john harris is an arse (revisited)

matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
^that should of course read 'is an arse'- the thread's current title conjures a rather disturbing mental image

http://music.guardian.co.uk/urban/comment/story/0,,1937584,00.html

'As the phraseology would have it, it is now thoroughly "irie" round here'

'My two-decade reggae blind spot was, I think, at least partly traceable to a part of the British culture-scape that has never received serious attention: the fact that a taste for reggae was once an integral part of life at public school.'

'Still, what with modern reggae's move away from conscious "iration" (see, I'm getting it)'

'a compilation album is surely in order, with extensive sleevenotes and everything. They could call it Yah Rastafari.'


oh to fuck me.
 
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swears

swears

preppy-kei
He does come from that Parsons/Burchill smug wanker school of broadsheet journalism. Funnily enough, there's traces of Littlejohn in there as well. I'm sure there's far more Public schoolboys into Indie than Reggae anyway. Aren't Radiohead all privately educated?
 
B

bassnation

the abyss
matt b said:
^that should of course read 'is an arse'- the thread's current title conjures a rather disturbing mental image

http://music.guardian.co.uk/urban/comment/story/0,,1937584,00.html

'As the phraseology would have it, it is now thoroughly "irie" round here'

'My two-decade reggae blind spot was, I think, at least partly traceable to a part of the British culture-scape that has never received serious attention: the fact that a taste for reggae was once an integral part of life at public school.'

'Still, what with modern reggae's move away from conscious "iration" (see, I'm getting it)'

'a compilation album is surely in order, with extensive sleevenotes and everything. They could call it Yah Rastafari.'
Click to expand...

i don't understand what his point is - that white middle class people should stick with their "own" music, which happens to be indie rock???

the whole tone feels wrong - borderline racist in wanting to ghettoize music, more about erecting barriers than connecting.

so hes decided he doesn't like reggae - don't see how this can be universalised in any meaningful way.
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
just about everything he says in that piece is bollocks. not to mention the condescending way he uses stock in trade reggae gestures

if anything, modern reggae has had a bit of a move towards consciousness in recent years.

not having gone to public school, i wouldn't know about the 'integral link', but most dances i go to seem to be mixed ethnically and economically (but then most of those are at subdub which has a large student contingent- when i've been to shaka/dubclub/channel one nights, the slant seems to be the opposite of his suggestion).

who doesn't like 'no, no no' or 'uptown ranking'?- they're in the ether, so how he's making critical judgements about an entire genre, jah ;) only knows.

basically he's saying- 'i recently heard some reggae. i thought it was good'
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I reckon that he thought Yah Rastafari was funny and decided to write an article for the punchline.
There are millions of shit wanker journalists and I don't know why John Harris should get up my nose so much but he really does.
 
M

mms

sometimes
yet again he just come across like some mumbling pissed old fuckwit that you might unwittingly sit next to in a pub, yet again he's so far from anything but blind predjudice it's silly.
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
he'll be on newsnight review tonight rocking one of them fancy dress rasta tam/ dreadlocks combos.










i'm just waiting for stelfox to read it. i think i'll probably be able to hear his screams from up here.
 
G

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Morley and Harris had a big bust up over U2's last album on Newsnight Review, but to be honest that was an example of Morley being an idiot, lauding it as he was. Harris tackled him on the lyrical shortcomings, amongst other things. Asides from that tho, Harris is pretty despicable, especially seemingly when he writes for the Guardian...
 
F

ford.anglia

Member
a bigger tosser than Alexis Petridis-and in Petridis's defence although he was the enemy within/a total fraud at least he wasnt so absolutely bleedin clueless...

never knowingly met anyone from a top public school but have attended many reggae events and also know that Radiohead, Coldplay, the Kooks, Razorlight, the Libertines* to name but 5 are all ex-public school so draw your own conclusions from that

*PS i dont actually know anything about indie shite like this...just saw article about the public school domination of it a couple of months ago (honest!)
 
G

gek-opel

entered apprentice
My imperfect straw poll of public schoolies... one of them liked his Elton John and Carpenters, most of the rest were either downtempo/D'n'B heads, or psy trance goons. Little actual reggae, or Indie was enjoyed (straw man burns down in far distance....)
 
H

hurricane run

Well-known member
the arse in john harris

His face does look like a slapped arse in the guardian mugshot. He looks s bit chinless himself..
 
M

martin

----
Look, leave him alone, he's written a book about Pink Floyd so he's obviously severely mentally disturbed. Besides, everyone knows public schoolies listen to 50 Cent.
 
STN

STN

sou'wester
I hope I don't sound like a fool for thinking this but as soon as I read the words 'though my CD collection is sprinkled with reggae albums' I gave up all hope of enjoying, or profiting from, the article.
 
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