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

[koganbot]

I do think that popular music that presents itself as "pop," as opposed to popular music that presents itself as "rock," often does somewhat self-consciously as being of the moment and side-stepping tests of time and seriousness - probably does so more in 2007 than the equivalent music would have done so in 1957.

(Interestingly, I don't think of "teenpop" as presenting itself as "pop" in this way.)

What about a generation calling itself new? Hmmmm. I think the tendency here would be to self-consciously not invoke the Test of Time but to deny the Test of Time to time-tested music of the past.

[koganbot]

often does somewhat self-consciously as being of the moment

often does SO somewhat self-consciously as being of the moment. (But too many "so"s in my previous post.)