The Naff

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

What is the relationship between coolness and naffness in pop history.

A version of it wd describe pop history as essentially a story of a thread of coolness constantly besieged by naffness. This seems deeply unsatisfactory to me.

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes, v.important not to get hung up on definition of "coolness" - you could replace it with "artistic worth" or "lastingness" or "innovation" or any number of things really. I picked "coolness" because a lot of (public) enthusiasm about pop seems to be in quest of it, and also because it's such a vague notion.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

see, PURE ROCKISM!!!

you can't have a binary like this without relatively stable definitions can you?

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Hrm, I dunno, why not?

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

because otherwise you spend all yr time arguing about definitions, rather than the relationships.

[plumsbitch.livejournal.com]

Not if you're not wedded to the definitions, but instead regard them as contingent/useful shorthand-that-obscures-the-complexities.

You can still look at relationships between wobbly/oscillating terms.

Hmm. with that in mind

'Naff' - a certain lack of self-consciousness regarding/complete disregard for what is currently 'cool'?

My icons of naffness would be stuff like Barry Manilow, which is enormously popular music, but isn't really chart pop, exists kind of alongside it. The longevity involves a shifting relationship to the 'pop mainstream'. Sometimes (eg late 70s) it is/fits well in chart pop, sometimes it's miles away from.

(arghh scare quotes but hopefully it makes sense)

random: are Right Said Fred naff?

stability surely unnecessary for meaning

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

cf more vs less

cool and naff may be intensifiers/distinctors of qualities that are purely contextual

haha LOOK!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

cool-A = "ahead of curve"
cool-B= "indifferent to curvitude"

change is built into defn A; non-change built into defn.B --- YET B becomes A when others join in!

Re: haha LOOK!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

What abt ppl who CREATE the curve?

Re: haha LOOK!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

well some of them are B-people -- but others are A-dedicated

Re: haha LOOK!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they are on a different graph entirely, the curve of CRITICISM???

Re: haha LOOK!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

but artists and non-critics are also critics in the sense that they have opinions of the activities of others -- the curve is not created by a specific class of agents or media, so much as the broad agreement on the stability of the curve in a particular era is signalled by statement of same, by class of agents and/or media (if consumers of meda and readers of critics all disagree, then stability is collapsing)