A kung fu fighter in a disco

Audio quality appears to be, arf arf!

I've always thought of quality as "go on, feel the quality of the production/recording/years and years of training!" IE something that should be imposed on the actual experience of listening er experiencing the song, the whole "No, it's a much better record than it sounds" b0ll0cks, IE actively anti-poptimist.

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bah, should be ~~strikeout~~ rather than italics there.

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The poptimist concern is DEFINING quality.

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Rather than concern over whether it is necessary.

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I don't even understand the comment. Quality = whether something is good a bad = this is a concern of...all but the most undiscerning, surely?

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This is why 'the most undiscerning' are the ultimate fascination of poptimists, even though a poptimist is by definition too self-conscious to be 'the most undiscerning'. This is also why no-one can be 'the most undiscerning': it is an impossible, unliveable position. Poptimism = the attempt to imagine the disappearance of the need to distinguish good / bad, except that 'need' is the wrong word -- habit would be better, except that need underlines the sense that this is not a habit that we can or could get rid of.

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I don't believe that anyone IS the most undiscerning (especially not the average listener/man in street/kidz on bus), I don't believe it's possible except as a deliberate self-conscious (and also probably false) position. So I'm not particularly interested in lack of discernment!

I always thought that poptimism wasn't so much doing away with the good-bad axis as acknowledging the presence (sometimes simultaneous) of multiple contradictory good/bad axes.

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WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH LEX?

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i. Lex as analyst: "the presence (sometimes simultaneous) of multiple contradictory good/bad axes."

ii. Lex as polemicist / stylist: X is good and Y is bad.

I don't see these as inherently contradictory since they imply two different relations to the world, and not the attempt to substitute one for the other. The problem with a lot of pop-write is that it doesn't see the difference and thinks that ii. is the analytical position.

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Yes yes I was just teasing (though Lex tends to couch things in terms both moralistic and manichaean - "these things are disgusting and can never be good, these things are blessed and can never be bad").

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I wonder if, now Lex can MAKE FIRE, he has fallen from this state of grace.

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I got even more drunk the following night, which was marked by a total RETURN to the moralistic black-and-white attitude ie being very very rude to random strangers in the pub over matters including but not limited to what songs they wanted us to put on the jukebox :D

(they wanted Stone Roses, we put on Aaliyah and Ellen Allien)

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OLD news

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/afarrell/105332897/)

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The problem with a lot of people on the internet is that they don't see the difference re me!

(everything lex writes = influenced by multiple contradictory impulses with no attempt made to hide the inconsistencies)

(I can still get away with the indie-hate when being lex-analyst as it scores as bad on every imaginable axis)

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Well 'indie = bad' is the foundational principle without which the universe collapses in on itself and boils away into darkness.

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Even I know that.

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I would say that unless the inconsistencies are highlighted (not that the eternal teasing-out of same is something that I necc. find that interesting) the natural assumption of the reader is that everything's supposed to be consistent. Though it's possible that I'm biased because most of the time I've met you, you've been ~~plastered~~ in no state to brook cracks in the facade.

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I say on many occasions that I know I'm inconsistent and contradictory and that I embrace it!

When was that AWFUL picture of me taken? It couldn't have been last Fri because I hadn't taken my contacts out at that point. God I look like a tramp. Please to delete.

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It's over a year ago, at the Shimura Curves DJ set at um, that pub south of Angel (past the Red Lion Theatre Bar)?

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I say on many occasions that I know I'm inconsistent and contradictory and that I embrace it!

In print or in person? I'm not sure I've ever heard you, just translated your confidence into certainty.

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For me the ultimate horizon of poptimism is certainly one in which quality disappears. It is a necessary postulate but it is also absolutely impossible, and unliveable. Quality is not objective but this does not mean we can just throw it away, i.e. quality = value FOR something, and we can accept that there are different 'uses' for music, including the unusual aesthetic 'non-use' use. But a world without quality would be a world without uses, and things without quality would be things without any differentiation, ergo impossible to conceive of. For me, poptimism means flirting with the impossible possibility of this disappearance of quality. It is not an ethics (a way of living) because it is an experience of the impossibility of ethics (i.e. of venturing towards the disappearance of liveability as such).

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Change "DEFINING" for "SPOTTING" in Kat's post and we're getting close to what I feel (not that I can speak for "poptimists").

The 'optimism' in Poptimism is usually taken by its critics to mean a Pollyannaish "Pop is great! Now is great! Everything's great!" attitude (the word was originally coined during the course of a long and not very edifying blogfite about whether 2003 - or was it 2004 - was any good or not).

I think this doesn't go far enough - the Poptimist project is to be optimistic about *everything* it encounters, to be able to ask how to listen to a thing in order for it to become "good pop", and how pop is flexing and changing to accomodate what's popular within that umbrella. Usually, because good pop is interesting, the question "What's interesting about this?" is a good starting point.

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how to listen to a thing in order for it to become "good pop"

What do you mean by this? Surely what you're defining is 'good listening' i.e. 'pop' is the object of good listening, since presumably a song doesn't compel a particular type of listening by virtue of any inherent qualities?

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What to listen for, then. (The answer might be "nothing")

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To listen for 'whatever'? Which is not nothing, or not quite nothing, but near enough to nothing!

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She's, like, so whatever
We could do so much better

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Hey hey!
You you!

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Now you've lost me!

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Sorry, carried away by words. Listen for anything -- whatever grabs you according to Mark's version. But I'm not sure any of us are actually talking about the same thing.

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i.e. I don't know if it can be put as listening for a quality, rather than as being about cultivating a certain quality of listening. But I'm more sceptical about the place of quality in poptimism.

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Ah ok, I wasn't asking a question. I was rephrasing my "how to listen" as "what to listen for" (and yes, whatever grabs you - but for me part of poptimism is communicating that)

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Oh yes, sorry. I need to think more about the 'communicating' aspect of it, I guess.

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My answer above was something of a key-jerk reaction to the question, but I stand by it.

The presence of quality is not necessary for me to enjoy listening to or talking about music, but saying WHY music is good, bad or mediocre is definitely my concern! Otherwise how will it get any better? I KNOW THEY'RE LISTENING OUT THERE...

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jauntyalan.livejournal.com

(loving this thread btw. sorry i'm late - been actual work busy!)

on my terms, i say yr being poptimist when you "enjoy listening to or talking about music" but not when "saying WHY music is good, bad or mediocre"

not being poptimist is no bad thing in itself - it is a limited stance, and it is specifically useless when it comes to interpersonal discussion of good v bad.

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But being an poptimist surely means that you can CHANGE yr goalposts on good/bad/mediocre if something AMAZING comes along, so it doesn't matter. (Also: dissecting *why* things are g/b/m IS talking about music!)

BTW Alang I listened to Madge Berger album SEVEN TIMES on Saturday and it is absolutely wonderful with all killer no filler. Album of the year!

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jauntyalan.livejournal.com

hurrah. now if we can persuade the publishers to sell it in the UK we're on a winner!

I've always been cool on the whole "talking/writing about music" thing. in the end, i don't really like music reviews/writing or find it useful. so i'm never too hot on dissecting why things are g/b/m and it often feels 'orthogonal' to my visceral 'I JUST LIKE IT' preference. this has always distanced me from ppl on BBs talking about music, unsurprisingly. (It also explains why i tend to go for the 'poptimism=love' side of things, cos i don't spend time on stuff i don't like)

this is what i was getting at with my 'it exists, but it's not important'. (i was also wondering if anyone would go the extra step and deny my parenthetical 'though it exists'.)

i quite like Tom's approach which is not to say 'is this song of good/bad quality' but 'what is good about this song'. this is the +ve 'searching out' heuristic to complement my -ve 'what's not relavant'.

as such he out-poptimises me on my own terms (poptimism=love). thus he wins

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blue-russian.livejournal.com

It's difficult for me to dissociate "quality" from production values, although lots of the stuff that, for example, Frank writes about is clearly high quality and clearly "pop" by sound and construction, and yet totally uninteresting to me. At the same time I guess there are things that lack that level of songwriting craftsmanship or fine production, that I go crazy about ("Maps" is what's coming to mind at the moment, although I'm not sure that's a great example).

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dubdobdee.livejournal.com

there are two versions of quality doing battle --

i. = characteristic (someone is totally undiscerning = can't tell one song fron another)
ii. = value as linked in to a particular discussion-sphere

(ie re ii.: if you argue that LOUD = ROXOR, then high volume is a desirable quality and sign of value)

i think the poptimistic tic is to be on the alert for CHARACTERISTICS YOU ARE DRAWN TO over and above (and in fact prior to) VALUES YOU HAVE COME TO (or been taught to recognise) as "qualities acknowledged and sought after by the cognoscenti" -- of course bcz the latter move in and out of fashion, the characteristic you are drawn to MAY (in former times) have been a quality acknowledged and sought after by a now-dispersed or vanquished cognoscenti; and it may actually be a quality acknowledged and sought after by a current ruling cognoscenti you just happen not to be in with

(what i'm getting at is that the judgment "this is good bcz it exhibits a thing that those in the know KNOW is a sign of being good" -- the sense of comparing it to a approval checklist -- is NOT poptimist: you are checking your own responses come what may, and then -- afterwards -- pinning down what it is yr responding to)

viz "everyone is saying this song is bad bcz TEH LOUD is WHERE IT'S AT, but what *i* like about it is that there are five Ks in the title!"

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the "people in the know" and hence the "values you are taught to recognise" have a habit of changing...indeed isn't a lot of current anti-poptimist rhetoric all about "we are sick of all these critics telling us from on high that we should like avril lavigne!"

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dubdobdee.livejournal.com

yes

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Speaking of Avril I saw her video on Popworld and it is AWESOME! She's so nasty to that girl!

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yeah I think you know I'm DAMN PRECIOUS
and hell yeah i'm the MOTHERFUCKING PRINCESS

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pinning down what it is yr responding to

This kind of ties together my first reply & my reply to Tom above - defining the qualities of the song that inspire a reaction (good or bad) is what I enjoy. These qualities may change over time, or even between songs!

An over-simplified e.g: "Cor, Song X goes BOSH BOSH BOSH and is therefore wicked, but I like Song Y because for once this boshing band aren't going BOSH BOSH BOSH and it has CONFOUNDED me..."

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jel-bugle.livejournal.com

There is no quality, and there shouldn't be.

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jel-bugle.livejournal.com

Or quality as objective measure, is what I mean.

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piratemoggy.livejournal.com

I think the statement depends on what you perceive the definition of "poptimism" to be. If we're people who are promoting the pop cause in the face of utter apathy and Razorlight, then we're only drawing genre lines and thus quality does become irrelevant. (Not, 'is it any good at all?' but 'is it any pop at all?' if yer follow me, placing no inherent value on pop-ness but merely seeing the purpose as being to do the apparently impossible and define pop)

On the other hand, there is an element to poptimism (as I would very much perceive) that there is nothing, literally nothing, not even Razorlight which you can't like if they bring out a good song. Or, well, like the song, not necessarily them. The idea of there being no guilty pleasures and therefore things are judged solely on quality.

On the other hand, since quality is a wholly subjective concept (I, for instance, find the quality of Somerfield Simply Value baked beans extremely pleasing in a diabetic shock sort of way but some people prefer Branstons' beans, because they pretends to have some sort of fibrous superiority that they consider amounting to 'quality'*) then perhaps it is wholly correct to say, as

jel_bugle says, far more succinctly and without any sort of mention of beans, quality become irrelevant as a concept, leading solely to the creation of the sort of black-and-white 'this is good, this is rubbish and that is THE LAW' sort of discussion that I generally assume isn't The Point of poptimists.

I am, to be fair, completely off my head on cold medicine as I type this comment so don't judge me too harshly.

*Heinz beans were deliberately excluded from this virtually totally irrelevant study because everyone knows that they are what is longed for in the darkness of your heart.

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