What Year Would You Prefer...?

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One with a host of good records/tracks in a widespread of styles which don't add up to any easy summary?

A year with one huge big fantastic trend and lots of other things that are pretty mediocre?

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 5 December 2002 14:56 (twenty-three years ago)

Why, the former of course.

Come back 1999, all is forgiven.

― Big Hogleg, Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:03 (twenty-three years ago)

The first one is 2002 surely?

Although perhaps not for me since all my favourite records are house. But then that's a broad genre and it STILL feels like a load of vastly different styles.

― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, in my view 2002 is a great example of the first.

And until this year I think I'd probably have taken the second.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:08 (twenty-three years ago)

One with a host of good records/tracks in a widespread of styles which don't add up to any easy summary?

You mean like 1984? I'll take it!

― Christine "Green Leafy Dragon" Indigo (cindigo), Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:10 (twenty-three years ago)

Hmmm, and I thought it was a leading question.

What's the evidence, Tom. I'm hear to have my mind changed, so state the case for 2002. Wasn't it all New! Rock! Music! or whatever?

― Big Hogleg, Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:10 (twenty-three years ago)

Well it is a leading question!

Um, I am going to state the evidence, but not here/yet - this question was kind of an abstraction of some stuff I'm writing for a year-in-review article.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh c'mon, Tom. Don't be such a tease. Just slip me a little something.

Ok- look forward to seeing it anyway. Who are you writing it for?

― Big Hogleg, Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:25 (twenty-three years ago)

The second - I like trends and new scenes - even Madchester and Britpop with a high percentage of crud were entertaining. There's a buzz and momentum that's fun even if the music's no good - and always the chance of real change. I like loving/hating/trying to understand/watching other people try to understand....maybe as a result of punk.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:28 (twenty-three years ago)

My own site - it'll get linked here in an 'article response' feature.

Basic idea - there's never been a better year to be a dabbler/dilettante listener. There's rarely been a worse year for looking out for new trends or 'progress'. These two things are linked, a bit, because all the failed/stillborn micro-trends throw up a handful of ace tracks - the musical ground is fertilised by their corpses, so to speak!

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:30 (twenty-three years ago)

The two aren't mutually exclusive though, aren't they? Even at the height of Britpop-mania there were still loads of other things going on.

So I'd go for B with a lot of A thrown in.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:38 (twenty-three years ago)

No they're not mutually exclusive at all - I'm presenting a false choice so to speak.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:46 (twenty-three years ago)

I'd go for B then, especially if said musical trend is any good. You can have all the A's in the gaps between the B's, so to speak.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 5 December 2002 16:17 (twenty-three years ago)

A false choice is better than no choice at all.

(It's snowing. Send me home.)

― Rockist Scientist, Thursday, 5 December 2002 16:46 (twenty-three years ago)

best would be the latter - but with 2 big movements (& most movements are 2-3 great acts & lots of tangentially related mediocre/one-off stuff) in a face-off/cross-pollination

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 5 December 2002 16:55 (twenty-three years ago)

1993. A great year for music.

― bahtology, Thursday, 5 December 2002 19:52 (twenty-three years ago)

1979

― dan (dan), Thursday, 5 December 2002 20:01 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm with dan

― Tom Millar (Millar), Thursday, 5 December 2002 21:39 (twenty-three years ago)

I can't even think of an example of "B". The '60s were great for both rock and R&B, the early '70s had funk and glam, the late '70s had punk and disco (NOTE: LEGIT DISCO IS A GOOD THING), practically every single year from 1980 onwards had landmark albums from hip-hop, pop and post-punk/indie acts... or are we talking "one big fantastic trend" as in something that gets dismissed (fairly or not) shortly afterwards, i.e. jungle or trip-hop?

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Friday, 6 December 2002 01:02 (twenty-three years ago)

"One with a host of good records/tracks in a widespread of styles which don't add up to any easy summary?"

I'd prefer this, but often the trend and the host of fantastic-but-unrelated-records run concurrently. I just want each record I buy to be fantastic, I've no desire for a "scene" to latch onto. I like to see each band evolve (or not) on their own terms, and deliver fantastic music. The one good thing about "big fantastic trends" is that sometimes they boost the sales of great artists who might otherwise have fallen by the wayside.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Friday, 6 December 2002 11:53 (twenty-three years ago)

I think as I get to be an old gentleman I increasingly prefer (a), what with being out of touch with the young people and so on. Funnily enough I was thinking that the (a)ness of 2002 is perhaps behind the kind of critic despair I seem to have seen around,, most recently here: http://neumu.net/needledrops/ via S Reynolds here: http://blissout.blogspot.com/2002_12_01_blissout_archive.html#85482299

(SR's sadly right about curmudgeons: we certainly need more.)

― Tim (Tim), Friday, 6 December 2002 12:04 (twenty-three years ago)

I presume any year can be both? I guess there are folks for whom 2002 is very much B?

― alext (alext), Friday, 6 December 2002 13:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah that's part of the question too. We seem not to attract them to ILM though - I wish we did.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 6 December 2002 13:47 (twenty-three years ago)

For me most years tend to be a combination of both anyway - this year I've been both a general dilettante and fairly heavily focused on German house and related stuff. The fact that my "big trend" seems to have a level of "plausible deniability" to it on a public level doesn't change the fact that on a personal level it's been hugely influential and, um, psychologically groundbreaking.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 6 December 2002 13:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes, Tim's right, in that there could be a personal "big trend" in the records you liked this year, not necessarily a fashionable trend that reeled a lot of people in. If we talk about a trend this year, the first thing you would think of are "The ..." bands: the new rock explosion, whatever you want to call it. But musical trends can also form on a more personal level.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Friday, 6 December 2002 14:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah this is undoubtedly the case if its what music in general meant to you this year, eg. I could get massively into krautrock making this an ace year B, while not having a scoobie what's going on in the 'outside world' (although of course the idea of the present day and of the outside is made up anyway!). Does this refine the original model then:

a) dilletante
b) big trend (with critical / popular legitimation)
c) big trend (personal, against the flow)

I think there is something inherent in summing up the year which implies a relation between the personal and the 'everything else out there stuff' isn't there? Maybe this is because the idea of summarising implies an audience (even just you) or that the idea of summing up a year seems inherently critical (ie not entirely personal) to me (given a year is only a meaningful unit in terms of social time rather than internal time).

― alext (alext), Friday, 6 December 2002 14:10 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm increasingly inclined to view 2001-2002 as the second variant, with a quite sudden flood of brilliant electropop/clash tunes, and the rest of the music just bubbling along, churning out a few classics and lots of filler.

― Siegbran (eofor), Friday, 6 December 2002 14:37 (twenty-three years ago)

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