What is good about Pop Music?

[blissblogger]

mime vs meme

you've kinda lost me with Fire/Ice thing

except that it that sounds more or less the same as me making a distinction between the music itself and the discourses/practices/etc that enweb it

thinking about the mimetic idea, that's definitely an interesting dimension to the discourses/practices... for instance part of my conversion to rave was seeing the shapes people threw on the floor, how they responded to it... but i already loved the music... what i learned and was entrained in, almost semiconsciously, simply by sharing these dancefloors, was how to express and enact that love... or in Dom's terms stake my claim to membership of the throng of believers

if there is a mimetic element with dancing, i think it is as much the dancer having a mimetic relationship with the music, physically analogizing with gesture and movement the intrinsic properties of the music

all the discourse of dance culture emphasizes this, it's the groove that makes you move, you are being compelled to do something... it's not an arbitrarily chosen response... mere sign-play... for a start the dancing doesn't signify anything, just as an Amen or a certain sub-bass timbre doesn't signify anything

there are pioneer dancers perhaps whose, cough, terpischorean sensibilities are in advance of the pack and are first to uncover the "correct" way of responding to the music.... e.g. that guy who invented Liquid dancing on the East Coast rave scene, Philly Dave i think his name was... or the first breakdancer

* * *
i'm going to revive my earlier comment about music being similar to sex and food as something that transcents the line between culture/pre-cultural bodily/neurological/appetitive

it's no coincidence we talk about music in terms of taste

on the one hand, with food or sex, attraction and aversion seem utterly visceral... something we have no control over, responses we didn't choose to have

on the other, it's possible to cultivate tastes... you can develop a taste for stinky cheeses, or incredibly, painfully spicy food... ditto with the wacky world of bodies and pleasures... and similarly with music

and musical/sexual/gastronomic taste is culturally inflected, obviously

that doesn't mean the actual sensations and pleasures/disgusts you experience aren't real

it's how your respond to the stimuli, and what's constructed around them

but your horizons can be widened depending on the social milieux you move through

* * * * *
what BP is calling ICE and i would just call discourse is something that can definitely become so overdeveloped and overgrown that it almost has an iron grip over the visceral, the immediate response is utterly mediated by discursive constructs

that's how i felt by the mid-80s, that the discourse about music that came out of punk > postpunk > new pop had become inimical and oppressive, a chain-link fence of text.... it was time to un-punk the discourse of music and free sound-in-itself so we could become lost for words and lost in music (of course getting to that point involved generating a lot of words, many of them polysyllabic and some of them French!) ... i thought of certain kinds of neopyschedelic rock, and later acid house, as discourse-free zones of pure sonic intensity... acid house, since it had no media of its own at that point, and was so new , turbulent and fast moving, it had a very unfixed oral discourse around it, actually seemed to fit that bill

now i think that's perhaps naive... and part of the power of pop and/or rock is the way sound and discourse have been entwined and inseparable

the Fire and Ice things seems to demand someone bring up the Derek Smalls bassist of Spinal Tap and his famous remark about being lukewarm water.

 

[dominic]

The point of being claimed by a scene is that one is claimed by the sign system overlaying the music, one is interpellated by it! This doesn't mean of course that scene members don't engage with and enjoy the differential affectivity at work in the music - the point is that they're engaging at both levels

i agree

when i go out at night i experience the music and the scene together

certainly i can distinguish b/w the music being played over the soundsystem and the composition of the crowd, the vibe, the culture, etc

but for me the overall scene is just as important to my experience as the music, if not more so

this has always been my consciously held position

i'm interested in social dynamics

crowds composed of disparate elements

i get really depressed when i go to subtonic and everyone looks like they're in grad school

i'm very "superficial" about the subject

Firstly I'd argue that when Dominic talks about having a claim over music by virtue of being claimed by it, he is talking about interpellation as per Althusser - eg. the play on the word "subject": in the process of interpellation one is both "subjected" as subordinate to the Big Subject (the ideological system; the musical scene) and formed as a "subject", ie. recognised by the system, perhaps even honoured. A basic example of this is the fuedal system, where the condition of possibility for power and status is the subordinate relatonship to the monarch.

you appear to be correct

i disagree not w/ the description but rather the notion of "ideology" -- that we're all somehow manipulated

call me naive but i think people are attracted to scenes b/c they think it good or a worthwhile option, i.e., that it will enrich their lives -- and yes, the attraction has to do both with the music's claim and w/ the web of significance that is wrapped around the music -- but significance is not merely significance -- it points to what we deem good or bad

and they avoid other scenes b/c they think it bad or less than desirable or not worth the time and investment

i think people are pretty rational when it comes to joining scenes and avoiding scenes

i.e., they may be mistaken, they may make the wrong choice, but it's a rational process

people think they are RIGHT to belong to this scene and not to that scene -- and even if it's not the right thing for everyone, it's right for them

or they think they're RIGHT to keep their distance from all scenes

Zizek says interpellation works in the same manner. The very material, social nature of ideology is such that in performing these actions, by acting <i>as if</i> you believe, you will come to be interpellated by the ideology anyway. In musical terms this means that if you continually engage with the particular signifying system of a certain scene you will begin to understand that system and see yourself in relation to it.

yes -- this is an accurate description of what happens

you have to be open to belief -- you can't be hard of heart

there's a kind of conversion experience w/ house or rave or jungle music -- at least there was for me -- like being hit by a lightening bolt

i can only speak from experience

i.e., i construct models based on my own experience and my observations of other people, i.e., what i think other people are doing & thinking

before college i was not terribly preoccupied w/ music -- i liked a grab bag of stuff -- g'n'r, the cure, depeche mode, rolling stones

then all at once, as soon as i arrived at college, there's this kid down the hall playing gto's "pure," d-shake's "yaaaahhhh," the "black betty" remix, the family stand, etc -- and i was enraptured from the get go, endlessly curious about what this music was, where you had to go to hear it, etc

and yes -- almost from the beginning i made a whole series of associations w/ this music -- i.e., the kid down the hall was much cooler than me, he was rich, he was glamorous, he was from nyc -- i then began to go to clubs, there were drugs, there were stylish people, there were gay people, there were wonderfully bizarre people -- and people that i met at clubs would explain matters to me, tell me what the scene was about, etc -- and then i'd also read the odd magazine article about raves in england or southern california

and then when i returned to saint louis for the summer i began to investigate raves, which at the time were ridiculously small affairs, more about people trying to will a scene into existence, but i understood and appreciated what they were up to -- i loved the music and i liked the whole entire political project

and was i predisposed to buy into it? absolutely

i used to read books about the rolling stones and the beatles back in the seventh grade

i had always thought of 1967 as the apex -- when the stones were pyschedelic

i had always fantasized about some kind of psychedelic project, some kind of new psychedelia

(which is perhaps why i wasn't too invested in much as a teenager -- b/c in the midwestern suburbs in the mid to late 80s it was all about punk -- the sounds didn't grab me, nor did the culture)

so yeah -- i had a definite predisposition

and i was from the standard background for ravers in america -- white, middle class, in college, grew up in the suburbs

and yet i still think it was the sound of the records that the glamorous kid down the hall was playing that first seized me -- something exceeded all the other socio-empirical factors

and yeah alot of it was willed belief

i went to england during my third year of college mainly b/c i wanted to experience the real deal

b/c i felt that elements were missing in america, things hadn't come together in the right way

(ironically, had i stayed in america i would have experienced the first year of nasa)

and then i began to think that things had gone into serious decline -- i.e., as soon as it became a reality in america, i didn't much like it

so for me it was more about glimpsed possibilities -- or what i imagined were real possibilities

and the more i think about it, the more i talk about it, the better understanding i think i have of it

and yet i also know that it's very much my own private fantasy -- a fantasy that most people no longer share, especially on this side of the atlantic

but this is all irrelevant or largely irrelevant to why i like some records and not others

it explains only my disposition for the dance scene

it doesn't explain why some records grab me and others don't

it doesn't explain why i consider most dance records chaff

why even with the fetishized 90/91/92 stuff i consider most of it chaff

The cause is a kind of "belief-before-belief", a conviction that engaging with the Big Subject will suture permanently the gap in their subjectivity, protect them from the trauma of the Real.

errrr -- could you maybe explain this passage?

put it into more concrete terms

that is how is joining a music scene an attempt to suture a gap in subjectivity?

and what is a gap in subjectivity?

and how is joining a music scene an attempt to gain protection from the trauma of the Real?

and what is the Real in this context?

When Dominic argues that being "claimed" by music is a self-evident and "real" process and that the working out of the social meaning of this claim is "politics", he seems to be using a realist/positivist model of politics - that politics is just the process of managing real-but-competing interests.

errrr, this is your restatement of my views

not sure what you mean by a "realist/positivist model"

not sure what you mean by "politics is just the process of managing . . ."

by politics i mean not only trying to convince others that you belong to the scene -- not only the dynamics of including and excluding others, or of forming hierarchies

politics is also about persuading others of what is "good" and "bad"

persuading others about the power of the music, testifying to the music's powers

getting others to dance with and alongside you

getting others to agree with your "take" on the music -- and this is accomplished in all kinds of ways, not simply through writing music criticism

What his theory seems to leave out is that no interests are the pure expression of uncomplicated "real" subject positions; all interests are the result of ideological formation and hegemonic enunciation.

again, i suppose i allow more room for a kind of argument

for being PERSUADED about music

and for PERSUADING others

again, i don't deny the role of predisposition

but even predisposition is not merely the product of ideological formation

you're inclined toward certain things, you seek out certain things, you're receptive of certain things b/c you THINK them desirable or meritorious or good

 

[k-punk]

better in what respect?

Better in the sense of having some purchase on reality.

 

[k-punk]

[QUOTE originally posted by Dominic]i'm assume you meant to say that a song may trigger intense joy if you're one mood

or if not loathing then at least very little reaction (apathy, annoyance) if you're in another mood[/QUOTE]

Wow, no shit, I can see why you think they are winning the argument with incisive theoretical moves like that...

This whole FIRE/ ICE thing starts off at the wrong level, by knocking out the primary nonsignifying zone of IMPACT of the sound, which is NOT phenomenological, not about subjective experience

It's better put in terms of the psychoanalytic between primary and secondary process:

primary process: what is really happening (scarification, bruising, abrasion, addiction)

secondary process: what the perceptual-conscious system narrativizes as happening (this is where phenomenology and 'experience' come into play). What are you calling ICE would be one level up again.

Primary process is not cognitive, that is why there is no question of re-cognition at this level.

But it's the idea that the secondary process has NO RELATION to the primary process that I most resist....
that's poststructuralist relativism given a bizarre twist by this neo-theistic mimesis stuff (first bird, first dancer, first cause....)

 

[dominic]

Wow, no shit, I can see why you think they are winning the argument with incisive theoretical moves like that...

i hope you won't make a habit of quoting my least incisive remarks

plus, i think border police meant what he said -- that the first 16 bars of a song may light your fire, and then the next 8 bars of the song inspire loathing

so neither border police's original remark nor my recasting of it is particularly incisive -- i.e., both state the obvious

however, doesn't fire burn the flesh and leave scars?

 

[blissblogger]

>that the first 16 bars of a song may light your fire, and then the next 8 bars of the song inspire loathing

it's weird, i cannot think of a single example ever of me feeling that way about a music

 

[k-punk]

i hope you won't make a habit of quoting my least incisive remarks

lol, sorry, that was a bit cruel.. but was done to highlight my exasperation about the way in which an awful lot of theoretical effort seems to be being expended in the cause of saying what for me appears quite banal... ppl like different things for often quite complex reasons... so what?

 

[s_clover]

one from the peanut gallery

have only sorta grasped the discussion but it's odd from the sidelines -- a recasting of groundedness debates in musical terrain. retrospectively i've been thru these debates myself, but i find them not that useful since in practice we're talking from a critical standpoint a personal valuation of music anyway, esp. in this crowd. so it comes down not to debating what we're knowing but taste in what we feel is worth knowning (and valuation of music from that regard as well -- how we can make it part of our discourse of knowledge). on the other hand, these debates only seem moderately more useful in their original academic context, where at least stance is defined by a larger field of disciplinary utility.

but that's not mainly what i wanted to do. what i wanted to raise was the idea of fractal discourse as yanked from andrew abbott in his lovely book "the chaos of the disciplines." basic notion: these stances are not only inevitable, but infinitely fractated. within a "hard" community -- say standard causal analysis in sociology -- you have a self-similar split between those who only do causal on "hard" facts like income and those who do causal on increasingly "soft" facts like opinion polls. a split over hardness of opinion polls comes next, a split over hardness of coding of other discourse that can be marked with "opinon" comes next, etc. similarly in the qualitative side of soc, etc.

this is a nifty concept (that in itself doesn't explain anything) that maps onto rockist/popist discourse to a degree, constructionism/groundedness to a greater degree, and absofrikinloutely onto musical scenes themselves. one key aspect is that if the split is an inevitable/necessary product of larger enstructuring dynamics, then its apparent "resolution" at any given moment is determined by shifts in those dynamics + the contingencies of which side has better topics/work/product/exponents etc. which means that the "winning" side splits along the same lines & for the same reasons.

i like the idea of fractation better than the odometer model where the discourse just swings back and forth, becuz fractaction lead to grasping temporally striated sequences.

anyway, abbott does a better job at this than me and i'm not even talking directly about dancing or music.

anyway, the provocative question is -- if we could demonstrate the ultimate "groundedness" of music, why would that matter, and to whom?

 

[borderpolice]

i like to call it voodoo

however, pentecostalism in the united states, at least in early stages, was a largely black american movement

i didn't know that. "Voodoo" is a problematic term

 

[Tim F]

"lol, sorry, that was a bit cruel.. but was done to highlight my exasperation about the way in which an awful lot of theoretical effort seems to be being expended in the cause of saying what for me appears quite banal... ppl like different things for often quite complex reasons... so what?"

Mark, this debate has hinged on a whole bunch of questions like eg.

- how do popists listen to music?
- how do rockists listen to music?
- how does the 12 cd a year casual fan listen to music?
- what is the best way to listen to music, and is it one of the above?
- are the above options fundamentally different or ultimately similar?
- what is the difference between critical engagement and uncritical enjoyment?
- when does music "create" communities and when is it encouraging a complacency with the status quo?
- is social enjoyment/engagement more important than individual enjoyment/engagement?

I think that to answer these questions, we need to know the following (non-exhaustive list):
- what do we think is going on when we listen to music?
- what is happening when we enjoy a piece of music?
- where does individual enjoyment/engagement stop and social enjoyment/engagement begin?
- to what extent can music be said to directly "create" anything?

It seems to me that you're saying that most people's enjoyment of music is this simple and drearily predictable process so that you can justify moving away from any real examination of that enjoyment. But without understanding this process of enjoyment how can we decide whether it is right or wrong? Good or bad? And if we dismiss this examination as being beneath our contempt, aren't we simply leaving the process unexplainable, ineffable, mystical? "Stupid people like Kylie, it's irrelevant how or why..." - isn't that just bad-popism-in-reverse? Would you take seriously a Marxist who banged on and on about how everyone was being controlled by ideology but didn't bother to actually theorise it?

"But it's the idea that the secondary process has NO RELATION to the primary process that I most resist....
that's poststructuralist relativism given a bizarre twist by this neo-theistic mimesis stuff (first bird, first dancer, first cause....)"

I don't think this is what BorderPolice is saying though. Both BorderPolice and I have agreed and frequently asserted (though this appears to be overlooked) that music <i>does</i> have a direct sensory sonic impact. And of course that sonic impact is one condition of possibility for all social experiences of and responses to the music. This is true for all sensory experiences - eg. we use the colour red to signify fire because we frequently experience a mixture of colours we can generalise as being "red" when we look at fires.

Such conditions of possibility are present right through dance music eg. the dance music <i>itself</i> encourages dancing which is "in time" with it, which takes advantage of certain properties within the music (trance dancing is very blocky; house focuses on the hips; no-one would try to waltz to either style). At the same time though, the dancing is never <i>only</i> shaped by the music; it's always <i>simultaneously</i> a social act which responds to other social acts and is in turn responded to. And I think that those social acts also in turn set conditions of possibility on our unmediated experience. By the time I was old enough to go to a jungle night I had been listening to it and privately dancing to it for so long that I had a style of dancing readymade, pieced together from what non-jungle dancing I'd already done and then warped by the physical demands of the music itself. But when I'd take unitiated friends to jungle nights their dancing for the first hour or so would often be a mixture of appalling or hilarious, their bodies simply not knowing what to do. By the end of the night they'd be dancing like everyone else there. But my jungle dancing has only very gradually drifted closer to the predominant style on Melbourne dancefloors; for the longest time I was very resistant to the social insistence that one dance to the basslines and not the beats. I had read in some of Simon's articles actually when I was 16 about jungle being "two lane" music dancewise, but my body didn't understand this until I saw it in action. So where's the social aspect of my original jungle dance style? It is precisely in the ideas of how my body was supposed to dance (ie. to the beats) that I had transplanted from the other non-dancing experiences I had had. These in turn had been a mixture of direct-physical-response and social mimesis, and so it goes back back back...

In this way we can see that there is never a "first dancer" because no sign system <i>actually</i> springs into existence entirely "ex nihilo"; all sign systems are deviations from other sign systems, moulded to suit the demands of the music. In that sense no new dance move is really a new dance move, it's actually a deviation from a previous dance move. And certainly a big factor in why certain deviations occur and become popular is that they fit in with the direct-physical-experience of the music.

P.S. Dominic I agree that "ideology" has a unfortunate negative overtones (although I don't always use it negatively). BorderPolice made this point too I think? The suggested replacement was "social construction"

 

[borderpolice]

but it seems to amount to an equivocation between two
levels: the nonsignifying level of sonic impact and the signifying
level of ppl's INTERPRETATION of that impact....

For the record, I'd like to point out that I'm not making that
evocation.

Proving my point... the only way it is 'transformed into a social
signifier' is when it is talked and written about.. on the dancefloor
there is no signification...

In what sense are you using "signification". And please bear in mind that
people inevitably talk (in the every sense) about music, even on dance floors.

and, really, this mimesis thing is going
nowhere: a digital copy is precisely NOT a copy in the mimetic
sense... it is a reiteration of exactly the same code... in the same
way that if you have a virus, your organism hasn't mimetically copied
one with the virus....

Was anyone talking about "Digital Copies" (by which I presume you mean
perfect copies"? No! I've chosen to use the term "Mimesis" because it
is somewhat vague. However, and this is an important point, "Copy" is
an observer relative concept. There is no perfect copy if you look
hard enough. Once you go to the molecular level, digital copies
degenerate to analog similarity. The degree of precision an observer
achieves to decide if two things are copies of each other, or are
being similar, depends on effort and discreminatory abilities, for
example in terms of time or energy, and that is always limited. One
has other needs that may take priority over arcane questions about the
similarity or otherwise of two dancers' moves.

Better in the sense of having some purchase on reality.

Would you mind expanding a bit more on why that would be the case and how?

This whole FIRE/ ICE thing starts off at the wrong
level, by knocking out the primary nonsignifying zone of IMPACT of the
sound, which is NOT phenomenological, not about subjective
experience

Well, you can't be talking about my FIRE/ICE distinction because I've
gone out of my way to include this level, I even termed it
"IDEO-MEMO-MUDUL", trying to convey by this strange word that there's
something else, which I don't understand. The problem with it though,
is that it's fairly unaccessible and unknown.

It's better put in terms of the psychoanalytic between primary and secondary process:

primary process: what is really happening (scarification, bruising, abrasion, addiction)

secondary process: what the perceptual-conscious system narrativizes as happening (this is where phenomenology and 'experience' come into\
play). What are you calling ICE would be one level up again.

Primary process is not cognitive, that is why there is no question of re-cognition at this level.

Well, as I said, I've always acknowledged those primary processes, you
are attacking somebody else's position here. Moreover, speaking of THE
psychoanalytic is problematic as there are about as many diverging
interpretations as there are psychoanalysts. What's more "primary
processes", as conceived by Freuds early work, is itself not what is
"really happening", as always acknowledged by Freud, but rather, using
modern technical terminology, an emergent (hence observer dependent)
description and simplification of a more complicated and fine-grained
neural level (which itself is emergent on molecuar effects and so
on). Freud was a neuroscientist by training and always hoped that
someday it would be possible to connect his emergent description in
terms of drives, the Oedipal triangle and so on with the biological
level of decription. As we all know that has proved impossible to this
day.

Be that as it may, I have not seen an interesting description of
musical effects in terms ofstric psychoanalytic language, not to
mention biology. I'd be happy to be convinced otherwise, but for the
time being I go with what I have easy access to, i.e. Sociology and
(my own) phenomenological level, and infer/stipulate underlying
unobservable processes like the several modules in the fire/ice post,
as the need arises, without commiting myself to psychoanalytical
vocabularies.

But it's the idea that the secondary process has NO RELATION to the
primary process that I most resist....

Well, as I've gone out of my way to make clear, I don't hold this
position, I hold the opposite one: Fire/Ice are emergent descriptions
of a more basic, lower level, what you call primary processes. It's just
that that latter level is mostly inaccessible and it's properties are
only be inferred from observations at the higher level.

that's poststructuralist
relativism given a bizarre twist by this neo-theistic mimesis stuff
(first bird, first dancer, first cause....)

What's your problem with the first bird in a V-Shaped formation flight now?

 

[borderpolice]

and i'd say that fire has priority over ice (this is
the key point) it's why i lose myself while dancing to this track and
why i come back to my senses when the dj plays the next track -- b/c
this track extinguishes rather than feeds the fire

I have do disagree with this. Fire and Ice are two incomensurable
categories. No matter how much you (think you) loose yourself on a
dancefloor, you are still observable to others, your dancemoves are
still socially acquired in a long process. And you are still,
observing and reacting to others, even though this isn't obvious to
you, because your consciousness is maxed out with the music. But
conscious content is not a good indicator of what else is going on in
your body.

i'm assume you meant to say that a song may trigger
intense joy if you're one mood or if not loathing then at least very
little reaction (apathy, annoyance) if you're in another mood [\QUOTE]

That's right. Music is always contextualised, whether you listen in the
presence of others or not.

or is neurological wiring transcendental b/c science
can at most explain the OS -- i.e., maybe someday -- but not the
content that runs through the wiring -- i.e., how the content gets
assigned value?

I'd say that the OS is only understood once the content can also be
explained. But, and I don't know if that's reassuring to you or not,
current science is nowhere near anything like an understanding of that
OS. As I pointed out upthread, even single neurons are not understood.

errrrr -- what about TAKING the listener up and down?
"understand this groove" -- a classic mantra

Yes, it fits quite nicely.

so i here i must disagree w/ you -- certainly w/
dancing there does seem to be a pretty close fit b/w how people dance
and the nature of the music

There are the constraints of the body: there's a maximal speed with
which a human body can change legs and the like, yes. But taking these
physiological limits for granted, I don't see why the remaining
musical details restrict the evolution of dancing styles. Take D&B
versus Metal. Two forms of music that are very similar in their
rhythmic structures, but rather different chromatically and
socially. One can take a D&B track, have it played by a metal band,
and get a fairly convincing thrash workout, and vice versa. This
musical similarity in the face of widely diverging styles of bodily
movements indicates that music and dance are only weakly correlated.

YES YES YES -- in fact i said the same thing
upthread

Sorry, I had missed that. So much stuff to read, so little time. What you
write there is staggeringly similar to how I experience this.

but not with sexual/romantic possibilities but for me
it's ultimately asexual

That's quite different for me.

and yet i think you're losing sight of the TESTIFYING and PERSUADING that occurs on the dancefloor

it's not simply mechanistic mimesis

it's a kind of argument -- it's about convincing others -- and about shared convictions

I agree. When I speak of mimesis, that's a simplification of
course. Mutual observation, perhaps? One can always make the theory
richer and more empirically adequate. I've proposed a crude
approximation. But there is what may be termed a basic vocabulary, for
example of dance moves, of gestures, of ways to talk about music, that
has a certain stability.

 

[borderpolice]

you've kinda lost me with Fire/Ice thing

except that it that sounds more or less the same as me making a
distinction between the music itself and the discourses/practices/etc
that enweb it

I'm sorry to have been unclear, I wrote that in a rush before work.
And yes the fire/ice thing is similar to what you speak about there.
I find the term "music itself" slightly problematic, because no
individual has access to music itself. Instead there's (1) the private
conscious representation, (2) other people's observable behaviour and
(3) the (unobservable, unconscious hence inferred) brain activity
generating in some sense (1) and (2) above. Cruicially, there are
several billion human bodies. For each of those things may play out
differently. This distributed nature is important.

thinking about the mimetic idea, that's
definitely an interesting dimension to the discourses/practices... for
instance part of my conversion to rave was seeing the shapes people
threw on the floor, how they responded to it... but i already loved
the music... what i learned and was entrained in, almost
semiconsciously, simply by sharing these dancefloors, was how to
express and enact that love... or in Dom's terms stake my claim to
membership of the throng of believers

if there is a mimetic element with dancing, i think it is as much the
dancer having a mimetic relationship with the music, physically
analogizing with gesture and movement the intrinsic properties of the
music

all the discourse of dance culture emphasizes this, it's the groove
that makes you move, you are being compelled to do something... it's
not an arbitrarily chosen response... mere sign-play... for a start
the dancing doesn't signify anything, just as an Amen or a certain
sub-bass timbre doesn't signify anything

there are pioneer dancers perhaps whose, cough, terpischorean
sensibilities are in advance of the pack and are first to uncover the
"correct" way of responding to the music.... e.g. that guy who
invented Liquid dancing on the East Coast rave scene, Philly Dave i
think his name was... or the first breakdancer

Oh sure, I couldn't agree more. This is why I emphasise the
distributed nature of the phenomenon. There is not the music, the
dancer, the subject, but billions, observing each other. This leads toj
evolution. One could use metaphors of cross-breeding and the like.

* * * i'm going to revive my earlier comment about
music being similar to sex and food as something that transcents the
line between culture/pre-cultural
bodily/neurological/appetitive

fully agree!

now i think that's perhaps naive... and part of the power of pop
and/or rock is the way sound and discourse have been entwined and
inseparable

Totally. We have an entertainment industry, with tens of thousands working on
producing and shaping this music. The current exchange is part of this shaping.
This obviously has strong effects. Is anyone denying this?

 

[henrymiller]

The point I keep trying to make is that, of course, NO-ONE is a popist, NO-ONE is a geeza: the demand to enjoy (and only enjoy) is not something that anyone can live up to... but that doesn't mean that popism and geezaesthetics aren't extremely powerful discourses....

this is what's still stumping me 12 pages on: how in hell is ILX/NYPLM a hegemonic force? only in a tiny corner of the internet, and even then no-one who actually posts to ILX would say that the popist 'hivemind' really exists. that said, people are popists, it isn't a straw man, but otoh, dividing pleasures (and, covertly, the people who enjoy them) into 'libidinizing' and 'delibidinizing', isn't doing anything to argue the point -- what is good about pop music -- either way, unless you subscribe to that particular binary in the first place.

k-punk's notion that no-one can be a popist because no-one can live up to the demands of the superego needs clarification: a) how far is this popism reducible to the 'demand to enjoy' and b) doesn't this apply to anything? ie no-one can truly be a 'german' or a 'muslim' or a 'woman' insofar as they can't live up to etc etc. why is popism different? if no-one is a geeza, no-one is anything.

 

[k-punk]

this is what's still stumping me 12 pages on: how in hell is ILX/NYPLM a hegemonic force? only in a tiny corner of the internet, and even then no-one who actually posts to ILX would say that the popist 'hivemind' really exists. that said, people are popists, it isn't a straw man, but otoh, dividing pleasures (and, covertly, the people who enjoy them) into 'libidinizing' and 'delibidinizing', isn't doing anything to argue the point -- what is good about pop music -- either way, unless you subscribe to that particular binary in the first place.

It is the clearest statement of the bourgeois values that dominate the Pop industry; that is how it is hegemonic. It doesn't create that hegemony, it merely expresses it.

If you don't subscribe to the binary 'libidinizing'/ 'delibidinizing', you are probably a victim-advocate of Popism.

Of course, the next move, endlessly rehearsed, is to now say, 'I'm not a Popist... I'm just defending Popism... Not that I believe it of course...' But there is no more to being a Popist than this... That is why the fact that no-one is actually a Popist doesn't mean that Popism doesn't exist. Quite to the contrary.

k-punk's notion that no-one can be a popist because no-one can live up to the demands of the superego needs clarification: a) how far is this popism reducible to the 'demand to enjoy' and b) doesn't this apply to anything? ie no-one can truly be a 'german' or a 'muslim' or a 'woman' insofar as they can't live up to etc etc. why is popism different? if no-one is a geeza, no-one is anything.

I have quite clearly defined what the meaning of the term Popism is in my discourse. If there is some other, more complex position, that is not what I mean by Popism. (The position Tim is advocating, for instance, is not Popist as I define it). It remains, then, for people who are positive about Popism to come out and state what position it is they are actually advocating. Of course, no-one will do that, all that we get is the endless negative theology about Popism, 'it's not that', 'no, it's more complicated than that'... What is it, then?

You can be a German without having to live up to any behavioural requirement. Similarly, one can be a Muslim without holding to any tenets of Islam. Being a woman is more complex, obviously.

The idea that no-one is anything is not so extreme. In fact, it is the first principle of existentialism. But isn't being a geeza more about being anxious about being a geeza; just as 'being normal' is about being anxious about being normal?

 

[Tim F]

"I have quite clearly defined what the meaning of the term Popism is in my discourse. If there is some other, more complex position, that is not what I mean by Popism. (The position Tim is advocating, for instance, is not Popist as I define it). It remains, then, for people who are positive about Popism to come out and state what position it is they are actually advocating. Of course, no-one will do that, all that we get is the endless negative theology about Popism, 'it's not that', 'no, it's more complicated than that'... What is it, then? "

Mark, I have to assume you take issue not just with Impossible Pure Popism, but also the not almost-but-not-quite-pure-popism that can actually exist in the world - otherwise your objections wouldn't make much sense or have much bite. So I think it would be useful if you would refer to a critic who you believe embodies this almost-but-not-quite-pure-popism which can actually exist in the world. It's clear that we disagree pretty radically in our interpretations of "The Geezaesthetic Manifesto" based on differing perceptions of the mindset(s) behind it, so perhaps if you choose someone who you believe represents the mindset (of almost-but-not-quite... etc.) you're talking about I (and anyone else obviously) can respond to the concept more cogently than I may have so far.

Despite your disagreement, I still consider my position to be pretty popist at least insofar as it does not contradict what I consider to be the FT/NYLPM ethos (I did write FT's first actual full article on Britney I believe!), but maybe you can provide a different example, or hone in on specific aspects of that example, that I can then distinguish myself from as you are able to do.

 

[k-punk]

Mark, I have to assume you take issue not just with Impossible Pure Popism, but also the not almost-but-not-quite-pure-popism that can actually exist in the world - otherwise your objections wouldn't make much sense or have much bite. So I think it would be useful if you would refer to a critic who you believe embodies this almost-but-not-quite-pure-popism which can actually exist in the world.

No, because Popism is not a critical position; it's an anti-critical position, precisely defined by a refusal of commitment. Because commitment is itself 'rockist'. Let's be clear: Popism exists in the world - of course it does, it is everywhere you look IN THE INDUSTRY ITSELF - it's just that there are no Popists. The closest you are going to get to a statement of Popism IS something like the Geezaesthetics manifesto. If I knew more about Kogan, I suspect I'd think he was too, but anything I've read either by or about him just bores me silly so I don't know.

But Popism's real force comes into play negatively, when it tells you what you are NOT allowed to do - i.e. to hold popular culture to account, to say that it is failing in some way, to argue that people's self-descriptions aren't always accurate, that people can do useless, negative and self-destructive things whilst still enjoying them. And if you want to see that in action, go and look through the k-punk comments box from last year.

It's clear that we disagree pretty radically in our interpretations of "The Geezaesthetic Manifesto" based on differing perceptions of the mindset(s) behind it, so perhaps if you choose someone who you believe represents the mindset (of almost-but-not-quite... etc.) you're talking about I (and anyone else obviously) can respond to the concept more cogently than I may have so far.

You've responded to it quite cogently, but you haven't defended Popism (as I define it). I radically disagree with your aesthetic theory, but not for the same reasons I disagree with (what I understand to be) Popism. Will you now unequivocally say, 'This is what Popism is, and this is how I am a Popist.'

Despite your disagreement, I still consider my position to be pretty popist at least insofar as it does not contradict what I consider to be the FT/NYLPM ethos (I did write FT's first actual full article on Britney I believe!), but maybe you can provide a different example, or hone in on specific aspects of that example, that I can then distinguish myself from as you are able to do.

If liking Britney made one a Popist, then I would be one, so it can't be that.

Is the FT/NYPLM axis defined by geezaesthetics or not? If it is, we've already discussed that the term 'geeza' could hardly be applied to your writing. It's the degree of unashamed intellectualism that marks out your writing as different; precisely its well-worked, clearly stated theoretical agenda. You've made clear your differences from the 'only enjoy' position. Fine, if you want to call your position 'Popism' Ok, I don't really care about the label. But it is not what I am attacking when I use the term.

 

[blissblogger]

i was thinking this thread was going to peter out in a welter of amiability but it seems to be circling back, after massive detours, to where matt started it, and could even get querulous again

how about we forget the word Pop-ist and talk about Pro-Pop, which is a stance many more people i expect would step up and identify themselves with?

i always thought that term funny, as it positions pop music as this underdog that needs our support and sticking up for... but it's only in quite small zones of discourse that this would be needed (and even pitchfork succumbed quite some while ago) given that Pop rules the world with a Formica Fist

from my admittedly aged perspective all the battles that the Pro-Pop squad are fighting were won long ago, surely?

one of the battles is that: great music can be made by a committee, not just by lone auteurs

erm, anybody who loves a Motown record, a Spector record, a Moroder/Summer record has conceded this already haven't they? or more recently any R&B greatness you care to nominate... i would just say that a committee can be an auteur (c.f. cinema where it's a whole team not just the director -- writers, cinematographer, editor, stage design, costumes, casting, etc et)

another battle: to show that music can be great w/o being "deep" or having lyrical content.

erm, again, this strikes me as long established... a notion i'd personally absorbed 25 years ago with my first disco singles... i mean, "I Feel Love" has about four words in its lyric in total but it's obviously like one of the pinnacles of 20th Century art... there may be some sadsack indie-rock fans who still prize lyrics above all else but cmon, we don't need to bother with them! (this is not to say that there aren't disco reocrds or R&B records or whatever with great lyrics in, BTW)

another battle: people's motives don't need to be pure to make great art, that wanting to make money or be commercially successful is not an obstacle to producing fabness

well i must admit i still honestly doubt that anybody who was purely mercenary could make something truly great, but i suppose it's possible... certainly with so many of the pop greats, from Berry Gordy through Moroder to Timbaland, these are sharp businessmen as much as sonic visionaries... Lee Perry was a breadhead and a Rasta... wanting to get paid in full and make cutting edge music are not in contradiction through so much black music...

or you think of say Abba, or the Michael Jackson/Quincy Jones/Rod Temperton team, obviously selling lots of records was important to them, but i kind of thing as much as a kind of sealing of the aesthetic deal, the success and mass approbation completing the point of the records, in a similar way to how making the Top 10 was so important to Green ( i don't think the resuliting royalties were on his mind AT ALL)... wiht Abba or Jones/Jackson/etc i don't think as they were making those records they were thinking of shifting units or making it radio-ready, they were first and foremost pursuing a vision of perfection... i saw a documentary on Abba recently and it was quite moving, the dedication they applied to making those records... struck me as quite a "rockist" mindset in the sense of being fanatical and questing

but perhaps it is these very concepts like visionary, landmark, genius, masterpiece, breakthrough, quest, etc that are rockist...

now have i missed any other major Pro-Pop precepts?

in the end i return to this idea that the two camps are divided by sensibility and rhetorical tone rather than clear bodies of thought

 

[tek tonic]

But Popism's real force comes into play negatively, when it tells you what you are NOT allowed to do - i.e. to hold popular culture to account, to say that it is failing in some way, to argue that people's self-descriptions aren't always accurate, that people can do useless, negative and self-destructive things whilst still enjoying them. And if you want to see that in action, go and look through the k-punk comments box from last year.

where does the Geezaesthetics manifesto prohibit any of those things? "Criticism is conversation and we want to hear about your reactions, especially if you express yourself interestingly. Disagreeing is part of the conversation." disagreeing could certainly involve holding pop culture or the critic to account, couldn't it?

 

[dominic]

Dominic I agree that "ideology" has a unfortunate negative overtones (although I don't always use it negatively). BorderPolice made this point too I think? The suggested replacement was "social construction"

it's not simply that the term has negative overtones

rather, first, the notion of ideology seems to deny the possibility of the subject being a subject of truth, i.e., fidelity to the event of music

second, "ideology" is anti-political -- the notion that we are all puppets of ideology denies the validity (primacy) of our sense/conviction that this music scene is good and that music scene bad, this song powerful and that song weak

MOREOVER, how was it established that the concept of ideology is valid and true?

we use this concept to deny the truth of the political

and yet why do we think it true that nothing is more powerful than ideology?

and what exactly is this ideology that it causes some to rally to camp A, some to rally to camp B, others to rally to camp C

if we're so dominated by ideology -- then why doesn't everyone from the same social background join the same scene, have the same views on what is good and what is bad?

or are their an infinite number of ideologies? -- a different ideology for each music scene, each much sub-scene? -- but once we say that each of the hundreds of existing music scenes has its own ideology, and that in the case of each scene its members have been subjected to it by ideological forces -- once we say all of this? then what are we even talking about?

is this kind of ideology even remotely like "free market" ideology, or capitalist ideology, which applies to the whole of american/western/modern society

seems to me this concept of ideology as applied to music & music scenes is pretty damn mystifying

so mystifying that i don't think it true or helpful

again, i don't deny the role of predisposition, prior life history, etc, in determining what we value and like -- but i don't think these factors all-determining

and i certainly don't think that the concept of ideology has much explanatory power

how can we seriously claim that "ideologicla forces" are determinative when people's decisions about which music scenes to join, the degree to which they identify with this or that kind of music, etc, are so manifestly diverse -- i.e., so manifestly political in nature -- i.e., so manifestly a case of people saying they like this kind of sound & scene but not that kind of sound & scene, so manifestly a case of some people choosing to become heavily invested in music and others choosing to invest in non-musical projects and endeavors -- why deny the political?

why resort to "ideology" as explanation of first choice rather than the naive explanation that people are captured by the music -- i.e., think this music powerful and therefore good and therefore worth making an investment in?

seems to me that music & music scenes & art & culture are the SITE of the political -- spaces where we still have strong opinions about what is good and what is bad

spaces where people don't walk around in ideological blinkers