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freakytigger.livejournal.com posting in

poptimists

"pop is a map of the world at large (everything else is a map of 1xcommunity at small)"

That one submitted by

dubdobdee.

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From:

koganbot

You didn't link to the original source of Mark's statement, so I don't know its context, but the statement sure seems like wishful thinking: what Mark wishes the word "pop" meant as opposed to what it really does mean.

American popular culture is very very good at not only ignoring the rest of the world but ignoring the facets of its own country that doesn't appeal to those who spend most on leisure goods. This latter attribute provides an interesting tension, in that people outside the favorable demographics are the ones who often use entertainment for upward mobility, meaning that there's often something of a split between the creators and their audience.

Anyway, the "PBS" I was railing against in early Why Music Suckses prided itself on being open to the wide world of music, and Op magazine's "indie only" coverage meant that it would potentially cover anything as long as it was on an independent label, hence it wasn't particularly interested in indie rock but rather in all sorts of foreigners and marginals and avant gardists etc. etc. Hence wasn't mapping a smaller area than pop did. Ditto for some aspects of the urban "folk music" movement in the '50s and early '60s: the preponderance of "folk music" was drawn from the specialty musics of the U.S. southeast (country and rural blues), but some folkies (e.g. the Kingston Trio and Folkways Records) used the label "folk" as an excuse to range far and wide over the world's music, including popular musics of other cultures, Asia, Africa, etc. A Kingston Trio record was more eclectic than any of its pop counterparts (and even once threw in a British music hall number). Of course, the Kingston Trio were popular, hence you could say they were "pop," just as Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel have been pop at times.

However, there was something fundamentally dishonest about the folk music movement, and there was something fundamentally dishonest about the indie-alternative-fanzine network of which Op was a part, which is that they were reaching "outward" to the past and to the margins and to the big wide world so that they could avoid thinking through their issues with the broader culture of which they - the folkies and the indies - were a part. The equivalent dishonesty here at

poptimists is the pretence that we are at odds with and dissassociated from something called "rockism." You cannot be intellectually honest and use the words "rockist" or "rockism."

From:

koganbot

the preponderance of "folk music" was drawn from the specialty musics of the U.S. southeast (country and rural blues)

of the 1920s, that is

is very very good at not only ignoring the rest of the world but ignoring the facets of its own country that doesn't appeal to those who spend most on leisure goods

doesn't = don't ("Where is your grammar?" "She's downstairs doing the laundry.")

From:

blue-russian.livejournal.com

American popular culture is very very good at not only ignoring the rest of the world but ignoring the facets of its own country that doesn't appeal to those who spend most on leisure goods. This latter attribute provides an interesting tension, in that people outside the favorable demographics are the ones who often use entertainment for upward mobility, meaning that there's often something of a split between the creators and their audience.

Not what you were talking about, obviously, but as I was reading this, what immediately came to mind was landed aristocracy in Europe supporting Mozart, Bach, etc. while the overwhelming majority of the population sang God knows what in the fields. How much is specific to America?

From:

dickmalone.livejournal.com

You cannot be intellectually honest and use the words "rockist" or "rockism."

Who is "you" in this statement? (Agreed, btw.)

From:

dubdobdee.livejournal.com

one of the things that frank has persisted in ignoring in his war on the word "rockist" is the degree to which it is being used by people (jokily?) of THEMSELVES -- his claim that it is only used to mock or decry "those people over there and their problems" is simply false

of course what he means is You cannot be intellectually honest and use the words "rockist" or "rockism" IN THE WAY I AM CURRENTLY DEFINE IT -- certainly there is a destructive, self-righteous and hypocritical usage at large (which is only of course used haha by "those people over there") (ok and doubtless sometimes by me also), but i'm not sure it's any more destructive than his using tank-command-central terms like "intellectually dishonest" when what he actually (sometimes) means is "cheekily playful and self-mocking" (things he is on the whole very pro, though not always good at finding the best way of encouraging in others!)

(not that i know what the best way always is, either: i suspect some of my ways are what frank calls FILIBUSTERS -- ie "not answering the question", where i feel "answering the question" is little more than being forced to drag the conversation over into exactly the dullness and deadness frank actually wants to avoid and dispense with!) (and i would rather answer it via SHOW than TELL)

From:

koganbot

his claim that it is only used to mock or decry "those people over there and their problems" is simply false

Change "only" to "mostly" and it's simply (and complexly) true. And the fact that such people (other than Simon R.) are using it self-mockingly rather than seriously pretty much proves my point. People sometimes refer to themselves self-mockingly as Nazis or fascists, but they still fundamentally mean "fascist" and "Nazi" to mean the other guy and to mean behavior that should be avoided. Whereas when I used my PBS metaphor I was referring to impulses and behavior that (1) I shared, (2) I thought were legitimate, (3) were culture-wide (so part of pop not just indie culture), and (4) I saw twisting into destructive outcomes.

Also, the serious convo that I want to drag you into doesn't have to be deadly dull, but in case it is, I don't want to dispense with it. Maybe it was deadly dull for Ticho Brahe (sp?) to work out his planetary locations and for Kepler to focus in on the fact that Brahe's data showed planets off by a little bit from where cosmology said they should be, but this dullness (if it was dullness) led to Kepler revolutionizing cosmology in exciting ways.