No guilty pleasures

[zhao]

I simply don't get simplistic emotionalism...

this brings up an old can of worms for me... I'm almost afraid to say it - because every time I do people come at me with sharp objects - I think in art formalism is a higher pursuit than emotionalism.

because it is so much easier to appeal to emotions, to push people's buttons emotionally (the tried and true triggers work so well, every time), than to make something with formal integrity and innovation. (incidentally I think some greek philosopher said something similar...)

of course, the best art has both, and perfectly marries formal innovation and heart-felt emotional content.

If I was a major label A&R I would be attempting to break something with a real Unique Selling Point right now, the market would be open for such a thing...

maybe you should be?

No, I was making fun of the girl's attitudes, not yours. I'm agreeing with you.Rellllaaaaaxxxx

sorry. my bad. (putting down the 9)

 

[gek-opel]

The greatest emotional "hit" I've had in terms of tears in the eyes, shivers down the spine immediate sensory-emotional beauty has been the title track from David Sylvian's "Blemish"... and that was derived as much from the fragmentation of lyric, deconstructed song form and startling abstraction of the music (especially the "pulse" of the piece coming from a constantly strummed tremeloed open guitar chord- ie all open strings, like a pulse of pure abandoned emptiness running throughout the whole thing) as from the words... tears in my eyes every time! Also Dizzee's "Sittin Here"... and probably Scott Walker's "The Electrician"... the combination of twisted form (ie startling formalistic innovation) dovetailing perfectly with a complex, subtle and tangentially evocative lyric... Its where formalism is used to describe unearthly unknown truths in new and alien ways...

 

[swears]

Its where formalism is used to describe unearthly unknown truths in new and alien ways...

Personally I think some forms of music lose their emotional impact over time, because they become cliched and are an empty signifier of an emotion, rather than expressing the emotion itself. And if you're not innovating in some way, how can you say that you're really expressing your feelings?

 

[zhao]

an empty signifier of an emotion, rather than expressing the emotion itself.

yes, very important distinction. who was it that posited that one of the most dangerous phenomenon in the modern age is that people confuse the real with respresentations.

 

[DJ PIMP]

I don't think that phenom is exactly new, whether its art, objects or people.

Pygmalion. Echo and Narcissus.

 

[mms]

Its where formalism is used to describe unearthly unknown truths in new and alien ways...

Personally I think some forms of music lose their emotional impact over time, because they become cliched and are an empty signifier of an emotion, rather than expressing the emotion itself. And if you're not innovating in some way, how can you say that you're really expressing your feelings?

don't you think they just express a different sense of emotion, or even a memory of emotion filtered through the lens of time?


a sort of memory/emotion attractor that fix experiences around it's rays....

you know like that record that house/girl/pair of trousers/inner termoil/outer sensation/ smell.

do you think music expresses the emotion itself or interprets it ?
so is this back to the idea of guilty pleasures again?
finding emotion in something that maybe expresses what you want or interpret it to be expressing badly (objectivley).

 

[gek-opel]

The problem with a lack of formalistic innovation is banality-creep... whereby the same sequence of information fails over time to have the same effect as it gradually becomes over familiar, it lacks any revelatory impact, that ability to describe the familiar in a new way... to create that chiasm crossing moment whereby sensory stimulus is transmuted metaphorically into an emotion/concept... Eventually everything is drawn down to dull nerve endings, craving a new kick... and that can only come by finding ways to see the same things through fresh eyes, fresh languages and grammars... Its why discovering a new genre of music of which you were not formerly aware is like learning a new language, or a whole new set of metaphors, it lets you see things anew...

 

[swears]

don't you think they just express a different sense of emotion, or even a memory of emotion filtered through the lens of time?

Yes, this is an interesting phenomenon, there are a lot of musicians using this to good effect. People like Boards of Canada, Fennesz and Casino vs. Japan are great at it.

What I'm pissed off with is bands like, I dunno...Jet for example: pounding drumbeat+rockin' three chord trick+howling about "mah wuh-man"=PARTY. They're not trying to filter or explore anything. They honestly think their records can have the same emotional impact '60s rock did, on '60s rock terms.

 

[DJ PIMP]

Sometimes lack of innovation is the innovation. e.g. the acidy electro-house business going on... stripping away the technical fiddlyness of the past decade and getting back to essentials.

Very much a case of "finding ways to see the same things through fresh eyes".

 

[Troy]

Are we talking about a piece or type of music "losing it's emotional impact over time" as it pertains to one person's experience? Or on the world in general?

 

[swears]

Are we talking about a piece or type of music "losing it's emotional impact over time" as it pertains to one person's experience? Or on the world in general?

I think it's inevitable that we're going to hear a Chuck Berry song with ears that have heard that style referenced a million times differently than a teenager would have in the fifties, hearing rock'n'roll for the first time.
I can't stand it when people say "Let's get back to real rock/techno/acid/hip hop/whatever, when it was pure." S'not gonna happen.

 

[gek-opel]

Exactly! What people want is to get the same feel they got from that- ie what they actually want is a music which is to now as that was to then- ie contextually the same...

 

[mms]

don't you think they just express a different sense of emotion, or even a memory of emotion filtered through the lens of time?


What I'm pissed off with is bands like, I dunno...Jet for example: pounding drumbeat+rockin' three chord trick+howling about "mah wuh-man"=PARTY. They're not trying to filter or explore anything. They honestly think their records can have the same emotional impact '60s rock did, on '60s rock terms.

yeah its stock music isn't it ?
too out of date to be relevant in anything but a camp way, too derivative to be useful.


stripping things back often means stripping things of their connotations, etc,
i get what bleeps saying there.

 

[D84]

Its where formalism is used to describe unearthly unknown truths in new and alien ways...

Personally I think some forms of music lose their emotional impact over time, because they become cliched and are an empty signifier of an emotion, rather than expressing the emotion itself. And if you're not innovating in some way, how can you say that you're really expressing your feelings?

This might be it in a nutshell. I think you can add to that the fact that we're all different and our emotions change over time: what might have been "truthful" and affecting to you before may no longer have the same resonance in the present: you never step in the same river twice, as some Greek once said.

This drive to be artistically original is not new and I'd argue, treading gingerly in a possible theoretical minefield, that it's an intrinsic part of being a good artist.

I also like Poisonous Dart's idea that "guilty pleasures" are what we turn off when someone comes over, not because I'm actually ashamed of that music but rather because I've heard it a million times before and a guest is always more interesting.

 

[gek-opel]

@swears: the exception to this is that whilst Jet's music of course contextually is like trad jazz was to the 60s (rather than having the impact of the Rolling Stones or Iggy or whoever they think they are like) for kids of about 15 who may be fairly naive about music they genuinely WILL have that impact.

 

[swears]

@Swears: the exception to this is that whilst Jet's music of course contextually is like trad jazz was to the 60s (rather than having the impact of the Rolling Stones or Iggy or whoever they think they are like) for kids of about 15 who may be fairly naive about music they genuinely WILL have that impact.

I'm not sure, those kids have played computer games, watched MTV, been exposed to an huge amount of media that didn't exist in the sixties. (As I'm sure Jet themselves were). You don't have to be a scholar of musical history to recognise when something's a bit retro. I think a lot of young kids do enjoy this cartoon idea of the sixties or post-punk or whatever, I remember being interested in the differences in fashion and language in old movies as a kid, trying to figure out how old they were.

 

[gek-opel]

You are undoubtedly correct Swears that there will be an air of something not quite fully right about an act like Jet, (in exactly the way you can date a film to at least the nearest decade by the quality and type of film used, the way its lit etc etc, and therefore even the most precise of parodies/homages will be pretty easy to spot, as much for the failure to accurately capture the technological patina of that era as much as anything else...) but I don't think they actually care! I mean when pressed most indie fans will just claim that their music is retro, but that there is nothing which can be done about it, in other words an all too familiar grim faced reality principle ("it doesn't get any better than this") underlines the whole affair. Which is why indie music and especially people involved in the industry which supports it make me want to vomit in a small paper cup, or maybe commit minor acts of self harm!

 

[Woebot]

is this really such a bad thing?

was just thinking that a little disengagement and irony can be quite a good thing.

reminds me of nietzsche's remark that every time you laugh a real emotion dies. that's totally fucked-up. that's no way to live your life. at one's most detached, miserable and insane one has one's least strong grip on irony and humour. as for black humour, well it aint that fucking amusing really is it?

quite tempted to get these cds some time. like a little pressure-release valve innit? like serious academics with their little pg woodhouse collections. and why should one be impelled to necessarily apply the same critical strictures to them?

 

[gek-opel]

What CDs do you refer to?

 

[mms]

it occured to me the other day, and the way that new rave people dress, the ott dayglo acid trip shit and big coloured glasses.



ITS TIMMY FUCKIN MALLET!!