Spot Judgements in Music Journalism

The notion that "new wave" didn't exist until 1978 only works if you overlook history and instead accept the subsequent Americanized definition of what overtook punk into the friendlier, poppier and more commercially viable sound which ended up sparking a stack of John Hughes movies and to this day is called new wave: the Cars, A Flock of Seagulls, Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, Romantics, OMD, Shirts, Psychedelic Furs... I'm not castigating this music - I like it fine - but it's important to note that the terms new wave and punk were, for a time, all but interchangable (one a movement, the other a style) and then ceased to be so.

Personally I like reading things from the past that destroy my idea of canonical music history: I like to be surprised that people in the moment had wildly different opinions about the course of things than the ones that "won." For pretty much that reason, I don't like the idea of fretting about how "right" you'll be in the long term; I don't like writing that bears evidence of hedging one's bets against the future. Say it loud, say it proud, etc.

1) is this appropriate?
2) is it reasonable to expect constant reevalution of music?
3) does it even matter, as people are wont to form their own opinions regardless of the reviews?

And despite my questions, I also greatly enjoy reading old articles about music. I used to spend hours reading the 68-71 editions of Rolling Stone my school library used to keep.

I mean if you're uncomfortable with that emphasis, it doesn't seem like it would be a fruitful area to work in.

how can you escape the journalistic emphasis on finding the new?

Well, precisely my reasons for asking this. I think I find that the 'journalistic' aspect -- the desire to scoop, to discover -- is indeed off-putting by its very nature. It demands a level of constant discipline that I'm ultimately not fond of, a potential obsessive focus for its own sake. And is it that the genres are predicated upon it or the business?

But Dave, this is interesting because now you're elevating certain genres (or at the least denigrating other ones) into what is worth keeping/discussing about and what isn't, in otherwards you're already projecting a judgment. In contrast, Tim Finney, for instance, is specifically denying he's writing what he writes on, say, garage-rap for the history aspect of it (though I've argued, perhaps poorly, that what he's doing is historicizing by default), but instead because it is a thrill that can be captured in a moment which might not in fact last the test of time. Hmm...

Er? I'm not meaning to!

(I'm also perpetually frustrated at my inabilities: inability to write, to write straight, to nail New Pop to the stick I've crafted [basically it was as much a written 'shaft of light' as a musical one]).

Anxiety all round, I suppose.

The thing about historicising-by-default (and Ned if this is what you meant then I understand you and agree with you) is that the process by which it becomes history (cf. response, polemic, love letter, vendetta, snore) is kinda post-facto - it's not deliberate history-writing and if we're talking about the value of the pursuit then authorial intention becomes sort of relevant. All responses to music will inevitably become part of a context that stretches into the past and future, but at the time of creation I don't think writing about music feels like history-writing unless you have an idea of where the music's going. And it's the chance to do all those things apart from history writing that's the attraction, whether or not the results ends up as history after all. So while something I write now might in a year seemed to have "pinned down" something, I don't think it's possible for it to feel that way now.

(and it's the parts that *don't* end up as history that are the most interesting, surely - I think I'd find the "New Wave Is Dead" article fascinating for the very reason that it necessarily goes against the grain of received wisdom).

Which is definitely I think where you and Dave differ or at least seem to -- then again I'm not sure if Dave is fully suggesting where the music is going so much as expressing a definite conviction that it WILL go somewhere because it is of a certain quality, a subtle but intriguing distinction. But he can say more if he likes! And yes, I did mean that to a large extent, Tim -- post-facto but also called into existence precisely by being a 'fixed' moment in time, different from the fleeting and uncommunicated thought. What it discusses might not be pinned down (I apologize if that is being overused as a term, perhaps there is a better one) overtly or with direct intent, to be sure.