Going it alone

[Corpsey]

Get ya listenin' gear around this tackle

 

[Corpsey]

 

[luka]

awful

 

[Corpsey]

Says the man that's never danced.

 

[luka]

i dance all the time.

 

[luka]

im a noted dancer

 

[luka]

its interesting with Bowie to think about this affected and strained pose. what it allows and what it prevents. its something he shares with a whole host of other artists. its like a kind of heavy make up that wont allow things like smling or crying, freezes the face.

 

[luka]

it's come up a lot in various different discussions, anytime we talk about an artist that makes that particular artistic decision, artifice over naturalism, the mask, etc

 

[luka]

obviously with him his voice is such a limited instrument, so stiff and ungainly that it contributes to that sense of rigidity, like a kind of fancy dress costume which severely limits his range of movement

 

[luka]

it locks him into a very narrow range of expression.

 

[shiels]

i've never heard a song by david bowie. at least not consciously. just one of those names that for me don't feel worth listening to.

Enjoying the ever more contrarian David Bowie positions. I have never heard of David Bowie. David Bowie when you really think about it, doesn’t even exist.

 

[shiels]

obviously with him his voice is such a limited instrument, so stiff and ungainly that it contributes to that sense of rigidity, like a kind of fancy dress costume which severely limits his range of movement

yes. His voice is affectless in a way that lots of 80s voice can be. I don’t understand what he’s singing about and I dont care. I don’t believe him and I don’t believe people who say they’re deeply moved by him.

 

[luka]

last time i saw barty he was saying reynolds is definitely only pretending to like bowie.

 

[luka]

scared his rockcrit membership card will get revoked if he tells the truth.

english people turned popular music into theatre. that was their contribution. we're such an unmusical tribe we had to turn it into something else.

 

[IdleRich]

obviously with him his voice is such a limited instrument, so stiff and ungainly that it contributes to that sense of rigidity, like a kind of fancy dress costume which severely limits his range of movement

I don't agree with that. It may be a limited instrument but - like any such - it's fun to use them for things they're not meant to do. And he does do that.

 

[luka]

fuxcking hell thats awful!

 

[IdleRich]

Definitely escapes the narrow range of expression though... but at what cost?

 

[luka]

im removing all nuance from my position cos it makes it more fun. in reality i really like sound and vision. and some of his hooks are really good.

 

[IdleRich]

Of course they are. But I'm less and less interested in arguing about what music is good these days. For those who can't see that it's their loss... just as it's my loss that I get nothing from the turgid, fiddly electronica that I've been checking in the music threads lately.

 

[luka]

i dont think its all that interesting arguing about what it good. i think it can be interesting to try and describe what music does, how it works, what it represents etc but whether it is good or not is probably a silly question