abolishing the album, the scene and the genre

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
it's hard work isn't it? going through shitloads of insert narritive/genre of your choice to find the good stuff. labour intensive. brings a new definition to hardcore only for the headstrong. makes you realise how despite how senius everything is ultimately a lot of the big choices are made by selectors, who are not impartial judges.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I'm talking separate to completist record collecting (I.E: every pressing of sgt pepper) or anything rare = good.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
obviously there are positives and negatives to this. the positive is that rockism is dying, the negative is that short of dedication the tyranny of consensus taste remains. and anyone who is against art must also oppose democracy as democracy is justthe flipside to Mussolini.

the biggest future positive (though most definitely not at the moment) is that scenes are finally disappearing. I never liked scenes and especially loathed the eclectic scene which defined itself in opposition to non-eclectic scenes. did metalheadz gentrify jungle? who the fuck cares when you've got thousands of tunes not on mh to discover?
 
Last edited:

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
those born after 1999-2000 who will be making music in the 2020s won't even remember anything resembling a scene. we do. just a bit too early.
 

version

Well-known member
Those review aggregation sites like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes are really highlighting the distance between critical and audience reception.
 

Leo

Well-known member
building a brand is largely about packaging, and scenes are nothing if not packaging. they take somewhat overlapping but sometimes disparate artists under an umbrella and make it easier for music (or art or writing) fans to identify and explore.

there's just too much competition out there for many artists to be heard without some form of scenes, you'd have a bandcamp world where 10,000+ artists exist but you have no signposts for where to look. I'm sure I've found some great things I'd never hear otherwise if I didn't know the artist was a kindred spirit with another artist I like, etc.

as you say, there's positive and negative, but scenes can be very helpful in navigating. not everyone has the time or energy to explore an unmapped world. the good part is you can ignore scenes if you want, pretend they don't exist and try to wade through on your own. everyone wins! ;)
 

luka

Well-known member
building a brand is largely about packaging, and scenes are nothing if not packaging. they take somewhat overlapping but sometimes disparate artists under an umbrella and make it easier for music (or art or writing) fans to identify and explore.

there's just too much competition out there for many artists to be heard without some form of scenes, you'd have a bandcamp world where 10,000+ artists exist but you have no signposts for where to look. I'm sure I've found some great things I'd never hear otherwise if I didn't know the artist was a kindred spirit with another artist I like, etc.

as you say, there's positive and negative, but scenes can be very helpful in navigating. not everyone has the time or energy to explore an unmapped world. the good part is you can ignore scenes if you want, pretend they don't exist and try to wade through on your own. everyone wins! ;)

This is almost the quintessential American move, to confuse a social happening with a commercial one
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
tbf the quintessential British move is to not acknowledge that we live in a commodity society, even when a scene isn't releasing albums for the mainstream market.

All our loved genres were products of advanced commercial capitalism, as you said to Padraig the other week.
 

Leo

Well-known member
This is almost the quintessential American move, to confuse a social happening with a commercial one

scenes are classifications. classifications are exercises in branding. it's not commercial in the sense of a commodity, but in terms of a classification.
 

Leo

Well-known member
I like the idea of making your own map. That was something I liked about third's list.

there's great opportunity in finding eye-opening rewards doing that, and a much greater opportunity for wallowing aimlessly in miles of mediocre artists.
 

version

Well-known member
Yeah, but isn't that the case for everyone? I guess critics are paid to do so though which alters the dynamic somewhat.
 

Leo

Well-known member
a valid scene can sometimes be nothing more than connections. artists who live, work or play in the same places, or record on the same label. you like one of them, so you use that connective roadmap to explore solo work by the others. there's nothing "commercial" about that.
 
Top