Testing Testing

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

At the EMP music seminar last year dubdobdee presented a paper in which he contrasted - or promised to contrast - the "test of time" and the "test of space" when analysing (not just pop) music. I can't remember exactly what the "test of space" is in this schema but ANYWAY I wanted to ask the question (for a P4K column most likely) of why an artform where instancy is apparently such a big element attracts so much 'test of time' rhetoric, and also which OTHER tests one might apply.

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

That's the thing - I don't think it IS invoked often as a fait accompli - "this music has stood the test of time ergo it is good" - more as a means of justifying current tastes. I noticed a lot when looking at discussions of end of year lists that people criticising them would often do so in terms of "are people going to be listening to this in five years time". The claim that things will/won't stand a ToT is one made as a bet rather than as a fact.

I think I meant 'instancy' not so much as in 'instant appeal' but in the fact that the experience of most pop music is brief and intense - packing a lot of information into 5-6 minutes, and then it's gone.

[koganbot]

I think you're right that ToT appears often appears as a bet, "we will be listening to this in five years." I remember someone saying in the comments in Pazz & Jop 1999 that none of the current pop would be listened to twenty years hence; and I took this to be not "as opposed to the rock of the present, which will last," but "as opposed to the girl group etc. pop of yore," so it wasn't anti-pop from the point of view of rock but anti-Max from the point-of-view of Phil.

But I still don't hear ToT being invoked that much. But that could be because I'm not hanging around the people doing the invoking.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think I was looking in vulnerable places - and also of course discussion of end-of-year lists are inevitably ToT-baiting because in a sense they're a time capsule for the future.

The interpretation of ToT depends on its nuance - I see both "as opposed to other stuff now" and "as opposed to then". I am probably more sensitive to the former because it annoys me more.