The Official Poptimism Hype Thread

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It's Saturday! It's 8PM! It's POPTIMISM!!

As you hopefully already knew Poptimism is this Saturday at the Cross Kings on York Way near Kings Cross. Free entry, downstairs in the JESTER BAR. Regular attendees have claimed that Poptimism has been on sizzling hawt form the last few months, so come along and have a brilliant time. This month's guest DJs are hoshuteki and dubdobdee so you might hear almost anything. More details here: http://freakytrigger.co.uk/poptimism/ (and a brilliant flyer which will be all over yr friendlists anyway hopefully).

I am putting together my own CDs tonight and humbly invite your assistance, not that I'm sort of inspiration, more that I'm, erm, TOO INSPIRED. Voting in this poll is no guarantee that yr track will be played but I will try to bring it along.

[Poll #1065787]

Context and Anticontext

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Quite unformed thorts based on Frank K's latest column and discussion of same - see here: http://koganbot.livejournal.com/26897.html

Music has a social context, obv - who else is listening to stuff you encounter, both people you know and people you don't but you assume things (good or bad) about.

It also has an anticontext (erm this is just another part of the context rly but I wanted a snappy name for it) - people who AREN'T listening to it, because they don't like it or because they don't know about it.

But not everyone who doesn't listen to something matters in terms of the anticontext - my reaction to Keane, say, is affected by my imagining Mums listening to Keane, and NME readers mostly not listening to Keane, but isn't significantly affected by Amazon tribesmen not listening to Keane, or by my Great Aunt Betty not listening to Keane. The Amazon tribesmen and Great Aunt Betty are not part of the anticontext here: the NME readers are.

Context and especially anticontext are obviously hugely important in enclosed social spheres, like school or University, and then maybe the anticontext fades from importance a bit later in life.

Here's my theory - the anticontext has shrunk, steadily, since the 1960s. The sense that a random guy on the street, or someone of a different agegroup, or someone not dressing the same as you, is part of the anticontext, has diminished (with occasional seismic flare-ups). And also, MAYBE, the size of the potential context is directly related to the size of the anticontext (since just as not every non-listener is in the anticontext, not every listener is in the context).