blissblogger
Well-known member
pop
yeah i agree, in some ways it's a battle, or to put it less melodramatically, a disagreement between modes-of-consumption and their attached sensibilities
i suppose what's irritating about pop-ism, which is not so much a straw man as such as an extrapolation of certain traits and tendencies towards their ultimate destination, is that side of it which leans towards the celebration of the fake over the real ( that whole line of argument that "fake grime/dancehall/etc" = superior because more poppy than the genuine article; selling out leads to more enjoyable music etc)
and also celebration of non-quest -- the non-questing consumer, and the non-questing producer
wanting it all on a plate made out as a kind of virtue
and the celebration of instantness as ALWAYS superior to more difficult or slower-yielding pleasures
consumer laziness is fine (there's all kinds of music i have a lazy attitude towards, i'm sure if i ever venture to grapple with Extreme Metal, the Wire's new hot zone of subcultural capitalization -- and hey i've still got my subpop prerelease cassette of Earth's first lp, i thought it was 'ambient grunge' though! -- it'll be in a totally dilettante, indolent manner)
when it's turned into a sort of proudly lazy ethos, a virtue, that's when it becomes more irritating
but as someone said upthread, there's a strong element in which these disputes are totally irrelevant to the vast majority of pop punters
mind you, i think the idea of the maundering-along 2 cds a year doesn't give a fig for genre consumer is also possibly a construct -- really there's a myriad of ways of engaging/semi-engaging/being dis-engaged from pop
when i think of people i know who aren't part of the blogging world and how they relate to pop there's a whole span of types, many so singular you could barely call them 'types' at all
i know someone who barely reads the pop media anymore but who's favorite band is the Libertines even though she's pushing forty but six years ago was a fanatical junglist
i know someone who NEVER reads pop media and is totally outside the blogging universe but who somehow mysteriously keeps up ... not w/ ariel pink and kononon no. 1, say... but, well, a few years ago i rang her up and she said "me and Tabs (her four year old), we're into Fiddy and Sean Paul.." this is someone who's quite posh and a 37 year old single mum but who's somehow kept up with street music . i think because she's into dancing and mixes with people a fair bit younger than herself
"normal", "civilian" types will often have the most peculiar record collections, real haphazard accretions of stuff
and the trajectories they follow often are exceedingly erratic (and interesting therefore) c.f. the more selfconscious and "questing" ones we virtusosos-of-consumption (i hope the irony is audible there) pursue
henrymiller said:opting out of consumer culture/opting for more you-friendly consumer choices (ie less market-oriented music) are fairly low-level political choices aren't they? i don't think anyone can exactly take the high ground either way based on their choices of music.
yeah i agree, in some ways it's a battle, or to put it less melodramatically, a disagreement between modes-of-consumption and their attached sensibilities
i suppose what's irritating about pop-ism, which is not so much a straw man as such as an extrapolation of certain traits and tendencies towards their ultimate destination, is that side of it which leans towards the celebration of the fake over the real ( that whole line of argument that "fake grime/dancehall/etc" = superior because more poppy than the genuine article; selling out leads to more enjoyable music etc)
and also celebration of non-quest -- the non-questing consumer, and the non-questing producer
wanting it all on a plate made out as a kind of virtue
and the celebration of instantness as ALWAYS superior to more difficult or slower-yielding pleasures
consumer laziness is fine (there's all kinds of music i have a lazy attitude towards, i'm sure if i ever venture to grapple with Extreme Metal, the Wire's new hot zone of subcultural capitalization -- and hey i've still got my subpop prerelease cassette of Earth's first lp, i thought it was 'ambient grunge' though! -- it'll be in a totally dilettante, indolent manner)
when it's turned into a sort of proudly lazy ethos, a virtue, that's when it becomes more irritating
but as someone said upthread, there's a strong element in which these disputes are totally irrelevant to the vast majority of pop punters
mind you, i think the idea of the maundering-along 2 cds a year doesn't give a fig for genre consumer is also possibly a construct -- really there's a myriad of ways of engaging/semi-engaging/being dis-engaged from pop
when i think of people i know who aren't part of the blogging world and how they relate to pop there's a whole span of types, many so singular you could barely call them 'types' at all
i know someone who barely reads the pop media anymore but who's favorite band is the Libertines even though she's pushing forty but six years ago was a fanatical junglist
i know someone who NEVER reads pop media and is totally outside the blogging universe but who somehow mysteriously keeps up ... not w/ ariel pink and kononon no. 1, say... but, well, a few years ago i rang her up and she said "me and Tabs (her four year old), we're into Fiddy and Sean Paul.." this is someone who's quite posh and a 37 year old single mum but who's somehow kept up with street music . i think because she's into dancing and mixes with people a fair bit younger than herself
"normal", "civilian" types will often have the most peculiar record collections, real haphazard accretions of stuff
and the trajectories they follow often are exceedingly erratic (and interesting therefore) c.f. the more selfconscious and "questing" ones we virtusosos-of-consumption (i hope the irony is audible there) pursue