The Canon

2. if it's to be accepted as an artform in it's own right: why is this desirable?

3. Have an explore here: http://ilx.wh3rd.net/category.php?catid=28

(mark you have no idea how hard it is to write now with the knowledge you'll be watching!!)

luckily for everyone it is time for me to go home!!

I think if it were a big database, it would be very useful to the aliens who study our species thousands of years from now.

Having said that, I do find it had to deny that both Astral Weeks and Revolver - which usually end up somewhere in the top 3 - shouldn't be in anyone's stab at which bits of mucis people will still be coming back to in a couple of hundred years time. I have no doubt I will be, if I'm around.

custos between this and the streets thread, i'm beginning to wish horrible voodoo-like curses on you.
Well, lissen here, mister man, I've OW! WTF? OWWWW! AGHH! EOOWWW!

ps - all this without searching the site! For all I know at the moment, I'm way off about the non-believers.

yeah, use that, I've had a couple of 'discussions' with mark on this one and we don't need anymore (and I only knew what he was on abt until someone else, i forget who, explained on another thread in relation to the cannon).

''There ARE accepted high points in popular music (Sgt. Pepper, Blonde on Blonde, Velvet Underground and Nico, Nevermind, Catch A Fire, Selected Ambient Works, It Takes a Nation of Millions)''

The velvets are not really popular music, nor is the aphid twin.

I think ppl viewed Run DMC as more important than public enemy.

clearly they cannot all be substituted one for another: yet they *can* all be substituted for "influences" or "is influenced by"

i have no problem with ANY of the above non-i words or phrases, or any of a dozen other (contradictory) synonyms

Okay. That works.
But wou;dn't have made more sense to say: "Influenced? Influenced HOW? The word 'Influence' is to Vague."
Saying "influence doesn't exist" isn't the same thing as saying "the WORD 'influence' is too vague to be useful."

It certainly isn't as clear.

saying "influence doesn't exist" is more useful than saying "the WORD 'influence' is too vague to be useful"
Okay. I'll try to remember that.

yeah man that's it just leave it alone. You'll thank me for it!

I'll stop posting for a while after this one (hold your applause), but:

Is it laziness or honesty? I mean, you could make an exercise of discussing Interpol, say, without using the JD word. But what's the point if those words will be on the tip of the tongue for the "clued-in" (or whatever) listener upon hearing the music?

And if you feel an imitation is of inferior quality, is there something wrong with pointing the possible "un-clued-in" listener to the original artifact? It seems like a good thing to do.

And if you feel an imitation is of inferior quality, is there something wrong with pointing the possible "un-clued-in" listener to the original artifact? It seems like a good thing to do.

I think laziness was the wrong word to use. What worried me was the way that people tend use, for instance, "Interpol want to be Joy Division" as a replacement for actually looking at the band themselves. Are they succesful at sounding like JD? Do they want to sound like JD? What differences are there? What's the relevance? There's a whole raft of questions you can talk about there, and actually look at in some depth (there's at least 1,000 words in just those questions, off the top of my head). So just going "Ahhhhh it sounds like "Transmission" is, to me, wrong.

if you think Interpol is "an imitation of inferior quality", then you should say that: it's a much stronger, more focussed criticism, so why use a word which simultaneously means — not to mention all the OTHER things it impossibly means — "inferior imitation of" *and* "infused with the radical spirit of". Even if the project in question manifests both qualities at once (this seems a bit unlike, gbut for the sake of argument), then SAY BOTH. Then you've said something valuable, which people can argue with.

Re:

the word "imitates" is clear
the word "inspires" is clear
the phrase "inspires imitators" is clear
the phrase "has power over" is clear
the phrase "would rather die than be connected with" is clear
the phrase "believes in" is clear
the phrase "affects" is clear
the phrase "has impact on" is clear

clearly they cannot all be substituted one for another: yet they *can* all be substituted for "influences" or "is influenced by"

I would say that you're guilty of gross oversimplification in the case of a highly complex interrogation which you yourself highlight with these classifications. Clearly, for example, 'believes in' and 'influence' are NOT interchangeable.

Also: The word 'Believes in' is clear??? Who too? Not fucking me man. Affects??? These terms are no less slippery than influence, surely Shirly?

Influence exists. We are all influenced. Perhaps what you identify is the means through which we experience influence. I mean no one is suggesting influence is exerted as some sort of universal projection.

Whaddayasay?

"believes in" can be substituted for "is influenced by" in some circumstances

plainly they are not "interchangeable", or i wd be saying "belief" didn't exist"

that list suffers somewhat from random switching between active to passive inflection (but actually this is an intrinsic problem in the matter of influence: who has power over who, and what's at issue)

it is precisely announcements like "we are all influenced" which make it necessary to retire the word: it is vastly pompous yet empty of useable content => "we all have skin, therefore interpol suck"

if we are trying to pin down what is particular to interpol, why begin with a characteristic they share with everyone

if there's a relationship betweeen interpol and joy division, tell me what it actually is: "influence" tells me nothing => even if you take it to be a thing which exists, it HAS to be further qualified,

the list isn't remotely exhaustive: but the popint wd be made if it just had two actively contradictory meanings

use other words please

**why do we have to moan when the above albums are named in best 100 album polls?**

I moan because the lists are usually so unrepresentative. There are surely many, many, more music fans who couldn't give a shit about Blonde on Blonde or The Doors or Astral Weeks or The bloody Band or Nick bleedin' Drake than those who *really* revere these albums. They're aimed at a particular demographic - 30-45 yr old album buying 'rock' fan who buys within a narrow-ish range, likes 'proven' artists, 'real' instruments, 'proper' songwriting.....blah. (Sure they include the odd curveball like Aphex Twin and PE but they're usually token). So much important and exciting stuff is never included because of the need to reduce popular music down so it fits within these categories.

Influence then: Its use, immediately roots the subject and permits the [casual?] observer to begin some sort of critical placement. Of course, if you want to twist your head right into it, then talking about influence doesn't cut it, as you rightly point out. But to denounce usage of the word is to simultaneosly (and surely unwittingly) deny a.n.other (perhaps less intellectually inclined) observer a chanel of understanding or interpreting a subject.

OK, so if someone says Interpol are influenced by Joy Division - to you this is like saying the sky is grey. To me, who have not heard Interpol yet (how slack, how slack), I can begin to get a grasp on what the band's project may be and also begin to prioritise getting around to soaking up their music. To a.n.other, saying Interpol are influenced by Joy Division may inspire the reaction "who the fuck are Joy Division - I must rush out and buy their records because if they influenced this band Interpol which I love then they must be worth checking." Does this mean the word should be deemed defunct? Of course not, perhaps rather that in rigourous critique, its usage should measured and qualified.

I can see what you're saying * with the "if we are trying to pin down what is particular to interpol, why begin with a characteristic they share with everyone." But frankly, since not everyone has been exposed to Joy Division say, so in my view are not liable to be [directly] influenced by that band's project, qed the 'same characteristic' is not shared. Therefore, inversely, to suggest another band HAS been [directly] influenced by JD is a reasonable angle of critical probing.

Does any of this qualify one word of what I'm wittering about?

* A lie. I never feel I know exactly what you're sying but I like attempting to understand. Apologies if embarrassingly wide of the Mark.

why not...that person could arg that what came after the 60s is just a rehash of that decade?

Someone started a thread very reprinting a Spanish magazine list of 200 greatest albums ever - it started no debate at all about any of the records on it, though a fair amount of listless complaining about the proliferation of these kind of lists.

I think I agree with you actually - the 'rock canon' is pretty powerless. It doesn't work as a 'canon' because it has no authority - anyone who's heard all the albums on a Top 100 list is going to think at least a third are rubbish whatever a magazine thinks. I'm just saying that it's useless as well - so why not just forget about it? Matos' suggestion was that lists start debate and are fun to read - I'm not sure they do, or not if they stick to an '100 best' format.

Lord C - an individual person's list is likely to be interesting no matter what they put on. But that's not what we're talking about.

prior to RS 1970, the canon-forming heritage in rock goes: Elvis and his cover versions; Beatles and theirs; Stones and theirs.... then a complicated interregnum when the present was much more important than the past (secret name for this = "1968")

then in the 70s an interetesting sequence of cover-version statements in LP form — as back-to-the-true-heritage dissent from the then-mainstream — inc. lennon, bowie, ferry, the band, todd rundgren, others surely? you can actually fit US and UK punk into this sequence w.a bit of trimming and squeezing

I'm not big on lists either... I didn't click on those Spanish list threads... the words "best 200 albums" and "100+ posts" were a pretty clear turnoff ;)

But I have discovered a lot of great music over the years through reading someone's authoritative list, so in general I find them useful. You just have to pick the right list...

Yes Mark, RS has been chief rock canon former, but its more irrelevant than ever before now and we're a long way down the road from punk...

I've discovered most of the great music in my life by someone writing well and enthusiastically about it somewhere - I don't care about the context, a list is fine. But lots of variety in published lists means more great music being written about, yes?

ie they don't like dance or rap cz they just grew out of indie: they like it cz it was the first thing they heard, so they hear indie differently to someone who grew up through indie

when rappers give phil collins props that makes no sense in the rock canon story: but that doesn't mean they're making a silly mistake

Aren't these lists kind of a cost-cutting measure for a mag? A filler in a slow month? It's a little thin out there, fellas, better bang out another top 200. Make it 300 this time.

"You don't choose your influences, they choose you." I think this is Harold Bloom. ie it's not useless to pin down a relationship between an artist and the past, but asking that artist is kind of a waste of time. What could they tell you that isn't obvious from hearing their work? A weak band will take a sound or method that's already "in the air" and take it nowhere, strong bands tend to be more recombinant, or feel the pressure (the "choosing") of several different forebears.

The other lit-crit idea that I like is that making art is criticism (Eliot, I think?). cf Stereolab, their "alternate" canon, etc.

I think you should explanificate this.

This happens with all new popular music movements anyway, but that was the first time and it was also accompanied by massive demographic/social changes and it took longer for marketers to figure out how to break it down into different niches...

Urban doesn't really mean anything I don't think... I mean yes, it does in record store racks and radio programming, but in listener's minds? I'm not sure...

I like to think of hip-hop as including everything from techno (via electro) to drum 'n' bass to 2-step under its wing, if you want big tent... ok so you have to factor in disco too for some of those, but still...

The shift is DJ culture, to put it in the most simplistic terms... And that's been pretty well covered, the histories have been written, the canon(s) has been done, in the last 5-8 years or so...

But with music, it is supposed to be visceral, instantly accessable, etc. (Except when pitchfork writes about it) and thus the canon is much more fluid and contested, and furthermore it is consumer rather than acadamy driven so instead you get really what are more simply lists. Which is the idea that High Fidelty played with.

Another way of putting this is that alternate canons are contested social territory usually, rather than universalizing humanist models. i.e. "my experience isn't the same as your experience at all -- it's better!"

Funny, this was another point I was going to tack on to my earlier post but didn't, largely because I don't know what kind of work is being done academically on pop music, if anything, or if it's any good. The academic/art/lit "canon" is close to "syllabus," in pop music it's (or can be) like saying "wishlist."

I do think, tho, that the pop canon exists, even if noone can agree on it on paper or own it in its entirety. In terms of the sonic climate or aural atmosphere that artists make their work in/out of, it's there. Think of it as the sound of collective success. Am I making any sense?

And, yeah, Bloom is a bloviating pain in the ass, but he pretty much ownz the subject of "influence," so I couldn't not bring him up.

my favourite is APOPHRADES!!

Tom: That's not arbitrary Mark the lizards run it.
Whatever the Lizards with No Pulse ignore, that usually ends up being the stuff that gets lavishly "critically reassessed" years later and found to be utterly awesome and without flaw. While the stuff the screwheads push NOW, ends up slowly oozing out of the cut-out bins and into a landfill, justly forgotten.

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