Euro report

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4944516.stm

The BBC's Europop correspondent writes...!

organise; educate; activate

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

On the other place I said:
Because books and songs are mostly made from bits of other books and songs

Someone replied:

aren't they, following this, also made up from bits of the world, though, bits of tendentiously constructed social histories?

[I had dissed historicism, basically, which is where the phrase 'tendentiously constructed social histories' comes from]

So I said:

'Yes, bits of the world, but does history give you access to bits of the world? Yes, obviously, and no, possibly equally obviously: the story 'I get angry about life so I invent a new form of rock and roll' misses out so much: like, 'what my new form of rock and roll is made from'. The 'made from' question interests me more than the 'why', but generally people are much happier to think in terms of 'why' stories (they have heroes and villains, for a start). If the 'why' stories interfere with the other stories, it seems fair to rule them out of court for a bit, in order to allow the others to surface.

And because the words / notes are bits of the world, and so are the stories we tell about them, there seems no reason to privilege the 'why' stories as giving us some handle on these particular combinations of words / notes. Especially since the particular bundle we happen to be looking at ALSO brings with it certain kinds of 'why' story. And what NO ONE has adequately done yet is examine how the stories rock / pop surrounds itself with are linked (either in terms of intellectual history OR in terms of affect / desire etc.) to the forms used to understand / interpret rock/pop in the academy. i.e. if modern historicism develops out of the same mutation that gives us modern popular music, how can one have an interpretive authority over the other. It would make us much sense to teach a course on the development of cultural studies in Britain using works by the musicians listed as the secondary reading.'

Which conclusion FEELS right, but might be just naff? Thought I'd post in case anyone wanted to continue (i.e. challenge, as much as anything else) this thought NOT on ILX?

Dazwatch

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

So, am I the last person to hear his version of Together Forever or WHAT?

I am bravely attempting not to hear THE song until EuroDay. Wish me luck!

The History Of Pop Part 40 aka Whats She Gonna Look Like With A Chimney On Her?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Popfrenzy '98 continues in Now 40 with Billie, Fatboy Slim and DJ DAZ!!!! making their first appearances on a Now (the latter in the guise of BUS STOP). The Spice Girls slide towards their end but the pop world they left behind is thriving.

Now 39 was closely fought but "Never Ever" pulled ahead to win it - double All Saints for your consideration this time - with Pulp, Cornershop and the Spice Girls close behind among a number of high-scoring contenders.

( Why d'you always say what's on your mind? )

IT'S TICKY!

Old Soldiers

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I was tryin to work out why the thought of the next 10-15 or so Now polls fills me with more nerve than glee, harbingered by my slight anomie today due to the imminent victory of Massive Attack (a song which is RLY GOOD!!) (as is say "Ms Jackson" whose potential anointment also gives me a vague sinking feeling). Why this resentment? I figured that it's probably because we're now swinging into the period when I rolled up my sleeves and got my hands dirty online - setting up FT, setting up NYLPM, founding ILM etc. - and so the particular battles and twists and turns of orthodoxy that characterised them are all still semi-fresh, wounds that might yet be re-opened when the wrong reflex gets triggered.

(despite the fact that "we" WON!!)


"Chap with artistic intent - five rounds rapid!"

Of course the other side of me thinks, the more recent the Now polls get the more INTERESTING and factional they get - these next few years are still unformed canon-wise after all...

(I probably need to stop caring about the effing canon AT ALL, but then I wouldn't be me, sigh.)

haha speaking of canons

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

from the topical index to r.meltzer's Aesthetics of Rock (ie as it reads w.no omissions by me)

arrogant will to power and amoral modesty move, p.57
avoidance of soul hierarchy move, p.220
awe qua awe, p.119
awesome non-tongues, p-122 see also tongue; unknown tongue
Beatles as mirror of development of rock, p.101-102
Beatles' use of readymades, p.93
beef tongue (meta-tongue) p.137 see also tongue; unknown tongue
boredom as greatest automatic soul endurance move, p.215
capital letter moves, p.215 [ATOMMICKBRANE PLZ NOTE]
capitalist pig rock, 34n, 35
Charlie Parker shoot up and drink yourself to death move, p.78-82

(unlike the names index, this is not in AoR itself, but wz published in an essay comp ed.Jon Eisen, called Twenty Minute Fandangos and Forever Changes, acc.k0gan give or take his HAND-WRITING, and may or may not have been done pseudonymously by la meltz hisself -- FK thinks too user-friendly to be RM but it doesn't have eg masochism, senseless, or indeed masochism, musical, which were the concepts i wanted to chase just now... hence not THAT user-friendly hence might WELL be RM)

(also there is a pretty solid slab of JUST KNOCKED OVER THE WATERJAR here, no?)