k-punk covers this - I mean, he does so in a style that combines excruciating prose style, grievous bad faith and all-round "this isn't really even annoying or funny, the guy has some serious problems" eye-bleediness, but he does cover it:
Even if the ‘Nathan’ with whom Kogan debates exists - and I’ll be honest with you, I’m finding it hard to believe that he does - his function is a fantasmatic one (in the same way that Lacan argued that, if a pathologically jealous husband is proved right about his wife’s infidelities, his jealousy remains pathological): for popists to believe that their position is in any way challenging or novel, they have to keep digging up ‘Nathans’ who contest it. But, in 2007, Nathan’s hoary old belief that only groups who write their own songs can be valid has been refuted so many times that it is rather like someone mounting a defence of slavery today – sure, there are such people who sold such a view, but the position is so irrelevant to the current conjuncture that it is quaintly antiquated rather than a political threat.
So, Kogan has made up his friend saying that about the Backstreet Boys. But even if he hadn't, he would still have essentially been making it up. If there are people out there saying pop is shit they are not worth arguing with - unlike the Popists who are all posh and run the media and the US and UK governments. Lacan namedrop Spinzonan videodrome just like New Labour burble burble.
I would not mind so much if it was meant to be funny, but I would bet that if one were to Google one would find a previous k-punk post outlining how we are all living in the OedIpod now...
I am clearly going spend all a'noon responding to quotes from a blog post I can't read but GNNNN this is the whole everyday life thing again - Kogan is NOT WRITING TO K-PUNK AND HIS BLOGOSPHERE MATES he is writing in a free paper for a general audience for whom this stuff hasn't been "refuted". And also isn't the whole piece directly SAYING yes this writes-own-songs stuff is a bit of a side issue, let's look at the social issues behind it?
k-punk says 'it's irrelevant to the TRUE war' and people who hold those views are just irrelevant. k-bot seems to be saying, or I'd like him to be saying 'why do people carry on holding views which seem a bit beside the point as soon as you start to think about them' but also 'why are there people who continue to think that there's a true war to be fought', what are these views *doing* for the people who hold them and how are they connected to class.
So k-punk is not as bad as someone saying 'anyone who holds this view is an idiot who needs to be sorted out' but no-one seems to be saying this, and in the context k-punk's view seems more unpleasant.
EDIT: especially when he IS saying that about popists but since THEY are all public school toffs WE can all agree on the fact that they are idiots. LOLZ.
& "the real war" is a load of ppl arguing with each other on the Internet. It's a closed circle - barely anyone new is reading the "pop blogosphere" on either "side", Scrabulous has killed it.
Or should I expect to see K-Punk at the Cross Kings on the 1st Sept TOOLED UP then?
Oh something I always wanted to ask about Scrabulous - how work-friendly is it! B/c so many people have added it but even by my lax standards I can't imagine having the time or the ability to get away with obvious scrabble on screen...
he is like one of those soldiers holed up in a foxhole twenty years after the end of the war taking potshots at shadows he glimpses in the jungle, believing that everything he hears on the radio about the end of the war is propaganda designed to make him come out into the open.
Yes, I haven't read the K-Punk piece either, not because I can't but because I felt I had better things to do with my time (one can construe this as either anti-intellectualism or sanity), but what Tom's saying here is very important. My piece isn't interested in refuting Nathan's statement but in understanding it, and in fact I see myself as posing questions and suggesting ideas that no one else ever has about such statements (well, no one that I know of; I hope someone somewhere has), and I assume that - while the issue "does ______ write his own lyrics" is a stand-in issue - the inchoate perceptions and impulses that it stands in for are quite real and potent.
Maybe K-Punk addresses this later in his piece, but I'm too anti-intellectual/sane to find it.
Half of me thinks k-p hasn't read one of your column all the way through, Frank. He clearly doesn't understand the motivation behind it. Is he even aware of this community and what we talk about/the manner in which we talk about it?
'no' is the short answer. And the long answer. I genuinely don't think he's interested in knowing what we talk about or how, and I'm slightly worried by why I still feel under attack when I also think that is the case!!
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:14 pm (UTC)Even if the ‘Nathan’ with whom Kogan debates exists - and I’ll be honest with you, I’m finding it hard to believe that he does - his function is a fantasmatic one (in the same way that Lacan argued that, if a pathologically jealous husband is proved right about his wife’s infidelities, his jealousy remains pathological): for popists to believe that their position is in any way challenging or novel, they have to keep digging up ‘Nathans’ who contest it. But, in 2007, Nathan’s hoary old belief that only groups who write their own songs can be valid has been refuted so many times that it is rather like someone mounting a defence of slavery today – sure, there are such people who sold such a view, but the position is so irrelevant to the current conjuncture that it is quaintly antiquated rather than a political threat.
So, Kogan has made up his friend saying that about the Backstreet Boys. But even if he hadn't, he would still have essentially been making it up. If there are people out there saying pop is shit they are not worth arguing with - unlike the Popists who are all posh and run the media and the US and UK governments. Lacan namedrop Spinzonan videodrome just like New Labour burble burble.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:55 pm (UTC):o
Date: 2007-08-22 03:28 pm (UTC)Re: :o
Date: 2007-08-23 09:52 am (UTC)Re: :o
Date: 2007-08-23 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:34 pm (UTC)So k-punk is not as bad as someone saying 'anyone who holds this view is an idiot who needs to be sorted out' but no-one seems to be saying this, and in the context k-punk's view seems more unpleasant.
EDIT: especially when he IS saying that about popists but since THEY are all public school toffs WE can all agree on the fact that they are idiots. LOLZ.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:40 pm (UTC)Scrabulous has killed it.Or should I expect to see K-Punk at the Cross Kings on the 1st Sept TOOLED UP then?
no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:49 pm (UTC)bing bing bing
he is like one of those soldiers holed up in a foxhole twenty years after the end of the war taking potshots at shadows he glimpses in the jungle, believing that everything he hears on the radio about the end of the war is propaganda designed to make him come out into the open.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 04:12 pm (UTC)Maybe K-Punk addresses this later in his piece, but I'm too anti-intellectual/sane to find it.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-23 01:12 am (UTC)