Cultural Cowardice

luka

luka

Well-known member
how big can you make the bubble? that's the weakness of the underground or counter-culture model. it's inherently defeatist. it lets the grown-up world go on as before, or worse, it strengthens it by withdrawing from it.

you need that to a degree, before you are strong enough, before you have the numbers, but you can't be content to stay underground forever. it just becomes a playhouse.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
you are saying we beleive in the reality and even the primacy of these experiences and a world that works against them (while refusing to acknoweldge them) has to be destroyed.
 
S

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
luka said:
too much! too fast! join in some of the various conversations you've started
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1) there is a thin line between novelty and innovation. i've said before that the line is whether people copy it or not. so the smiths fall into the category of distinctive; if more people had copied them (in particular the components of their sound that were truly new) what makes them original would've actually made them pioneers or innovators. so they have to be commended for doing something new even if it never truly came to blossom into a wider innovation. they were more influenced by funk and disco than i, or morrisey, portrayed them to be. i'm going to throw it out here and say they predated shoegaze.

2) uk garage was not cultural cowardice. jungle was a complete culmination of an aesthetic. there were no further places to go forward within the space it had opened up. making a lateral move was the only option.

3) yes, stock aitken and waterman were more innovative (and hence more ideologically sound) than the smiths.

4) uk drill is not the new smiths.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
sadmanbarty said:
punk: cultural cowardice?

discuss.
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punk is an interesting one for me because broadly speaking it's the generation before mine and i can see the pitfalls of their reaction, the determined volte face, from hippy ideals. it acts a a straitjacket for these people.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
the anti-idealism. the de facto combative, antagonistic stance. the denial of spiritual and imaginative realities. these things are all self-defeating to quite a sad degree. it's a bit of a lost generation that one.
(to the point that they are literally losers)
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
it's a very pure example of a cultural movement being defined by reaction. it's obvious that a counter-balance was needed. you couldnt avoid that but at the same time it makes me wonder if a music of overall intergration and balance could be possible. does that even mean anything? or are we too caught up in the swells and storms of history? do we have to keep lurching wildly from one extreme to another? is that really necessary?
 
S

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
all the best music from the past 50 years was about drawing different people and different functions into the psychedelic fold.


jamaicans

dancing

the music for airports

funk (miles 1972-75)

rap
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
a more strategically sound way of proceeding would be to retain the things that work while ditching those that don't. would be to identify areas of weakness and imbalance and redress them.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
sadmanbarty said:
all the best music from the past 50 years was about drawing different people and different functions into the psychedelic fold.


jamaicans

dancing

the music for airports

funk (miles 1972-75)

rap
Click to expand...

heaven is psychedelic. the promised land is psychedelic. the vision is the truth. but why does the road have to be so long?
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
the fact of the matter is ignore any aspect of reality and it will fuck you over.
that's the bottom line.
ignore your emotions (even, especially, the embaressing ones) get fucked over
ignore your intelligence, your reason and rationality- fucked over
ignore your spiritual reaching and wanting- fucked over
ignore your intuition, that old witch that lives in your gut - fucked over
ignore your animal needs - get fucked over
ignore the outisde world with its guns and generals and politicians and gangsters - get fucked over

how do you make a cultural movement that gives due deference to all that (and to everything ive forgotten too) and operates as a functioning, exciting, growing community
 
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