of the music that emerges from a typical episode of American Idol it's a more fascinating way to spend an hour than say, listening to a Girls Aloud album

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:29 (eighteen years ago)

I'm guessing there are cultural differences at work here, to be honest. As a blanket statement, I'm going to say that North Americans don't make these finite distinctions.

― sw00ds, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:30 (eighteen years ago)

whatever you think of the music that emerges from a typical episode of American Idol it's a more fascinating way to spend an hour than say, listening to a Girls Aloud album

Won't comment on GA specifically, as I've loved one song, liked a couple others, and hated yet some others, but I've ALWAYS said that AI has everything to do with great television and very little to do with great music.

― sw00ds, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:31 (eighteen years ago)

nu-indie is not pop sonically

Southall, get over here, quick.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:32 (eighteen years ago)

Won't comment on GA specifically, as I've loved one song, liked a couple others, and hated yet some others, but I've ALWAYS said that AI has everything to do with great television and very little to do with great music.

it has tons to do with MUSIC, though (whether or not you like the (sometimes very good) amateur renditions of the songs). it's just about the only space in the US for negotiation of what consitutes the rapidly-vanishing (already vanished?) mainstream of american song and performace; every show is a renegotiation of it

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:37 (eighteen years ago)

Or, if you take my admittedly biased and second-remove perspective, it's The Gong Show with added dry ice.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:38 (eighteen years ago)

I was wrong about it being the other one. I do apologise for the complete lack of confusion caused.

― PJ Miller, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:40 (eighteen years ago)

I don't understand what you're saying Tracer - mainstream American music wouldn't exist without AI?

― sw00ds, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:41 (eighteen years ago)

Jolson?

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:43 (eighteen years ago)

I think Tracer means that AI is all that America has left of the "classic" idea of pop music, Sinatra and Bobby Darrin showmen erlying on their voice kinda stuff.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:43 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah but they've got Rod Stewart and Barry Manilow for that now.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:45 (eighteen years ago)

I just don't get Simon these days, so many inconsistencies, how can he big up the Klaxons one week then admit "the tide is turning" the next...

If the tide were turning how would jump up and down indie suddenly qualify as not being pop? How are the Arctic Monkeys and co anything but pop if you're taking a genuinely rockist slant on things? Perhaps they may seem less frivolous than a manufactured pop act if SR is arguing with ILM Strawman 101, but others would look on and say "all of these acts are pop".

Isn't this a big hole with this new rockism stuff? That basically it's "I like these because they are rockist, therefore they are rockist"

― Ronan, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:48 (eighteen years ago)

Jolson

heh--I see the makings of a Wayans parody in this.

Thanks, Dom. I kinda see that point in a way, but if true, isn't AI more a revival of something already passed rather than keeping something still breathing alive? Where was this tradition being upheld in the years between, I dunno, whenever that stuff faded from the landscape entirely (late '70s?) and the arrival of AI?

― sw00ds, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:48 (eighteen years ago)

i'm still waiting for anyone to point me towards ANY worthwhile thing reynolds has ever written btw! an article would do. i don't read rock crit books.

― lex pretend, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:49 (eighteen years ago)

ah, maybe Marcello already answered it: Manilow, Stewart, et al.

― sw00ds, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:49 (eighteen years ago)

I should clarify I have a lot of respect for Simon and don't like to have a go at him personally (or see this)...just don't agree with him about music very often.

― Ronan, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:52 (eighteen years ago)

Isn't this a big hole with this new rockism stuff? That basically it's "I like these because they are rockist, therefore they are rockist"

New Rockism (if we take it at its most ridiculous) is basically the attitudes of Popism applied to rock (ie, "This is rock/pop because I like it, I like it because it's rock/pop". Thinking that any two genres at all are in direct opposition to each other in 2007 is the act of a madman.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:53 (eighteen years ago)

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:55 (eighteen years ago)

I do think, however, that arsequake would have been a better name for the genre than grunge.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 14:58 (eighteen years ago)

dom's talkin' major make-sense blues here.

― sw00ds, Friday, 23 February 2007 15:09 (eighteen years ago)

nu-indie is pop
nu-indie is not pop
nu-indie is pop
nu-indie is not pop
nu-indie is pop
nu-indie is not pop
nu-indie is pop
nu-indie is not pop
etc

'nu-indie' is at the least structurally pop - it places a high premium on catchiness and mass appeal, after all. we're still talking about concise, three-to-four-minute melodic verse-chorus-verse songs with vocals and lyrics, that you can hum along to should you be so inclined/bored.

― m the g, Friday, 23 February 2007 15:13 (eighteen years ago)

bands are not genres

― blueski, Friday, 23 February 2007 15:16 (eighteen years ago)

Bands form genres or genres form bands?

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 February 2007 15:17 (eighteen years ago)

OTM.

Don't see how praising the Arctic Monkeys and the Klaxons over I dunno, WHOEVER is even in the pop charts makes a difference. Except that SR has decided to feel ok about blatantly believing rock music to be the superior artform all over again in the last year or so. The same way it's ok for Arctic Monkeys to not be futurist but when an electronic act does this they have betrayed the hatehouse continuum...

― Ronan, Friday, 23 February 2007 15:18 (eighteen years ago)

x-post to m the g there...

― Ronan, Friday, 23 February 2007 15:18 (eighteen years ago)

Critics form genres
Bands form bands

― blueski, Friday, 23 February 2007 15:20 (eighteen years ago)

surely some bands form with a sound / image / genre in mind. coming from a dance background you must recognize that people don't just accidently make tracks within certain sub-genres. once the genre is there it gets mined. perhaps the critics do the semantic work though.

― acrobat, Friday, 23 February 2007 15:26 (eighteen years ago)

people don't just accidently make tracks within certain sub-genres. once the genre is there it gets mined.

I was once lucky enough to be in a room with two dance music producers collaborating on a track when the following conversation took place:

"what about this breakdown? do you think that works?"

"yeah, that's fine. I've heard it done before."

cue sobbing and despair from me.

― m the g, Friday, 23 February 2007 15:43 (eighteen years ago)

American Bandstand lasted until what, the late 80s? And the credibility/interestingness/currency of Top 40 radio countdowns lasted about as long, maybe a touch longer, until we got to The Pinefox's 1990/Time for the Souffle. (I would do an accented e there but NU BOARD grumble grumble)

I have to confess that the quote Marcello quotes Reynolds quoting from Tennant reads to me like it comes from another planet, I just don't understand what internecine argument he's getting at (though it seems you all do). I mean "We are going through a phase where the term 'pop' is used to mean rubbish" - setting aside the question of WHO uses it this way - nice on the passive voice there, Neil - hasn't this phase lasted approx. 40 years and counting? "But bands like the Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, The Killers and Franz Ferdinand make pop music." BUT?? The mind reels

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 23 February 2007 16:24 (eighteen years ago)

Perhaps NT is making a very subtle dig, then.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 February 2007 16:25 (eighteen years ago)

i'm still waiting for anyone to point me towards ANY worthwhile thing reynolds has ever written btw! an article would do. i don't read rock crit books.

Read Energy Flash. It's not a 'rock crit book'.

― braveclub, Friday, 23 February 2007 16:28 (eighteen years ago)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c0/The_Moon_Is_A_Harsh_Mistress_(book).jpg/200px-The_Moon_Is_A_Harsh_Mistress_(book).jpg

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 23 February 2007 16:28 (eighteen years ago)

I think Reynolds (like much of ILM, in fact) prefers his "pop" when it's framed in terms of genres, movements, scenes, legacies that he himself understands or has taken a part in. I think there's always a kind of fear that anything that unnerves, anything that you are uncomfortable with _can't_ be pop, which is a step backwards in thinking.

Dom Passantino on Friday, February 23, 2007 8:55 AM (2 hours ago)

Dom wins thread. Up to there I was mentally protesting "but he spends 300 pages on New Pop in Rip it Up, what the hell is going on?!"

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 23 February 2007 17:42 (eighteen years ago)

I'm totally missing the contextual argument here, too, though if ILM is the "lone-looney bunker" then Reynolds would seem to be right about the feather-ruffling.

Tennant's being "old" is actually pretty instructive here, I think, because he can more credibly look back at an era where people didn't insist rock bands and pop music were somehow in opposition to one another: if Duran Duran were a pop band, then Franz Ferdinand are a pop band. What he's encouraging would seem to be basically the same situation the Pet Shop Boys hit big in -- a fairly varied field of music where most everything was just considered "pop," jostling for chart position on the same terms, and seemingly equal amounts of it came from "independently constructed" acts versus established pop stars & TV personalities & top-down pop-act stuff.

― nabisco, Friday, 23 February 2007 17:45 (eighteen years ago)

Maybe part of the issue is that these days -- unlike during the New Pop era, or the rave era -- the UK would seem to have less bottom-up "formed a band" playing genres OTHER than rock. (There's grime and such, but pop-wise, isn't that still somewhat roped off as its own thing?) Which lets the rock bands read as somehow functionally different than everything else.

Compared to, say, the 80s period when rock bands might be either "independent" or huge established glitzy label stars -- and synth or dance acts might be either "independent" or ditto -- such that it would all have to read as just "pop music."

― nabisco, Friday, 23 February 2007 17:52 (eighteen years ago)

i'm still waiting for anyone to point me towards ANY worthwhile thing reynolds has ever written btw! an article would do. i don't read rock crit books.

lex pretend on Friday, 23 February 2007 14:49 (3 hours ago)

So, have you read anything by Reynolds on non-rock (as someone noted above)? And also, is there any 'rock' you listen to? Not to defend Reynolds on the comments at issue, but bragging about your lack of familiarity with his writing and with rock music books in general doesn't exactly help your arguments.

― curmudgeon, Friday, 23 February 2007 18:35 (eighteen years ago)

i'm still waiting for anyone to point me toward ANY worthwhile thing Orson Welles has ever directed btw! a tv commercial would do. i don't watch feature films.

― nabisco, Friday, 23 February 2007 19:15 (eighteen years ago)

lex do you have job in the not knowing stuff industry?

― M@tt He1ges0n, Friday, 23 February 2007 19:31 (eighteen years ago)

there should be a reality show with tuomas and lex!

tuomas: what are you doing lex?

lex: tying my shoes...

tuomas: what are these "shoes" you speak about?

lex: they're for your feet, you wear them...

tuomas: is that the things that michael jordan sells?

lex: michael who?

tuomas: michael jordan, he is a famous american basketball player...

lex: i LOVED "this is how we do it"! i'd like to hear paris sing it...

― M@tt He1ges0n, Friday, 23 February 2007 19:35 (eighteen years ago)

you conveniently forget the stuff i do know. the only reason this has become a meme is because i'm not into pretending to know stuff i don't. i've read lots of reynolds' stuff this decade, on everything from lil' kim and destiny's child to scritti politti to house music, and even when i agree with it his take on it and his tone rub me the wrong way. it annoys me unduly because so many people i know & like & respect revere him (eg ronan!), STILL, even after the 9472719 clueless/phony/just plain idiotic things he's spouted.

99% of what i read is fiction, whenever i try non-fiction it just...doesn't grab me.

― lex pretend, Friday, 23 February 2007 19:46 (eighteen years ago)

weren't duran duran perceived as fairly naff at the time? franz ferdinand, whether pop or rock, are v definitely credible. credible vs non-credible may be a more useful binary than rock vs pop; in that all the nu-indie talked about upthread is firmly on the credible side (regardless of how pop-popular or pop-sonically it is) while ashlee and lindsay and paris are on the non-credible side (regardless of how dark/heavy their sound).

credible to whom would be a good qn, maybe some combination of "public at large" and "majority of critics".

― lex pretend, Friday, 23 February 2007 19:50 (eighteen years ago)

weren't duran duran perceived as fairly naff at the time?

There's always Paul Morley to read. (It's nonfiction, though.)

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 23 February 2007 19:51 (eighteen years ago)

i tried to read words and music and THREW IT ACROSS THE ROOM a quarter of the way through. it would have been nice if he had turned his NOTES TOWARDS A BOOK into an ACTUAL BOOK, i would have liked to read the finished ideas.

― lex pretend, Friday, 23 February 2007 19:53 (eighteen years ago)

Actually I was referring to his interview with Duran in Ask. But hey.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 23 February 2007 19:55 (eighteen years ago)

you conveniently forget the stuff i do know. the only reason this has become a meme is because i'm not into pretending to know stuff i don't.

so is there no middle ground, as you see it, between looking up unfamiliar references on Wikipedia and faking like you knew what it was all along, and loudly declaring that you have no idea what that is and it must not be very good anyway if you don't? or, god forbid, maybe not saying anything when you're out of depth?

99% of what i read is fiction

it's very tempting to go for the easy gag here and replace "read" with "write"

― Alex in Baltimore, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:02 (eighteen years ago)

weren't duran duran perceived as fairly naff at the time

plz to read Dave Rimmer's Like Punk Never Happened or if you can find it EMAP's The Best of Smash Hits published around 1986. note to lex: these tomes do not qualify as rock criticism.

― m coleman, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:07 (eighteen years ago)

It's nonfiction, though

just when i thought this thread couldn't possibly get any courvoisierer or ,indeed, courvousiererer

― t**t, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:10 (eighteen years ago)

So Lex know nothing about rock and does not want to know anything about rock but wants us to take his opinions on rock-informed nu-indie music seriously.

Which is more annoying, Lex's comments here, or the specific Reynolds blogged comments referenced at top.

― curmudgeon, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:13 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, Lex, I guess my point was that your "credible / non-credible" split currently lines up with "rock / pop" pretty heavily, or at least more heavily than it did when, say, Tennant first joined the pop charts. (Maybe this is just bad hindsight on my part, but it seems like at that point rock contained both "credible" bands and "non-credible" light rock / aging rock stars / etc. AND dance-pop and synth groups contained both "credible" acts and "non-credible" fluff. If anything, the least "credible" pop acts of the era played a really floofy mix of rock and dance-pop, all those bands with squishy keyboards + guitar solos, or lightly dancey rock like Rod Stewart was making around "Young Turks" and stuff.) (I love "Young Turks," BTW, just saying it's not "credible.")

Again, though, I'm not sure how grime currently fits into this -- I'm assuming it's a bit like rock, a "credible" outside genre that's seen as occasionally making its way into the pop charts but not really a part of pop? (That seems to be the definition of "credibility," this sense that something just incidentally winds up on the charts, through sales, but is some kind of interloper or outside there, as opposed to the popular kids whose party the charts normally are.)

― nabisco, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:18 (eighteen years ago)

Credibility is the believability of a statement, action, or source, and the propensity of the observer to believe that statement.

In public speaking, Aristotle considered the credibility of the speaker, his character, to be one of the forms of proof. Contemporary social science research has generally found that there are several dimensions of credibility. Berlo and Lemert (1961) noted three: competence, trustworthiness and dynamism.

― m coleman, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:24 (eighteen years ago)

Hahaha M are you channeling some "what is this use of the word 'credibility' in a music-jargon context" spirit? The "trustworthiness" component there is closest to the chart issue, though there's also an issue of how broadly or narrowly something is targeted. Franz Ferdinand might seem "credible" as a charting act because to the ears of their fans, they're an indie band targeting an indie audience, who only incidentally happen to sell so many records that they brush through the pop charts (as a sort of anomaly) -- as opposed to an r&b singer, who is seen as a creature of the charts from the get-go, and therefore aiming / pandering for as broad an appeal as possible (and therefore can't be trusted!). The only exceptions I can think of to that split are the very rare Huge Rock Band who are still seen by lots of people as "credible" even at a point where they're expected to dominate charts -- and even that is usually based on their having established outsider cred before the fact.

― nabisco, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:31 (eighteen years ago)

Again, though, I'm not sure how grime currently fits into this -- I'm assuming it's a bit like rock, a "credible" outside genre that's seen as occasionally making its way into the pop charts but not really a part of pop?

i'm not sure grime really fits into anything any more :( although from a uk perspective there's always been a, er, weird attitude towards black street music, even including hip-hop now! (grime was probably perceived by the general public to be a slightly scarier version of hip-hop.) i think people accept it as credible but with a lot of reluctance and suspicion and residual "well i don't want to LISTEN to it". there's an element of acceptance but only within limits - everyone loves songs like 'gold digger' and '1 thing' but the "huh, so much urban music clogging up the charts" attitude is widespread.

(That seems to be the definition of "credibility," this sense that something just incidentally winds up on the charts, through sales, but is some kind of interloper or outside there, as opposed to the popular kids whose party the charts normally are.)

i guess this is what's really changed latterly - i don't think anyone would argue that franz ferdinand or the kaiser chiefs are out-of-place in the charts, or that they have at least one eye on getting into them in the first place. (though unlike hip-hop artists, nu-indies are careful not to make it ALL about commercial success.) (and again instructive to return to lindsay and paris, who seem like the couldn't care less about their chart placings! they have more important things to think about, like parties and such. indeed thee was far less criticism of them in the "manufactured commercial pap designed to brainwash kids" vein that pop stars used to get as a matter of course...)

― lex pretend, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:34 (eighteen years ago)

yeah I've never completely understood this use of "credibility" -- are musicians really so calculating about their potential audience? outside of neurotic indie true-believers like Cobain, I wonder...

― m coleman, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:35 (eighteen years ago)

The only exceptions I can think of to that split are the very rare Huge Rock Band who are still seen by lots of people as "credible" even at a point where they're expected to dominate charts -- and even that is usually based on their having established outsider cred before the fact.

eg oasis!

r&b is a weird genre which suffers from falling in the middle of all these value judgments. it's of and for the charts, much more so than hip-hop, and doesn't keep it 'real' according to most people's definitions of realness - BUT r&b singers will constantly assert their artistry, and in most cases there's a v obvious talent at work (usually the voice, sometimes the production), and they're nowhere near close to being lumped in with britney, s club 7 etc.

― lex pretend, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:38 (eighteen years ago)

At this point I have a request for our fans. If any of you in any way hate indie credibility, rockism, or Simon Reynolds, please do this one favor for us -- leave us the fuck alone!

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:40 (eighteen years ago)

"i'm still waiting for anyone to point me toward ANY worthwhile thing Orson Welles has ever directed btw! a tv commercial would do. i don't watch feature films.

nabisco on Friday, 23 February 2007 19:15 (1 hour ago)"

here nabisco is on the verge of being so off the money it would actually destroy the effect of all his otm posts.

wait. you don't watch films?

― Frogman Henry, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:41 (eighteen years ago)

i don't think ronan reveres simon reynolds for some reason

― strongohulkington, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:42 (eighteen years ago)

he was parodying a previous post by lex

― m coleman, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:43 (eighteen years ago)

o fuck, he was?

― Frogman Henry, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:44 (eighteen years ago)

he was.

― Frogman Henry, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:44 (eighteen years ago)

you're almost there, frogman!

― nabisco, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:44 (eighteen years ago)

nabisco and the lex have kind of a danny devito/arnold thing going on

― strongohulkington, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:46 (eighteen years ago)

not that i can figure out who is who

― strongohulkington, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:46 (eighteen years ago)

frogman in taking teh internets at face value shocka :P

― unfished business, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:47 (eighteen years ago)

CURSES

― Frogman Henry, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:50 (eighteen years ago)

http://kisrael.com/journal.aux/2005.02.19.gargamel.jpg

― Frogman Henry, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:52 (eighteen years ago)

http://msnbcmedia2.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/Photos/070220_070226/070222_ArnieAndJohn_wide.hlarge.jpg

― m coleman, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:53 (eighteen years ago)

But this quote is soooo true:

"We are going through a phase where the term 'pop' is used to mean rubbish. But bands like the Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, The Killers and Franz Ferdinand make pop music. They like to think they are rock but they are pop and all have a sense of fun about what they do and have a great look. It annoys me that pop gets clogged up with Pop Idol and reality TV rubbish."

― Geir Hongro, Friday, 23 February 2007 21:16 (eighteen years ago)

BUT r&b singers will constantly assert their artistry, and in most cases there's a v obvious talent at work (usually the voice, sometimes the production), and they're nowhere near close to being lumped in with britney, s club 7 etc.

Well, Britney - at least during her Max Martin period when she was still occasionally releasing great pop singles - doesn't deserve to be lumped with the unlistenable crap that is modern R&B.

― Geir Hongro, Friday, 23 February 2007 21:19 (eighteen years ago)

HI GEIR HONGRO

― nabisco, Friday, 23 February 2007 21:20 (eighteen years ago)

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 23 February 2007 21:35 (eighteen years ago)

GEIR IS BACK
AND IT FEELS SO GOOD

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 23 February 2007 21:40 (eighteen years ago)

I can't believe it didn't occur to me to snap up the "Geir Hongro" login and screw with everyone. :(

― nabisco, Friday, 23 February 2007 21:56 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.gasolinealleyantiques.com/celebrity/images/TV/bunker-cardgame.JPG

― Bimble, Saturday, 24 February 2007 09:23 (eighteen years ago)

"Wednesday Night Is Devil Worship"

― Bimble, Saturday, 24 February 2007 09:25 (eighteen years ago)

yeah I don't revere Simon! I just don't think ugly angry attacks on him are so great either. I do occasionally think the bits of music writing he probably tosses up in 30 seconds are more readable and interesting than a lot of pieces people, myself included, spend hours on.

Actually the more I think about it, usually Simon's really great stuff is that sort of half baked one liner that makes you think.

― Ronan, Monday, 26 February 2007 15:11 (eighteen years ago)

Is there really any popist criticism any more?

Apart from Lex?

Or is it "popist criticism" even to say that you like a random pop album or song?

The point upthread that Girls Aloud are like a weird exception to Pop Idol phenomena is OTM - Girls Aloud are pretty much the last kind of pop group you'd actually expect to emerge from such a show. This is a difference in kind more than quality (although Girls Aloud are better than most Pop Idol acts, yes).

― Tim F, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 07:34 (eighteen years ago)

why more so than liberty x?

― 688, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 08:56 (eighteen years ago)

Those canes!

Tim, are you saying that Lex is the Lone Loony Bunker?

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 09:19 (eighteen years ago)

the last few Blissblog posts are kinda infuriating...why must every genre be reconciled with music Simon already likes? I mean seriously how far from these genres he used to like does he have to drift before saying "ok I no longer like that, I am enjoying this now, there is no continuum".

Also the sales of Mixmag are hardly indicative of anything except the fact is that dance music is the genre most aided by online places, because the "new" element is still the most important and magazines just can't compete on this front.

When, at any point, has there been a golden age of dance music criticism anyway (except perhaps in sales, and in a world with no internet, of course people are gonna buy mags, any fucking mags).

Also as for "vibe", once again people get "vibe" now by logging on to the forum of their favourite nightclub and mocking each other about the records different people like or by posting pictures of each other gurning or something...mags like Mixmag only chance seems to be to tell people who are incapable of spotting musical trends that there is some gigantic uber shift in house or techno fashion every few months (usually one that's already happened, eg this month "the djs who'll play anything to get the floor moving", see jockey slut 2002)

If Kerrang is really selling huge numbers, (86000 a month might be twice what Mixmag sells but relative to a world with millions of music fans it's a pretty pathetic difference) it's probably just a matter of demographics not cultural meaning. I seriously don't think you can read anything into what's popular by magazine sales nowadays, everything is happening online.

― Ronan, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 10:09 (eighteen years ago)

i dont think magazine sales mean anything in dance music at all. how many 'dance' magazines were actually sold in 88-92 anyhow? dance magazines only ever sold because of pictures and listings anyhow, thats the whole reason jockey slut and their ilk came up, to be 'serious', or, 'serious about their hedonism', whatever that means,...authentic gurning? and is it any coincidence the highest sales of dance mags (middish to late 90s) were at same time as overgrounded fluffy/glammy house and pictures of girls in little outfits?

the audience for dance music is extremely city-centred now, in a way it just wasnt for a long long time. this is why, arguably, kerrang is doing well, because its not restricted to cities, the rock/metal scene...its popular in kendal, scarboro, wrexham, telford. this just isn't true of dance music. and if you've ever been to any dance clubs in london for example, you'll see a large proportion of the crowd is english as 2nd language anyway, mainly europe/south america

― 688, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 10:28 (eighteen years ago)

that is to say, i dont think its an insignificant difference, i would *totally* expect kerrang to wipe the floor with mixmag. to be honest, i thought mixmag had folded a few years ago, i haven't noticed it in the newsagent in a long while

― 688, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 10:30 (eighteen years ago)

I agree with that post 110 percent.

As I say...when have dance music magazines been amazingly successful?

If anything they've been phased out by a system of news/information distribution that is far more efficient and conducive to a healthy scene....

― Ronan, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 10:30 (eighteen years ago)

Mixmag used to sell over 100,000 a month at one point (long ago) I think? but I could be wrong there. I just remember being annoyed that it was the best-selling one.

― blueski, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 11:13 (eighteen years ago)

Mixag sells 30,000 an issue currently, which means it's fell behind RWD in sales figures.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 11:20 (eighteen years ago)

I also didn't realise how heavily Kerrang was beating NME sales figure wise either, 85k plays 73k.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 11:21 (eighteen years ago)

actually, im pretty sure you did! you've definitely posted figures along those lines before

― 688, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 11:23 (eighteen years ago)

I enjoy ABC figures, what can I say?

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 11:24 (eighteen years ago)

Mixmag in selling fewer issues now it's owned by a small independent publishing company shocker...

― braveclub, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 11:59 (eighteen years ago)

"and is it any coincidence the highest sales of dance mags (middish to late 90s) were at same time as overgrounded fluffy/glammy house and pictures of girls in little outfits?"

I think this is relevant in another way insofar as that dance music just doesn't have the same (or, at least, as strong) "lifestyle option" association as I think it had in the late 90s.

Specific scenes do - can we think of a certain type of person as being a stereotypical drum & bass / electro-house / minimal / trance fan etc. - but in the late 90s the twin dominance of disco-house and trance served to create a unified image of the dance music enthusiast as an anti-auteurist consumer hedonist on the next flight to Ibiza (on the anti-auteurist point: surely the late 90s would have been the height of large amounts of people being "into" the music in the sense of going out to certain clubs regularly without being "into" the music in terms of actually following the genres). There's a variable consumer/hedonist vibe still to almost all dance scenes but it doesn't have that clarity of articulation anymore.

Even mainstream dance mags' residual function as repositories of photos of last weekend's big nights out has been superseded by myspace and related sources.

"why more so than liberty x?"

Liberty X don't have a particularly strong group personality though, at least from where I'm sitting - they're like a lot of that very first run of Popstars groups like Hear'say, and Scandal'us and Bardot over here in Australia, where the most that was aspired to was creating a group that could do a convincing imitation of a pop act - it's a very second tier aspiration (that said Liberty X had two great songs in "Just A Little Bit" and "Being Nobody"). The equivalent would be an Idol contestant saying they want to be the next Samantha Mumba. This doesn't happen though, because the entire Idol project is so much more humanist: whatever the judges may say, the idea is not to fashion credible pop stars but to endear you to particular performers. Popstars wants you to identify the particular (groups of) performers with the pop music industry, whereas Pop Idol wants you to identify particular performers as distinct from the pop music industry. Both processes tend to create flawed artists because the former rarely inspires you to care, whereas the latter inspries you to care for something which can only exist within the framework of the show itself - pretty much the only way to be successful long-term is to press the reset button on the second album, as Kelly did, and present yourself as an essentially new proposition.

Girls Aloud are a different category again because - even had their music turned out not to be very good - their angle was so clearly defined from the beginning as being the pop music industry against itself, as if they're simultaneously trying to fulfil and evade both standards by which reality tv pop stars might be judged

"The pop music industry against itself" isn't a novel idea - people use this line to talk about stars like Avril and even latterday Justin. But most of the time this is done via an alleged subversion of industry by personality (e.g. Justin's hypothetical handlers urges him to 'play it safe', but he ignores them and works with Timbaland because he's a restlessly artistic and cool person); whereas Girls Aloud is more like a subversion of personality by industry, the singers being given odd material which they don't understand by shadowy pop music svengalis, whose purposes are their own.

― Tim F, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 04:05 (eighteen years ago)

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