Folkwrongica

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I got absorbed enough in this Guardian piece to miss my tube stop:

http://music.guardian.co.uk/folk/story/0,,2071468,00.html

A lot of its anecdotal material is good and I can't much disagree with the central argument (tho as they admit Tosches summarises it more neatly) but I didn't like the conclusion - even as a staunch poptimist "the inherent democracy of pop junk" is a MASSIVE handwave.

Comments

in conclusion

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

blimey, i read the conclusion almost exactly opposite to a few of you here. if you ignore the racism thing (which is interesting historically) :

"is there any way left to defend classifying some songs as one, and others as the other? Is there any such thing as a real folk song any more? Probably not. Let's jettison these old ideas of folk music, then. If we do, perhaps we can celebrate the inherent democracy of "pop junk",

has a lot to recommend it. the use of scare quotes around "pop junk" - isn't that trying to say "what you call junk, this is as important as your fetishised folk"

Re: in conclusion

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It's the inherent democracy bit I didn't like!

Re: in conclusion

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

is strikes me that the core of this is about the process of creation once again. a quick modification of "they defined folk music not by the song, but by its performance method" takes us not to performance, but the genesis of the song.

and we're into manufactured v 'wild' pop. the manifest idea of folk is 'wild pop'.

Re: in conclusion

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of wild pop.

Re: in conclusion

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

why though?

isn't this just a way to talk about the songs that everyone likes, the first past the post 'what shall we sing on the terraces/round the bonfire'

Re: in conclusion

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Because the word democracy elides the way those songs become popular, I guess.

calling London Bootleg Orchestra

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Or in the Brothers Bar field!

Re: calling London Bootleg Orchestra

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

bootlegging is nu-folk

Re: in conclusion

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

No the quotes are more precisely "please see earlier - this is the folkwrongica's term!"