sadmanbarty
Well-known member
that's absolutely brilliant.
Culture As Advertising.
that's absolutely brilliant.
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
i'm sure mclaren's claimed the pistols were just a marketing ploy for his clothes shop.
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
aggressive.
it was real in golden age grime, whereas it's this measured play-acting by the likes of skepta or stormzy. when they try and be gruff it's like when ed sheeran swears or a Pomeranian snaps at you.
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
actually harder than i thought that. i thought it'd be obvious and there'd be loads. maybe that's not the case.
luka
Well-known member
Virtually the whole history of recorded music, with a few special exceptions has taken place within capitalist economies but there's a risk here of losing the initial focus. Things tend to get very hazy and nebulous when the word capitalism gets bandied about. There's not a human on earth who knows what it actually is.
The initial focus was on how forms are generated within a specific context and then commodified, universalised and hollowed out, speaking not for or as an individual or community but as the voice of capital itself. A mocking supernatural voice which speaks through it's chosen representatives
The initial focus was on how forms are generated within a specific context and then commodified, universalised and hollowed out, speaking not for or as an individual or community but as the voice of capital itself. A mocking supernatural voice which speaks through it's chosen representatives
luka
Well-known member
I find this new mythology which has congealed around the entertainment industry fascinating and I think it has a lot to with this sense of capital itself speaking through its products. Hence the emphasis on the post human. Again this dissolving agent at work.
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
that's an interesting point that actually.
take my thing about kartel's 'cake soap', it's a song specifically designed to market his own product and yet it is unquestionably personal. it's him. there's nothing stepford wives about it.
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
emotionally complex or convoluted.
marketing is about repeatedly hammering home a handful of key ideas and concepts.
luka
Well-known member
Psychedelic materialism is,imo, the unofficial religion of the ruling elites. Crowley plus prosperity theology. Magic is transforming the world in accordance to the will. When this is directed not at self transformation and self transcendence and self mastery but instead towards material success, wealth and power you get psychedelic materialism
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we know very well what it is, we just can't claim to resist it as human individuals or individual demarcated grouplets. it's a deterministic process.
Within that determinism though there is much possibility to make tragic and long lasting historical mistakes. which is the story of the communist movement in the 20th century, long before Stalinism.
Ok that's a bit of an uncharitable reading. clearly we have some consensus of what capitalism is, hence we can talk about the voice of capital directly speaking to us. But what did you mean with that remark above?
Within that determinism though there is much possibility to make tragic and long lasting historical mistakes. which is the story of the communist movement in the 20th century, long before Stalinism.
Ok that's a bit of an uncharitable reading. clearly we have some consensus of what capitalism is, hence we can talk about the voice of capital directly speaking to us. But what did you mean with that remark above?
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luka
Well-known member
I mean no one has ever provided a useful definition. There's no clarity and no consensus. But there os already a thread dedicated to trying (and abjectly failing) to define capitalism. We can revive it but let's just bracket that discussion for now. There's lots pf other points I need to address. You've said a whole bunch of stuff, crowl, bart....
luka
Well-known member
I can see why you would bring this up, a song literally aa advert, but I don't think it's strictly relevant in that vybez is not a sock puppet of global capital. He remains a local artist operating within local norms with a local/diasporic audience.
I realise this is contentious and not a straightforward distinction to draw.
Ambiguous. It has to push something specific in order to sell it, it has to bind itself to a product.
Sure but this then gets into the bigger issue of how far are scientific definitions objectively true. The definition that speaks of the dispossession of the agricultural producer from the means of her subsistance and thereby globally socialising her into a class of civil society that is also not a class proper as it has been deprived of all means of production is a compelling one, albeit not one very useful for music critics because the logical endpoint of that is that folk music was (once) the only true working class music and everything else has only existed in senius form for very temporary periods.
conversely this is why leftist political music has mostly failed. we are consumers of music, not immediate producers in the sense that existed in peasant societies. we make the music but then we buy it back at a marked up price.
Which is what was so hilarious about some people in hardcore moaning about rip offs. that's the entire structure of recorded music.
In a way sampling was the most unethical but also the most blatantly ethical act you could do in capitalism.
Which is what was so hilarious about some people in hardcore moaning about rip offs. that's the entire structure of recorded music.
In a way sampling was the most unethical but also the most blatantly ethical act you could do in capitalism.
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luka
Well-known member
So to go back to this, I want to catch up.... What we are saying here, I think, is that pop, the commodified, universal form which speaks from nowhere to no one, is not the site of innovation. That it is the toothless rehashing of old models incapable of birthing the new. I would say that this is axiomatic.
No one is obliged to accept innovation or novelty as the yardstick for value however, that obviously is another argument entirely.
luka
Well-known member
Barty is not making the argument that we should accept capitalist realism. To he contrary he is bewailing the cooption of uk drill to the marketplace, the corruption of a former purity, and his underground heroes selling out. No one here is making that argument in simple good faith. Worth remembering.
luka
Well-known member
What does this tell us do you think? What is the lesson to be extracted?