Gus's Top 100 Bootlickin' Nonce Anthems

[DannyL]

What???? Who on earth did that? How is that possible? Is it someone I know?

I can't remember? I think it was like a misplaced leaving gift when I worked at the Lottery Fund. Y'know "you're into music" or something like that.

the acme of landfill indie

Absolutley spot on. I now have visions of drunk 21 year old Americans waving and whooping along to it which I can't say is endearing.

 

[DannyL]

What? I don't get that at all Dan. The point of these threads is about so much more than the music in them. I haven't read this whole thread, but the bits I have read are interesting cos they throw together all these kinds of stuff - a mixture of personal history thrown together with insights into one aspect of growing up in the US. I mean we've had this thread and @wild greens's thread overlapping and neither are really about music that is to my taste, or at least it's not stuff I listen to (actually, as it happened, it turned out that I liked a lot of the Funky stuff in the other thread when I listened to it, but it wouldn't have mattered at all if I didn't cos the writing was so good)....



But Dan mate, I'm surprised you just go "I don't like The Killers this is shit" - I never seen you miss the point like that before.

Of course, of course, I get the point of a musical biography and I agree, it can be enjoyable reading even if I don't like the tunes. My point was kinda more asking "why here?" - if Dissensus is or was interested in all these variants of the 'nuum, of UK and US dance and black music, what's going on when you do a chart that seems to ignore that context? was wondering if there was an aspect of provocation in that I guess. Just these questions came to mind, reading through this thread. Luka's post above about sallies in the cultural war seem apposite.

I don't want to labour the point either, I'm not wildly invested in either Dissensus or the music i mostly associate with it. I don't want to come on like I'm some massive champion of black music ('cos I'm not). Gus can do what he wants, just saying I find it tonally odd, here and posting some reactions to the music choices herein.

 

[IdleRich]

probably helped to be 15 the first time i heard it, there was so little music about, i didn't have the money to buy CDs and my parents had basically one oasis CD and one bruce springsteen one, and my older sister had about 10 CDs, didn't grow up in a musical household so my ears were really open to anythng. well and basically when you're 15 you're more open to this kind of thing anyway.

that whole era of guitar bands i think i've said on here before there's so much resignation in it, it says alot about the structure of feeling in the uk at that time i think that so many particularly middle aged people wanted to hear that kind of sound and those kinds of sentiments, all that stuff is about making the best of a bad situation. like this one below, it wasn't teenagers that were into it it was crowds of men who had the money to go to glastonbury or pay 60 quid to go see them at the Doncaster Eco-Power Stadium. that era is totally over now, totally gone, everything has a more self-effacious tone, personal empowerment and all of that rather than being resigned to your fate

So when is that song actually from then? I didn't realise it was so old. I suppose it's me, there is a certain point at which I somehow lost my grip on time - I'm talking about something different from when you lose touch with what's cool and all that, I mean I completely lost my idea of when things happened, luckily not a minute by minute or even daily basis, but in terms of years I have no idea when things happened - when did I go on holiday to x, when did such and such a film come out, when did my brother get married etc etc anything like that that happened in, approximately let's say the last ten or fifteen years, I really have no idea, it's all kind of jumbled together in a box called "Sort of fairly recentish stuff i think" and I have totally lost any kind of chronology of it at all. And as a result of that I sort of had it in my headh that Mr Brightside came out maybe two years ago... but of course that obviously can't be true, cos, as I said above, at one point I read about how all-conquering it was and listened to it, and when I think about it, when I did that must have been approx two years ago, so in my head it was approximately two years old, approximately two years ago, so I guess that makes it approximately four years old. But I'm beginning to understand that that is totally wide of the mark, and I'm wondering why I decided it was two years old when I decided to listen to it, I guess that "about two years" is my sort of go to default random pick, like in the bible when they always say "forty days and forty nights" when they mean "quite a while". I'm really fucking wandering around the topic like I've actually got some kind of brain damage.... so how old is the song anyhow?

 

[IdleRich]

I can't remember? I think it was like a misplaced leaving gift when I worked at the Lottery Fund. Y'know "you're into music" or something like that.

the acme of landfill indie

Absolutley spot on. I now have visions of drunk 21 year old Americans waving and whooping along to it which I can't say is endearing.

Oh ok fair enough, I thought you meant it was, I dunno... Josie or Gary or something... my mind was going into overdrive and coming up with utterly crazy solutions.

 

[sus]

I think by the 2030s Hot Fuss will be canonized, the way Bohemian Rhapsody and Don't Stop Believing are canonized. Kids will be raised into Mr Brightside just assuming it's a golden oldie.

 

[IdleRich]

Of course, of course, I get the point of a musical biography and I agree, it can be enjoyable reading even if I don't like the tunes. My point was kinda more asking "why here?" - if Dissensus is or was interested in all these variants of the 'nuum, of UK and US dance and black music, what's going on when you do a chart that seems to ignore that context? was wondering if there was an aspect of provocation in that I guess. Just these questions came to mind, reading through this thread. Luka's post above about sallies in the cultural war seem apposite.

I don't want to labour the point either, I'm not wildly invested in either Dissensus or the music i mostly associate with it. I don't want to come on like I'm some massive champion of black music ('cos I'm not). Gus can do what he wants, just saying I find it tonally odd, here and posting some reactions to the music choices herein.

Ok I see what you're saying, it just sort of came across to me as kinda vindictive in a way that I don't normally associate with you. And, not cos Gus needs me to stick up for him, but just cos it didn't seem like you it jumped out at me. But I understand that it was more of a genuine question than I realized.

With the list itself, I think there probably is a slight element of provocation in the choices. Or saying it more fairly, I don't mean they are chosen to provoke or that they not genuine choices, simply that anyone can tell that they will provoke people. But for me that's by the by, a list like this interests me cos it suddenly struck me that a band like Arcade Fire has sold millions of records and I don't know anything about them, in fact I don't know anyone who does either. So I can learn something from this thread.

More than that, you can hardly ask someone from the other side of the world and half your age to tell you about jungle right. And if this was a load of stuff about grime or whatever it would feel kinda coals to Newcastle wouldn't it?

I think that at this point in the board's existence I am more interested in a question that might apply to me such as "What is your musical culture if you grow up in a place with no musical culture?" than I am in another dissection of London's music history. Cos what does it mean if you grow up in Oxfordshire? Do I have to be a fan of Radiohead or - and part of me increasingly wonders if this is true - does it mean that basically it's tough titties. I grew up without culture surrounding me and so any music I like or scene I join or whatever will be as an outsider, I'm cursed to be a low-key version of Iggy Azealia or a Japanese rockabilly. Perhaps that's how it works, in most ways I was lucky, born into a prosperous area with good supplies of food, education etc but culturally a barren wasteland, neither of those things being fair. Hmmm...

 

[shakahislop]

So when is that song actually from then? I didn't realise it was so old. I suppose it's me, there is a certain point at which I somehow lost my grip on time - I'm talking about something different from when you lose touch with what's cool and all that, I mean I completely lost my idea of when things happened, luckily not a minute by minute or even daily basis, but in terms of years I have no idea when things happened - when did I go on holiday to x, when did such and such a film come out, when did my brother get married etc etc anything like that that happened in, approximately let's say the last ten or fifteen years, I really have no idea, it's all kind of jumbled together in a box called "Sort of fairly recentish stuff i think" and I have totally lost any kind of chronology of it at all. And as a result of that I sort of had it in my headh that Mr Brightside came out maybe two years ago... but of course that obviously can't be true, cos, as I said above, at one point I read about how all-conquering it was and listened to it, and when I think about it, when I did that must have been approx two years ago, so in my head it was approximately two years old, approximately two years ago, so I guess that makes it approximately four years old. But I'm beginning to understand that that is totally wide of the mark, and I'm wondering why I decided it was two years old when I decided to listen to it, I guess that "about two years" is my sort of go to default random pick, like in the bible when they always say "forty days and forty nights" when they mean "quite a while". I'm really fucking wandering around the topic like I've actually got some kind of brain damage.... so how old is the song anyhow?

it came out in 2004. so about two years ago i think

 

[IdleRich]

Ah that's good to know, for a few weeks there until you cleared that up I really thought I was losing track of time.

 

[DannyL]

Ok I see what you're saying, it just sort of came across to me as kinda vindictive in a way that I don't normally associate with you. And, not cos Gus needs me to stick up for him, but just cos it didn't seem like you it jumped out at me. But I understand that it was more of a genuine question than I realized.

With the list itself, I think there probably is a slight element of provocation in the choices. Or saying it more fairly, I don't mean they are chosen to provoke or that they not genuine choices, simply that anyone can tell that they will provoke people. But for me that's by the by, a list like this interests me cos it suddenly struck me that a band like Arcade Fire has sold millions of records and I don't know anything about them, in fact I don't know anyone who does either. So I can learn something from this thread.

More than that, you can hardly ask someone from the other side of the world and half your age to tell you about jungle right. And if this was a load of stuff about grime or whatever it would feel kinda coals to Newcastle wouldn't it?

I think that at this point in the board's existence I am more interested in a question that might apply to me such as "What is your musical culture if you grow up in a place with no musical culture?" than I am in another dissection of London's music history. Cos what does it mean if you grow up in Oxfordshire? Do I have to be a fan of Radiohead or - and part of me increasingly wonders if this is true - does it mean that basically it's tough titties. I grew up without culture surrounding me and so any music I like or scene I join or whatever will be as an outsider, I'm cursed to be a low-key version of Iggy Azealia or a Japanese rockabilly. Perhaps that's how it works, in most ways I was lucky, born into a prosperous area with good supplies of food, education etc but culturally a barren wasteland, neither of those things being fair. Hmmm...

Yeah it is a genuine question, or point of curiosity for me. I mean, I don't care deeply as I said, but it does seem to be a bit provocative. That's tied to the racial coding of the music also, I mean, it's not *exactly* similar to me going on Stormfront and posting a favourite dancehall thread, but there's always that unspoken dimension to most of the musics here.

I think the board's point or purpose is an interesting question - I was trying to think of a metaphor and perhaps for me it's a bit like a ex-raver who finds himself on B&Q on a Sunday morning buying shelving 25 years after the pills have worn off. Obviously very different to the thread starter.

 

[IdleRich]

I'm being a bit slow probably but I don't follow that analogy at all, can you spell it out for me? Might be cos I haven't slept...

As for the racial coding, I haven't read enough of the thread to notice it but you're the second person to mention it. To be clear that wasn't at all what I was meaning when I said the choices were provocative, I was referring entirely to the choice of music that almost noone will like - and the way that some people (not me) seemed to think that the choices were disingenuously made to wind them up. Though really who would get wound up by someone liking different music from them?

 

[WashYourHands]

Gus is a power-bottom @IdleRich , someone who delights in the loss of control just as long as they set the limits. No-one gets wound up by this dross but flouncing the dynamic isn’t exactly clever either, hence tagging you directly

Difference isn’t the point , it’s that it represents an absolutist form of cultural anemia. Growing up in the wastelands of Oxfordshire might not have been city styles but you could probably have caught a bus to an Our Price outlet in various towns, surely, just as Gus had access to p2p, torrents, YT, etc

Still awaiting an imminent pivot into the light

 

[WashYourHands]

Rich trying not to fuck up a stay with gigs on the east coast

 

[sus]

Lol. We didn't have black people in our town. We had a large hispanic population, maybe 30%? I don't know where this idea that I (or anyone?) would or should have listened to "black music" growing up comes from. Think the cultural situation differs on this side of the Atlantic—2000s American high school stereotypes for "white kid who listens to black music" consist of the "wigger" and your average pre-fraternity douche. I think there's gonna be a lot of misrecognition if you try to map me and the cultural choices/leanings I made, onto the sphere you came up in, and what those choices would've have meant then&there.

 

[sus]

Yes, I grew up listening to predominantly guitar-based music, like basically everyone else who cared about music in my town and the rest of coastal California. These are small, sleepy, mellow beach towns with lots of kids and older folks, lots of orchards, vineyards, boardwalks. We listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers (strictly acoustic), Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, and Neil Young folk-rock knockoffs. I'm confused why you're confused Danny L. What did you think people in coastal California listened to?

 

[IdleRich]

Ha yeah... but two issues are there. One is just about me, I'm in a strange mood cos I didn't sleep and just been thinking about how where I grew up affected my music taste or my musical development or something. And I'm not complaining or anything, it's just the way it is, I had a curiosity about music and I went out and looked for stuff and of course found loads of good stuff... great stuff even. But 60s garage or krautrock or all the other stuff I loved was very geographically distant from me. But say I'd grown up somewhere there was a scene and been part of it then I would have had a different relationship to music. And I know that that is completely obvious, of course it is, but for some reason I've been thinking about it recently, it kinda hit me differently. I'd always known it on an intellectual level, but lately it's hit me on a gut level. I felt it properly. I dunno if I'm expressing that properly, and I'm not sure it matters to anyone but me.

 

[sus]

yea was more addressing the general racial angle but I feel you, had no beef or truck with ya!

 

[IdleRich]

yea was more addressing the general racial angle but I feel you, had no beef or truck with ya!

No I didn't think that you (or anyone) did, that post actually started off as a response to WYH and then, as with many of my posts today I sort of lost my grip on it and it drifted off into a fairly tangential reverie...

Edit: I can see it was confusing in that I clearly hadn't refreshed the page or paid attention and so your posts sprang up without my noticing

 

[thirdform]

Dissensus as a board is deeply in denial about what it actually wants. This thread, for all the vitriol, already has more pages of posts than WG's 100, and I'm only on song #20

This thread is exactly what Dissensus wants, demonstrably, objectively, etc. I received the same feedback on Brooklyn Culture Mafia and now it's going on 200pgs, I haven't posted there for years but it keeps going on its own, perpetual motion machine

So I would spin the question: Why are you interested?

this is only because @luka is an egregious blockhead of a liberal democrat. Unlike me, I can be quite Stalinist and would have banned you long before you could recite the lords prayer.

 

[thirdform]

in fact it is precisely because luke and corpse are old farts that they hesitate to exercise the ban hammer. Nothing like modding a discord server where you kick+ban people with no compunctions just cos you don't know em/feel like it.

how many discord servers have you been kicked off @suspended ?

 

[luka]

yeah i wS thinking about this, my liberalism and thirdform and tolerance for dissidents and troublemakers yesterday. a correct analysis. sufi suffers from the same liberalism.