Lynx

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Fairytale in the Supermarket: this blog is about writing "at least one sentence vaguely related to music every day" - some entries are short, some long, lots of them are interesting, and it's all apparently relating to a thesis being written about poptimism! (The "poptimism" being talked about by skyecaptain and Simon R. in the comments box here, not the club night on the 29th JULY JUNE.

Also, it's your last chance to vote in last week's Pop Open group. Results up tomorrow! Next week's group will be MONEY.

Comments

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

'Poptimism is a word coined (I think!) by Simon R himself to describe the 'pro-pop' tendency: I think the specific occasion was an argument over whether music had got worse in one particular year or not (2003? 2004? I forget) and Poptimism was the position that the idea of 'good years' vs 'bad years' was a useless one: pop is always good.'

seeing this, it occurs to me that no end of confusions and animosities might arise from the idea that 'pop' here must mean 'the music that is in the charts at the present moment'. (which is a mistaken reading of an adage like 'pop is always good', i mean.)

('pop is a feeling' etc.)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes - though I think my own position is more like "pop is always interesting", and I do mean "the music that is in the charts etc."

The specific argument during which "poptimism" was coined was one I think I was wrong in, actually - yes one's job as a critic should be in locating the good stuff, but it's avoiding some kind of issue if you just say "well there's always good stuff". What I actually believe is that during non-peak years there's not a lot of point in making a big thing of their non-peak-ness, but I found myself dogmatically arguing that one shouldn't admit their non-peak-ness AT ALL. The Reynolds/Fisher position (this is entirely from memory) is something like: to NOT make a thing of non-peakness is to give succour to mediocrity.

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

everything is interesting some way or another.

it makes more sense to insist that you MUST make a thing of the bad years, if you also think that their being bad is on them and not you. it takes a certain... something - to think that.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

who the fuck cares if a "year is bad"? it reminds me of the crop report scene in trading places -- a meaningless "fact" set up to produce an exploitable frenzy

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes but this is also a definition of all the polls and games we do on Poptimists, & also of the charts! I can't make the artificial construct of the Top 40 the organising principle of my critical life and then close my eyes to lots of other people's artificial organising principles - it wd be bad form.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

it's not the top 40 that's the problem, it's the "end of year report" -- ie the moment at which the poll moves from discussion-generating information to FACT THAT CAN NO LONGER BE ARGUED WITH

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

oops haha i must co-opt that idea for my "SOONCOME" MASSIVE ESSAY on all of this (surely if i mention it often enough it will write itself)

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

greetings, spaceman! allow me to introduce you to our conventionalized system of marking time, and also other human contrivances!


at the moment i would be well satisfied if i were to keep track of whether a 'year is bad' by noting what i -actually- spent my time listening to or being interested in or being moved by instead of by the records that will appear on everyone else's lists. like wot tom sez below - as long as there's an artificial organising (sic) principle, i can USE it for things.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

keeping track of whether YOUR puny human unit of solar revolution (USR) is bad (or good) = YAY
vs
announcing (based on WHAT?) that THE urs wz bad = what purpose does this serve?

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

lots of purposes! not all of them recognize for what they are, but then there's gotta be something for you to do, huh?

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

by the way, i don't know why i keep trying to bring all this stuff up again. i feel as if i'm revisiting old arguments long after the fact when i was never party to them in the first place.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

These old arguments seem totally unproductive, but whenever I try to start new ones -- dragging it all back up merely because I got linked sarcastically and took it personally, like I do with everything else, why not -- I get accused of either being typical of the unproductive argument or being a totally atypical outlier of it, so what I say doesn't count.

I'm glad that you shared your experiences with the Paris album (which I actually didn't really know till today!) and I'm also glad Lex quoted that excellent exchange between him and Tim F. over on the Hilbert thread. But like that thread, they were brief flashes of insight in a big flood of bizarre and totally unsatisfying comments (and by not commenting, Frank's mythos as mysterious guru figure went up another notch).

But at least I've found someone else who shares the viewpoint of the best commenter I've ever gotten on the blog:

"You have no style and no taste, lady. You suck."

(Except he uses phrases like POST-POLITICAL grrrrrrrr.)

29th JUNE!!!!

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

blimey, you can't get the staff these days...