Dissensus isn't dead, it just deserves to die

T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
linebaugh said:
I think we should try for another listen along, Ive been saying this for years at this point
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That requires the forum to first get rid of this idea of rhetoric first, music second. Cribbed from Marcello Carlin (aka rachael varinder on here) and his mob on ilx circa 2002. Marcello also ended up agreeing with the 'fisher/power axis' (his own coinage) on hip hop, for what it is worth. Poptimism as a whole is a Blairite and reactionary project (even and especially if its proponents don't realise it) because it papers over the necessary distinction between popular and populist. The maximisation of pleasure with a superficial veneer of critical discourse. This means all rigid aesthetic standards and theoretical commitments are abandoned. In this sense Neil Tennant was right to call Stock Aitken Waterman Thatcherite as a compliment. If for example Jody Rosen merely said Britney Spears - Toxic is a great song and attached no critical importance to it, one could have accepted her pure Bentham-derived utilitarianism. Yet what makes it insulting is that they have to subject it to the same techniques as rock criticism, thereby proving that poptimism and rockism at root are the same thing, music divorced from the division of labour (of its actual production and consumption) as @sadmanbarty once astutely described my general aesthetic leanings in music. The attempt is not to look for 'futurism' itself always an imaginary as me and @mvuent agreed upon, but to explore, explore and explore. Touching as a hook or a melody may be, music has so much more to offer. If we can agree upon this for literature than we should be able to agree upon this for music. With no aesthetic commitments you just have gluttony and dilettantism. Which might be ok for the university hipster who is 'into music like', but for us of the immigrant peoples that is tantamount to separating us from the back of the horse. Emotional murder, in other words.

Unfortunately that also requires some people on here to not try and view everything through some inane culturalist sixth form sociology project. I.E: what this forum is missing these days is the pure appreciation of the texture of sound in and of itself. As I said to Luke in the Xylin room thread, you are not a true psychedelic explorer if you don't make that final step.

thirdform said:
why does it scare you? what is there to be scared about? make it make sense. explain yourself please.
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a great post from @mvuent which is very much in line with my thinking.


mvuent said:
the politics-minded criticism I see in music reviews, interviews, etc. usually boils down to “your music is bad because it is escapist and therefore complacent with the existing order, my music is good because it takes on important issues like climate change and institutional racism and therefore disrupts the status quo” holly hendon’s career is built on this kind of thinking. here’s an interesting example in writing. in my experience it’s the standard view among highly educated art people.

I’m sure there’s something to this view but I also have doubts. seems to assume that our obligation to fight oppressive systems in life in general encompasses every activity, and that music is always an effective medium through which to advance political causes--both of which I can disagree with without being a horrible person, surely.

it’s doubt of the second assumption in particular that makes it hard for me to take famous communist composers like Cornelius Cardew and Luigi Nono seriously. in blissblogger’s piece on Nono he describes how Nono arranged to play some of his music that dealt with the plight of factor workers directly to said workers, and:

so even when he was able to explicitly present his work to interested non-musician population, they weren’t won over by its messages. Nono weakly adds that he still thinks that, really, they got it. but to put it bluntly, it’s tough for me to imagine an artist failing more completely on the very terms they themselves laid out.

I might have assumed that looking at music from a marxist perspective would entail this sort of thinking. the term agitprop in particular brings it to mind.


but this post stuck with me because it reframes the issue of escapism. I like the identification of a particular kind of middle class escapism based around blocking uncomfortable aspects of reality out, and of how that contrasts with another kind of escapism in which they are acknowledged in some way--maybe in the form of being implicitly turned inside out.
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T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
now the sceptic could argue that what I propose is just hectoring. But those who do not hector in some form or another are incapable of having deep convictions. They are willing to be tossed hither and dither, like the protagonist in a certain Hanif Kureishi novel who goes through his university life highly confused, at once shagging his cultural studies lecturer and then the next minute hanging out with (for the time) pretty hard core islamists. At the end of the day he betrays both of these groups, because he has very little sense of developing a character with a psychic armour. I'm sure @blissblogger knows what I'm referring to.

So the hectoring as a mechanism itself is not wrong. It is the manner in which it is deployed. And I must say that in that sense the extremely repetitious NLP deployed on here from time to time is the most irritating kind, because it disavows itself.

in b4 'it's really not that deep mate'

I'll be back after ramadan, have fun!
 
version

version

Well-known member
thirdform said:
Poptimism as a whole is a Blairite and reactionary project (even and especially if its proponents don't realise it) because it papers over the necessary distinction between popular and populist.
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The poptimism thing seems to have hit film in a big way since Marvel took off.

I don't think much of the Oscars, but it's a stretch when people get angry that stuff like Spider-Man isn't winning or nominated for Best Picture and citing things like box office as justification.

YouTube's full of video essays analyzing the characters and whatnot too. A great example of a map far in excess of the territory.
 
F

forclosure

Well-known member
version said:
The poptimism thing seems to have hit film in a big way since Marvel took off.

I don't think much of the Oscars, but it's a stretch when people get angry that stuff like Spider-Man isn't winning or nominated for Best Picture and citing things like box office as justification.

YouTube's full of video essays analyzing the characters and whatnot too. A great example of a map far in excess of the territory.
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god youtube essays especailly the fact that they seem to be so long aswell the video game essay videos are very guilty of this

also with the Oscars @version do you remember the weeping and gnashing from DiCaprio fans who were wondering when he was gonna get one? shit considering the talk regarding Will Smith has gone on for 3 weeks now, for all the talk about how shamefull and bad it was it's the best thing to happen to it in a looong time
 
version

version

Well-known member
WebEschatology said:
also with the Oscars @version do you remember the weeping and gnashing from DiCaprio fans who were wondering when he was gonna get one? shit considering the talk regarding Will Smith has gone on for 3 weeks now, for all the talk about how shamefull and bad it was it's the best thing to happen to it in a looong time
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Yeah, I've seen more Oscars talk post-slap than I've seen in years. The only thing you normally hear is how shit they were and how the wrong people won.

The Leo thing felt like them just giving him one because he hadn't got one yet. It overshadowed Morricone finally winning one too, although I think there was something similar going on there as I can't even remember The Hateful Eight's score.
 
version

version

Well-known member
One thing I've noticed going through a bunch of old posts tonight is that Dissensus actually seems to have been more alive than ever in the last few years. There are some good older threads, but there are loads and loads that didn't really go anywhere.

The only aspect of the forum which really seems to have died is the big rolling threads on specific music genres, but I don't think that's entirely down to the forum anyway. That and the much more vicious and serious politics and philosophy stuff, I suppose.
 
Clinamenic

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
And this trojan bot's real purpose would be to spam their forum with this simple message:

craner sent me a text this evening reading, and i quote fingering my bumhole, feels like fireworks. a revelation.
 
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