(1) There is a poptimist near consensus (a few dissenters), at least among people who post a lot, which is that Fergie Ferg et al. are worth more than either just a hurrah or just a sneer (even if on a particular day many of us don't have time for much more than a hurrah or a sneer). But then, this has been the attitude of any interesting rockcrit from the get-go: change "Fergie Ferg" to "Shangri-Las," and you've got the 1965 (or so) attitude of Richard Goldstein, Paul Nelson, Richard Meltzer, Nik Cohn, Simon Frith, Robert Christgau, Greil Marcus, etc.
(2) I've been at this a long time - I mean, not just as a rockcrit but as one who went for the group discussion format, which I did before writing reviews and which I prefer to writing (or reading) reviews or essays. Why Music Sucks (my zine) and Swellsville and Radio On were ilX in germ form. But I was never satisfied with the convo even then. Fact is, in WMS I wanted sustained intellectual discourse intertwined with smooching and giggling and catfights and confetti contests (my idea being that the giggling etc. would help to generate ideas and that the intellectual discourse would help to generate smooches and confetti etc.). What I got was a lot of intellectual discourse intertwined with smooching-giggling-fighting-confetti, but the intellectual discourse was hop, skip, dip in here, concoct idea there, which is to say it was flash of ideas but little follow-through. So the intellectualism was frequent but the discussion of particular ideas was not sustained. And this failure wasn't because of the format (though only coming out twice a year was an impediment), but because most music critic types and fan types just don't do sustained intellectual discourse. (My guess is that this holds true in cultural studies and sociology departments as well; that an individual may sustain a project, but for practical purposes he or she is on his own.) Actually, when I brought back WMS in a different format - people writing their personal experiences or their immediate responses to blindfold tests (not unlike the League Of Pop and the Pop Open) - the magazine overall got better. But it pretty much abandoned the social and musical analysis I love.
(3) If we don't do it (sustained intellectual discourse) no one else will, but that doesn't mean we should do it here. So my idea isn't to try and turn poptimists into ddr (the Department of Dilettante Research). But that doesn't mean I want something that's a nonpub (people who can't sustain a convo in a pub probably can't sustain one in a seminar room either). And in saying "if we don't do it no one else will" I don't mean that I don't want to draw in new people, but rather that we can't expect the new people to do what we're not willing to do ourselves.
(4) "New people" might be people whom we value 'cause they know stuff we don't know, might include people who don't realize that they're gonna be interested in Fergie Ferg, might include people who don't know there is a Fergie Ferg.
(5) Speaking of non-follow-through, I've got to go.
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timeasmymeasure
Department of Dilettante Research
Date: 2007-08-26 11:36 pm (UTC)(2) I've been at this a long time - I mean, not just as a rockcrit but as one who went for the group discussion format, which I did before writing reviews and which I prefer to writing (or reading) reviews or essays. Why Music Sucks (my zine) and Swellsville and Radio On were ilX in germ form. But I was never satisfied with the convo even then. Fact is, in WMS I wanted sustained intellectual discourse intertwined with smooching and giggling and catfights and confetti contests (my idea being that the giggling etc. would help to generate ideas and that the intellectual discourse would help to generate smooches and confetti etc.). What I got was a lot of intellectual discourse intertwined with smooching-giggling-fighting-confetti, but the intellectual discourse was hop, skip, dip in here, concoct idea there, which is to say it was flash of ideas but little follow-through. So the intellectualism was frequent but the discussion of particular ideas was not sustained. And this failure wasn't because of the format (though only coming out twice a year was an impediment), but because most music critic types and fan types just don't do sustained intellectual discourse. (My guess is that this holds true in cultural studies and sociology departments as well; that an individual may sustain a project, but for practical purposes he or she is on his own.) Actually, when I brought back WMS in a different format - people writing their personal experiences or their immediate responses to blindfold tests (not unlike the League Of Pop and the Pop Open) - the magazine overall got better. But it pretty much abandoned the social and musical analysis I love.
(3) If we don't do it (sustained intellectual discourse) no one else will, but that doesn't mean we should do it here. So my idea isn't to try and turn
(4) "New people" might be people whom we value 'cause they know stuff we don't know, might include people who don't realize that they're gonna be interested in Fergie Ferg, might include people who don't know there is a Fergie Ferg.
(5) Speaking of non-follow-through, I've got to go.