It's the tunes that got small

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

"thebopkids esp.will (rightly) note existence of a actual real live danbcing till dawn community who believed that what constituted indie in (say) 1984 was the same as and would again soon be pop's idea of pop"

sez Mark.

I was thinking the other day that the Poptimist position is kind of like a civil servant's - you have to work with whatever regime the public hands you, however reluctantly. The alternative is a fannish secession as outlined above, keeping alive an idea of 'perfect pop' (cf also Bomp! fanzine in the 80s). You can work out for yourself where this leads.

Comments

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Wow, great post!

a) Britpop -- really? I'm not sure about this. Lightning Seeds would be an interesting test case I guess; Oasis as ver Slade; Blur bits of glam also?; dunno guv. b) Love love love the comet analogy. c) Yes suburbs a better word than ghettoes. c) Badly chosen examples on my part, and probably not thought through -- the carbon copyists won't return since 'pure' repetition is impossible, but repetition with difference very familiar. i.e. MJ reissuing his singles = flop, but oldie which has been featured in an tv ad and has therefore been transformed = success. d) lol @ leninism.

[(Anonymous)]

Purism and bastardisation are often the same coin though, yes? Taking my teenage world as an example, we were precious indie purists who thought we were holders of the torch for (say) The Smiths and The Byrds and The Subway Sect and Orange Juice and The Undertones and like a zillion other bands. Pretty much every single one of those would have seen our thing as a revival in a horrible, bastardised form. Just look at the indie / emo comments on FT, where effectively the Triggerists are being told "GET LOST GRANDAD! HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND THE WORD INDIE?" Which is a version of what I'd tell fools of OVER 25 YEARS OLD when they had the temerity to compare the Razorcuts unfavourably with The Byrds.

I suppose what I'm saying is that it's necessary to remember the energy and ignorance (the good kind of ignorance, sometimes) of them Young People.

(bopkids)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The really interesting thing about the get lost grandad comments, though, is that the article *does* accurately describe something the commenters all recognise.