Of Historical Interest Only...

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... is the equivalent (in time) to Sad Indie Loser (in space)...

Is this true? Is it bad? I am kneejerk fond of what got overlooked (but perhaps only because so much history is written so poorly): but in the NOW I'm inclined to prefer chart-stuff to non - is this inconsistent?

― mark s, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(from an original idea by Ben Williams)

― mark s, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

no.

― jess, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"of historical interest only" is how BrundleFly refers to his own fallen-off ears and fingernails that he keeps in his medicine cabinet during his transformation into a fly-being. they were parts of him, and once very important parts.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Congratulations -- nothing of what has been talked about here makes sense to me. Beyond the initial post.

Inconsistent? Hell no. Y'like music, don't you? Yay!

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

BrundleFly is the first insect politician! What don't you understand??

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ARGH.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Im just glad he lost his hair, bad hair.

― Mr Noodles, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ned, quit trying to confuse us?

― Andy K, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

...the password is: 'telepod'.

― Andy K, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What's not to get, Ned? Have YOU been drinking too much Old Theakston's?

― Sean Carruthers, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

SPOILERS **** I'll save you a trip to the Cronenberg section of whatever k-cool video store you frequent, Ned. Brundle sheds his human existence for a fly's, but what he casts off - and so disparagingly refers to as the "Brundle museum" - defines him as much as the wiry fly-hairs growing all over his body. He may scorn his obsolete human parts and - mark s may say "only" about uh, I dunno, Die Hausfrauen - but it's this very act of casting off that cements these things' importance as a memory or constituent of self. I don't think it's inconsistent AT ALL to treat chartpop thus because it too - in your life at least, mark, and probably for many here - has been a history of overlooked songs and sounds. Just like the band whose name you only remember from the back of a 1982 fanzine most chartpop appears as a historical hiccup, or a fingernail - things that accrete around larger systems and organisms. The songs that make up the charts seem like very discardable parts to me. Footnote-ish. Things that point to other things. A summer you remember, or an explanation of what came next.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Benjamin is the answer here (Walter, that is). What is pop but an invocation of that eternal moment, that epic time, of which he writes? Scratch that, what is art, not just pop? Better yet, some music is epic, all pop is by nature epic. Scratch that, replace nature with selection of the massive. But that epic time my only be reclaimed by the historian (i.e. listner) who brushes against the grain of history. Society only has brief bursts of epic time, in revolutionary upsurge and crisis. But art speaks to the human condition, not the social condition, and in each lifespan there are many moments of crisis and conjuncture of constellations. Thus, the epic moment is within us all. In the artistic sense. Hence -- to seek the sanctity of the new and the forgotten meaning of the old is not contradictory, but exactly the same. Dig?

― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sterling I'm not sure I get your "epic moment" - aren't we talking about those things that are so UNepic that they have a special casual power, or suggest contours that the writ-large smash hitZor miss? Now that I think on it there ARE a lot of chartish songs that lay claim to upfront obviousness and everlasting cool-i-tude - mainly from the hiphop end of things (cf. "We Ain't Goin Nowhere" or "We're Right Here") - but most of it, even barnburners like "Get This Party Started" seem almost designed for ephemerality (= usefulness), not epic object/events to be appreciated.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Epic time does not = actual epic, but benjaminian concept of the historical moment. Try this: the pleasure of the moment is a shared one, provided by many songs in many years, and enjoyed by people all over the world hearing the songs, and connecting with what are the same themes over and over. But the songs must renew themselves for the feelings to be THE SAME. It is the time which is epic -- the song is merely a connection to that time, a point within its many-faceted continuum. To find the cast-offs of history is to find the same pleasure in them that we get from tomorrows cast-offs today.

― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

of saddo interest only if u ask me. all saddo pedos look up smelly old papers to check they got all NME critics top 50 albums of 1971 an shit themselves cos no 22's deleted. then they have to put on smelly raincoat and go to smelly old shop in hanway street and pay 300 quid for smelly old vinyl in smelly sleeve but at least they got all albums in list now if not girlfriend or wife or children or future.

― XStatic Peace, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(neatly sidestepping Benjamin issue): Mark, would you say that you *do* listen to music solely out of historical interest, or is that just how you might imagine others describing it?

I listen to about 40/60 old/new stuff, but my criteria for the old is that there be something about it that impresses me *now* - that it has some quality to me that, just for me personally, lifts it out of the past and places it on equal footing with whatever current music I'm listening to (note: this doesn't need to be sonic thrills or inspired experimentalism, though it quite often is).

Working in the historical context after that initial connection is fun, but without that initial connection I truly can't see what the point is. It's when the "historical interest" aspect starts to supersede and crowd out any personal connection that I find myself unable to really enjoy music (cf. Tom's complaint about the history of criticism surrounding The Beatles choking any attempts to say (or feel?) anything new).

― Tim, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm not sure there's any inconsistency Mark. Two not-necessarily- compatible phenomena make this so. 1) Today's chart-stuff is very often tomorrow's overlooked; certainly that stuff which isn't aiming at or conscious of its own legacy. 2) What gets overlooked only becomes that -- overlooked -- in the light of that there poorly- written history; much criticism tries to write history as it happens but must fail to recognise what's new and interesting because it can only measure what happens by historical standards. Your relationship to history and your relationship to the present are necessarily different, but both react against a conservative historicism -- and I'd like to say that both show an orientation towards a future that cannot be predicted or made to happen, but I'm not sure whether you would take this as a compliment, or as theorified jizz.

― alext, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

in the sense that i am in course of writing a DEFINITIVE HISTORY blah blah, yes i often listen to music ostensibly in that mode: HOWEVER i listen w., my EDUCATING MY TASTES hat on, as in "what possessed those dead foax to make a song and dance of this piffle" eg i taught myself to LIKE King Oliver, tho if i come on him inadvertently today it once again sounds ultra-dinky and irritating, until i recall my cultivated strategies etc.

odd side effect: i like jazz LESS than i tht i did 15 years ago, or at least my actual personal taste has um *focused* fairly sharply

― mark s, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"theorified jizz" = bestest decription EVAH of my attitude at all times!!!¡¡¡

― mark s, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'll save you a trip to the Cronenberg section of whatever k-cool video store you frequent, Ned.

I only remember him getting goopy at the end.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

maybe mark s came on him, inadvertently.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

sorry, mark. :) ultra-dinky and irritating, until i recall my cultivated strategies could describe chartpop too yes?

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

it could at that

― mark s, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"cultivated strategies" = turning up the bass, maybe.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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