absolute unmitigated bollocks! look at the difference in quality between between our rugby and football sides. are rugby players working-class and footballers middle-class? no. and anyway, since when has *winning* stuff been an admirable quality. i like the fact that britain is getting used to losing. it's admirable, like giving up the last vestiges of imperialism.
Maximo Park
- Thread starter Woebot
- Start date
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
stelfox said:
Dunno what you're talking about Dave... 'getting used to losing'.... hardly, getting used to winning is what is actually happening... in case you hadn't noticed, England just won the rugby world cup and the ashes in cricket... . its football team has just qualified for the world cup, and has the best team for 30 years.... next...
england will be out of the world cup by the quarter finals as usual. besides, as a nation, we have had years of losing stuff in which to get used to the idea and we've taken it with better grace each time, the high point being the 1994 world cup where everyone in the country immediately turned irish because we didn't even qualify. it's like as a people we've gradually lost the sense of entitlement that being an imperial powerbase brings.
you could see this after the ashes victory - half the england cricket side looked like they were almost embarrassed (flintoff especially) by their success: "look what we've done! how the fuck did that happen? dunno... let's go get plastered!"
and anyway, that doesn't address my original bullshit call at all ;-) i'd bet that the england cricket team is at least 75 per cent public schoolboys, the rugby team is definitely very upper-middle class and they're both the best in the world. how does that prove that middle-class involvement with sporting pursuits = crushing mediocrity. it doesn't... NEXT!!!
you could see this after the ashes victory - half the england cricket side looked like they were almost embarrassed (flintoff especially) by their success: "look what we've done! how the fuck did that happen? dunno... let's go get plastered!"
and anyway, that doesn't address my original bullshit call at all ;-) i'd bet that the england cricket team is at least 75 per cent public schoolboys, the rugby team is definitely very upper-middle class and they're both the best in the world. how does that prove that middle-class involvement with sporting pursuits = crushing mediocrity. it doesn't... NEXT!!!
jenks
thread death
i think strauss is the only the product of a public school. (we had a south african and an aussie playing for us as well)
more interesting is to ask (as it was in the lrb recently) is what has happened to the black and asian cricketers in this country
however the general tenor of the argument regarding class still stands.
more interesting is to ask (as it was in the lrb recently) is what has happened to the black and asian cricketers in this country
however the general tenor of the argument regarding class still stands.
Gabba Flamenco Crossover
High Sierra Skullfuck
Joining me on the sofa tonight, K-punk and Stelfox.
So guys, what would Hakim Bey have said about that penalty call?
So guys, what would Hakim Bey have said about that penalty call?
don_quixote
Trent End
football punditry is so mindless.
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
Gabba Flamenco Crossover said:
I wish...
Don't know anything about rugby I'm pleased to say, but the cricket team, as has been established, are certainly not exclusively or even primarily public school...
The England football team will make the final this time...
and even if the analogy were flawed, it wouldn't mean that the original point - that when pop is dominated by the middle class it is shit - was wrong. Yes, there are the occasional counter-examples, but for christ's sake, why do people have so much trouble giving the working class credit for what they are good at?
k-punk said:
Maybe because working class good, middle class bad analyses of art come off as reductive, alienating, and trite?
I personally feel the practice of framing art as class struggle is fairly worn out and appeals only to a very rarefied segment of society. Perhaps it was revolutionary at some point, but it has turned into a cliche.
I'm not really sure what you mean by "Class is old," but certainly the fetishization of the working class (inasmuch as you believe that society can be neatly reduced to monolithic class blocks), is pretty darn tired. Using class as a yardstick to judge artistic achievement is lazy and uninformative as far as the actual art in question is concerned.
The claim that working class people produce most good pop music is highly dubious. Did you do some kind of census to figure that one out? Or is rather the case that you prefer musicians who display the proper class trappings? Isn't it quite possible that in your world, many more working class people create good pop because you are more willing to enjoy something that you can identify as working class?
The claim that working class people produce most good pop music is highly dubious. Did you do some kind of census to figure that one out? Or is rather the case that you prefer musicians who display the proper class trappings? Isn't it quite possible that in your world, many more working class people create good pop because you are more willing to enjoy something that you can identify as working class?
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
I'm reluctant to drag out a Maximo Park thread any longer (and this is surely a topic which deserves a thread of its own), but ....
there are at least two claims in your last post:
1) Class can't be used AT ALL as a means of classifying people (the implication of the claim that any discussion of class will end up 'putting people into monolithic blocks')
2) Class can't be used to assess aesthetic production
1) seems to me as unwarranted as saying that race should be abandoned... The fact that class and race classifications can involve complexities does not entail that they should be abandoned altogether.
2) isn't at issue any way. It is not that Pop is to be rejected/ praised on the basis of the class affiliations of its producers; it is that most of the Pop that is in any case well-regarded TENDS to come from people from those backgrounds.
Have I done a census? Well, no - but someone who is saying class isn't relevant would have to account for why so many central figures in Pop history (including, just to take the first examples that spring to mind, Presley, The Beatles, The Kinks, The Who, Roxy Music, Sex Pistols, rave, jungle) have predominantly come from working class backgrounds. It is not only the case that individuals come from the working class; it is that the CULTURES which sustain and produce Pop are overwhelmingly working class and black in origin. There's nothing particularly controversial about any of this, surely.
there are at least two claims in your last post:
1) Class can't be used AT ALL as a means of classifying people (the implication of the claim that any discussion of class will end up 'putting people into monolithic blocks')
2) Class can't be used to assess aesthetic production
1) seems to me as unwarranted as saying that race should be abandoned... The fact that class and race classifications can involve complexities does not entail that they should be abandoned altogether.
2) isn't at issue any way. It is not that Pop is to be rejected/ praised on the basis of the class affiliations of its producers; it is that most of the Pop that is in any case well-regarded TENDS to come from people from those backgrounds.
Have I done a census? Well, no - but someone who is saying class isn't relevant would have to account for why so many central figures in Pop history (including, just to take the first examples that spring to mind, Presley, The Beatles, The Kinks, The Who, Roxy Music, Sex Pistols, rave, jungle) have predominantly come from working class backgrounds. It is not only the case that individuals come from the working class; it is that the CULTURES which sustain and produce Pop are overwhelmingly working class and black in origin. There's nothing particularly controversial about any of this, surely.
I agree that it is getting rather OT, but what the hey...
I think those two claims are an oversimplification of what I really think, though that is probably my fault for not elaborating.
Class is certainly a useful way to look at society, but there seems to be an implicit prole vs. bourgeoisie, class antagonism, us vs. them mentality to your conclusions about pop music, that strike me as unhealthy.
Likewise, I have no particular problem with aesthetic criticisms involving class when apropriate, as in a case where the work in question engages in issues of class, but music often doesn't engage these issues and it becomes silly to dwell on the economic background of the artist.
Many of the bands discussed in this thread draw influence from post-punk bands from the 70s and 80s. Those early bands, Gang of Four for example, were deeply engaged in a dialogue on class. But these new bands, that share superficial traits with the earlier bands, don't really deal with these same issues. You seem to link this with a decline in quality stemming from their supposed middle-class background, but there are certainly other ways of looking at it: the post-punk era was also an era of extreme economic malaise, quite unlike today; I'm personally not pining away for those days, because they pretty much sucked, and it therefore makes sense to me that new bands don't really deal with these same topics either.
I also don't buy the idea that the vast majority of good pop music is made by working class artists. I don't deny that much of it is, but I'm quite sure that much of it is not. For every Beatles, there is a Rolling Stones.
To wrap up this windy post, here is a quote from this week's Economist that I thought apt:
I think those two claims are an oversimplification of what I really think, though that is probably my fault for not elaborating.
Class is certainly a useful way to look at society, but there seems to be an implicit prole vs. bourgeoisie, class antagonism, us vs. them mentality to your conclusions about pop music, that strike me as unhealthy.
Likewise, I have no particular problem with aesthetic criticisms involving class when apropriate, as in a case where the work in question engages in issues of class, but music often doesn't engage these issues and it becomes silly to dwell on the economic background of the artist.
Many of the bands discussed in this thread draw influence from post-punk bands from the 70s and 80s. Those early bands, Gang of Four for example, were deeply engaged in a dialogue on class. But these new bands, that share superficial traits with the earlier bands, don't really deal with these same issues. You seem to link this with a decline in quality stemming from their supposed middle-class background, but there are certainly other ways of looking at it: the post-punk era was also an era of extreme economic malaise, quite unlike today; I'm personally not pining away for those days, because they pretty much sucked, and it therefore makes sense to me that new bands don't really deal with these same topics either.
I also don't buy the idea that the vast majority of good pop music is made by working class artists. I don't deny that much of it is, but I'm quite sure that much of it is not. For every Beatles, there is a Rolling Stones.
To wrap up this windy post, here is a quote from this week's Economist that I thought apt:
Moodles said:
Why? Does it embarrass you?
Moodles said:
Not just class but all relationships: sexuality and politics are all part of the same greater social interaction.
Moodles said:
No doubt. When I was younger I used to dream of the day when post-punk/industrial will become "trendy" but I soon learnt that those artists and music had moved on radically. Cabaret Voltaire's last musical statement was "The Conversation". They could recognise that music has evolved and engagement with the present, the here and now is supremely important. Hence the overt obsession with class issues etc in the earlier post-punk period.
Now it's just a nostalgia cash-in. Not that mainstream rock/pop was ever different but let's be honest about it.
But hey, as others here have said, if Maximo Park, Franz Ferdinand etc help teenagers and undergrads get laid then good luck to them.
Moodles said:
Hold onto your belt, mate. Those days will be back soon with a vengeance...
Moodles said:
I find that statement a little ironic. I'm afraid that I've yet to be won over by the Stones - v. indicative of K-Punk's thesis imo.
That Economist quote is interesting but I'm not sure if that helps your argument. I think JG Ballard recently had something to say on the topic: about the middle classes being more exploited than ever and the gap between the haves and have nots etc wider than ever. I'll dig out the link when I get home if you want. Probably better for a different thread though.
Ness Rowlah
Norwegian Wood
D84 said:
Me neither. Let's just call'em Starbuck Stones (NME) (The Stones is basically a business).
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
Moodles....
The Stones were hardly card-carrying members of the bourgeoisie, they were just grammar school boys....A more convincing example would help; after all, if my story doesn't hold water, you ought to be able to think of countless e.g.s off the top off your head... (An irony is that Gang of 4 are one of the few bands from the postpunk era to have university-educated, middle class members.... )
But the import of your last post is that we should only analyse pop in terms of the content of the songs.... so, if songs talk about class, it's legitimate to analyse them in terms of class; if they don't, it isn't... So, by extension, we shouldn't talk about delta blues in terms of race, because, even though all of the artists are black, they don't sing about race much, therefore we should be quiet about it....
But the social background of artists is relevant, ESPECIALLY when they don't refer to it....
I'm not saying that class is the sole reason for the ineptitude and shoddiness of current indie, there are all sorts of other reasons why it is crap... one is a complete detachment from social specficity, a merely formal manipulation of off-the-shelf styles...
The Stones were hardly card-carrying members of the bourgeoisie, they were just grammar school boys....A more convincing example would help; after all, if my story doesn't hold water, you ought to be able to think of countless e.g.s off the top off your head... (An irony is that Gang of 4 are one of the few bands from the postpunk era to have university-educated, middle class members.... )
But the import of your last post is that we should only analyse pop in terms of the content of the songs.... so, if songs talk about class, it's legitimate to analyse them in terms of class; if they don't, it isn't... So, by extension, we shouldn't talk about delta blues in terms of race, because, even though all of the artists are black, they don't sing about race much, therefore we should be quiet about it....
But the social background of artists is relevant, ESPECIALLY when they don't refer to it....
I'm not saying that class is the sole reason for the ineptitude and shoddiness of current indie, there are all sorts of other reasons why it is crap... one is a complete detachment from social specficity, a merely formal manipulation of off-the-shelf styles...
Not particularly, it just seems unnecessarily combative without really saying much about the music itself. It gives me a mental image of someone going through a checklist of bands and placing them into middle/working class buckets and then scoring them as if they were competing fantasy football teams rather than artists making a wide range of musical statements. The need to do such scorekeeping strikes me as an unhealthy obsession. Such an obsession makes me think that k-punk prefers music that speaks to/about working-class issues, and maybe even prefers some musicians simply for being working-class. This isn't a problem, but perhaps it would make more sense to replace "All good music is made by working-class people" with "All of k-punk's favorite music is made by working-class people."D84 said:
No kidding? The reason I complain about aesthetic criticism that hinges on issues of class, race, gender, etc. is that I feel like I'm back in some college lit crit class. This was a really fresh way to examine art about 30 years ago, but it has turned into a cliche. It's not that the points are not valid, it's that they are unoriginal and lazy that bothers me. I don't feel like I'm really learning much about the music and why it is good or bad.D84 said:
You sound so hopeful...D84 said:
You are probably right. It just seems an indication that working-class trappings are often a put-on, and this is probably even more true for the world of music in which everything is a performance. Playing "dress-up" like this is kinda silly in much the same way that rooting for a particular socio-economic team to win the war against another team is kinda silly.D84 said:
I'm not exactly clear on the meaning of "grammar school boys" and why that makes them more working-class than middle-class or if that is what you mean. Also don't know what "e.g.s" means exactly, but if I had to think of more middle-class musicians that I enjoy some come to mind (I don't know the full biographies of all of these, so my apologies if I get this wrong): The Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Talking Heads, Miles Davis, Nick Drake, Stereolab, Can. I'm sure there are plenty more than that just as there are plenty more who come from working-class backgrounds. I don't really see a class-trend in category as diverse as pop. I mostly take any of these artists from your list or mine on their individual merits rather than seeing them as an exemplar of their class.kpunk said:
It is certainly fair to say that Delta Blues was dominated by people who were poor and black - it is a much narrower field than the global mass of pop music both in terms of geography and musical expression. But noting that Delta Blues was a poor, black phenomenon doesn't really get you very far - it certainly doesn't account for the variety in quality among Delta Blues musicians. Did the ones who were poorer or blacker tend to make better music?kpunk said:
Likewise, the artists discussed in this thread may or may not be from middle-class backgrounds, but that fact doesn't explain why some of them are better than others - for example, I think Franz Ferdinand is a much better band than The Futureheads - Could that be accounted for by the fact that the parents of Franz Ferdinand earned on average 5% less than the parents of The Futureheads? Did The Futureheads have fancier family holidays?
I completely don't buy the music today sucks, music back then rules argument no matter what period you are talking about. I have never felt at a loss for good contemporary music.kpunk said:
Moodles said:
Yeah, fair enough but I think there's more going on in this particular argument of Mark's. At the week-end I read an article in one of my old music mags (I was on the crapper if you must know) about Jacques Attali's "Noise" and his theories about the political economy of music, music as a reflection or representation of a society's social structures etc: ie. all music is inherently political. I couldn't find the article on the magazine's site but here's a link from a blog and one from dissensus if you want some background.
I'm sure the more learned and articulate of the Dissensians could help us out here.
Perhaps "middle-class" music is boring because it serves the middle-class interests of the major labels and the commodification of music: these bands aren't saying anything new or compelling but merely repackaging an old product for a new market.
Yeah, perhaps this is a pointless argument with possibly questionable critical value to be gleaned but it's never stopped us on Dissensus before
Back to the original topic.
However much critisism these current NME darlings (I'm thinking Franz, Maximo, Bloc Party, The Libertines etc), I envy the 'kidz' these days.
The NME, MTV, Radio 1 and the like are all important ways for young people to first come into contact with music that makes them want to dig deeper. This generation of kids are starting off on bands which although maybe not groundbreaking, are certainly more interesting than what I had at their age, 5 or 6 years ago. Back then it was the tail end of the Britpop scene running into the boring Coldplay stuff. We're talking "This Is My Truth..." and "Love Is Here" being the heavyweight mainstream releases. By all accounts, fairly un-inspiring stuff. In comparison the new crop of indie bands are diverse and interesting. They are certainly making more interesting music than The Doves or Feeder and referencing a much bigger set of influences. At the very least we should be pleased that its not all Nu-Metal.
Its true to say that these indie bands aren't as cutting edge as what's happening in "dance" at the moment, but if the kids are listening to this now surely it can only be a good thing for their musical futures?
This post is not saying I love this new indie or me saying I think its good that Warp signed Maximo, but I think its important to put things into a bit of perspective for those who seem jaded.
However much critisism these current NME darlings (I'm thinking Franz, Maximo, Bloc Party, The Libertines etc), I envy the 'kidz' these days.
The NME, MTV, Radio 1 and the like are all important ways for young people to first come into contact with music that makes them want to dig deeper. This generation of kids are starting off on bands which although maybe not groundbreaking, are certainly more interesting than what I had at their age, 5 or 6 years ago. Back then it was the tail end of the Britpop scene running into the boring Coldplay stuff. We're talking "This Is My Truth..." and "Love Is Here" being the heavyweight mainstream releases. By all accounts, fairly un-inspiring stuff. In comparison the new crop of indie bands are diverse and interesting. They are certainly making more interesting music than The Doves or Feeder and referencing a much bigger set of influences. At the very least we should be pleased that its not all Nu-Metal.
Its true to say that these indie bands aren't as cutting edge as what's happening in "dance" at the moment, but if the kids are listening to this now surely it can only be a good thing for their musical futures?
This post is not saying I love this new indie or me saying I think its good that Warp signed Maximo, but I think its important to put things into a bit of perspective for those who seem jaded.
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
I think Moodles has missed my point. I don't say that ALL the best pop is working class; what I said was that when AREAS of Pop are DOMINATED by the m/c they tend to be crap... I can understand rejecting class analysis if you reject ALL sociological contextualization (Moodles seems to favour such an approach --- see formalism thread), but once such contextualization is allowed, surely class is as important a vector as race --- I find this language of 'unhealthiness' puzzling.. what is being suggested? That people are 'just people'? Or that music is 'just music', and is not to be sullied by social/ political considerations? Pop - more than any other style of 'music' - is about populations, scenes, not pristine aesthetic creation in a vacuum...
Tox's 'defence' of current indie strikes me as genuinely saddening.... there's a pathos in saying, 'well, it's not very good really, but it's better than it was six years ago... at least their influences are interesting... maybe it'll lead to something good one day'... but this isolates what has been indie's main pernicious influence... a tolerance for lowering of standards, a commensuration to mediocrity and the reality principle... surely the function of Pop was to destroy such things?
Tox's 'defence' of current indie strikes me as genuinely saddening.... there's a pathos in saying, 'well, it's not very good really, but it's better than it was six years ago... at least their influences are interesting... maybe it'll lead to something good one day'... but this isolates what has been indie's main pernicious influence... a tolerance for lowering of standards, a commensuration to mediocrity and the reality principle... surely the function of Pop was to destroy such things?
don_quixote
Trent End
isnt class awareness in gang of four to be expected if they went to university? i think university (in britain alone) is the only place where you meet people from different class backgrounds to your own, especially nowadays.