Poptimist THORT For The Day

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

"quality, though it exists, is not a poptimist concern"

So sez jauntyalan - what say you?

(The Poptimist TFTDs will be drawn from that text poll I did last week about "Poptimist Tenets")

Comments

[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.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

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!

[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