Reynolds best of 2001

My only complaint is that there was not enough Kathleen Hanna bashing. What he had was good, but it didn't go far enough. ;-)

But yeah, there is a distinct ILM effect isn't there? These days, one reviewer gets an early copy of a cd, turns it into mp3s which find their way onto the web. We all listen to it, start to discuss it to death on ILM. Two months later it's in the shops, a month later you open Uncut and see the review and think "this old news, man. I was listening to shit months ago." Something like that?

..."from what he said to me off-board re. things post-9/11, finding it difficult to get worked up one way or the other about the music thing": One can't begrudge another human being his reactions, of course -- if that's how he feels, fine -- but there was a truly incredible amount of suffering and cruelty in the world prior to 9/11. The attacks on the World Trade Center were a terribly concentrated example of the horror that the people of, say, El Salvador, or Peru under Fujimori, have been suffering on a smaller but no less nationally devastating scale for years, even decades. If it's hard to get worked up about music in the wake of 9/11, then it should have been hard to get worked up about music in the wake of East Timor, or Northern Ireland, or the English colonial project in Africa, or the American landgrab that dispossessed every Native American tribe of land they'd lived on for thousands of years. For me, the whole point of music is that it stands as a foil to the things that weigh down on us, but this posting is already too heavy-handed. Anybody know whatever happened to Chris & Cosey? "Put Yourself In Los Angeles" is just wonderful pre-apocalyptic stuff.

Eg If it's hard to get worked up about music in the wake of 9/11, then it should have been hard to get worked up about music in the wake of East Timor, or Northern Ireland…… Which shows an idiotic insensitivity to the difference between knowing horrorific violence is taking place and witnessing it first hand.

One can't begrudge another human being his reactions, of course well then don’t.

That difference is callousness itself. If I am only horrified by the evil stuff in my backyard and not by the same stuff or worse in my fellow man's, then I am quite callous indeed.

thinking you hafta care about one thing and *anything* else is a massive misnomer. perhaps someone who witnessed first hand the destruction of a large chunk of their city (which except for those living in nyc, i don't think many of us alive today and on these boards can say...unless marcello or mark s are old enuff to remember the blitz, ho ho) can be forgiven for not now (*or* then) worrying about east timor or rwanda or anything else. enforced guilt over the "world crisis" strikes me as a very sub-maximumrocknroll (and thats saying something indeed) armchair highschool leftist life philosophy.

are we honestly supposed to care as deeply felt about everyman walking down the street as we are to those closest to us? are we really supposed to care as deeply about places we've never visited as our own community? if so, then i envy you john, because you've obviously got a well of empathy and emotional reserve that i do not. as it stands i barely have enough hours or energy in the day to find time to care about my family-friends-lovers-myself than little blahblah living on the otherside of the world; this line of reasoning is one step away from sally struthers-esque profession guilting. i've had to face this intellectual/moral absolutism one too many times in my youth to take it very seriously now.

And as for you Jess, fuck off. Am I not allowed to say ANYTHING about ANYBODY without providing 176,000 transcribed pages of evidence? It was a passing comment which I thought was of relevance to the subject under discussion. I certainly didn't foresee some fuckwit troll who has never posted here before barging their way in and making some stupid "care-about-East-Timor" comments.

I repeat that THESE THINGS HAPPEN. SOME OF US, EVEN WHEN PROFESSIONALLY INVOLVED, DO NOT FEEL THE NECESSITY TO LIVE AND BREATHE MUSIC 24 HOURS A DAY. WHEN YOU GET OLDER, YOU VERY NATURALLY WANT TO MOVE ON TO OTHER THINGS. THAT'S CALLED HUMANITY.

And another thing Jess. The Blitz was no laughing matter. Imagine 9/11 happening every day for four years. That's what the Blitz was like. And I don't have to have been alive in 1941 to know that either.

Marcello - John D. is not a "fuckwit troll", he writes and runs a very good music site. Admittedly that wouldn't disbar him from being a fuckwit troll but in this case I don't think he is - and he's posted before on a few threads.

I think it would have been dishonest for Simon to pretend even to have a 24/7 passion for music right after 9/11, given the fact that he lives only a few blocks away and that people he knew/loved might have been caught up in the disaster. Nor can you blame anyone for wanting to listen to, say, Fairport Convention instead of DJ Scud. The idea that, well this gives even more of a reason for music to push forward and confront, is certainly not an invalid one, but perhaps outwith the scope of this particular thread.

I feel quite bad that in none of these threads I've offered any commentary on the actual piece!

If it's true that he's getting old, staid, tired, predictable, grouchy and backward-looking, then HOORAY! he and I might finally start agreeing on one or two things. But I doubt it.

i see what agreeing with marcello gets ya.

As for the side-issue that has developed, I actually was in limbo when 9/11 happened, as my father had just had a heart attack, and his future was uncertain. Obviously it made the whole NYC thing that much more surreal for me. Dad died on the 17th, which was obviously another blow to the psyche, but I can't say that it affected my ability to get excited about music afterwards. Not to say that Reynolds' reaction is invalid, because people all react to personal tragedy in different ways, and music is also very much a matter of personal taste. If we didn't react to life and music in different ways, boards like this would be useless, no?

I was going to pick one post from this thread and be all "lol old ilm", but there's at least 12 contenders for that. Pick your own.

Things were certainly...sincere around these parts then.

well a few weeks later we were all trading holocaust jokes like it was proto-noise board, so we got brittle pretty quick

God this is really anal and boring why don't you all do something else, possibly listen to some records, or take you dog for a walk. Personally i'm gonna ...
-- NOT ANAL, Thursday, December 20, 2001 1:00 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

wave of the future.