Right

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The promised follow-up questions (two of them in fact)

What have you been most right about? (The world may or may not have caught up to you on this)

Does being seen as "wrong" or "right" about music by other people bother you much?

Comments

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

I was right about a lot of bands early on... The Shins, The Magnetic Fields, Girls Aloud. I spent ages attempting to convert people to The Divine Comedy pre-Casanova, only for the world and it's Chris Evans to come charging alongside when Something For The Weekend appeared.

I'm not bothered by how I'm perceived because taste is individual. It bothers me slightly though when something is wonderful and no-one else understands, because for me joy does get magnified by company. It's nice to be right, but that's all it is - it's not important.

[zenith.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I said a lot of things about The Streets right from the get-go which some fans of the first album started saying around either 'Fit But You Know It' or 'When You Wasn't Famous'. I dunno if this makes me any more right, though, outside of my own head. Will have to think a bit more about this.

further to strange_powers

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

I probably I agree with strange_powers. I don't mean to take the easy way out, but as I've gotten older and my music taste somewhat broader, I find it more and more difficult to be dogmatic about this stuff. I am quite sure that I am transported by "Quixaberra," one of the songs I submitted in the League of Pop that got a kind of shrug. I am quite sure I'm "right" about it being amazing, but I don't know if other people are "wrong" for not hearing it. (The question might be whether I am wrong for not trying to convince you otherwise, or whether it is even right to expect me to be able to convince you. Can music writing do that, or can it only convince you to listen again/more closely?)

Another thing that's sort of struck me recently following on some of our conversations here - I'm not sure whether my joy is magnified by company or not. I mean, I want you to like it, but I'm not sure I really want you to be there while I'm liking it. (What was that movie/book where they said "people look ridiculous when they're in ecstasy?")

Re: further to strange_powers

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Streets, Avalanches, Eve. But these are just early adopter stuff - I was right about Sound of the Underground being fantastic, but then so was everyone else.

Also these are in context - I was ahead of the curve compared to my local mates, but behind compared to ILXors (though I heard about the first two from the NME!)

I was also right about Portishead being sh1t.

Actually there's an obvious version of this question that I have only just seen: stuff I've loved for a long time. So EG the first time I heard Take On Me or Pump Up The Volume I thought these were life changing records, and I was completely right. Walk this way, not so much.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

I feel as if some parts of the online pop writing world have become a LOT closer to my tastes over time, so I feel vindicated about most of my stances, though I can't think of anything in particular.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes I think a lot of things I used to go on about have become a kind of orthodoxy now, not that I was the first to say them or anything.

[elegantfaker.livejournal.com]

Yeppers.

Re: The Shins. Can't stand them anymore, but I went to Flake Music shows in Albuquerque! Do I get a prize? Please? (Though, does that count, or was it just because of locality?)

I have a problem though -- very few new baby bands thrill me. And I live in NYC. I worry for the future. (Maybe I need to go back to Austin. Horrors.)

Or maybe I just need to remain picky.

Anyway, I learned a lesson long ago from someone I admire a long ago. Never defend your taste to anyone. Ergo, I am always "right" and never "wrong" about music. Easier that way.

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

In 1987, there was this "omg it was 20 years ago today!" thing in a Norwegian (non-music) magazine where the journalist went all wibbly over 1967 in general, and said (paraphrase) "ok ok 'Kiss' by Prince is great and all, but WILL IT RLY BE REMEMBERED IN 20 YEARS???" I was all, "wtf ffs of course it will you nitwit", ie RIGHT.

(Actually, this guy was not *really* an nitwit -- he was quite a good poptimist, which was pretty unusual in Norwegian music-writer circles in those days -- twas all roots rock etc to the degree that STAN RIDGWAY was seen as pop epitome or something. For instance, he gave a 5/5 review to PSB's Please, which was not to be expected in that climate.)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I will admit to the fact that it does bother me if lots of people think I'm wrong about something, because I don't enjoy the defending myself bit of arguments much, and am very conflict averse.

This isn't so much my friends, who obviously can and do draw attention to terrible statements I make without raising my hackles too much, but my comrades in the great online struggle.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

During the booming comic sales and mad hype of the late '80s, I was the cassandra saying it was all set to go horribly wrong and that sales would plummet. I kept getting told I was mad, that the next X-Whatever comic had sold half a million, and so on. A few years later, a fifth that amount constituted a huge hit.

[koganbot]

RIGHT PART ONE:
(1) Rock. E.g., Dylan and - esp. - Stones (really were as smart and daring and electrifying as I'd once believed).
(2) Later realizations: Dylan and Stones fell short, weren't willing to keep their brains humming, so rock is potential rather than a towering achievement.
(3) "Under My Thumb" is not sexist (and no I don't have time for this argument today). Crucial to understanding music is to understand what people are doing in context.
(4) The Monkees' "Steppin' Stone"
(5) The Stooges.
(6) The Dolls, and w/ the Dolls come the Shangri-Las et al. in retrospect and the realization that there can be reconciliation between pop and counterpop.
(7) Copying gets you only so far (e.g., trying to sound like Stones doesn't make you the next Stones any more than trying to sail the Atlantic makes you the next Columbus).
(8) Problem w/ Stones-Dylan legacy not canonization per se but that their achievement is seen as validating a particular social group or social tendency, e.g., the freaks, the liberals, the counterculture; this problem exemplified by freaks, libs, counterculture canonizing Stones and Dylan while rejecting Stooges and Dolls, i.e., the two bands actually doing something along the lines of what Stones and Dylan had done.
(9) Deciding that the Sex-O-Lettes (female hired backup singers on a 1975 Monti Rock album under the moniker to Disco Tex And The Sex-O-Lettes) were actual small-d New York dolls.
(10) The Contortions, and in retrospect James Brown.
(11) Disco.
(12) Seeing a room full of people dancing to the Dolls in 1979 and thinking to myself "In 1973 I would have cried with happiness to see this, but now it doesn't matter." I.e., the problem w/ Stooges-Dolls legacy not canonization per se but that their achievement seen as validating a particular social group or social tendency, e.g., the punks, the liberals, the (next generation of) freaks.

[koganbot]

(13) Sugar Hill Gang, Spoonie Gee, Funky Four Plus One More, Lady B, et al. (admittedly, this was something that it was easy to be right about).
(14) Convo w/ my therapist in 1980 or so where I point out significance of "Get Off Of My Cloud"'s being in call-and-response form; I may or may not have made the statement "the Stones attracted a crowd by saying 'Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd'"; therapist says "You should write this."
(15) Early '80s, decided that my own music and my musical environs (bohemian postpunk avant gardeish whatever) was one sick puppy. Later in decade fire off legendary but little-read broadsides in which I try to analyze the ailment (I see Stones and Dylan attempt to bring in greater social context and give music greater social reach as inevitable, admirable, and containing seeds of future decline when greater social reach becomes fetishized as Words And Music That Symbolize Greater Social Reach and tied to the self-esteem of progressive rock and then punk rock and then indie-alternative)(and then techno? and then jungle, garage, etc?); also recognize that this tendency is culture-wide and comes from within pop and that Stones-Dylan were just blips; therefore refuse to recognize the existence of "rockism" and refuse to denigrate either social reach or the attempt to be real.
(16) Miami sound, Latin hip-hop, girl twirl, freestyle.
(17) Realize early on in putting out my fanzines that few people are willing to fly with me and that no one will fly all the way. This is something I am not happy to be right about.
(18) L'Trimm.
(19) "Lollipop (Candyman)."
(20) Trick Daddy, Mannie Fresh, Timbaland, et al. (though lots of people beat me to being right about this).
(21) Eminem.
(22) Later realization: Eminem fell short, wasn't willing to keep his brain humming, so rock (or hip-hop or whatever) is potential rather than towering achievement.
(23) Ashlee Simpson (not that I expect her to avoid the usual intellectual nonfollowthrough, since her intellect is barely up and humming as it is - potential and all that - but her own generous eye towards The Life And Loves Of Ashlee Simpson show promise for a better outcome, from her or someone else, since her achievement has never been wedded to being oppositional; in the meantime she's sung some of the greatest love lyrics ever, having to do with coffee stains and not fleeing human wreckage).
(24) Brie Larson at age 17 is one hell of a good writer.
(25) "Britney is asking her most die-hard fans for some assistance in order to name her upcoming album. Possible Album Titles: (1) Omg is Like Lindsay Lohan Like Okay Like. (2) What if the Joke is on You. (3) Down boy. (4) Integrity. (5) Dignity. Members of the Britney Spears Official Fan Club can vote by clicking here!"

Humming beautifully

[koganbot]

Um, "barely up and humming"? Seems to me where her love lyrics are good they're ahead of Dylan's in richness and complexity and generosity, so in some ways she (or she plus Kara or she plus Stan or she plus John or she plus Shelly) is humming way more beautifully than Dylan ever did, but in taking on the social world she's still basically at I get knocked down and I get up again and "I walked a thousand miles while everyone was asleep" - great line, but we'll see how she elaborates on it. So not yet to "Where the home in the valley meets the damp, dirty prison / Where the executioner's face is always well hidden" (Dylan, 1963), not to mention a total twisting itself in and out refracted mirror mindfuck like "Brown Sugar." Or a celeb-relevant "I know there're some people terrified of the bomb. But there are other people terrified to be seen carrying a Modern Screen magazine" (Dylan, 1965).

[damnspynovels.livejournal.com]

I was in Boston on my hols from England in 2000 and bumped into a pal who was tour managing sleater-kinney at the time, and told me about some band called the white stripes who were supporting S-K... promptly bought everything massachusetts record shops had to offer, which at that time wasn't much (hello operator was the newest thing). brought it all home and promptly proclaimed they were gonna be huge to anyone that listened.

fucking hate them now.

What I get mad at

[koganbot]

Does being seen as "wrong" or "right" about music bother me much?

Funny the way the question was worded. Yes, being seen as right about music bothers me very much, or at least it does when the people who see me as being right haven't actually understood my ideas and so are agreeing with things I never said. What bothers me even more is when people who see me as being wrong haven't actually understood my ideas and so are disagreeing with things I never said. Of course, initial misreading is the condition of man, but the ability to reread and reevaluate is also a native ability of the species, and I have little tolerance towards people who won't do it (unless they're real young or brain-damaged or something).

But what REALLY makes me mad is

[koganbot]

Had this email convo with Carl Wilson, who's doing a short book on Celine Dion, and Carl didn't get me mad but he asked a question that helped me to put into words what's been getting me angry since 1966 or so.

Carl Wilson: "Critical rockism, to use the term very broadly, tends to operate on an updated version of the Frankfurt School slam against pop culture - that it represents a mystification of capital, a corporate attempt to numb and distract the senses of the masses, etc. - more or less the way earlier generations of Marxists talked about religion." [Asks further if there's some intellectual counterweight to this slam other than simple populism.]

Frank Kogan [Long segment where I reject the idea that there is such a thing as rockism and reject the notion that the people who do get called "rockists" - disco-sucks kids and the like - have much to do with Adorno et al.]: "I've barely read the Frankfurt School, but there's no way to associate it with 'rockism' unless you make the claim that rock and its offshoots are not part of culture. How is pop mystification but rock not? Anyway, I won't belabor that point because you can work it out yourself. I'm probably not all that sympathetic to the Frankfurt School, but I doubt that they're claiming that some categories of people - rock fans, rock critics - have critical consciousness and that other categories of people - pop musicians, pop fans - can't have critical consciousness, are necessarily mystified. Insight is something that people work towards, not something they have or lack by virtue of who they are. And now we're back to where we started. Celine Dion is a legitimate object of study because we can't dismiss her on the basis of who she is or what social category she belongs to. Instead, we have to evaluate what she does, and give reasons for our claims about her. This isn't a difficult concept, but it's bedrock, and there's no counter to it that isn't bigotry. And this has nothing one way or another to do with 'populism' (not a self-explanatory term), since the reason she's a legitimate object of study isn't because she's popular but because we don't know her value unless we study her. This applies to anyone."

What really really really gets me mad

[koganbot]

Guess I need to elaborate on that final sentence. That something is popular is a reason why someone ought to study it, since we ought to take an interest in the world, but I don't generally feel that I'm the one who has to study it, and I won't unless someone I care about either likes it or hates it - the someone I care about at times being me. (Or I suppose unless someone offers me money.) But something's being popular greatly increases the likelihood of someone I care about hating it or liking it. The real issue, though, is this: People have opinions about things that are popular, and what's going on in what David Moore has dubbed The War Against Lindsay is that many many many people want to wear their contempt for or indifference towards Lohan et al. as a social marker or a badge of class solidarity. Paste magazine, whom I've written for - and seems to be run by nice people with good liberal ideals - devotes the final page of a recent issue to a comic about a Kerry-McConnell bill, "Take Out The Trash," a proposal to "forbid future discussion of the overly talked about trio of Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan." To be fair, maybe the comic is about the impossibility of not talking about them, since in the comic the senators can't stop themselves; but still there's the irony of a magazine devoting a page to trumpeting their decision not to talk about something. And so you have magazine writers wanting to sneer loudly at something while also congratulating themselves for making no effort to understand the people they're sneering at. And given that the sneer is aimed at (1) people who've made some great music, and - THIS IS THE REAL BATTLE - at (2) the audience for these people and this great music (e.g., me), this gets me real mad real fast. (Fwiw, there is too much stuff written and said about Lindsay et al., but conversely there's not nearly enough intelligent stuff written about them, and their music hasn't gotten nearly enough attention, though Britney at least once had high sales.)

Re: What really really really gets me mad

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Won't go into where I thought I was right (though M. Matos semi-mockingly called me the little-known writer of "the most important music review of the decade"!), but in line w/ what Frank just said, I wrote this on Marc Hogan's blog, part of a longer semi-incoherent rant and convo (https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6302794271451371310&postID=2582398475964053466) (truncated):

...good music writing could come from anywhere. It doesn't come from very many places about ANY kind of music right now, but there's not a direct correlation to the music being discussed (there's a lot of amazing music with little to zero good criticism about it, just waiting to be written) [...] But hey, how about Fergie? Lots and lots and lots of words, but NO GOOD CRITICISM about her album, and it's a great album! (If Sanjaya puts out a great album, maybe I'll want to read good words/have a good convo about him, but for now he hasn't done anything to merit one.) How about HSM, the #1 CD of the year, probably a bajillion words written on it and not a one of 'em will make anyone, including me, even remotely interested in listening to it (usually the underlying point in those articles was that non-kids SHOULDN'T be listening to it, and shouldn't be expected to -- it was for the primal preteen hordes. Why?). [...] performers who get fifty ZILLION words and not a single one that makes me want to do anything but stop reading

Re: What really really really gets me mad

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

frank, how would you assess the situation if (1) just completely dropped out of it?

you are obviously quite intent on keeping it in there, but it seems that people you would like to fault for their opinions about any of the relevant entertainers (often for stuff related to (2), on your end and theirs) will absolutely refuse - basically everything, refuse to consider, refuse to think, refuse to be convinced, refuse to ignore without sneering, refuse to give a pass to for 'non-musical' reasons - if you do keep it. i wonder what effect it has on the larger conversational and social stuff, and whether it has to.

by 'dropped out' i don't mean 'you stop believing that the music is great', but 'you stop insisting that it is to unsympathetic interlocutors'.