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simon silverdollar
Guest
i find it really creepy that EVERY writer on Plan B writes just like everett true. it's like he's spawned dozens of clones.
The deathly stranglehold of retro cool
- Thread starter ChineseArithmetic
- Start date
i find it really creepy that EVERY writer on Plan B writes just like everett true. it's like he's spawned dozens of clones.
ChineseArithmetic
It is what it is
@Chinese Arithmetic
i dunno. i hear what you're saying about Mojo and Uncut and Dylan and Neil Young. that music is still great it just needs rescuing from the blahs. one of my pet campaigns was to try and get ian penman to write a book about dylan. like, this is good for *this* reason, not *that* but i suppose it just seals the deal in another fashion.
and it's not just the mojo/q quarter is it, it has infected the entire of culture...even (fr'instance, hoxton cool and electro) one of my quibbles with japanese culture in the late 80s-90s was that it was so appallingly retro, but perhaps they were just infected by a more virulent strain of late capitalism, and they caught the bug before us....
[/QUOTE]
I don't think I've read Ian Penman since hew was writing for NME in the 80's (actually I lie, I do remember him resurfacing on one of the rare occasions I read The Wire. He's certainly a much more imaginative and inspired writer than most of those rehashing the same old Dylan mythos, early struggle, bike crash, blah, blah. I should rereade Greil Marcus' Invisible Republic, that might inspire me to listen to Dylan again.
i dunno. i hear what you're saying about Mojo and Uncut and Dylan and Neil Young. that music is still great it just needs rescuing from the blahs. one of my pet campaigns was to try and get ian penman to write a book about dylan. like, this is good for *this* reason, not *that* but i suppose it just seals the deal in another fashion.
and it's not just the mojo/q quarter is it, it has infected the entire of culture...even (fr'instance, hoxton cool and electro) one of my quibbles with japanese culture in the late 80s-90s was that it was so appallingly retro, but perhaps they were just infected by a more virulent strain of late capitalism, and they caught the bug before us....
[/QUOTE]
I don't think I've read Ian Penman since hew was writing for NME in the 80's (actually I lie, I do remember him resurfacing on one of the rare occasions I read The Wire. He's certainly a much more imaginative and inspired writer than most of those rehashing the same old Dylan mythos, early struggle, bike crash, blah, blah. I should rereade Greil Marcus' Invisible Republic, that might inspire me to listen to Dylan again.
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
Of course the problem that ChineseA speaks of is that the cultural climate mostly encourages artists to only be aware of or acknowledge a small spectrum of said detritus. But how long has this been the case - hasn't it always been so?
I think it's a good thing for artists to have knowledge of history but where does it lead to? Record Collection Rock? Hip-Hop? Sampladelia? Irony? Dubstep? Tribute acts? Or just plain retro tedium.
I think the key here is integration. Know your shit but use that knowledge to identify underexplored avenues and hybrids, combined with your own sensibilities and invention. Or use that knowledge to avoid the obvious and pointless.
I'm just thinking out loud. I know the weight of the past hangs heavy but I'm not really sure why that's such a problem. I love lots of old music as I'm sure we all do, and I haven't heard all of it yet. What do we really expect to happen as regards something 'new'? Becoming 'more cannibalistic and self-referential' is just post-modernism isn't it? That's hardly new.
no, you are criminally understating. much more than "using... to shock", the FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS and INSPIRATIONS of minimalism, modularity, atonality, microtonality, polyphony, micro-polyphony, CAME FROM non-western, indigenous music. period.
frankly it is dissapointing to hear someone so knowledgeable say something so flippantly distorted.
is anyone trying to do this? i certainly am not.
my main points are:
A. that modern music is in no way a break from, or separate from, musical forms of the past, and is often direct or indirect descendent. for instance: lots of current electronica is influenced by dub/reggae, which is influenced by traditional African musics. simple. anyone want to argue with that?
B. that many musical forms of the past is formally (and perhaps in other ways as well) more developed, refined, sophisticated, challenging, "advanced" than modern music, which is often nothing more than crude in comparison.
ChineseArithmetic
It is what it is
Based on my own recollections, I think we've gone from one extreme to another. In the 80's there didn't seem to be much sense of history. Alternative music seemed largely to start from punk as year zero, and pop music was all about the production sounds of the then new technology. Acts who were aware of and influenced by older music, like say Vic Goddard, or El Records or the paisley underground stuff was very much at the margins. Now it feels like we've veered too far the other way.
swears
preppy-kei
"I remember the first time I ever heard _____, they were playing on a college radio station that I...blah, blah, blah..."
I think it's pretty tragic that Plan B think they're doing something exciting and underground, when all they're really covering is second or third tier indie groups rather than the big names. It's like they're stuck in some perpetual 1989.
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ChineseArithmetic
It is what it is
Christ. One Everett True was one too many.
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simon silverdollar
Guest
and a cutesy little anecdote about drinking gin out of chipped glasses with a girl who made you swoon never far away.
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nomadologist
Guest
What's wrong with listening to Syd Barrett? :slanted:
ChineseArithmetic
It is what it is
You're obviously the girl to break any Plan B writers heart.
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nomadologist
Guest
I don't know what Plan B is, but I don't like this idea...
If you don't like "No Good Trying" then you have no ghost in your machine.
If you don't like "No Good Trying" then you have no ghost in your machine.
ChineseArithmetic
It is what it is
STN
sou'wester
N
nomadologist
Guest
But who is really doing this? Sad old men who don't want the world to change. I like old stuff and new stuff equally, it's just harder to access good new stuff for reasons that have been widely discussed on Dissensus in previous threads.
ChineseArithmetic
It is what it is
Unfortunately many sad young men are doing it, rather than trying to do something of their own that might be as interesting as Syd.