Taking Sides: Residents vs Negativland

or can you make a case for them which actually sidesteps their essential parasitism?

Not exactly a case that Perry Mason would be proud of, but I think a lot of Negativland's stuff and the associated media high-jinks surrounding them are really funny. Is humor unbelievably worthless and awful? Probably. I've never been interested in the Residents.

As far as I'm concerned, the side-long "Big 10-8 Place" that concludes the album of the same name by Negativland justifies anything and everything else they've tried -- and to answer Mark's particular concern, I don't see that cut as musical parasitism at all, because there isn't any. If anything else, it's simply a good story.

evidentiary backstory you are NOT ALLOWED TO USE, heh

Is Negativland really about the "music"? Who cares if their music sounds "good" or not? It's more a case of is their stuff funny or not (which it isn't always, but when it is, really is).

what? the entire career of The Residents vs one (admittedly kick- ass) Neu track ...? ;)

I'll take the Neu! track.

When I was young and stupid I was a fan of the Residents and Negativland (and the Tape-Beatles too). Now that I'm older and slightly less stupid I can see how disgusting all that "cultural terrorism" stuff is. It is just a case of avant-garde types trying to be culturally superior.

I suppose I liked these bands because they paid attention to neglected aspects of popular culture. Negativland interested me the most, particularly on the "Dick Vaughn : Moribund Music of the 70s" edition of their radio show. However, I soon realised that Negativland and their ilk were unable to say anything interesting about (or express any genuine pleasure in) the pop songs, programmes and adverts that they sampled from.

This afternoon I listened again to Negativland's "Radio Teletours" which was first broadcast on BBC Radio Sussex in the late 80s. This was a radio sound collage. It is a fairly good example of musique concrete and is the only piece that I've heard by Negativland that actually works as music. It allows the audience to use their imaginations to draw connections between the collaged elements. The worst Negativland record I've heard is "Escape from Noise". It sounds like a bad comedy record. It is inept social commentary.

It is just a case of avant-garde types trying to be culturally superior.

But that's why we're here! ;-)

negativland might be a bit pretentious, but I agree with the humor comments. "U2" is freaking hilarious and the booklet they put out after the legal hullaballoo is interesting as well. Many other funny songs too with a bit of cultural bite thrown in for kicks: Guns, Christianity is stupid, Michael Jackson (actually lots of Escape From Noise is hilarious)

Plus, shit, you've got to listen to something whlile you're attending college

anyone with Escape from noise listen to 'the playboy channel' right now I am dying...........

these groups are the 'adults' who see kids playing in a trash heap of long-discarded materials and try to organise it into a 'real' game, writing up a rule book and everything

I saw the residents' "MoleShow", which I enjoyed very much, some of their rekords are okay too I think - "duck stab" is pretty enjoyably queasy sounding, and "eskimo" has it's moments too. I remember seeing their rekords whilst very young in used musick shoppes & being k-intrigued, and rather frightened by them. Negativland I just find rather boring & worthy-ish for the most part. A far better bet if one can phind a kopy is Culturcide's "tacky souvenirs of pre-revolutionary america"

That disintegration began with Culturcide's thieving 1986 epic, Tacky Souvenirs of Pre-Revolutionary America. A blatantly illegal work of manic-dub genius, the album (now unavailable) ransacked 14 of the 1980s' most vapid radio hits -- everything from "We Are the World" to "Ebony and Ivory." In keeping with its lo-fi, anti-technology stance, Culturcide simply rerecorded the tracks, changing the titles (for example, "We Aren't the World") and superimposing nasty, disparaging vocals, jarring cut-and-paste clatter and dizzying loop effects over the original versions -- all, of course, without authorization.

Which beats Negativ land and the residents by actually being funny. Oh, and BTW GRRRR to you mark s, b/c I was about to post up a similar-ish question - taking sides: The Residents vs G.W.A.R. oooorrrr...

this

http://www.residents.com/eyecons/noup.gif

vs

this

http://www.gwar.net/mythos/bios/balsac/graphics/balsac.jpg

but you beat me to it, gah.

EH? WTF??? those sneaky fux0rz! a re-direct! (advantage gwar I think)

As much as I love you, mark, I can't let this unbelievably cowardly attack stand! You big meanie!

Actually, I understand why people may not be thrilled with either of these groups, but I disagree. I actually like the Negs a whole lot more than the Residents, and anyone who wants to know my feelings can scan through the reviews at allmusic.com. I think that pointing to "the music" or to "the humour" is missing the point of Negativland. I don't particularly care whether what they do is funny, and some of the best stuff they've done ISN'T funny. Some of it is just sonic exploration, and rearranging things to see how they turn out, and sometimes it sounds funny--I wouldn't think that they're meant to be comedy albums, though. Okay, maybe the U2 single was. And again, I disagree that what they do is any more parasitic than those who drop samples into their work or create a parody/homage of another work--one of the traditions in "classical" music was to take someone else's theme and rework it with other variations, and it was considered an honour. Yes, the Negs use an awful lot of stuff taken from other sources, but it's not ALL they do.

GWAR certainly win so far.

What's weird is that on my two computers, the jpg below the Residents one is different. On my XP machine it's some Gwar-related thing, but on this older box it says "I LOVE THE COCK". Which is probably Gwar- related too, I suppose.

The residents had some real pop moments when they let their guard slip. Always struck me as a doubly-geeky Primus rather than straight avant-anything.

The thing that bothers me most about the Negativland I've heard is the fact that it's just *not that funny.* I mean, I don't really like to be just against things in principle, but their schtick is so safe - it always leaves me cold, just kind of shrugging my shoulders.

On a somewhat related note, I wonder what you guys think of John Oswald's Plunderphonics stuff - I have the box thing that came out last year, and I like it a ton. It seems like he actually *likes* the music he "plunders," and the stuff he makes seems worth listening to on its own merits, too, not just as some lame attempt at pop culture commentary. I swear some of it sounds like jungle, like 5 or 10 years before the fact.

Clarke- I read a review of John Oswald's stuff that said that apparently he didn't like most of the stuff he plundered, though it was a favourable review (I don't have any record by him though).

Sean- never heard negativland. Which records should i go for?

Have just checked allmusic so no need for suggestions on negativland.

Previously on I Love Music: Negativland vs. Plunderphonics

Julio, you may very well not like Negativland at all; if you want to avoid spending $$$ you can wait until you're here in Toronto and I can run you through some of it. Or I can post some MP3s somewhere for you to sample. (Based on their stance on copyright, I have no ethical problem saying that.)

And then there's that great bio on Negativland on the AMG. I forget who wrote it, though.

Oh, some Ted Rawgut guy wrote that or something. It was pretty okay, yeah. ;)

ILM: pretty soon we'll ALL be allmusic.com writers!

Sean- OK. I'll remind you to run me through some of it.

Ack, realized that my link above, to the Negativland vs. Plunderphonics thread wasn't actually a link. So here it is.

ok i just discovered that i OWNED A Big 10-8 Place and i am halfway through it as i springclean (i hoiked fishbone out the tape machine after half a side: thank GOD i am bloodless and soulless, or i might have to have liked it): explain to me you fans why it does something that Revolution #9/the White Album generally forgot to do (why it's better and how — musically — do make this judgment?) (w/o invoking negativland's "war on the music industry" obv) (embedded in this is a scepticism towards the INTRINSIC conceptual radicalism of musique concrete

ps i quite like the clowns and ballerinas song, but it is just "her majesty" concept-wise ([x] did it before is no great critical argt, but [x who is the pinnacle of the rock canon did this] is an argt against "this is so avant garde")

he has an irritating voice = he is STORMING THE CITADELS OF POWAH!! (cf zappa apologetix passim)

Mark, I think you just derived the law of cosines.

viz: y = cos (isayso)

the Residents had Lou Stathis, ergo - they win!

It's funny to watch people attack motives on this thread, where in other threads there's often a "who cares?" attitude towards authorial intent and artistic goals. I still think Negativland aren't that funny, but the Residents are pretty cool in my book. I recently picked up a used copy of _Hell_, which appears to be a comp of some of their more "hellish" tracks - it has a really neat feel to me, very intuitive, freaky synth explorations, even some Fred Frith guitar on a couple of tracks. I guess I'd call it id-prog, which is meant as a full-on compliment.