Of Pop And Polls And Fun

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Following on from a discussion between Frank and Julio and I on the P&J thread about what "Let It Blurt" by Lester Bangs was doing there (you hopefully don't need to read that discussion to understand this post tho...)

Frank says: And assuming that a vote for ["Let It Blurt"] is a joke is no different from assuming that a vote for "...Baby One More Time" or "Stars Are Blind" is a joke.

But equally some of those votes MIGHT BE JOKES! Just cos we disapprove of irony or mockery as a way into (or deflection of) enjoyment doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

To look at the social context of dancing rather than the social context of polling, if you play Britney in a club full of people who mostly like credible rock or alternative or punk or dance music (not too dissimilar from the voter base of P&J), some people will dance who wouldn't describe themselves as liking it, because they're making a joke or showing off or striking a pose or whatever.

Same thing happens in a poll, and just like dancing there's a continuum: as a poll gets bigger and more formal, voters take it (and themselves) more seriously, and the ones that don't get statistically ironed out and so results which MIGHT carry an implication of private enthusiasm or private irony (same difference, statswise) become fewer and fewer. The P&J poll these days is definitely at the serious end of this continuum, the Poptimists polls generally at the frivolous end due to the fact that the social element of polling is much more explicit here.

The '79 singles results are P&J at an earlier stage in this process than it's reached now and I was delighted to see the Bangs single placing because it seemed to me to carry traces of the 'social-ness' of P&J (and 'rock criticism' itself, if you like).

Which may be just as patronising to Bangs-the-musician, but there you go.

Comments

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

Yeah but when people dance jokingly they don't do it for the whole song, they just do a move or two and then laugh, it's a very momentary thing. I guess the question then is how seriously did people take P&J in 1979--today there are protest votes and serious votes but not really joke votes.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I dunno, in my experience it can be momentary but it can be more sustained, especially in a group, or where there's a dance involved, or something.

[hoshuteki.livejournal.com]

My experience of reading the Voice and other NY media sources for a few years, was that the opinions of NY critics with respect to what was worthy in the world of the arts seemed to be markedly different from those in the rest of the US (this is with reference to their film critics anyway, since I used to read American critics very diligently, but I daresay it goes for music as well). It may well be that voting for Bangs wasn't considered a joke -- or even an in-joke -- by them. Perhaps they did consider it a great single, or at least didn't want to be seen by their peers not to 'get' it.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yes i find frank's response odd, or anyway overly defensive -- first it's not as if people making jokes don't have to take the making of jokes seriously in order for them to be good jokes -- second, sometimes jokes are more serious than an activity that's taken seriously as being serious -- third, the dimension of joking within and about it may be what brings seriousness to an activity that considers itself serious (but is in fact a joke) (like, say, rock-writing) (lots of meltzer's serious writing is made up of jokes and some of them are jokes-meant-stone-seriously -- gulcher, for example -- but still full of "just a joke" jokes, and also jokes where the joke is that you can't tell if they're jokes or not)

*is* always there such a gap between "dancing seriously" and "dancing for fun" and "dancing as a joke"? seems to me if you say yes you're kind of missing the point of dancing (or at last some kinds of dancing): what's the "seriousness" status of a
disco tex (http://tashtunnel.pitas.com/) "olé"?

i don't think i've ever heard "let it blurt"

[deleted and reposted w/o HTML blunder] [third time lucky]

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

my votes in various wire and nme polls back in the 80s were "serious protest votes" in the form of backing for singles or records which had no chance of winning, to make a point about the odd head many of my fellow writers seemed often to put on when it came to voting -- ie they would tend to vote for "the kind of thing that ought to do well in polls like these", which is what THEY thought of as taking the process seriously (and to me was exactly the opposite)

if by some weird eventuality a boyd rice locked-groove single with more than one off-centre hole drilled HAD ended up in the nme top 10 singles of all time that would have been a VERY GRAND JOKE INDEED which wouldn't have affected the seriousness with which i played my prank, or the seriousness of the reasons behind it

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

The "odd head" is not so odd really. Whenever I vote in (free vote) polls, eg ILM ones, yes I'll throw in a few curve balls that have no chance Just Because I Can but ultimately I want most of what I vote for to do well. I want to feel as if I'm part of the community innit.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

what i guess i was protesting -- without quite having the words at the time to pin it down -- was how voting "seriously" turns into "second-guessing what will stand the test of time"; i think there's a pragmatic element to this (wanting things you quite like which others also like to do better than they otherwise might, even if it means neglecting things you love that others known nothing of)

but it also -- to me anyway -- has an element of taming pop energy by yoking it to grown-up PROVEN BY SCIENCE data analysis; to put it in a slightly oldskool way, i want the poll to BE ROCK AND ROLL, not just to map it

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Polls aren't your best medium for that. Democracy = not very rock and roll.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i disagree -- i think the notional quasi-scientific sobriety makes them an excellent context for playful disruption!

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

hmm, but it's not the disruption YOU planned is it? (unless it's something like the example Tom mentioned on the other thread of Stylus poll voters plotting in advance to get Schnappi in).

At best it's an accidental result - and more likely it's the New Conformity or the New State (of Pop) that already existed but you didn't realise existed until the results appeared.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

accidental result (ie something none of us expected) = the best possible outcome under any circs HURRAH!!

which only becomes the "new conformity" when we revert to worrellist bean-counting to keep it this way next time!!

(actually by "disruption" i don't necessarily mean a result publicly visible in the poll afterwards -- i just mean something which energsies and destabilises the process as it proceeds)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

No argument from me on the first point (taken on its own). Good example being "I Want You Back" winning the ILM 60s poll, which I'm willing to bet good money nobody would have predicted ex ante. [Although the result (the accident) is explainable ex post]

Second point = you got me, but I also think you're undermining your first point by making it. There's no point in having a poll in the first place IMHO if you can't extrapolate from it, if you can't make something out of the accident.

(NB: the above doesn't mean I am in favour of polls necessarily or think they are a good measurement of anything. My position is based on an acceptance that other ppl are/do and keep on bloody well starting them.)

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

wanting things you quite like which others also like to do better than they otherwise might, even if it means neglecting things you love that others known nothing of

This is ANTI-POPTIMISM! to me.

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

tom I usually think of sukrat equivalents whenever a poptimist scenarios comes up. sukrat to yr 'Britney in a rock club example' might be when I read this review of Merzbow at this electronic music festival and the reviewer noting that one person danced to it for about half an hour before giving up.

(All descriptions of a Merzbow show make him sound like some kind of wedding DJ -- like he presses a button and DJs and merzbow music comes out)

Just saying.

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

this post needs more coffee.

MERZBOSH

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

make it so