Do you ever feel your writing or lack of it is the victim of what you're reading?

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Lately everytime I pick up a dance magazine or a review of a dance album everything begins with "the dance scene may be failing but........." or ends with "this won't save the dance scene", or "with sales falling, could this be the saviour of dance music?".

I don't really believe this, I don't believe in mentioning it anyway but I feel all my writing keeps coming back to this. I try and write something and it's all in the context of all this stuff. It genuinely feels like the more I read it the less I feel able to work creatively outside it. Besides the fact that I don't believe it, it's fucking boring, is it just dance that gets these topics which fly around like a contagious disease for about six months until you genuinely feel you've read so many of the same tired points you want to chop people up. The last thing was "generic chill out albums", I mean ok guys point made, NOW SHUT UP! PLEASE! Once dance hacks are finished with it, rock heads pick it up and use it as a stick to beat dance music with for another six months.

Is there a solution to this? Are there similar feelings around here? What's it like with other genres?

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 19 August 2002 12:00 (twenty-three years ago)

New answers were better in 92

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 19 August 2002 12:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That "great white hope" trope is one of the most basic con jobs in music criticism. It's an easy way of adding false urgency to the review even if you don't have much to say about the record (or indeed 'the scene') itself. also gives the reviewer some kind of moral high ground, "I care about 'the scene', unlike these pretenders". It stinks.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 19 August 2002 12:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Paul de Man (noted techno expert) points out that the words "critic" and "crisis" are closely related: hence when you got loads of writers and mags vying not only with one another but also the piled up heap o'their own past, then you gunna get manufactured crisis as the default setting for describing "steady as she goes" in newsworthy fashion

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 19 August 2002 12:19 (twenty-three years ago)

haha taking sides: The Man vs De Man

also i just looked it up and critic and crisis aren't related, did i misremember or did PdM just outright LIE the big belgian

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 19 August 2002 12:20 (twenty-three years ago)

That's what I don't want to be, but I feel all these tossers are just lowering the value of any good writing by talking up this thing the whole time. Maybe my policy is don't mention the war, but there really really is no point anymore.

Why though Mark? Why not talk about something else?

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 19 August 2002 12:20 (twenty-three years ago)

it is news = it is new = not "it is much the same as evah hurrah!!"

as a writer history is yr friend not yr enemy: to equate the now with the good is to destroy yr own calling

almost always when ppl say "x is merely a poor copy of long-ago y", when you actually look at their idea of y it is unadorned rub

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 19 August 2002 12:24 (twenty-three years ago)

in a minute i am going to say something like "this is herstory not history" at which point you can unchain the dogs

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 19 August 2002 12:26 (twenty-three years ago)

You don't condone this though I take it?

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 19 August 2002 12:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Please don't mention deMan around me, Mark, it causes great pain. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 19 August 2002 15:45 (twenty-three years ago)

I find Mark's "herstory" quip DeManing to women.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 19 August 2002 16:36 (twenty-three years ago)

"don't tell me it was a pun"

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Monday, 19 August 2002 16:41 (twenty-three years ago)

(haha pls ignore that Sterling i can't even remember what i'm quoting)

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Monday, 19 August 2002 17:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sadly, I cannot make a joke about Mark's statement being unkind to feminists without looking like an ass.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 19 August 2002 17:06 (twenty-three years ago)

Ghosts? Sorry to be cryptic, maybe if sinkah is in fettle, he will traipse the idea round town.

― david h (david h), Monday, 19 August 2002 17:14 (twenty-three years ago)

(nice to see the compass back, even if I do hateya ;)

― david h (david h), Monday, 19 August 2002 17:14 (twenty-three years ago)

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