Reynolds' Pazz & Jopp essay

[zhao]

in the oughts we've gotten to this point where the difference between ironic enjoyment and plain old enjoyment have collapsed.

they're trying to have fun with post-modernism, rather than abandoning meaningful investment.

don't like being the bearer of bad news but total "abandoning of meaningful investment" in opting for a perverse and total immersion in irony is alive and well in these times. there are people out there whose ipods are filled with things like the best of Hulk Hogan and Mike and the Mechanics. shudder to think, makes me feel ill, but it's true (I've met people like this). and of course it seems that the droves of campy ironic b-movie / rocky horror types will never go away...

on another tip, is it me or is most dubstep not "difficult" at all? all breaks, D'n'B, and techno enthusiasts I know embraced it with a quickness. I think dubstep can be much more user friendly than D'n'B, breaks, and techno, and surely appeals more to heads everywhere too.

do 80s brit "new dub" labels like Dubhead get a mention as precursor to dubstep? to me it seems obvious.

 

[nomadologist]

Zhao, you're right, of course: there are still people who are really into irony, and listen to things ironically. But at the uppermost echelons of hipsterdom, the earliest "adapters" have sort of gotten over that--from what I can tell. Maybe it's slow coming, but I think that shift is going to trickle down, as everything does...

(and I agree, I think dubstep sounds a lot *less* challenging than some of the crazy music the jungle kids I used to know were into back in the dizz)

 

[gek-opel]

But I guess my own personal response to my inability (if that's what it is) to become single-mindedly invested in one particular scene/aesthetic/dogma is to opt out of any scene/subculture/uniform, not wearing my tastes on my sleeve (literally or figuratively), as opposed to creating a attention-getting synthesis of various scenes/subcultures/uniforms. It's probably just a matter of getting older, and having always been something of a non-joiner anyway.

There's definitely a kind of division here... I've never really had much desire to become as one with a culture, it seems to involve a complete disavowal of suspicion and a kind of extreme musical-myopia that sits uneasily with me... Even when creating music the desire is to reside determinedly on the outside of such clear groupings, in an attempt to mitigate against the inherent flaws of each...

 

[nomadologist]

Gek, I don't think making music is about that at all: what you're describing is merely reactionary behavior. I think what's great about art is that its abstractions can exist completely outside of these kinds of divisions, but I don't think the impetus for art/music should be some kind of need to "not fit in" with cultures that exist.

 

[swears]

irony is fun in small doses

Me and my mates used to go to a really shitty student/rock night when we about 16/17 because that's the only place we could get into without ID and the drinks were cheap.
Whenever they played Limp Biscuit or Korn or any shitty nu-metal we'd all start ironically moshing and doing over the top impressions of angsty wiggas. Fist clenched, faces screwed up in mock emotional agony, laughing our arses off and having a great time.
If that's how you enjoy all music though, you're a bit of a smartarse.

 

[Guybrush]

I think that's why it's best to leave any "perjorative" connotations out of my use of hipster, because it just sounds like sour grapes to me. We're all just a slice out of the consumer pie, when you start looking closely at how we live, how we consume music, how we dress, etc.

You are generalising wildly here. That marketers can compartmentalize (yes, I know: worst word ever ) people into groups based on consumer patterns does not mean that ‘we're all just a slice out of the consumer pie’ (what a bleak way of looking at life!), there is more to people than what they consume. The use of the term in a pejorative way is hardly about ill-concealed envy either: sometimes you criticise people to make them change.

 

[gek-opel]

Gek, I don't think making music is about that at all: what you're describing is merely reactionary behavior. I think what's great about art is that its abstractions can exist completely outside of these kinds of divisions, but I don't think the impetus for art/music should be some kind of need to "not fit in" with cultures that exist.

I think that in any act of creation there is an act of criticism, an act of positioning occurring, be that conscious or not. Clear aesthetic groupings are my primary concern, but they underpin cultural ones. Since the things that interest me sit in the zones between pre-existing clearly demarcated aesthetic sites, I think it is only natural to engage in a positioning process which avoids becoming overly enmeshed inside the extra-musical cultures which rest on top. Its the whole scenius vs genius thing outlined by Reynolds' and Woebot a few years back...

The other interesting thing is when you make music, it often doesn't work as a discrete process of identity building despite what I have said above-- indeed, what emerges is frequently something to which you might feel little connection with...

 

[gek-opel]

You are generalising wildly here. That marketers can compartmentalize (yes, I know: worst word ever ) people into groups based on consumer patterns does not mean that ‘we're all just a slice out of the consumer pie’ (what a bleak way of looking at life!), there is more to people than what they consume. The use of the term in a pejorative way is hardly about ill-concealed envy either: sometimes you criticise people to make them change.

But she is talking specifically about them AS CONSUMERS... and saying that whether you are consuming Razorlight or Iannis Xenakis, you are engaged in precisely the same system, and that at some level what you are interested in is manipulating a sense of self identity through the purchasing of products (the fundamental methodology of marketing in late consumer capitalism)... hence the pejorative aspects of hipsterism must be dispensed with, (although perhaps one could say that they show an excess of this kind of behaviour, which is seen by the majority as somehow unseemly in its extent...)

 

[nomadologist]

I think that in any act of creation there is an act of criticism, an act of positioning occurring, be that conscious or not. Clear aesthetic groupings are my primary concern, but they underpin cultural ones. Since the things that interest me sit in the zones between pre-existing clearly demarcated aesthetic sites, I think it is only natural to engage in a positioning process which avoids becoming overly enmeshed inside the extra-musical cultures which rest on top. Its the whole scenius vs genius thing outlined by Reynolds' and Woebot a few years back...

The other interesting thing is when you make music, it often doesn't work as a discrete process of identity building despite what I have said above-- indeed, what emerges is frequently something to which you might feel little connection with...

I understand what you mean, but to only position yourself/your work in relation to (what seem to me to be) petty sociological peccadilloes/peculiarities of certain (real or imaged) "groups" when writing music is not going to result in very interesting music aesthetically. I do think it's important not to just fall in line, though, so there's a balance to which you want to attain.

And I think you're very right, and it's extremely important to remember: sometimes the product of your labor is not something you identify with at all. I think that's where non-musicians go wrong in the way they understand music and its relationship to the musician, a lot of the time...

P.S. This second point you make is why I prefer to hear about what people DISLIKE in art rather than what they uncritically love. That is where the interesting stuff happens, when you *can't* identify with something, but otherwise endorse it aesthetically...

 

[swears]

Out of interest gek, what kind of music do you make?

 

[nomadologist]

But she is talking specifically about them AS CONSUMERS... and saying that whether you are consuming Razorlight or Iannis Xenakis, you are engaged in precisely the same system, and that at some level what you are interested in is manipulating a sense of self identity through the purchasing of products (the fundamental methodology of marketing in late consumer capitalism)... hence the pejorative aspects of hipsterism must be dispensed with, (although perhaps one could say that they show an excess of this kind of behaviour, which is seen by the majority as somehow unseemly in its extent...)

Exactly, Gek. I do think it's simply impossible to see hipsters as *worse* than anyone else. Perhaps more actively engaged in their own identity-formation through association with products and market forces, purposely at the helm so as to be very deliberate and self-conscious about these identifications--but in my estimation, that sort of engagement is preferable to sitting back and letting the market predigest things for you a little more before you get into them, give them a try, etc.

 

[nomadologist]

I am SO SICK of the word "generalization" used to describe any argument a person doesn't endorse. Can we stop using that word? It is WORSE, and more of a discursive wetblanket than generalizing would be. Even though no one is generalizing about ANYTHING here.

 

[noel emits]

no one is generalizing about ANYTHING here.

Haha, very good.

I think it's the American rhetorical style that sounds to European ears like wild generalisation (with an s) a lot of the time. I think Gabba Flamenco said something earlier, maybe on another thread, about the importance of linguistic precision on message boards. I would tend to agree, if you don't know someone or can't see body language then it's easy for meaning to go astray.

 

[nomadologist]

Seriously, though, Noel: any sort of discussion involves talking about phenomena as you observe them. How is using hipsters as a perjorative term not, in and of itself, a sort of "generalization"???

I just don't find that word useful.

 

[nomadologist]

Haha, very good.

I think it's the American rhetorical style that sounds to European ears like wild generalisation (with an s) a lot of the time. I think Gabba Flamenco said something earlier, maybe on another thread, about the importance of linguistic precision on message boards. I would tend to agree, if you don't know someone or can't see body language then it's easy for meaning to go astray.

Very true, there's a lot of room to misread people online. But I was making a point about the universal pervasiveness of capital, basically reiterating Marx's idea that we are all capitalists. Not a "generalization" in the sense of being a label sloppily slapped onto a group of innocent bystanders, but a legitimate socio-political point to be made about a widespread phenomenon. How can you hold people up to Marx's standards if you don't even understand that we're all equally guilty according to his precepts. Ya know? Even the word "generalization" is not academic jargon, but has connotations distinct to different dialects of English. Here in the U.S., a generalization would be a statement like "white people can't dance." Not "we are all consumers under the free-market system."

 

[gek-opel]

Out of interest gek, what kind of music do you make?

None at the moment! My laptop dislikes me at present. Otherwise somewhere in between massively timestretched (and manipulated/denatured) vocal/guitar sample-drone (at punishing length) and some horrible admixture of minimal dubstep and R'n'B...

 

[noel emits]

How is using hipsters as a perjorative term not, in and of itself, a sort of "generalization"???

Hmm, I don't know. If you have a definition of 'hipster' in mind then it's very specific. That's not what I was saying though. To be honest I've lost track of who's for and against hipsters, the word 'hipster', or whether or not it is or should or should not be used pejoratively.

I just don't find that word useful.

I think it's generalised language that isn't so useful. If you are saying that all of your statements always have the in-built caveat that they are based solely on your experience then that's fine, but people really do not always read things that way, especially bold sweeping statements. They are just likely to come back at you and say you are wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime

 

[nomadologist]

But the whole point about capital that Marx made, the whole moral objection to it, was in the end based on its all-pervasiveness and its transformative powers. When did I generalize about anything but capital's all-pervasiveness, which was just rehashing a Marxist viewpoint? I don't see where I did, except to talk about the hipster behavior I'd witnessed, onto which I tacked a very prominent disclaimer.

 

[noel emits]

But I was making a point about the universal pervasiveness of capital, basically reiterating Marx's idea that we are all capitalists.

Seen. I did not agree with Guybrush (I think it was) in this instance either, but I can totally understand wanting to resist being defined as a slice of the consumer pie.

 

[swears]

...and some horrible admixture of minimal dubstep and R'n'B...

Could be good, post a link when you get the chance.