post-modern pop musicians

Toast-Modernism = breakfast TV

Host-Modernism = Terry Wogan

Most Modernism = 1900-1930

what a post-modern response!

Well, Stephen Merrit must get some consideration for causing the death of Ferdinand de Saussure...

Well, one of the generalities of postmodern literature is that the lead character often functions as an absence rather than as a presence ... and so by that standard I'd call the Dandy Warhols and Wilco pomo.

how do you mean, joseph? rather, whats a literary example so i could understand what you mean by "absence".

Will Oldham, Bowie, Dylan, (Smog), Madonna, Momus, Burnt Freidman, Eno, Yoko, Marylin Manson, Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, et cetera, identity of performer is not a fixed illusion, or tied solely to market pressure or desire, but contingent to (reflection of) (expression of) (*performance* of) (celebration of) (reaction against)cultural moment: http://www.sociologyonline.co.uk/post_essays/postmoderntimeline.htm

x-post, for Peter Smith, see Faulkner's short story, "A Rose for Emily," narrated by "we," implying the lack of an "I," or more conventionally postmodern, Barth's "Life Story," which lacks a narrator even stable enough to narrate.

fair enough - so we as the reader are to read the text based on our knowledge ABOUT the narrator and not just knowledge gained directly FROM the narrator?

how do wilco and dandy warhols fit in? accidentally post-modern? does that count?

The idea is that the person is "absent" because he/she is only an embodiment of assorted stylistic signifiers. The postmodern thing has no CONTENT otherwise. A lot of the post-punk/new wave revival bands are very po-mo. There is little or no content to their music (including the song lyrics) other than elements that are only meant to evoke style. The Rapture, for example, come to mind.

We as the reader are to read as the the author writing the text by dint of our own experience as narrating our lives, creating characters we perform, assigning roles to other people, abstracting storylines out of our interactions, colored by our memories, hang-ups, and hopes. Benjamin and Barthes among others labelled the privileging of this realization that there is no stable identity, that we are all, not just authors, Authors, the death of the author, a subject of narrative dating back at least as early as the French Symbolists, imported into English (with precursors such as Nashe and Sterne) by Woolf, Joyce, and pals.

xpost

Tweedy fits this mold. He is not a country or punk or indie or whatever pop star, but *one of us* who writes whatever based on his inspiration at the moment. I've never heard the Dandy Warhols, but based on that name, it would appear they're trying to hard to seem, and therefore modern, not -post.

This is a ridiculous thread, every rocker who used the rock'n'roll form as a "canon" for a conscious pastiche (i.e. every rocker since the '70s) is a postmodernist by default.

i think the rapture are a terrible example of style over substance. perhaps we should be talking about ashlee simpson.

xpost, agreed that this thread is ridiculous

the rapture are accidentally post-modern, since by purely mimicking styles instead of cultivating some intrinsic content, they demonstrate some "absence". is that about what youre saying, tim?

how does that compare with someone like beck who, by all accounts, is using style and pop culture and pastiche and irony in his art? an article i read distinguished between the similar features of modernism and post-modernism (self-reference, break from third-person omniscience, juxtaposition) by saying that a modernist would use these tools in search of some deeper understanding of truth or the world, whereas a post-modernist might use these tools in a purely playful (masturbatory?) way, having concluded that art cant apprehend truth.

in this way, it seems to me that much of what is called post-modern is really modern, as its irony or self-reference or juxtaposition seems somehow productive.

so is beck a modernist? is midnite vultures post-modern, but odelay modern?

whats ridiculous about it? i tend to agree that post-modern as a term is waaay overused, and seems to apply to too many things, but i still dont think the idea is totally meaningless... i just want to be able to hone in on whatever real idea there is.

This thread, like any, is ridiculous. David Bowie is more postmodern than Marc Bolan, who is more postmodern than Stephen Styler, who is more postmodern than Cliff Richard, who is more postmodern than Fred Durst (or anyone who acts like they are essentially a rock star), and it is more postmodern to think this thread is ridiculous, laugh at its pretences, declining to formulate a persona to respond, and not post to it, than it is to do so.

xxpost

so maybe i have come to understand that i am far too earnest to be a true post-modern.

What is the content in the Rapture's music/lyrics apart from specific stylistic signifiers?

I mean, joseph, if you want to call the Raspberries postmodern (or don't cuz you wouldn't want to touch the word w/ a ten foot pole or something), that's fine. I think they were trying to be authentic, though. They were really identifying with cruising around with the radio blasting and going all the way. The Rapture's music is just PIL element followed by Gang of Four element followed by Television element, etc.

Peter, I guess I think of the term more in terms of aesthetics. Beck isn't really a "modernist" to me, which implies MODERNISM (i.e., generally speaking, moves toward radicalness and abstraction).

"You" are an online construct, different each time you appear. It's inevitable. It's not not postmodern to be earnest, but not postmodern to think you're essentially so. That queasy kneejerk clever refrain will always be there as a chorus. Is that you? Is this me? Am I myself? That wasn't you! This isn't me! {Cue up hip referencing slam, returning everything back to *normal*.}

xpost

Sorry to generalize about the Rapture, by the way, whom I like. I think they come close to being the way that I'm describing them, at least. Acid Mothers Temple might be a good example.

thats fair, i suppose. i guess i dont want to restrict lower-case-m modernism to 20th century compositions, though, even if Modernism could be just that.

what is the post-modern aesthetic? pastiche like sampling? concept over lyrical or musical content? are the avalanches the quintessential pomo band? is beck? is roxy music?

yeah yeah - acid mothers temple is a funny example of that, too. i like the rapture, too, tim. i actually think i disagree with you about their motivations and approach, but maybe not enough to formulate any cogent argument.

what is the content of all music/lyrics apart from specific stylistic signifiers?

the problem is not the music per se, but the very words/authorship/frame of reference etc that describe it.

See, I don't think Beck is the quintessential po-mo because, though he may appear vacant, he's not, himself, a vacant embodiment of a style (or, I guess, numerous, possibly related styles). When he first appeared in the '90s, he seemed very '90s.

try discussing the nature of folk music, i suppose.

i wonder about the necessity of vacancy in post-modernism. can anyone consciously make post-modern art? it would seem not, based on that notion, tim.

AMT's psyche-referencing overkill ("Ziggy Sitar Dust Raga"), and the exhilaration they achieve because of that, is postmodern. "Loser" as an expression of complete non-self-identity, if only as a pose of unconcern, is quintessentially postmodern, rendering the pastichey (in)formalism of *One Foot in the Grave* and *Odelay* almost afterthoughts.

The Rapture are less so, in that they have identified a tradition they seek to join, and so do their damnedest, not to pastiche, but outright plaigarise, PiL, almost to say, look they're cool, so by aping them am I too? No, you're trying to get laid.

xxxpost

Not sure how you're differentiating the Rapture and AMT here. "Not pastiche" = "Not postmodern?" AMT are trying to be cool, too, of course. The desire to "be cool" can be significant in postmodernism w/ regard to its vacuousness, no? You don't want to express yourself, you just want to be cool.

I think AMT's trying to be cool, too, but the stylistic framework from which they draw their inspirations is more littered with uncoolness than what the Rapture seem to assert as their canon of inspiration. AMT's retroactively making like Gong cool, whereas the Rapture is just boring Gang of Four's cool. So AMT's self-expression is also a realignment of the other, whereas the Rapture's is a positioning of self within the other, which certainly realigns the other, just not as radically as AMT does. These sound like value judgement, but they're not. AMT can suck, and the Rapture can be alright--but formally I think AMT's way more radical than the Rapture have shown themselves to be.

Hmmm. Gong wasn't an attempt at coolness in the first place? (I am thinking of those pictures of them in the early days with their radical-expression-of-hippiedom pirate clothes and everything.) I don't know if I see how AMT is transforming Gong-style coolness any more than the Rapture is transforming post-punk/whatever coolness.

Post punk has been cool since it happened, rendering things like Gong not. AMT's influence, in the face of post punk indie whatever, has made it safe for self-conscious rock snobs to admit they like Gong. When the Rapture starts covering Be Bop Deluxe songs, then maybe they'll be in AMT's strata.

Junior Senior, motherfuckers

The Gong revival has been cool since the late '80s and Forced Exposure or whatever. Punk never trumped hippie completely and there's always been lots of gray area.

AND I think the post-punk/new wave revival has re-oriented a lot of things as being cool, actually!

Like, say, Gary Numan.

In terms of the aesthetic tropes of postmodernism, I reckon Beastie Boys are there or there abouts.

But (despite the 'fact' that 'post-modernism' renders 'systems' 'meaningless' - see Lyotard + these quotation marks) po-mo is more a 'system' of 'reading' the world/art etc. So, the question is kinda like saying 'name some Russian Formalist/New Critic pop musicians'...which suggests an answer to your question would be 'this thread' I guess.

Sure, artists do take on some of the ideas of po-mo and plenty take on the things that post-modernism flags up in its critiques but that's slightly different I think.

That might be conflating two distinct concepts of "postmodernism," one related to philosophy and one related to aesthetics. Postmodernism in art aesthetics (meaning AFTER MODERNISM) is a phenomenon, not an idea.

Maybe but, in aesthetics, I still see po-mo as a way of reading a 'text' more than a 'phenomenon', more akin to, say, Marxism or Formalism than, say, Romanticism or even Modernism. Yeah, okay you can say certain bands are notably Marxist/po-mo but thats not the point. So, eg Beastie Boys use tongue-in-cheek and 'meta' samples, use fake names etc or a certain group might name-drop Engels and try to incite revolution but that is only po-mo/Marxist because it fits with the theory I guess.

Basically, if postmodernism is actually a 'phenomenon', its a pretty lame one that has been around since time immemorial (see the point about Aristophanes on the Prince thread). Yeah, you can place it as the phenomenon that came after the modernist phenomenon but only in the sense of that is from whence it developed - an intellectual phenomenon rather than an aesthetic one.

I think.

In art, I see it as a contemporary phenomenon. You can deconstruct the term and say Aristophanes was postmodern, but again, my examples were the Rapture and Acid Mothers Temple. What are the real precedents in pre-postmodern art for art so devoid of any content other than stylistic signifiers? "Acid" "Mothers" "Temple"--every word must be a stylistic signifier.

this thread makes me a sad, sad, panda.

oh, by jingo

I'm not a massive fan, but I think Primal Scream, Screamadelica era were the beginning of a new post-modern movement. Something to do with wide ranging eclecticism, embracing music from all genres and all periods (including the present and the future).

Mercury Rev and the Boo Radleys followed swiftly in their bootsteps.

i think nick lowe and elvis costello definitely fit this description.

But I don't really think your definition of postmodern art is accurate Tim. Art is, by definition, a series of stylistic signifiers. What do you mean by 'content'?