the indie rapper and a set of enormous breats, obviously.
"HE LIKES ME, HE LIKES ME! Oh wait..." You are one hilarious kid, Dave.
Hi Grimey. I deleted my rant because I figured it wasn't a very productive avenue of discussion. I'm sure it was Google cached or something.
But would you like to actually discuss Paris Hilton with us, or what we've written about her so far, while you're here?
Nah, I was just throwing stones.
BTW, I checked, it wasn't cached. ;_;
http://www.contourdesign.com/g-rack.htm??
But why would you need to pair this (wonderful) device with CHARISMA in order for the world to be your oyster?
(I also googled and found some kind of guitar connector for Macs and an exercise organizer.)
Also, without realizing it, my father has discovered his hyphy name:
Dayve Tha Seenya
Yadadadad!
"grimey simey" isn't me you know -- for a start i can spell "grimy"
i have actually read a lot of the pro-PH writing, the arguments are ingenious and earnest -- but the one position the Hiltonistas don't account for is the one held by most people (in the world -- judging by the sales figures -- 13 thousand!)--that's to say, an unreasoned but perfectly reasonable aversion to the artiste, which a priori over-rides the most enticing arguments in its favor. they've had an eyeful of her and they don't want an earful as well.
the emotional logic relates to the issue of entitlement -- "if she's entitled to her millions and minions, I'm entitled to my nauseated indifference"
what interests me is not the music and its claims on my attention (my life is already crammed to the brim with great music, i can happily forego this alleged delight) or the person who made it, but how is it that some people in my "neighbourhood" (the thoughtful end of music criticism)have rallied to the Cause of a figure that most people with sane and healthy instincts find distasteful and reprehensible.
i mean, how did you as a seemingly intelligent person get to the point where you'd consider "stand with Paris" as a stance worth making?
Yeah, GRIMEY is a fairly infamous troll [EDIT: parodist] on ILM (which I learned after I posted my hesitant and fairly skeptical initial response...plus I doubted you'd have even seen my first, stupid post).
Anyway. First of all, thanks for commenting! And now second of all...
My main issue with much of your writing on Popism and Paris-supporters is that you seem to be referencing the specific supporters and then not really investigating what they've written or why (ditto Popism, which I simply don't see as an "ideology" promoted by specific writers).
So when you ask a question re: Paris supporters like "it's intriguing to speculate about what the motivations could possibly be," I'm not sure how to respond, except to point to the thousands of words I've already written.
I'm not really interested in Paris as Poor Little Rich Girl and Real Human Being. Her incarceration does seem disturbing to me, though, in part because most of the people discussing it are being disingenuous about their own stances toward drunk driving, or "more rich people need to go to jail," or any issues that she could be said to typify or exemplify that need to be dealt with politically (by, uh, jailing her!).
This holds true for almost all social criticism I've seen about Paris. I don't understand what the arguments against her are specifically, only "generally," and when I try to break it down, I see a lot of commentators -- professional and non- -- who simply don't know what they really think about her. But are still ready to celebrate when she gets sent to prison.
One suspcion I have is that the response to Paris Hilton (specifically) is very much based in an implicit misogyny regarding her social position -- yes, she was born rich, yes, there are severe economic disparities in the US, yes, she probably does benefit from things like the estate tax (dubbed the "Paris Hilton tax," a point brought up by my visiting friend and Frank Kogan's brother on his LVW post). But what the haters are banking on with Paris is that it's acceptable to focus their unformed rage toward her sluttiness. And to the extent that "SLUT" underlies most other (social, political, etc.) commentary about who Paris is, I think it's pretty much invalidated. I want a better argument; with Paris the gripes are puritanical, not political.
Tricky case in point: the New York Times article about her incarceration, which otherwise was fairly balanced in presenting the situation as a "symbolic punishment" to "send a message," started out by pointing out how WEIRD it was that she wasn't all dolled up and wearing make-up, that her hair was a mess. OK, granted, Paris has a certain understood public image, but for Christ's sake, what do you EXPECT a woman to like when she goes off to prison?
Point being, I do understand why so many people hate her, I just think they're being lazy and stupid most of the time. I also think that as it pertains to music criticism, outright dismissal is never a valid approach -- though I think that the problems in many of the reviews (assumptions about her personality/social position/etc. negating a thoughtful analysis of the music) applies to how she's used more widely in the culture (assumptions about her personality/social position/etc. negating a thoughtful analysis of ANYTHING).
I also think you do understand why specific people (who total about...what, ten people?) are interested in discussing Paris. You'd have to if you read the arguments, and I don't doubt that you did. But you're being disingenuous by painting "us" too far outside of the people who post occasionally on my blog! If you want to understand "why people say these things," I'd like to see "why Dave Moore says this," or "why Frank Kogan says this," or "why Alex MacPherson or Tom Ewing or etc. etc. says this," and not general "state of society" musings that make these positions seem much more pervasive (and popular) than they really are.
the emotional logic relates to the issue of entitlement -- "if she's entitled to her millions and minions, I'm entitled to my nauseated indifference"
This simply isn't true. First of all, "nauseated" couldn't possibly qualify indifference; you're talking about a visceral reaction so powerful it makes you wanna BARF.
So what you mean is "I'm entitled to my nauseated hatred and dismissal." Well, sure. We're all entitled to hatred. But if you're going to SAY anything to another human being about it, you better have an argument to back it up. Even if I agree with someone I'm not going to let them pat me on the back assuming I'm going along with their nausea, even if I am.
I actually tend to agree with Simon about Paris-boosters not really dealing with all the people that dislike Paris' music because of their intense dislike for Paris herself; I seem to recall having a somewhat fraught argument with Lex on that point, and as in the "My Humps" debate, Dave, I think your "but they're wrong!" argument is an unproductive path to take. (I'm including myself in this, btw, having put Paris on my top-10 last year. I haven't dealt with it very well either!)
That said, I am baffled as to who in our corner is supporting Paris as a Cause, rather than Paris' music, which is, after all, a separate thing.
Mike, I'm not re-opening that can of worms, but I wasn't just saying "they're wrong!" I was examining statements that other people actually made and coming to the reasoned (but not "reasonable" according to most "My Humps" hataz, to sorta echo Simon's point above) arguments that I made repeatedly. And unless you were jokin' around, you "got behind" what I was saying!
If I was JUST saying "I'm right and you're wrong," JUST being contrarian, or JUST "standing with Paris" to stand with her cuz nobody else was tee hee look at me poking at my neighbors, yes, I'd give anyone all rights to be a little frustrated or dismissive. But I am right and "they" -- Sharon Steel (sic?) in the Phoenix, Jayson Greene at Stylus, Sean Fennessey and Sam Ubl at Pitchfork, etc. etc. -- WERE wrong at the time (factually and/or in their line of reasoning), and why they were wrong was important to my understanding of where certain widespread impulses within the culture (might) come from.
But no one has given me much of any reason to try to understand from the other side, except maybe "why are you even wasting your time on this crap, anyway?" (answer: because it isn't crap, because it interests me, because why not?).
It’s not the contents of the “thousands of words already written” so much as the sheer fact of them--THOUSANDS OF WORDS in support of someone who is not a victim, who doesn’t need it!
Sometimes there’s this vibe of “sticking up for the underdog” heroic narrative. Or it presents itself as “an adventure in thought,” a searching voyage into honesty (hence your fixation on the word “disingenuous”). A fearless and unflinching exercise in non-prejudiced criticism. But what you dismiss as prejudice might actually be an (for most people) unarticulated but at root principled aversion.
(I agree that there is some Puritan-hangover prudery indicated in some of the nasty jokes that get made made, but the misogyny argument is silly -- that is one of those rhetorical ploys that people always wheel out when things get sticky-- a critique of one specific woman can be tainted with dislike of all women. As if when Male Rock Star X gets slagged off ferociously, that’s man-hating!)
>being disingenuous by painting "us" >too far outside of the people who >post occasionally on my blog
that word again! I don’t over-estimate the size of the support at all, I’m the one who came up with the phrase “lone loonies” after all! (When I wrote that, which was before Pazz was published, I didn’t even know Frank had written about PH or that it was Tom Ewing’s favorite record last year! I really thought it was two or three people!)
I’m precisely interested in how (some) Poptimists came to hold such a literally unpopular (and politically anti-populist) opinion. It seems to suggest that a body of thought that came to fruition in the early part of this decade and was undeniably fresh and challenging, has reached its end-game.
>Outright dismissal is never a >valid approach”
Why? it seems quite a natural, common, passionate way of responding to stuff. True to pop, in a way.
So I ask again--as my interest in all this is definitely meta more than specific--what is the value system that would determine that such a response is invalid?
If it is “you’re missing out on a pleasure”, then that is easily countered by “the pleasure would be outweighed by the displeasure of owning something with the PH brand on it”. If it is “you’re ignoring a potentially aesthetically enriching experience”, I repeat, I’m already stinking rich, rolling in it like the Hiltons.
So I ask again, since you dodged it last time, who is being wronged, and what is the nature of the wrong exactly?
You're objecting to people writing about an album they liked? I don't understand how you can wonder why some of that writing was "in defense of" when, as you say, it was an unpopular opinion. The opinion was what was being defended, not Paris.
Also, Simon, I think you may be confusing poptimists with Maoists. Tom Ewing doesn't come and excommunicate you from the party if you express enjoyment of something that hasn't reached a suffient level of sales. (Though that would be sort of awesome.)
But Simon, you're misquoting me, and you misquoted what I said in my Stylus article. What I'm asking (broadly) is "what does it MEAN for me to stand with Paris?" Why should or shouldn't I?
You're also misquoting my "outright dismissal" statement -- I'm saying that if you're a music critic (and that's who you were talking about in your post -- all music critics, even the fawning Rolling Stone girl), outright dismissal is not a valid response in a review that you're writing. Or if you do dismiss something (bah! *hand wave*...perfectly legitimate) you have to explain WHY you're dismissing it. Dismiss all you want, but (1) don't talk to me about it because I'll get all riled up, and (2) once you start writing about it, there are necessarily different standards of engagement.
I think you're misrepresenting the questions I'm raising by framing of it in terms of "a person being wronged." Re: prison, Paris IS being wronged, legally, because the sentence is harsher than any (reasonable) sentence for driving on probation (this wasn't incited by yet another DUI, though for the record I will never defend someone against a DUI charge) should be. My co-workers have told me about a repeat DUI wing called "prison on the weekends" where you go to jail on Sat and Sun and then return to work Monday! You watch movies the whole time, apparently.
In terms of her music, Paris is ALSO being wronged because she is being accused of the following idiotic things that do not adequately engage with the piece of music being discussed: that she paid for the album but also had no part in its production; that she can't sing, or that she was Autotuned so that a computer sang "for her"; that her album MUST suck so why even listen to it (I don't happen to think it does suck, but I have read thoughtful negative critiques of it, not in widely published magazines etc. though). All of these assumptions are unfair and essentially wrong.
But my thousands of words aren't supporting Paris as a hero, nor are they casting her as a "victim" of something. I'm trying to come to grips with the stupid-ass things that other, specific people are saying, what this says about how they view the social and political issues they're using Paris to "discuss," and how I can talk to them. To learn something about the culture myself, to learn something about them, to learn something about myself. Call it dopey or self-righteous or whatever, but it's because I'm trying to understand "these people" that I get so upset in the first place. It is not understandable, nor is it meant to be. Because lots of writers and conversation-having people don't NEED to care about what they're saying, because everyone will go along with them anyway. But what's lost, frankly, is a conversation worth having about any thousands of issues that Paris's detractors pretend to be discussing.
And re: your misogyny point, it CAN be a shortcut and easy
And re: your misogyny point, it CAN be a shortcut and easy conversation-killer, but in this specific case it is extremely important! Commentary on Paris Hilton is entirely tainted by an event that, to the best of my understanding, was a sex crime that she figured out how to "roll with." I.e., being videotaped without her knowledge having sex and then releasing the tape.
Final thing about "disingenuous" -- I used it many times on purpose. Also search "specifically." Arguments that consciously avoid specific examples and points ("these people," "this sort of") tend to be disingenuous, because the examples may not back up the ideas. Which is the problem with most Paris-haters AND most blissblog posts about Paris and/or Paris-haters (and/or Paris-supporters).
I think you're being disingenuous when you brush aside certain writers as "lone loonies" without understanding what it is they're really arguing (or even knowing, for instance, that Frank was a big Paris fan and had been discussing it for months) or discuss a "Popism" that doesn't seem to exist, or turn the thoughtful social questions a guy like Frank basically prodded me into asking (if you check my FIRST response to the album that I believe he linked to at LVW, you'll see that I originally wanted to ignore Paris! And probably would have if Frank hadn't called bullshit!) into raising Paris Hilton up as a martyr. (Ashlee Simpson is a martyr; Paris confounds martyrdom, even when she goes to jail.)
(And to be clear I'm not a martyr being wronged, either, though I am possibly painting myself as the righteous hero who will destroy all monsters -- well, why not, it's an interesting, "ingenuous and earnest" read, right)
I’m precisely interested in how (some) Poptimists came to hold such a literally unpopular (and politically anti-populist) opinion. It seems to suggest that a body of thought that came to fruition in the early part of this decade and was undeniably fresh and challenging, has reached its end-game.
This makes no sense. If "Popism" was ever about simply going with the populist (political, aesthetic, whatever) flow, it's not particularly fresh and challenging by default. Why should you listen to what "everyone else" listens to? Why should you defend an album that no one else seems to like? (Or, pertinent to this conversation, what are the common, populist positions offering? Missing?) What does the music offer you? What does the conversation offer you?
Paris offers me a good, consistent dance album. The conversation offers me an ulcer. But unfortunately I can't just like the album (good, because I'm here for the convo, too) so I have to deal with the ulcer simultaneously.
I'm not saying you should be getting pleasure out of an album if you're not.
My complaint in this case is very specific -- you basically presented me as a misguided but earnest guy looking to heroically challenge...I dunno, everything, being a "free-thinking" type, and without quoting one word I ever wrote. So you made no argument but also insulted me by linking to my own arguments so sarcastically.
(btw Simon, I suppose the real GRIMEY SIMEY [who isn't really a troll, just an expert parodist] meant 'grimey' as a ref to your love of grime, hence the extra 'e')
Above comment amended. Apologies to Grimey. (What do you think of Paris?)
okay Dave you’ve convinced me that you have lots of reasonable and reasoned reasons for taking issue with various reviewers who have misrepresented PH and her album
now I want to switch emphasis and talk about EMOTION
you talk about the visceral aversion that anti-PH people have that clouds their judgement
so that means most pro-PH poptimists have either
-- managed to conquer their aversion to PH
-- don’t feel that aversion in the first place
so my question is: how come you don’t have that visceral aversion that 98 percent of the population has?
viscerality generally is something I feel as an absence in a lot of poptimistic talk, esp. in re. PH
(it only really gets heated when attacking the critical opponents of PH)
it seems calm and reasonable
-- to detourn a term of the Godfather’s, kinda PBS in tone actually
this is why I think PH is a kind of logical evolution or end-game for the theories mooted in the early years of this decade, it feels to me like an ideas-driven thing as opposed to feelings-driven
your own description of her album as good, solid dance pop record isn't exactly bursting with fervour
I have said this before but I continue to insist that an idea of “justice” underlies a lot of poptimistic thinking, an ideal of impartiality
you’re not supposed to cloud your judgement with the rockist hangups about integrity and intent, that would prevent a objective listen to the art object
what is interesting about the PH case is how that abstract idea of fairness has come to be completely opposed to social justice (on the level of the symbolic)
you may not see it as a Cause, but “Free Paris” T-shirts, or FK’s “Paris Is Our Vietnam” analogy verge on that and are pretty tasteless
and actually you do verge on that, because "what does it MEAN for me to stand with Paris?" says that you are considering the possibility of standing with her, and you’re using a term, "stand with", that has political evocations, with solidarity, protest marches, sympathy strikes, various songs (sly’s “Stand”, marley’s “get up stand up” etc etc)
>a "Popism" that doesn't seem to exist
okay now I get to use the word “disingenuous”! everything I’ve ever attributed to Popism/Poptimism is something I’ve read --- I couldn’t make up some of the stuff to be honest! I love how you guys do this “who is he talking about? it doesn’t even exist” routine! when as we all know there has been a coherent current of these ideas since at least the turn of the decade, it lived at ILM and freakytrigger and their various satellite blogs, achieved enough of a mainstream profile to inspire a huge New York Times article. recently it’s withdrawn into a bunker that’s actually called--well fancy that--Poptimists. oh and there’s a Pitchfork column of the same name. it may not actually be a doxa or a manifesto but it is certainly something that can be generalized about. I gotta provide footnotes every time I discuss the subject?
> con
ooops bit got cut off should have read:
> confusing poptimists with Maoists
ah well it’s funny you should use that term Mike, I have a riff relating to that but I’ll have to stop now
Do you need an intense visceral reaction to place something 3rd on your year-end ballot? I have albums that have placed that high that I've either listened to 1000 times and never cared that much about (but listed because I listen to 'em a lot!) or that I've listened to 5 times and felt a CONNECTION with, only to find that I don't care so much later.
These are interesting questions, and tha Kogfather is dealing with them explicitly (and pretty much exclusively so far) over at LVW.
But my visceral response to Paris's music is tied up in the analysis I do of her album, which in turn is tied up to preconceptions I have of her, almost always mediated through others. I think Paris is funny, and I like her reality show, and I've never seen her sex tape. I hadn't thought about her much until her album came out and I started caring (kinda suddenly and unexpectedly).
So I was exploring my visceral reactions, and yes, my responses tended to be more impassioned than my claims of enjoyment. This coming from a guy who's written so passionately -- and hell, basically systematically defined -- post-punk, most of which I don't feel THAT strongly about (but also don't deny the importance of rigorous analysis of it, or the culture and communities surrounding it, or your own visceral responses to it).
The New York Times article you mention (by Sanneh?) isn't really naming names, either! I think there is a general perception that these ideas are "out there," but I don't think you can apply many of the statements you've made (ostensibly in response to people like Mike B., whose blog you quoted in one of your more recent posts) even to the bloggers/critics you do credit when you cite them! My specific example is here, where I feel you misrepresented what Mike actually said on his blog, didn't credit him with the statement, and then generalized based on your example (he responded to the post in the comments section). (Note: My own post was more a personal vent than about your writing, esp. toward the end, so apologies for the needless vitriol -- I was throwing a temper tantrum. But the comments are interesting.)
And recently, I still haven't seen any quoting of the Paris people on your blog (and would like to see where this unimpassioned or PBS-y writing about pop on Poptimists is, because I think the overall atmosphere is fun and giddy), even when you seem to be talking about what they've written!
You quoted Frank's "Free Paris!" bit and alluded to that T-shirt (worn by Alex Macpherson, another rock crit) but the LVW column was all about how his visceral responses can be challenged or intensified or otherwise modified because of social differentiation -- identifying with the people stupidly getting rocks thrown at them, even if they've hurled a few rocks themselves. It gets you riled up, so you need to dance even
...HARDER! (Missed the word count by one word! Note, comment limit's about 500, this kills lots of provocative comments, so make sure to copy before ya post!)
*my WRITTEN responses -- social analysis etc. -- tended to be more impassioned than my claims of enjoyment.
*and the rock-throwers are the "stupid" ones, obv. I shouldn't speak for Frank, but my point is that how viscerality is tied to analysis is a huge question in his column. Tom Ewing's Pfork column, now called Poptimism, was called "The Sentimentalist" before he had to change it, and is largely about his own experiences with music he loves, how it ties to a conversation he wants to have with other music fans and writers, etc...where the visceral meets the analytical. Which is what rock (or any art) criticism is, right?
social justice (on the level of the symbolic)
What does this mean?
GAH I comment too much on these things! But...
Your finding "Free Paris" distasteful isn't so much if you think I can make a reasonable argument as to why she's been wrongly represented and that this had a major influence on her sentencing.
Your finding "Paris Is Our Vietnam" as distasteful isn't totally fair, because Frank is talking about Vietnam more than Paris...I understand he's co-opting a politically charged phrase, but what he's talking about is just as politically charged -- how his taste (in politics, in music) is defined by his social alignment.
Your finding "stand with her" distasteful is strange, because you're missing my point. "What am I standing with if I stand with Paris" is a question that frightens me, because I'm trying to engage (somewhat) with what's being projected on her. "Could you make it with Frankenstein" is the one Frank uses, "Could you make it with PARIS" is the one I use.
*isn't so distasteful, not isn't so much
*gr, whatever, y'all know what I mean. First sentence still poorly constructed.
I have lots of fervour for the Paris album! I've gone on at length elsewhere about how I find it profoundly emotionally resonant. As I recall the Paris haters skirted around this by saying that I couldn't possibly mean it. I still listen to it regularly though, which isn't true of many albums from last year.
However I think it's this which is the nub of it all:
a figure that most people with sane and healthy instincts find distasteful and reprehensible
I would replace "sane and healthy instincts" with "herd-like instincts for taking on board received wisdom". I have yet to hear an adequate explanation of why PH should be hated (not why an individual might dislike her, but why disliking her should be a moral stance). I don't think inheriting wealth, making a sex tape (or using it to get things you want), enjoying parties, being (or pretending to be) ditzy and vacuous, and sleeping around are either moral failings, or acts which are even unique to Paris.
The one thing which does distinguish her - her lack of shame, refusal to apologise - is probably the thing I find most attractive about her/her persona. And I think what pisses people off isn't so much what she is (ditzy party-attending socialite! who knew such creatures existed?) as how content she seems to be with what she is, and powerless he public is to stop her being what she is. They can stop buying Britney's albums, or watching Lindsay's films, but even after this prison episode Paris is STILL going to be a wealthy socialite who gets to party all the time, and probably v content with her lot too.
This is somewhat defensive - the reason I love Paris is basically because I enjoy having her around, I enjoy the...ridiculousness of it all. The PH phenomenon is best enjoyed as comedy. I couldn't care less about her moral character, to be honest. I don't even know anything about it (and neither does anyone else apart from the people she actually knows).
I find laughing at the sales of PH's album slightly odd coming from a fan of grime, btw.
Re: Popism as "coherent current" - but no Poptimists I know agree with each other about anything. Personally I think they're all irredeemable indies whose lack of love for conveyor belt r&b babydivas is to be pitied.
Also, "FREE PARIS" = v funny! I don't really have an opinion on whether she should be freed or not. If she has to stay in jail, it's a good story and probably 'just'. If she's put under house arrest and throws a 23-day house party, that's also a good story, and very amusing.
You might be interested in reading what the World Socialist Web Site has to say about the recent Paris Hilton controversy. Surprisingly, they actually defend her! Here's the URL: http://www.wsws.org/articles/200.../hilt-
j09.shtml
This issue is particularly touchy for me, because generally I want to see FEWER people in jail. I think the response to it has been pretty self-evidently ridiculous, but what's not really being driven home is that frivolous jail sentences are immediately problematic, whereas frivolous lifestyle choices can only be symbolically problematic; i.e., Paris isn't hurting anyone (yet).
Of course (again) I'm not condoning her drunk driving, and think she should receive punishment -- burn her license, fine the shit out of her, give her a court appointed bodyguard, make her wear a friggin' ankle bracelet, ANYTHING but jail would probably be (more) effective (than this bullshit).
Anyway, these points are wonderful, thanks so much to the anonymous article poster!
To help retard the development of a rational opposition to the current political and social state of affairs, the media cultivates an artificial hostility toward much easier targets. A seething but politically confused population is fed victims, sacrificial lambs, so to speak, while the real criminals go about their business.
The aim, conscious or otherwise, is to make sorting out what is actually taking place in the country more difficult by encouraging a facile and undemanding (and perhaps temporarily cathartic) outrage against a Paris Hilton or some other such figure. The population is intended to feel, falsely, that its cause has been served and blows have been delivered against the rich and powerful, when all that’s happened is a young woman guilty of a misdemeanor has gone to jail for a month or more.
I touched on this in one of my posts, relating it to Barthes idea of the "inoculation." Forget which post it was, but it was probably from August.
I do think this critique is giving the media too much power; what I'm arguing is not that we're being "manipulated" by the media (more often we're just plain LIED to, which isn't so much manipulation as systematic misinformation), but that many people do exactly what the media does themselves by turning Paris into an Important Figure Who Symbolizes [insert problem], and that there must be reasons as to why people do this.
Rock criticism is usually an especially interesting place to find a cross-section of The Media (ooga booga) and The People, which is why I spend (an inordinate amount of) time there!
Wait, I'm off topic -- um...here's my song review of "Nothing in This World," (orig. 4 stars, demoted due to editorial discontent), where I, like, talk about the music a bit.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/ar...g-in-this-
world
And here's Ross Hoffman's evocative, emotional, insightful take on the album that avoids most of the think-piece type social analysis.
http://mincetapes.blogspot.com/2...g-in-
royal.html
>>social justice (on the symbolic >level)
>what does this mean?
I thought that was fairly clear -- as a symbol in popular culture, she represents a bunch of stuff that lots or possibly even most people dislike and find alarming, not just celeb culture vacuosity, etc but the hardening of class divisions, widening gulf between super-rich and poor, decling rates of social mobility -- the rise of a non-meritocracy, a new aristocracy that doesn’t have the old one's sense of noblesse oblige or taste not to flaunt itself
as a symbol (which is something she doesn't have control over, but has certainly contributed to by her choices) she undeniably represents all of that -- but also as a non-symbol, an actually living being, she is an exponent of it
>I have lots of fervour
well that's one of your redeeming qualities, the vehemence and violence of your opinions. too bad they're almost always wrong!
>her lack of shame, refusal to >apologise
ah the old Oscar Wilde value-inversion maneuver! shamelessness-as-virtue. and of course the dandy-perversity stance is always about defining oneself against the vulgar masses with their ""herd-like instincts" (but aren't Poptimists supposed to side with the people?)
there's this weird post-political fatalism i detect in this line of thinking -- sort of, what's the point of hating on the rich, she's not the only one, (and i'm sure i've read someone actually write the next one, maybe Ian penman) “what she’s supposed to do, give the money away?” -- erm well she could actually. or could do something with it. the idea seems to be, "the rich will always be with us"
i see it all as the flowering of the immanent logic of Popism
-- worthy = dull, therefore worthless = absolutely not-dull.
if rockism is all on some basic level about Sticking it to the Man, then the ultimate anti-rockist act
would be Sticking Up for the Man (or better still his daughter)
also the “shamelessness" would totally make her a suitable mascot in the struggle against the concept of the guilty pleasure, the shame game etc.
>grime
Dizzee’s first album has dramatically outsold hers
anyway I’ve on numerous occasions noted glumly that grime has failed in the sense of not bum-rushing the mainstream as it wanted to and needed to.
still as a scene i don't think it's as utterly bound up with pop ubiquity and megasuccess as the paris h album intrinsically was -- grime could still carve out some kind of future for itself as a permanent underground
Simon, I know you know that some of what you're saying is ridiculous. The idea that by saying that "you’re not supposed" to place the same emphasis on "integrity and intent" means that you're "completely opposed to social justice"--that just doesn't make sense. Not wanting to have the same arguments over and over about about things like what label a musician is signed to or whether or not someone writes their own songs has no logical connection to, I dunno, opposing the unionization of janitors. I think one of the reasons people get so frustrated when you talk about popism or poptimism these days, and ESPECIALLY when you talk about how it "has reached its end-game," is that you seem to have no awareness of what the people you're grouping in here have been doing or saying. Yes, there was a lot of overheated rhetoric thrown around on ILM and its environs four years ago, but no one talks about anti-rockism anymore. It's utterly fallen out of the discouse. So it's barely even necessary to point out the false dichotomy you're set up there, because "anti-rockism" is about as relevent to what you're talking about as bananas.
The critique of the hackneyed cod-rebellion rhetoric of rock didn't conclude that rebellion was wrong, it concluded, at least in my way of thinking, that the political claims popular music was making were demonstrably untrue--like Marxism! For all some people insisted that they were creating real or symbolic acts of protest, it didn't seem to change anything. And so maybe those particular political issues were better dealt with elsewhere. Maybe the political issues popular music could address were different ones, and maybe a good project would be examining those, rather than continuing to exist that bands were agents of revolutionary change and anti-capitalist economic critique.
This all comes down to issues that poptimismorwhatever has moved on from. You're saying that discussing Paris Hilton means endorsing everything you're saying she stands for, the same way some people say that liking a major-label band means endorsing the military-industrial complex. You think that there's no need to discuss Paris Hilton, that there's enough things to discuss and enjoy in your life. Fine. But the fact that we can't seem to meet halfway on these things is why we;ve all shut ourselves off into these self-defined groups--the reason that, say, no one I know has mentioned anything on Dissensus in the last three years.
oops, "insist that bands."
And sorry, you were responding to Dave's dichotomy there, so fair enough.
Simon I think the root of your misunderstanding is that you're trying to pin down a "logic" of "popism" when there really is none! There is no a priori agenda behind sticking up for particular artists, and there's no overarching framework that I'm deliberately trying to fit my thoughts/tastes into. I have no vested interest in sticking it to/up for "The Man" though I do think that the concept of "The Man" is lame - in fact if I do have an agenda it isn't to do with means of production (b/c I couldn't care less about those, when it comes to music), it's to do with critical orthodoxy (which isn't all that correlated with means of production, though it pretends it is), though I'm aware I'm fighting a losing battle here. But I don't think I'm "supposed to" side with or against the people. That said Oscar Wilde comparisons are always welcome.
there's this weird post-political fatalism i detect in this line of thinking -- sort of, what's the point of hating on the rich, she's not the only one
Hating on the rich isn't pointless so much as prejudiced and, usually, hypocritical. 1) How do you know PH doesn't give her money away? 2) How much money do you (by "you" I'm not targeting you specifically, I include all of us here, who I assume are decently-off) give away? 3) Why not direct our perfectly justified outrage and frustration over social inequality at the people whose job it is to do something about it?
I don't see anything morally bankrupt about people being rich and enjoying money. I don't see anything morally bankrupt in a society fascinated with seeing pictures of them, either. I do think that the continued systemic failure of the US (and to an extent UK) govts to really commit to tackling social inequality is morally bankrupt, but I fail to see how slinging criticism towards an easy target like PH would solve anything at all.
I'd argue that grime had much more invested in a commercial breakthrough than Paris did in a successful album: its artists explicitly wanted it, were prepared to do anything to get it. (It has flourished by going back underground, yes, though I don't include the rote new Wiley album in that.) Paris barely bothered to promote her album, didn't need it to sell even one copy to maintain her profile, and appeared to forget she'd ever made an album a month after releasing it.
post-political fatalism
OK, this is just stupid. How could you read the music criticism of so many of the people who actually belong to the Poptimists community and detect FATALISM or some sort of anti-political stance (I'll give you a pass on "post-political" since I've actually heard someone use the prhase "POST-CONCEPTUAL" before)?
Here are a few of the most recent threads on the Poptimists community:
*Anthony Easton, country critic, wants to discuss the "powwow imagery" in Tim McGraw's "Indian Outlaw" video.
*Mippy asks about the "socio-economic situation in small-town Scotland in the 1980s," how sectarianism shaped the situation, what kind of music the "working class kids outside of big cities" tend to listen to (specifically through the lens of Scotland in the 80s), general qualities of ambition in "secondary modern kids," and novels that delve into this issue (using a few 80s Scottish examples as ref. points).
*Mark Sinker informs everyone about a Clash documentary called "The Clash in India."
*Kat Stevens asks, "are musical turning points always in the form of 'OMG' revelations? Were yours gradual or sudden?" Followed by several interesting personal anecdotes about the development of taste. Frank mentions in the comments that his new column is very closely aligned to this topic.
And that doesn't even mention the fun stuff, like League of Pop, where pop songs must relate to a loose conceptual category -- including "INJUSTICE"!
Simon, I will ask if you're going to persist in saying that Poptimists should be "going with the crowd/what's popular" etc. (without having to counter with similarly sweeping but hugely presumptuous generalizations about "OTHER PEOPLE" and "MASSES") that you provide me an example where one person actually claimed that they think this. That way I can call this person an idiot for saying it and we can move past this point, at least as it relates to the comment thread.
The Poptimists community is here, btw.
Haha important KEY WORD missing from Mark Sinker's bullet point is IMAGINARY.
And I misread it, the documentary on the Clash does exist, but he was imagining it as "responses on the sub-continent to j.temple's nu-strummer doc"
Er, look. What...I...mean...to...say... (deep breath) There is no "The Clash in India" film. There is a Clash film, and an article called "The Clash in India" that Mark believed might be about etc. It was funny when I read it, honest.
>Simon, I will ask if you're going >to persist in saying that >Poptimists should be "going with the crowd/what's popular" etc.
>(without having to counter with >similarly sweeping but hugely >presumptuous generalizations >about "OTHER PEOPLE" and "MASSES") >that you provide me an example >where one person actually claimed >that they think this.
again with the footnoting thing!
perhaps i have been laboring under a misapprehension, but i thought a central idea behind Poptimism is taking seriously kinds of music that are hugely popular but that critics typically ignore -- country, R&B (less ignored now of course but it certainly was ignored and still doesn't figure much in Pazz or rockcrit middlebrow consciousness), handbag house, Europop, etc etc
and also treating the Chart as a very interesting place where we get to see what popular desire is generating and gravitating towards
yet in practice Poptimism tends to ignore or actively disparage a lot of stuff that is/was popular and big-selling, e.g. emo, the nu-indie, Coldplay-esque UK drear-rock, and--going back a few years-- nu-metal.
and increasingly its idea of pop has grown more rarified and narrow and therefore and out of step with what's selling, starting with the failure of the Anniemal album, and now with Paris Hilton
there is a tension between a Simon Frith-y dispassionate let's take everything as equally worthy of serious contemplation (i would designate that Pop-ism or generalism perhaps) and a slightly more enthused-in-tone bias towards the bubbly/fizzy/glitzy/glamtastic/frivolous etc (i would call that Poptimism)
more to say on the other guys' points...
OK, now that I've had some coffee.
Apologies to Simon for misrepresenting his point completely, which is about what Lex said specifically. I do think, however, that "anti-political" or "fatalistic" is not an inevitability of ANY so-called "poptimist" thinker, including Lex. And Lex's point isn't "who cares if someone is rich," but something more like (if I'm understanding him correctly) "if we're agreeing that being rich is inherently bad (which we're not), why wouldja choose Paris??" -- this is essentially the socialist stance, too, as expressed in the above article! (Frankly I think Lex is just an irredeemable MARXIST whose lack of love for the unbridled greed and exploitative accumulation of wealth of major media conglomerates, corporate/aristocratic elite, and colluding, corrupt government institutions through the blood of its oppressed workers should be pitied.)
Anyway, it would be more productive to take a look at what people on the Poptimist community are actually saying instead of having arguments about positions that no one actually holds, and what these positions might imply about the not-people who hold them.
Haha xpost.
perhaps i have been laboring under a misapprehension
Well...yes! Here's a better definition of poptimism, which at least encompasses the variety of individual opinions/ideas running through the (LiveJournal) poptimist community, from Jessica Popper at Dirrrty Pop:
"Popism or Poptimism is a word used to describe the move for music critics (particularly those on the Internet) to appreciate pop music in an intellectual way."
The reasons as to WHY music critics (using music critic as a pretty broad category) discuss pop music in an intellectual way vary from critic to critic. The only thing that holds true for all Poptimists is that they like the music they happen to like.
Personally, I "stick up for" critically derided popular music not because in principle I believe it "deserves a fair shake," but that specific music deserves a fair shake and is being discounted completely when, to me, it's offering so much fodder for emotional and intellectual investment. Paris isn't the best example in this category; I would probably go with Ashlee Simpson or Marit Larsen. (The former is derided, the latter is ignored, though probably not consciously -- and she placed well on the Stylus year-end poll.)
Although I gotta keep my 5:1 comment ratio up here long enough to say that I think that's not a very fair assessment of what Simon Frith is doing!
there is a tension between a Simon Frith-y dispassionate let's take everything as equally worthy of serious contemplation
Waaaaait just a sec here, Simon Frith is claiming (roughly) that academia tends to take on the tautological assumption that "we are studying this because it's important because if it wasn't why would we be studying it," whereas he's arguing that it's impossible to "skip" the stage of viscerality, which you're concerned with Popists "skipping" above, and the related stage of making value judgments.
In other words, you've got his theory completely backwards -- everything is NOT worthy of equal investigation (to whomever is doing the investigating), and to claim that everything COULD be equally "worthy" is to fundamentally ignore how human beings actual interact with each other!
He's specifically (in the one book of his I've read) interested in performance, and how this (very important) facet of music culture and music writing tends to be inadequately discussed in academic settings -- "treating all performances like texts," for instance, or ignoring "like/dislike" style visceral reaction and subsequent value judgments, or parroting assumed social implications of, say, the racist roots of the assumed inherent "sexual" nature of African rhythms.
*ignore "parroting assumed," which seem to be the first two words of a sentence I never wrote.
and also treating the Chart as a very interesting place where we get to see what popular desire is generating and gravitating towards
yet in practice Poptimism tends to ignore or actively disparage a lot of stuff that is/was popular and big-selling, e.g. emo, the nu-indie, Coldplay-esque UK drear-rock, and--going back a few years-- nu-metal.
haha we had a v interesting discussion about these VERY POINTS a few months back on poptimists. i may see if i can dig it out when i grab some time (which may be tomorrow) - what i remember though is that NO ONE AGREED WITH EACH OTHER
>Maybe the political issues popular >music could address were different >ones, and maybe a good project >would be examining those
give me some examples
>rather than continuing to insist >that bands were agents of >revolutionary change
well I don’t do that, and have in fact always been conflicted about attempts at overtly politicized pop, unconvinced by their efficacy.
> or anti-capitalist economic critique.
but critique of the Way Things Are is something that goes on in all kinds of different ways in all sorts of music -- it seems worth looking out for, assessing, sometimes celebrating, sometimes critiquing.
it's not the only thing to look for and far from being all of what i value in music
>You're saying that discussing Paris >Hilton means endorsing everything >ou're saying she stands for
cmon, it’s more than discussing, it’s championing/defending/siding with!
I see it from the other side: that you guys seem to be arguing that PH doesn’t actually symbolize what she appears to symbolize for most people; that even if she does, well, signifiers can be easily uncoupled from their signifieds; that you can’t read movements within popular desire as representing political or proto-political values or sympathies.
I consider the mass aversion from Paris’ album as representing a small but satisfying expression of proto-political acrimony. no it doesn’t change anything, but it’s heartening.
Lex is at least honest in saying that Wildean perversity and going against the grain is why he adores PH -- he likes her shamelessness, her plutocracy, even her desultory attitude to her own music and the promoting of it!
>I think the root of your >misunderstanding is that you're >trying to pin down a "logic" of >"popism" when there really is none! >There is no a priori agenda behind >sticking up for >particular >artists, and there's no overarching >framework that I'm deliberately >trying to fit >my thoughts/tastes >into
again with the “there’s no there there” angle. arguing with Poptimists is like wrestling with fog!
and yet most of the prime movers in your scene ended up picking PH as their favorite or one of their fave records of last year
from the outside that looks like hive-mind lockstep
and you say there’s no agenda but wasn’t it you who was chiding other P-ists who couldn’t get over their aversion to Hilton as person/symbol, saying effectively, “get with the programme”, “this is no time for backsliding!”
I think there is a manifest logic to the apotheosis of Hilton, it's a bit like the collectivisation of the farms in Soviet Russia, what ideology dictated needed to happen
see I would be the first to admit that there is a logic to why so many people in my virtual hood did a similar thing with the Burial album -- and I be totally into finding out what deep-level ideas are behind that consensus -- indeed I would say there’s a similar end-game logic behind the Burial apotheosis --the Burial
ah shit i went over your word -count oops
last bit should read:
see I would be the first to admit that there is a logic to why so many people in my virtual hood did a similar thing with the Burial album -- and I be totally into finding out what deep-level ideas and values are structuring that consensus -- indeed I would say there’s a similar end-game logic behind the Burial apotheosis -- the Burial phenomenon (meaning both the record and the talk it generated) represents a sort of last word/summation/graveside eulogy/goodbye-to-all-that vis-a-vis the London hardcore continuum. (I mean it’s possible that the scene will find some new direction for itself, but I ain’t holding my breath).
incidentally, I learned from Kode 9 when he was deejaying in New York a month ago how well the Burial album had sold. The figure is almost twice that for Paris Hilton’s record.
from the outside that looks like hive-mind lockstep
Yeesh, this is like pointing at a bunch of people eating food you don't like and saying "HIVEMIND!"
Naming a LiveJournal community something is not evidence of a dogmatic ideology. I admit that I can get annoyed at Dave's tendency to like things for ideological reasons, but he hasn't been excommunicated from said LiveJournal community, which suggests that the people there are interested in different ways of interrogating aesthetic preferences, and their objection is more limiting it to one method which I guess we're calling rockism. Again, Simon, I think you're trying to beat 2007 with a 2003 stick. (Also, I think lex was chiding EVERYONE, not just poptimists. I don't think he thinks his ideological preferences should just be applied to a few people, nor does Dave!)
Saying that you have to like things for the right reasons--those reasons being yours, whoever you are--seems to wind up in everyone liking the same things, and ignoring the rest. This seems more hivemind than 6 people voting for the Paris Hilton album.
Gotta go do work now, I'll address the political stuff later.
I consider the mass aversion from Paris’ album as representing a small but satisfying expression of proto-political acrimony. no it doesn’t change anything, but it’s heartening.
I think things get complicated when we try to view audience reception through the lens of a restrictively production-based or end-result-based theory.
If I want to talk about, say, Hollywood film production, a Marxist critique might be the most useful, because Hollywood film production uses the same labor systems as, e.g., textiles factories -- outsourced production, exploitation of non-union workers, etc. The production of Paris Hilton's album did not follow these standards (music production tends not to since its production scope is limited to a handful of people), so the unfocused outrage expressed toward her along any sort of discernible political platform is very unsatisfying, even as proto-political acrimony.
If proto-political acrimony (say, "THESE CONDITIONS SUCK AND THEY SHOULD SUCK LESS") leads to a positive end result in the realm of production ("LET'S FORM A UNION"), I can get behind this sentiment. But not when the issues we're discussing are largely a matter of (ambiguous) symbolism and conversational outrage. Nothing productive could ever come from this sort of acrimony, so I can't justify the utter stupidity, vagueness, and hypocrisy of it with some End Result. I.e., FINALLY THAT BITCH IS BEHIND BARS!
I don't want that bitch behind bars. The symbolic end result ("finally spoiled rich etc. get comeuppance") is undermined completely by the fact that the system in which she's being punished is WAY MORE FUCKED than she (Paris as human, maybe even Paris as social symbol) is! Which maybe does get us to resentment issues -- "well, I'd be treated the same way, so fuck her!" -- yes, but what good does this accomplish? You'll still be treated the same way and no productive political action will have been taken; in fact a productive outlet of rage will have been sidestepped for a stupid and false outlet.(Wait, did I just agree with K-punk about something?)
OK, so back to The Point. How can it be heartening if it doesn't change anything, when in fact it has completely misrepresented PH and her album (as you agreed re: my points earlier) in order to avoid political points we could be making (about increasing conglomeratization, about sexism as it DOES relate to pop music -- i.e. beauty standards without which one is not "allowed" to be a pop star, copyright and intellectual property issues, and on and on and on!)?
And not to get side-tracked, but Mike, what do you mean by this exactly?
I admit that I can get annoyed at Dave's tendency to like things for ideological reasons
and yet most of the prime movers in your scene ended up picking PH as their favorite or one of their fave records of last year
But the thing is, they didn't. Maybe the most vocal did - myself, Tom E, Frank K, Dave - but when Tom did a year-end Poptimists poll Paris lost out to Ellen Allien, The Knife AND Marit Larsen (who I really don't like). And it was pretty hotly debated, if there was popist hivemind last year it would have been around The Knife and Justin Timberlake (in fact the sheer weight of the consensus has been one of the reasons the Justin album has palled for me).
And yes, I did chide people (but everyone, not just poptimists) - but I was more surprised in some quarters to find that people who'd willingly champion Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, S Club 7, Steps, Kylie, Rachel Stevens et al, were resistant to the idea of Paris being a pop star.
The dubstep/grime scene seems more exciting than it has been for a while, to me! It's not mutating but it does seem to be refining.
Lex is at least honest in saying that Wildean perversity and going against the grain is why he adores PH -- he likes her shamelessness, her plutocracy, even her desultory attitude to her own music and the promoting of it!
not nec the "going against the grain" part though the rest is accurate - I really want to make clear that I don't declare love for Paris JUST to be controversial or to scandalise - that would be lame. (Though if people want to be scandalised that just makes it even more fun.) I'm pro-Paris for the same reasons I'm pro-Naomi Campbell, or Lindsay Lohan, but they don't get talked about as much.
(It's oddly cyclical: people talk to death about Paris, and because what they say says more about them than her, it makes her more interesting...I wouldn't deny that the volume and extremeness of the opinions swirling around her enhance the attraction! People invest her with so much power, when they cast her as the symbol of everything that is bad and wrong in the world, this ditzy heiress who is somehow single-handedly bringing down society even as she stands there with her blank, content smile doing nothing. OMG Paris Hilton as Bond villainess SOMEONE CAST HER QUICK)
>If proto-political acrimony
>(say, "THESE CONDITIONS SUCK AND >THEY SHOULD SUCK LESS") leads to a >positive end result in the realm of >production ("LET'S FORM A UNION"), >I can get behind this sentiment.
this is funny cos it reminds me of going to a Living Marxism conference in the 80s (not as a card carrying member i hasten to add, as a journalist, to cover it cos a lot of it was devoted to style culture/youth culture/pop culture, it was the height of what people then called 'designer socialism', lot of debates about desire and pleasure) anyway there was a panel that had all these journalits from the Face complaining about the Left's lack of a sense of style or hedonism, and at the question time a women, some kind of Leninist, got up and launched into a long turgid fanaticism-tinged discourse about popular music that --inevitably -- wound its way around to the rallying conclusion that "we have to organise at the site of the means of production" i'm not sure if she added "brothers and sisters" at the end. but anyway you sound a bit like that in this quote and not at all like a Poptimist!
but i mean, really, you only want political expressions to occur within pop culture if they actually lead to something tangible --activism, etc! That is a tall order.
it's all symbolism and sign-age, pop culture,
i mean, kanye saying 'bush doesn't care about black people' didn't change anything -- i'm still glad he said it.
and i'm glad that a celebrity who tried to extend her brand into pop music (traitionally the domain of the disinherited as opposed to the inherited) has failed miserably within the terms of the celebrity culture she is synomonous with
the jail thing i'm not sure about at all, i would have to study the case in detail -- i'm certainly not jumping up and down with glee
in the Simple Life i thought she came across quite pleasant, certainly compared to her awful friend
re. Mike's food metaphor
if I saw half a dozen people of my acquaintance seated at the same table and eating the exact same entrée I think 'hmmm, interesting' that
>2003 stick to beat 2007
clearly I’m not as boned up as you on the evolutionary intricacies of post-Popist thought, but it seems to me that
-- the reasons for liking PH
--- and the reasons for disallowing people’s objections to PH
are pretty "2003" to me
you’re also being a wee bit disingenuous and argument-strategic in casting the anti-rockist frenzy four years back
I would date the frenzy’s absolute peak to 2005 and -- how soon we forget! -- the MIA wars.
also, it seems to me that people still harp on the meta-ideas reasonably regularly, albeit in a rather winded and half-hearted way
But that said, I would genuinely be interested in a broad-strokes sketch of the contours of post-antiRockist thought --what the new directions are, what’s the issues that get people going
Well, I don't spend all of my time wringing my hands (or attending conferences) about "means of production" etc. while not doing anything about it. I do like to know where my money's going, and when aesthetic criticism gets tricky in the face of monstrous labor injustices etc. (e.g. "Titanic").
I just mean to say that if all we're talking about is the symbolism -- specifically the symbolism projected onto Paris Hilton by her haters (and hell maybe her supporters) -- and that these symbols are misguided, possibly based on factually wrong information, hypocritical, and generally nasty without having any discernible BASIS for being so, then I don't see what "goal" the symbolism could be moving toward that would make me feel "heartened." If it's about the creation of the symbol, and the creation (conversation) is self-evidently IDIOTIC, then I'll get more frustrated about that, since I can only speculate as to the accuracy of how much of the insane shit that gets pinned to Paris directly applies.
Anyway, I think our only real point of major divergence is here:
and i'm glad that a celebrity who tried to extend her brand into pop music (traitionally the domain of the disinherited as opposed to the inherited) has failed miserably within the terms of the celebrity culture she is synomonous with
Well...I don't care! So maybe we're closer in how we think about this than I thought coming in, or thought reading how ya linked to me.
How Paris sells doesn't mean anything to me! (It may not mean anything to her either, judging from Lex's analysis above). I care about what I get out of the album, whether or not it's any good, and in the context of rockcrit, whether or not critics discuss it fairly (given my personal investment in it as good music).
Paris put her energies and money toward something that is personally valuable to me, hurt no one (unless you wanna get into a discussion about how CDs are manufactured, how media monopolies sustain themselves etc...but I this hardly only applies to Paris), and revealed a bunch of people to be morons whose arguments fall apart with even the most cursory reasonable investigation. AND she bombed commercially, which means we don't have to hear about her much except when you point out how perplexed you are as to why a guy like me could possibly give a shit about any of this (although clearly you care at some level, too, or you wouldn't still be having a conversation with us).
To make my first point above a bit clearer: Simon, when you use the phrase "proto-political," you're fudging the language, if I understand you correctly, to suggest that there is nothing political in itself about the stupid things people have said about Paris Hilton (and you at least agreed with me that they have re: my specific examples in rockcrit).
It's like "better than nothing" -- well, better they should attack the new aristocracy or [insert issue] in a stupid way than not at all.
But this simply isn't true if there's no tangible outcome! Because if we can agree that complaining about Paris's wealth etc. isn't going to effect any political change, we're only talking about the discursive elements of whatever political stance we can claim to be taking (Marxist, moderated capitalist -- i.e. some people should be rich, but not HER, and not THAT rich, whatever). We're talking about how people TALK about Paris Hilton, what they SAY she represents.
So, again, there is no "goal" to cheer on. Stupid shit has been said (and will continue to be said) and the only real significance that I see in it is that some people feel morally superior and proud of themselves for not being Paris Hilton. Paris Hilton (like plenty of legitimately disenfranchised groups who don't even get Paris's second and third chances) gets a harsh jail sentence for what should reasonably require just about any other acceptable punishment. Judge's "I want to send a message!" = "I want to vent aimlessly s'more! TAKE THAT, YA RICH BITCH!"
And Kanye reminded us during a "safely non-political" television program that we shouldn't be SAD, we should be fucking OUTRAGED at THE PRESIDENT for nepotistically appointing his INCOMPETENT BUDDY as the head of the DISASTER AGENCY. And other CAPITAL LETTER statements.
"He doesn't care about black people" -- well, that's not really true, but when we discuss this, we're not just talking about "the things people are saying about Bush," or (more to the point) about "what Bush symbolically represents" (e.g. "someone who doesn't care about black people"); it was a statement that challenged (arguably ineffectively) political power where it actually existed -- there was no "symbolism" necessary. So yeah, I can get behind that, I suppose, but not the Paris-talk. (If John Ashcroft's is any indication, I doubt Bush would put out a very good album.)
all this INDIGNATION ... in defence of an artist who (according to Lex) wouldn't care a whit about any critical misrepresentings of her album, and who (according to Lex) is impregnably self-assured and shameless in the face of the barrage of criticism and abuse.
compare all the HEAT of your
defence of Paris, all that protective fire and ire, with the distinctly neutral language when it comes to describing the album's appeal
it doesn't add up to me
have you read the Christopher Hitchens piece in Slate BTW? who knew he could be such a softie! all that cooing about her as a "child", the crying face in the car --especially when contrasted with how hard of heart and harsh of tone he was re. another paparrazi-persecuted princess in an automobile, Diana, who only hours after her death, he referred to as "the Spencer girl"
>How Paris sells doesn't mean >anything to me!
your generation -- i'm assuming you're much younger than me -- is weird. when i were a lad we used to ROOT for the records we loved. it used to HURT me when Smiths singles would place in unimpressively middling sort of positions like 17 or 22 or 26, then go down the next week. i still feel like that on the rare occasion a record i like is a chart contender, eg. dizzee's 'i luv u', i was BITTERLY DISAPPOINTED it only got to #29.
finally, there is quite a gulf between the Paris described by Lex (shameless, unabashedly superficial, etc)and the Paris that figures in your imagination, who does have something of a martyr-like quality, misunderstood/misrepresented/maligned
Lex likes her precisely for all the things that you seem to be saying aren't actually true, just lies, distortions, inventions...
Now we're back on "martyr," on "defending Paris" who "cries like a child" (or whatever), and you even threw in "your generation is weird" for good measure -- I can't respond to any of these statements. (Except to say that I have, in a public forum, made myself the representative of my generation before. The utter inappropriateness of this presumptuous claim was duly noted by a number of assholes.)
I've stated -- and you've agreed -- that other people have said stupid things about Paris Hilton. Lex and I have both argued that in the case of Paris-as-symbol, the stupid things people say tend to say more about themselves and how they view the world than about Paris, or about any of the issues Paris is said to represent.
This is a major issue for me in my writing, because I think that it seriously mucks up the conversation I want to have by (1) cutting people out of it who could be contributing or (2) making people who I don't want cut out of it seem thoughtless, missing the point, lazy, dumb, any number of infuriating qualities to find in seemingly intelligent peers. But usually it makes me realize that (3) sometimes it's really not worth the effort. I avoid (3) when possible, which is to say always.
Most of my thousands of words about Paris were really about my PEERS and about MYSELF. And not about "my generation," either -- so I'm not really a typical Poptimist, and I'm not really a typical Paris-supporter, but I'm a representative of my generation because the number of albums Paris Hilton sold isn't as important to me as what my friends and colleagues say about her, her music, their society (and mine), why they listen to the things they listen to, etc. etc., etc.?
Dizzee's doing just fine last time I checked; are you really saying you care how well "I Luv U" SOLD (I don't know the figures myself, the chart position may not indicate that), or more generally about how popular it was, how many people listened to it? How do you wish other people had listened to it -- like you did? If this meant that instead of ignoring Dizzee they'd help him get further up the charts? Is this why you write about him -- to communicate to other people the terms under which you (and maybe they) came to love the music so much, thus inspiring them to listen themselves?
This isn't some heroic goal -- it's what music critics do. It's what PEOPLE do. "Hey, I heard this song I like." "Oh, really?" "Yeah, [insert music review]."
Here's the conversation I have (in real life!) when I discuss Paris: "Hey, I heard this song I like called 'Nothing in This World.'" "FUCK THAT RICH BITCH I DON'T CARE IF HER TUNES ARE GOOD WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU EVEN LISTEN TO THAT FOR...YOU WANNA GIVE IT HOW MANY STARS???"
Doesn't this seem worth investigating, given the more normal set of responses to "I heard this song that I like..."?
>re rooting for Dizzee
if it’s at all within the realm of possibility a lot of things I love have no shot at any kind of mainstream presence, so it's irrelevant), I‘d like the things I love to have the biggest possible impact
a/ cos I love them and think they deserve attention
b/ cos they often represent things I support (values, forces, populations -- as was the case with the Smiths, or more recently with Dizzee)
it’s about rooting for the stuff you care about, and anti-rooting for the stuff you don’t like and feel could be usefully cleared out of the way
it’s love/hate psychology
Morrissey’s psychology, which is adolescent psychology maybe -- c.f. the Jam “loves with a passion called hate”
>weird
I suppose this is the nub of it:
I feel that my response and those of untold millions (I’m enjoying the rare instance of me coinciding with the masses, can you tell?) may be ill-thought-out but it is emotionally authentic and politically resonant
the pro-Paris line as articulated by you is undeniably well thought-out but to me it lacks emotional authenticity -- and is politically dissonant (especially since you appear to be more left-wing than I am)
I suppose you have just not convinced me that you really care about the record. I don’t get that vibe.
What I think you care about is calling out your peers on their “stupidities”
words like “stupid”, “lazy”, “dumb” repeatedly surface in your commentaries, and those are very Frank Kogan words, and I’m reminded that you said earlier that your initial response to PH was dismissive and then you were chided out of that by Frank.
he appears to function for you as some kind of super ego, or what Mark K-punk would call Big Other
it’s clear that Frank sets great store in his intellect, why else would he be constantly castigating people for stopping in their thought-tracks, allowing themselves to lapse into stupidness
but belief and passion is "stupid", because it entails closure and affirmation
personally I value emotions and taste more than intellect
intellect if pursued at the expense of other considerations can end up with you thinking yourself out of all your convictions, instincts, passions, appetites etc
Lex’s response is emotionally authentic (if foreign) to me because he delights in Paris's existence as a symbol of decadence -- being a modern day Wildean decadent he revels in what he calls the “ridiculousness” of it all
personally I value emotions and taste more than intellect
So basically you agree with everything I'm saying, but feel I lack emotions and taste?
That would make me an android (possibly built by Frank Kogan), so I actually think we almost seeing eye to eye on this! I LOVE robots, have robot envy, even.
Anyway, your distinctions between emotion, taste, and intellect as mutually exclusive, separable facets of one's personality and/or writing output is convenient for the argument you're (now) trying to make, which is that I don't really CARE about Paris's music, merely care about talking about why other people suck.
In the scheme o' things, maybe I DO care about talking about why other people suck (tho, importantly, my goal, such as it is, for them not to suck so much!) than about this particular album. But "placing" those two things is irrelevant here, because the fact is I have discussed the music passionately, and my emotions about the conversation have influenced my emotions on the record itself. Why shouldn't they? How couldn't they?
You can write me off as an emotionless Frank-puppet -- hell, I'll grant you the second one (since the first one is impossible -- unless you want to claim that I'm LYING about enjoying the Paris Hilton album; good luck convincing my roommates). Don't really know how inciting someone to investigate something intellectually could simultaneously coexist with puppeteering (or Koganeering, as someone on ILM called it) since I would have to be copying Frank's arguments to be his puppet (but hey, he copies my arguments sometimes, too -- first time he contacted me was because he wanted to swipe "anonymous confessional," which was a better phrase than it was an idea -- he's just a lot better at this than I am), whereas I'm more accurately influenced by his style and mode of investigation. Just as he's influenced by Meltzer and Wittgenstein and all those other dudes he told me to read. Like Simon Frith, whose mention above you still haven't defended.
Anyway, I'm not going to push too hard on why I think most of what you're saying in your last comment is perplexing, but
belief and passion is "stupid", because it entails closure and affirmation
Could you explain what you mean by this? Can a human being possibly think this and not be afraid to keep on livin', as MCR sez?
Hello!
I'm going to make an explanation, and an admission (of sorts).
EXPLANATION: I named PH as my favourite album of last year in Pazz and Jop, BUT this is largely a function of P&J's online ballot not being set up to allow singles-only entries (like my ballot last year) (turns out I could have emailed a singles-only ballot in though, but I'd filled the thing in by the time I found that out). I listened to literally about five whole albums last year - Paris Hilton was the only one I enjoyed all the way through. (They were all pop/dance-pop/R&B, except Scritti Politti I guess.) For the Idolator poll I was allowed to leave off albums, and did so. So I do - or did - like the PH album, but the electoral fact of it being my favourite album is no indication of a huge emotional commitment to it!
ADMISSION: I haven't listened to the album since the 'racist video' leaked in January (the "little J4ppy J3w" one) - it put me off her record, because my enjoyment of the record was based on its frothy eager wide-eyed likeability, and that didn't survive its juxtaposition with my extra knowledge of PH. I still think it's a good dance-pop record, mind you, but I can't enjoy it as much. (Normally I'm not put off records by their creators being dreadful people, so this is a bit unusual for me).
More exciting self-justification to follow!
THE SECRET ORIGIN OF POPTIMISM, by me.
Poptimism is a word coined (I think!) by Simon R himself to describe the 'pro-pop' tendency: I think the specific occasion was an argument over whether music had got worse in one particular year or not (2003? 2004? I forget) and Poptimism was the position that the idea of 'good years' vs 'bad years' was a useless one: pop is always good.
Anyway, we nicked the word when we wanted a new name for our club night. My vague thinking was that for the four hours you were drinking and dancing at the club, now would indeed (hopefully!) be the best time for pop ever. Also I liked the word and people seemed to remember it.
In 2005 I was really sick of ILM and also was really into the LiveJournal interface - it seemed to encourage friendliness, very fast-moving conversation, and I loved the polling mechanisms. I decided to see if a music community would work there and - since the club night seemed to get a lot of LJ visitors - Poptimists was a logical name.
(The Pitchfork column was a rename from "Sentimentalist" cos another site had nicked that. I couldn't think of anything better.)
Now a lot of this stuff is me being disingenuous, but it's an example of how something that looks like a "movement" or a "bunker" (ugh) from the outside actually feels like a fairly accidental progression from the inside. I think Simon is in a sense RIGHT that the wave of online pro-pop criticism in the early 00s has broken - but I prefer to think of it as something that did its job (look at how the staff of Pitchfork, maybe the most-read music publication in the US, is rammed with former ILMers) and now the various individuals are off doing their own things. Some still hang out together, not surprisingly.
Finally in this (somewhat defensive) post, I own up entirely to aiming for a Frith-y 'everything is worth thinking about' dispassionate generalism: I am pretty bad at doing 'passionate' writing, so this is as much me knowing my own strengths as anything.
One final thing, though: I really, really love Poptimists the community. I think in some ways it's the best thing I've ever been involved with online. I love how it's grown organically; how there have been disagreements but no major flamewars; how friendly it is; how much fun it is; how useful it can be for finding new stuff; how much the various games we play can make me learn a lot about how I react to and think about music; how so many of the regular contributors are women (I feel a bit lame pointing that out as its nowhere near 50-50 but jaysis compare it to ILM!); and most of all how I never know what I'm going to get - jokes, serious argument, enthusiasm, chaff, whatever. I'm fantastically proud of it and I honestly don't think I would be if it was full of people who simply agreed with me.
Thanks for posting, Tom...as many "poptimist" perspectives (which wildly differ so far) we can cram in here are appreciated.
However, I still take issue with any use of Frith and "dispassionate generalism," since Frith uses laser beams to dissect irrelevant arguments about (specific) subjects that he obviously cares very passionately about! What with writing amazing books on 'em and such.
Tom, I think you're talking about writing that easily signifies "passionate," which doesn't mean that your "dispassionate" analysis has any less passion in it (or that the "passionate" writing has any more passion in it -- in fact might just be hysterical and compensating for poor arguments). Your ABBA column you showed me was incredible, and it moved me, and it was thoughtful. And, importantly, you didn't gush -- it was a studied, semi-methodical examination. And passionate as hell!
The thing about the ABBA piece (which will be up on Tuesday unless THE MAN spikes it) is that it's quite a knowing attempt at writing old-school criticism: privileging lyrics, privileging maturity and 'meaning' etc etc.
But those are precisely qualities of ABBA that get most overlooked (wrongly, and unfairly) in their music. You're not finding maturity and meaning where there is none -- you're revealing it where others aren't paying attention.
Most wonderful anecdote, I think, was about pub night, where even you didn't recognize a touching lyric from "Kowing Me, Knowing You"! Funnily enough, I didn't even listen to ABBA till I was 21, so all the adultness you discuss (which I won't mention anymore here till it runs) was actually what attracted me to them. Esp. in later ABBA, like The Visitors, where they write the best damn divorce song EVER ("When All Is Said and Done") because they make room for the congeniality and understanding that must follow bitterness and childishness and pain -- like, if you wanna see your kids again and stuff.
Should also note that you reveal this overlooked aspect without resorting to venom directed at ABBA-haters, ABBA-haters being a safely passe category of music discussionists these days. (Rabid ABBA-hating is pretty much irrelevant in most music convos now, and the anti-ABBA arguments that still exist tend to be sneakier...and not just about ABBA: like letting 33 1/3 only deal with ABBA by reviewing their singles comp and not any of their excellent full-length albums.)
compare all the HEAT of your
defence of Paris, all that protective fire and ire, with the distinctly neutral language when it comes to describing the album's appeal
I think Dave, and Frank, and myself, and others have been very passionate about describing the music - but the responses tend not to be about what we say about the music (b/c most of the people we're arguing withtalking to haven't heard the music, so there's not much dialogue to be had), they're about other aspects of Paris, so that's the territory we move on to.
your generation -- i'm assuming you're much younger than me -- is weird. when i were a lad we used to ROOT for the records we loved.
I do too but not via the charts...I don't think they mean much to anyone any more.
I've no idea where to begin with "current anti-rockist thought" b/c it's such a slippery term, which is why I try not to use it any more...all I will say is that being anti-rockist isn't so much a credo for me as it is a few basic logical points, with logical consequences; what is frustrating is when people parade their non-rockist credentials and then proceed to sneer at eg Frank K for the teenpop thread, without ever adequately explaining why teenpop shouldn't be discussed as seriously as eg the terrible Panda Bear or Battles albums.
Oh yeah Simon you might be pleased to know that on the new MIA album, it is as if she read everything you said about her and has spent the past two years working out how to annoy you even more! Shooting poverty tourism videos in Sri Lanka and Jamaica! "Third world democracy" lyrics! A reference to Darfur!
(I really like what I've heard of it)
About Paris's music, quickly: I could go on at length but I think the offhand comment my ex-flatmate made about it last year was quite sharp: she said she loved it because every song sounded like it could soundtrack a crucial scene in an American high school movie. I really love that aesthetic, and the Paris album encapsulates it perfectly.
I also love it because of its attitude towards romance - it's a very romanic album, dizzyingly optimistic and idealistic about this ideal of love PH has constructed, but equally it's never actually a tangible thing - all the songs are about true love as potential, PH going "this could be so great if we were together!" but never getting there. This is why I love it, completely separately from the circus and the ridiculousness around her...
(...or is it? In 'Stars Are Blind' and 'Screwed' the implication is that the reason all these love affairs are imaginary is b/c of Paris's celebrity, which prevents her getting too close to anyone; and then the mental connection is made to the series of unfortunate men she's hooked up with...)
Incidentally, there was some good discussion on ILM recently between Tim F and I on how the teenpop expression of adolescent feelings is inextricably tied up with gayness, I'll just c/p:
LEX: i've often wondered whether the stereotype of the gays loving the teenpop possibly stems from the way in which teenpop approaches things like love, relationships, crushes, finding personal identity, growing up - sometimes clichéd, sometimes romanticised, sometimes confused. i think to a lot of gay people it might not be as...banal, as it's sometimes accused of being, because obv few gay people (of our age and above, certainly) could have actually had a typical adolescence.
TIM: It's a double pincer movement I think: most pop culture representations of adolescence are obsessed with the difference between essences and appearances, so in a funny way most pop culture representations of adolescence tell the story of gay adolescence at one level of remove.
At the same time, the specific content of those representations is not just something we didn't happen to experience, it's stuff we were structurally unable to experience (or, to get the emotional sense of it more accurately, it's stuff we were denied) even if we were in the right time and place for it.
LEX:
totally agree: i'd say that the obsession is based on the tension between the absolute certainty adolescents have regarding appearances (ie what they "should" be, what is socially acceptable) and the total uncertainty they have over "essences" (ie who they really are - the process of adolescence is after all trying to find this out, and for gays this is magnified) (this pins down something i was clumsily trying to express right at the top of this thread because it's this fumbling attempt at self-discovery which those hilary duff tracks best express, and with which i identify most easily)
Quick amendment to my 33 1/3 comment -- the ABBA Gold book is very engaging and well written from what I've read of it (what's in that sampler thingy), and I know that the writer chose her subject and wasn't "assigned" it. I just wish that either (1) more compilations were being discussed, maybe with inconsistent bands whose greatest hits are better than their Canon Albums, or else (2) that albums-only held across the board, so that ABBA wouldn't seem to be an "exception," and somehow intrinsically different from the Stones or Dylan or the Beatles etc. Or maybe that HUGE singles counted as "albums" (w/ B-sides, etc.) or something.
i'm VERY interested in the 33 1/3 series of books.
oh.
i just realized that i didn't have anything else to add to that.
uh, anyone read some of 'em?
>FK
my sense is that Frank’s true passion is for thought. If you look at Real Punks, it’s brilliant, but there’s surprisingly little actual advocacy for music.
i think he is interested in the intellectual journey that music propels him on, which is why he’s gone on this convoluted voyage from being a Stones and Contortions fame to arguing that Ashlee Simpson is punk rock. Teenpop offers a new discursive space, and relatively virgin one in a very crowded field.
>frith
I have read Performing Rites but I didn’t glean much sense of an over-riding argument from it, it’s kind of a diffuse book. The Frith-as-generalist idea is based on Sound Effects (which is the first time as far as I know that anyone pointed out how rock criticism ignores teenage girl music, it has all these proto-Bourdieu type ideas about how music taste is constructed around class, gender, etc). And also on Frith’s practice as a working critic, which he used to do in The Observer and also for Village Voice (and back in the day Melody Maker), and much of which is gathered in his collection Music For Pleasure). And while I’m sure he has his passions, a lot of what he’s about is taking seriously things that are off the usual rockwrite agenda. I remember him writing a column about Smokie, this really bland UK soft rock band, and how they were worshipped in Malaysia, seen as the equivalent of Springsteen or something. Or he’d write about Gracie Fields, or… you get the idea. And I’m not knocking it, cos he’s superb it. It’s not an approach that I dismiss out of hand, there are generalist critics who write really interesting pieces (SFJ does that New Yorker). But it’s necessarily somewhat disengaged and detached in tone. It lacks that sense of personal advocacy.
A lot of the writing on teenpop has that quality, it dissects the emotions going on in the song, but it doesn’t feel emotional in tone. Except, when getting angry about the slighting done to the whole genre.
>Abba
ah well you see Abba are a group I would lump in with the “creatively autonomous units” in pop music, the same as Human League or Sparks or The Smiths or Pulp or indeed Pet Shop Boys.
at the Rip It Up event in London, someone in the audience shouted “Abba are better than Velvet Underground” -- a poptimist I assume -- and my first thought, was that was typically silly contrarianism -- as if you have to choose --and the two groups are so far apart it’s silly to even make that dichotomy -- however after watching an Abba doc recently, I decided that on a structural level Abba and Velvet Underground are no different. Abba and VU have more in common than Abba and ‘manufactured boyband X’. The level of craft, passion, musicianship, intelligence, etc that the group and their producer/engineer chap put into the records is totally comparable to anybody you care to name, Fleetwood mac circa rumours, etc. So basically I am happy to induct Abba into the nu-rockist fold.
Same with Pet Shop Boys, not a mass
exceed the word count again!
Same with Pet Shop Boys, not a massive fan, but they are a late New Pop group, a creatively autonomous unit, the disco Smiths, and Neil Tennant’s recent endorsement of Arctic Monkeys et al in preference to Pop Idol piffle makes total sense in that light.
>MIA
I am going to do my best to avoid being irritated by her this time round, although the analogy with Malcolm McLaren circa Duck Rock I made circa Arular does seem even more applicable with this record.
>>belief and passion is "stupid", >>because it entails closure and >>affirmation
>Could you explain what you mean by >this? Can a human being possibly >think this and not be afraid to >keep on livin', as MCR sez?
i mean that an actual opinion is where the process of thinking comes to halt
if you're dedicated to the thought process as supreme value you can get into this thing of making and unmaking your mind up that goes on forever. A good example of this is Mark Sinker, who as someone said is always disagreeing with himself.
i've read his stuff for years, always with interest and enjoyment, but i honestly couldn't tell you what he likes in music, or indeed where he stands on anything. An opinion is precisely where you reach a point of agreement with yourself!
he's someone who dispenses with the whole advocacy side of music writing -- I cannot recall a review where he's straight up said "this is great/i love it/go buy it". But then Mark once said on ILM on a thread titled "Do you love music" or something, "I'm not sure I do. I like the thought-paths it sends me on" -- or words to that effect.
and the comment about unreason and the willed stupidity of belief is also related to a general sense of what pop culture is. i don't see it as a realm governed by reason. it's much more about assertion, passion, hunger, ego, lust, aggression, glory, charisma -- a battle of wills -- music in its very essence is violence, lots of philosphers agree on this, from nietzche to deleuze & guattari.
And pop culture also reflects society, which is war -- groups competing with other groups, individuals asserting their existence.
The level of craft, passion, musicianship, intelligence, etc that the [woman] and [her] producer/engineer chap[s] put into the records is totally comparable to anybody you care to name, Fleetwood mac circa rumours, etc. So basically I am happy to induct [Paris Hilton] into the nu-rockist fold.
Agreed!
I don't know if FK or MS want to speak for themselves on the rest of that stuff, but re: Frith (who probably won't show up :() his topics may be diffuse throughout the book, but he lays out his M.O. in the first chapter (which, not coincidentally, is referenced repeatedly in Frank's book). He wants to get away from the academic tendency to study things in a vaccuum supposedly unencumbered by visceral response and subsequent value judgments, and he also wants to explore social prejudices/etc. where they do exist when they are (typically) glossed over as "visceral," but aren't. I argue the latter point in my recent column about "irony" (linked on the sidebar), Frith is interested in the social construction of, e.g., dance and African-derived rhythms as "sexual" and several other topics (depending on which chapter you're thinking of).
On Frith's former point, one crucial "step" that you seem to be overlooking in all this, Simon, is that we have to actually like the music first. Kevin Federline -- a presumably disgusting (and smelly) human being who probably eats babies, too -- put out an album that was terrible. In part it was terrible because he was bragging about how much money he had. He has gone on to portray himself as a pro wrestling heel in the WWE, facing off against its most notorious heel, the megalomaniacal entrepreneur himself, Vince McMahon.
Point being, I don't give a shit what people say about K-Fed. If he went to jail on a DUI and was used as an "example," I might be disconcerted with the reality of it (relating to my own political motivations as sketched out above), but to the extent that people won't listen to his album because of who he is -- don't care. I say "K-Fed's album sucks, because I've listened to it and I think it sucks." Person X says, "Yeah, what do you expect, it's K-Fed?" I bristle a bit, because how do you know (y'know?) but let it go because, again, DON'T CARE.
Point being, I had to like the music first, fairly passionately (because I listen to a lot of it, it's a major component of my emotional and intellectual and inconsequential i.e. going-to-the-supermarket life), whether it was Paris when this whole mess started or Skye Sweetnam when I got into teenpop or "Sgt. Pepper's" when I got into pop-pop or "We're Only In It for the Money" when I got into Zappa, or "Locomotion" when I got into Kylie (at about age 4) or "Can't Get You Out of My Head" when I got into Kylie again (at about age 20). Again, it's impossible to separate intellect, emotion, and taste -- emotional connection sparks intellectual analysis (hence Frith's attack of academia for pretending that "liking or disliking it doesn't matter," which is verbatim what they taught me when I started a media studies program), intellectual analysis enhances or changes emotion, both of these things, along with other related and random factors, consitute taste.
No argument you could make about Mark S. "changing his mind" or Frank liking Ashlee intellectually (as if, reading what he's written about her, it's not obvious why she's a clear extension of his emotional and intellectual path so far) will change the reality (the ambiguity) of the reactions and subsequent methods of analysis that make up an individual's critical perspective. But you can at least cut out some of the nonsense: if Mark in fact once said that he loves thinking about music but doesn't love the music itself, then all it means is that he once said something that doesn't make any sense. Which is the feeling I get reading over too much of this comment thread!
[cue Secret Word siren] I do think it's great that teenpop is an undercovered and relatively "virgin" field. But there are lots of virgin fields, and they're only virgin to "people like us," that is the types of people who try to write rock criticism for other people like us (people who also try to read rock criticism). I'm attracted to teenpop not JUST because it's undercovered alt weekly mags and blogs and etc. (so are mainstream country and jazz and Afropop and bossa nova and modern classical), but because I really fucking love it!!!!! I listen to it constantly, it makes me think, it makes me dance, it makes me sing along! IT'S GREAT. There is no divorcing these two facts, as much as it might make an argument as to why I listen to or write about it much easier than it is.
BTW, the secret word, which I failed to say (!!!) was DISINGENUOUS. I.e., I don't want to be. So here's this bit about tha virgin territories. (Jeez Simon getcher colonizing impulses in check! Not a utopic -- or heterotopic, sez Foucault -- space because, shock, there are ALREADY PEOPLE LIVING THERE i.e. teenyboppers!!!! And they do do their own criticism, and it is worth discussing. Because it's usually better than most of "our" (semi-bohemian, sez Frankcault) criticism! See: Aly and AJ commenters on this very blog!
>performing Rites and value >judgements/aesthetic choice
I thought that was a really interesting topic/problem that Frith posed there--yeah, totally, academia completely overlooks this whole area of partisanship and preference. But (and it’s a long while since I read the book) I almost felt like he never went back to deal with the issue. The stuff on rhythm is fascinating, I quoted some of the ideas in Energy Flash; there are insights all through the book, I recall having a pencil in hand quite a bit, but… well, again, I felt at the end there was an inconclusiveness.
That is a key thing though, this moment of aesthetic choice and allegiance -- not just between genres or artists, but between first-rate and second-rate within genres. And I think it is a big problem for all those Bourdieu-type arguments about the social construction of taste. Especially when you get people who feel the call of a sound when all the sociological calculus would indicate it ought to give them no cultural capital they can use. Black guy at a trance rave, that sort of thing
In a sense, my description of an opinion being where the thought-process stops is wrong, or incomplete -- because people (invariably, as far as I can see) START with their opinion, go through the critical thought-process, and then wind back to restating the original opinion.
Most people don’t think themselves out of what they like or enjoy. That initial cathexis is almost always stuck with. And that suggests it bypasses all reason. Which brings me back to my point about will, etc,
And in arguments like the one we’re having, you almost never get someone relinquishing their liking for something or their initial taste judgement. In a profound sense, that stuff is literally unarguable.
So why argue about it at all, if you can’t persuade someone out of an opinion or passion that seems to you “wrong”?
I’m not sure that’s really the goal… it’s much more the sport of argument itself. Like MCing for nerds, as opposed to a disinterested quest for truth.
>Paris & craft
C.f. Lex on desultory promotion of her own music, you seem to be taking the validate-through-rockist-critera angle, insisting on her contributions and commitment to the project. But I thought it was a Poptimist tenet that someone could contribute in no way to their own record and it could still be a great record. I mean, I accept that idea, that the song-doctor/svengali-producer hit-factory thing can produce fabulous results, it’s just that for various reasons that process is not going to engage me as much as the “autonomously creative” genius/scenius thing
incidentally, I could totally understand why someone would root for Britney. Not only has she made some very exciting records, has a great voice, charisma, etc, there’s an appealing vulnerability. She seems eminently root-able. So i categorically deny shaving off her hair.
If I read Dave right though, defending Paris's auteurship isn't about his relationship to the music - it's attacking the dumbness of the arguments we've seen, ie the sneering that she couldn't possibly have contributed creatively when her writing credit is right there.
For me there is a strong sense of auteurship about the album, there's a coherency which ties the tracks by disparate producers together; this may or may not be Paris's penmanship, or it may just be her interpretation of the songs others wrote for her - so that's why I get irritated by the suggestions that she had nothing to do with the album.
If there is a Poptimist tenet here though it's that it doesn't matter - there ARE albums which I love, where I get the impression that the singer has barely bothered to read the lyric sheet before enetering the studio, where I don't get any sense of character. Jennifer Lopez and Kylie spring to mind. But Paris's album just doesn't work like that for me.
I am fairly confident that I can tell WHETHER Mark S will like a song - I can never tell HOW he'll like it though.
Hm, would like to discuss your first parag further but at work so need to stew and not get caught typing this. But...
you seem to be taking the validate-through-rockist-critera angle, insisting on her contributions and commitment to the project.
No, I was merely inserting a maligned-in-her-time artist into a statement you made to suggest that these criteria could be applied to her as well. There is nothing "ideological" about appreciating good production values, good songwriting craft, and good performance, so "rockism" (or any "ism") doesn't enter into it.
And in arguments like the one we’re having, you almost never get someone relinquishing their liking for something or their initial taste judgement. In a profound sense, that stuff is literally unarguable.
Absolutely untrue, from personal experience. In most and maybe all of the music I listen to, liking or disliking was/is facilitated (if not initiated, tho sometimes it was intiated "I read review by X so listened to Y," "Y told me to listen to X" -- don't remember who turned me on to X [the band], but someone did!) by reading or hearing what other people thought about the album/artist/song.
There are plenty of things that are arguable in terms of a discussion about music, I just mean to say you can't say I'm being dishonest for liking something when I do, period. You can certainly discuss what I've said (and how this reflects on my enjoyment, which I think you've been trying to do unsuccessfully by constructing binaries or mutually exclusive categories ("if you think THIS you can't REALLY like it") where they don't exist.
Should say, there is nothing inherently ideological about appreciating these things. It can become an "ideology," but usually in practice this just means that the conversation got boring and/or unproductive.
there are insights all through the book, I recall having a pencil in hand quite a bit, but… well, again, I felt at the end there was an inconclusiveness.
OMG Simon Reynolds reads books just like I do!! (Never pen, my gf always uses pen and it drives me BONKERS.)
And I think the inconclusiveness is the result of so many ideas bringing up more questions (to be answered by other "people like us") to explore -- I get a sense of Frith's disappointment in academia not to use its resources to challenge itself out of the various ruts that keeps music criticism either totally isolated and unapproachable (classical/art) or totally mired in the same general media-studies (detached and dispassionate and PBS-y!) bullshit that mires film studies (choose yr poison, film's mine!).
Ooh, which makes me think that maybe what PBS is doing is exactly what academia is doing -- creating a form of human communication and pedagogy that has no relationship whatsoever to how people actually communicate (which has to happen "in the hallway"). I was just discussing this w/ Emily re: NETWORKING, which seems to me a parallel universe human communication form that has zero relationship to communication and 100% relationship to POWER. It's about increasing power; insight and creation of knowledge are secondary and irrelevant. Which is all well and good for a business luncheon, but SUCKS when you're in academia or rockcrit! (Is PBS like the "networking" of cultural study and criticism?)
If you look at Real Punks, it’s brilliant, but there’s surprisingly little actual advocacy for music.
Wasn't going to go there, but COME ON you really can't be serious. (Frank's "Spoonin Rap" review was Frith's exemplar of great pop criticism in Performing Rites!)
[inching towards 100]
i wasn't saying it was utterly devoid of that kind of advocacy, but... it really doesn't seem like a core drive.
meta is his metier
>In most and maybe all of the music >I listen to, liking or disliking >was/is facilitated (if not >initiated, tho sometimes it was >intiated ...by reading or hearing >what other people thought about the >album/artist/song.
oh yeah totally, in the process of initially reaching an opinion, that can naturally be directed by reading/hearing others views ... there are certain bands that were totally opened up for me by pieces of criticism, where the first reaction or impression had been indifference (eg. the smiths which on superficial first listen seemed a little plain-sounding, were made extremely interesting-seeming by a piece by one of my writer-heroes, and eventually they became my favorite band of the 80s and possibly ever).
but i'm not talking about an initial impression or reaction, i'm talking about a firm opinion, and arguments that ensue based around that opinion, once it's been formed
and i can't think of any argument in my experience (at least one based on taste or passion or attachment) where one side has convinced the other out of the initial opinion
i mean maybe i just know some stubborn people but...
see i don't think that is really the goal of such an argument, although--by mutual consent or understanding--the debate will of course take the form of a reasoned argument,
it will be conducted as if one of us just so happened to muster an overwhelmingly convincing and unassailable argument then the other would graciously concede and surrender the value judgement.
as if!
there's nothing that i could say that would make you relinquish your burning ardour for Paris Hilton's whatever-it's-called, and vice versa
it's much more like a legal case in that sense, except that whereas the defence and prosecution are arbitrarily assigned the case they have to argue, our "cases" are based on passion/allegiance
so what is the goal of the argument if not to convince the other
convince oneself, perhaps...
or simply sharpen one's ideas on the stone of the other's argument?
a test of wills
here i go getting meta myself
Convince undecided neutrals maybe? (OK, not in the 99th post of a comments box)
This relates to something I was discussing a few posts ago: I really don't think (aside from Paris, of course) that dislike is on a level playing field with "like," and I suggested that a more level playing field (if not as clean a binary) would be like/ignore.
So I think Tom's comment about the undecided neutral is crucial, because there are usually a lot more of them (for any given artist) than there are haters. But when there are so many haters, it does incite me to investigate what might be happening musically or (more commonly) socially to see what's going on.
(Also, if you're having problems finding people who change their minds -- or who are even willing to have their minds changed via friendly argument -- you should ditch Dissensus for a bit and come over to the teenpop thread or Poptimists.)
>Convince undecided neutrals maybe?
possibly. although people are often surprisingly attached to their neutrality, or their neutral feelings about a particular artist/record/whatever
"tepid" being a perfectly authentic response in itself
of course another reason to argue is that, while you are unlikely to have your mind changed, you might learn interesting things during the exchange, not so much information per se although you will get that, but more interesting is to see how other people's minds move.
>dissensus
i haven't posted there in an age. maybe a year. actually i did once, just the other week, in a thread on Todd Terry, but that was just dropping some info. one reason is i've been busy what with having a second kid and work, something had to be sacrificed, but the other is that Dissensus has become much less argumentative, much more of a shared fandom/exchange of information, enthusiasm type space. there is a lot less of the meta type talk.
in that sense it mirrors Poptimists or indeed ILM which seems have to lot less ideas-driven threads these days. all the endless polls and 'favorite' lists...
the difference is instead, of rolling teenpop threads, dissensus has rolling grime/dubstep/etc threads.
but in both cases, because the assumptions and values that the genre is based on are shared, there is not much contention -- or at least the contention isn't so interesting or productive, it's all on the level of 'come off it, that track ain't all that,' 'i think producer X is a bit over-rated' etc
on a rolling teenpop or rolling dubstep thread you're not going to get someone come in and question the whole founding ideas the genre is based on. the very title of the thread dis-invites that kind of intervention.
Agreed on most of that, actually, and I hope you didn't take that as a Dissensus swipe either, just that there are places (I haven't seen in my cursory visits Dissensus to be one of them, but you could also say the same of a lot of ILM, so maybe I'm missing the important threads) to go where opinions and ideas are in flux.
Semi-off the mark, though, on Poptimists, which doesn't do ENOUGH with ideas (lots of great threads in the past couple weeks, though!), but does MORE with them than most comparable online hang-outs.
And off the mark re: Teenpop Thread, even though technically you're right -- I argued there should be openness to challenge on the thread, but instead it happened here (that's where Lex got his exchange w/ Tim Finney), and most of the regular posters responded/defended their position. Revelations: some of the skeptics admitted they were jealous of the thread (without being accused of this by any of the regular posters)! This is pretty much unprecedented in any conversation I've ever had anywhere, I think. (PS: Simon, I'm ultra-jealous yer so famous and I do pro bono rockcrit for Paris Hilton!! But that's not why I'm saying what I'm saying on this thread.)
question the whole founding ideas the genre is based on
And, as we commented several times on that Hilary thread, the creation of the teenpop thread was specifically addressing this issue! See Frank's opening posts on the 2006 and 2007 threads, both linked on my sidebar.
that ILM thread looks great, only a little way in but promisingly acrimonious already
that's the trouble with ILM, there's probably some good hot discussions lurking under titles that are unenticing (to me anyway) or misleadingly specific, but you can't go turning over every rock can you
well your comments box is over 100
(i don't know why that seems like an achievement but it does) plus we've reached that vaguely amiable 'agree to disagree' phase -- perhaps it's time to move on
we've reached that vaguely amiable 'agree to disagree' phase -- perhaps it's time to move on
You don't know me very well yet, Simon...
...But thanks for posting if that's it!
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