Does this help?

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Paul Morley throwdown on the rockism "debate". Only useful point as far as I can see = anti-rockism as laughing at the squares, or rather trying to make the kids who think they're cool feel like squares. But as always with Morley it all falls down when his emphasis on humour and polemic as a motor to saying something passionate about anything (Nick Drake AND Christina Aguilera are his examples) gets bogged down in X vs Y judgements. e.g. Springsteen vs. Beefheart has now flip-flopped surely -- Beefheart love is solid gold rockism and Springsteen is the chirpy pop act. But actually that doesn't get us very far with thinking about EITHER! My conclusion = anti-rockism is good as a levelling principle when used in support of something you are loving; but rubbish when used as an attack on something. Anti-rockism seems to work for Morley as an attack on a perceived consensus (and maybe works best when there is something to that perception), but when some form of broadly anti-rock (not the same as anti-rockism) has become the consensus (in realm of people who care about these things) surely it is time to USE OTHER WORDS PLEASE! Perhaps the mistake is about that perceived consensus: Morley sees himself as the loner going against conformism, but conformism is always in the eye of the beholder, and perhaps PM is really missing out on the fun out here in land of the (non)-conformists!

Comments

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

1) Musical content, yes. Not sure abt lyrical content because average rave lyrics actually not that mental, or at least their mentalism had a different driving factor. With Beefheart, there was definitely a degree of 'about' going on - even at his most off the wall, there was still a sense that the meanings of the words, and the meaning of the combinations of the words mattered; it was still poetry in the loosest sense of the word. OTOH choice of rave vocals in general much more concerned with a) sonic properties of sample and/or b) vague setting of atmosphere. There is very rarely any coherence, or sum of sung/spoken lyrical fragments being greater than parts.

2) Agree entirely.

3) Maybe, but he didn't want to make them dance.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The main reason for liking Beefheart is that happy feeling of "this album makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER" when listening to it. Trout Mask Replica has those layers upon layers of instrumentation like you get in eg disco, all doing mental different things to spark up different bits of yr brain. You are right that dancing isn't rly the prime objective tho.

I want to listen to TMR now! It is at home!

p.s. The video to Ebeneezer Goode was playing on the big screen in reception at work yesterday. Mwah-hah-ha-ha-haaaaar!

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

Is the musical content really similar? Haven't heard Beefheart* in a long-time now (and erm, not sure I've ever heard much rave ever) but even when a new part isn't introduced you've got the elements seemingly sounding against each other whereas that might not be the case in rave.

*= I'm thinking more of TMR and 'Lick my Decals off, baby'

but hey I'm all for this fusion of sukrat and morehardcrew!

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

haha that is an 'x-post' w/kat.