Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Sorry but I think those Jam City and Mosca tracks are pretty poor examples of being ruffneck/cheesy/hardcore/whatevs.

The doubts and objections he has with this music goes right across the board for him I think, they aren't just confined to post-dubstep. Isn't this what his new book 'retromania' is gonna be all about?

It also seems quite clear to me that half the time he's on a wind-up with these blog posts and is obviously succeeding.
 

benw

Well-known member
Sorry but I think those Jam City and Mosca tracks are pretty poor examples of being ruffneck/cheesy/hardcore/whatevs.

The doubts and objections he has with this music goes right across the board for him I think, they aren't just confined to post-dubstep. Isn't this what his new book 'retromania' is gonna be all about?

It also seems quite clear to me that half the time he's on a wind-up with these blog posts and is obviously succeeding.

Fair nuff - i chose JC + Mosca as these are two people he's named explicitly in his blog posts, there are certainly better examples out there (although personally i think arpjam in particular is every bit as ruff and hardcore as a lot of the early 'jack tracks' he identifies as the first link in the continuum in Energy Flash, & the Closer remix hardcore in much the same way as any early grime bit).
 

Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
It also seems quite clear to me that half the time he's on a wind-up with these blog posts and is obviously succeeding.

Well, sure, that's a possibility, but if it's true it only really confirms that he doesn't have much to say. Remember, this guy has had some pretty insightful and influential views about this kind of thing, so if he's descended to internet trolling now, it's hardly much of a defense is it? The point is it's Simon Reynolds who is saying all this. People expect a level of quality from him. If it was some random internet troll, no one would care.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
The other thing is that the entire social/cultural background to the late 80s-90s rave music scene was a lot more exciting and dangerous back then compared to what we have now, lets face it. I think this explains his lukewarm position on Funky too; he acknowledges it as a true hardcore scene but seems quite bored and underwhelmed with what it really boils down to as a scene: Just feel-good dance music for the weekend. This doesn't really bother me or affect my enjoyment of the music itself but for someone like Reynolds there's just not enough to get his teeth into.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Well, sure, that's a possibility, but if it's true it only really confirms that he doesn't have much to say. Remember, this guy has had some pretty insightful and influential views about this kind of thing, so if he's descended to internet trolling now, it's hardly much of a defense is it? The point is it's Simon Reynolds who is saying all this. People expect a level of quality from him. If it was some random internet troll, no one would care.

sorry just seen this post. And I agree, he really should try a bit harder sometimes.
 

Tim F

Well-known member
I bet when SR was slagging off progressive house and raising up hardcore/jungle etc back in the early to mid 90s there would have been people (rightly) saying "hang on, he clearly hasn't actually heard all the stuff he's slagging, this (insert Leftfield or Underworld or etc) tune totally bangs and is not boring or insipid or etc at all."

I don't think his approach necessarily has changed substantially, it's kind of constitutive of such polemics that they're wrong at least 20% of the time.

Probably the more significant difference is that he's now at an age where he holds everything against a past standard rather than a current one. If he was negatively comparing future garage et. al. against funky he'd be no more or less right about the former but people would get less grandpa vibes from his criticisms.
 

Tim F

Well-known member
Yeah!

Most people who engage in the sort of "this is good, that is bad" dichotomy-driven polemics are wrong much more than half the time; SR's strike rate is pretty good by comparison.
 

gremino

Moster Sirphine
'dig deeper'-argument is getting very boring. if somebody doesn't like most of he/she has heard (and i'm clearly not talking about only listening to few tunes!), then it's pointless to point them towards digging deeper just to find few exceptions. doesn't common sense tell this already? those few exceptions then protects the genre/style for every criticism. this argument is unfair.

it's like only deeply involved connoisseurs have right to say any opinions and everybody else have to deeply 'dig deeper' to express their ones.
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
'dig deeper'-argument is getting very boring. if somebody doesn't like most of he/she has heard (and i'm clearly not talking about only listening to few tunes!), then it's pointless to point them towards digging deeper just to find few exceptions. doesn't common sense tell this already? those few exceptions then protects the genre/style for every criticism. this argument is unfair.

it's like only deeply involved connoisseurs have right to say any opinions and everybody else have to deeply 'dig deeper' to express their ones.

Yes but this issue here is whether Simon has dug at all? dig around v dip in, make snap judgements with regards to past glories and move on.

the 20% figure is random though surely and not even ballpark accurate, imo. but mostly i think we should stop worrying about it and get on with what we're all up to. worrying about it so much gives it undue prominence.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
I'm just going to skip the Reynolds-fest, because looking at his blog and watching him blog endlessly about guitar solos kinda shows me I don't WANT to know his opinion on stuff anymore...

One of the things I really love about the Kode9 LP is the tricks with the voices. Obviously Spaceape annoys some people, and that's fair. But I like how the feminine/masculine vocals are used in all the hideous contrasts, and then the odd sort of responsive adlibs Spaceape lays down, as if reacting to his own narration... It really is fascinating. A lot more Maxinquaye-esque than say the KMS LP, though I feel like an idiot for coming to such a cliche comparison.
 

wise

bare BARE BONES
im guessing the following on tonight would be a good place to hear this sound

<a href="" title="tumblr_lk3roofSt11qbiogvo1_500 by DJLDJL, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5027/5645995731_977a9a6802.jpg" width="354" height="500" alt="tumblr_lk3roofSt11qbiogvo1_500"></a>

I'm going to this, first time i've heard much of this stuff in a club so we'll see if it makes a difference.
I'm quite looking forward to it, pretty mean line up
 

Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
'dig deeper'-argument is getting very boring. if somebody doesn't like most of he/she has heard (and i'm clearly not talking about only listening to few tunes!), then it's pointless to point them towards digging deeper just to find few exceptions. doesn't common sense tell this already? those few exceptions then protects the genre/style for every criticism. this argument is unfair.

it's like only deeply involved connoisseurs have right to say any opinions and everybody else have to deeply 'dig deeper' to express their ones.

I don't think the call here is for total depth, but really just evidence of any kind of depth whatsoever. I can recall Simon Reynolds complaining about Hyph Mngo in particular, but in other places you find him taking specific criticisms like that and applying it universally over some unclear larger group of artists. If the reader doesn't know what he is referring to, particularly when the genre of music he is referring to is so diffuse now that people really can't even properly define it, then anything he has to say about it lacks meaning. I don't think the demand here is for Reynolds to present his "deeply involved connoisseur" card for validation, but for him to provide the minor amount of information required to prevent his observations and criticisms from being empty to the reader.
 
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PiLhead

Well-known member
gremino's right: you don't need to have heard the entire output of a genre to have an opinion on it

take CrowleyHead -- he's not heard every guitar solo ever, but he knows he's got zero interest in guitar solos, and he's certain that nothing interesting or entertaining could be uttered on the subject of guitar solos

and that's his right
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
funny thing is, the offending blog post, which is still being talked about a month later

http://blissout.blogspot.com/2011/03/wise-words-few-months-ago-fact-posted.html

consists 90 percent of opinions quoted verbatim from this very thread by nine or ten separate individuals

so if you're dissing opinions as "grandpa" or under-informed

you're really dissing yourselves

if you'd bothered to read up thread you'd see that, that blog post is a microcosm of the issue here ie it cherrypicks the bits that suit his argument.
 
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