Genre rockist beef (again)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Crikey, dance music beef is sprawling over the blogosphere following Todd Burns's dissection of Justice & Simian Mobile Disco fans over at Village Voice (thanks to Fluxblog for the link). Here's Idolator's view on the subject. All these articles I've linked to bring up reasonable points. HOWEVER there still seems to be this awful mindset that you are only allowed to like certain types of dance music (or rock music), and if so you can't like the 'opposite' type. And then there's the 'oh but it's all POP anyway so ya boo sucks' business. This irritates me in a way I can't really put my finger on, so I drew a Venn diagram to help me work it out:



The diagram above covers the genres I'm interested in ('everything else' I just don't know enough about to appreciate properly).

The yellow 'rock' part covers stuff like prog, indie and metal.
The green part would probably include Bon Jovi, Kelly Clarkson and My Chemical Romance.
The pink 'dance' part covers stuff like techno, electronica, drum-n-bass, all stuff you'd buy off Juno.
The purple bit would be Booty Luv, Kylie and Roisin Murphy.
The blue (un-named as I couldn't fit the text in on my crappy version of Paint) parts would be mum-pop ballads on one side, and hip-hop/RnB on the other, I guess. These could obv have extra crossover circles of their own, but I'm sticking to 'rock' and 'dance' here to keep things simple.

And of course, 'X' stands for 'Xenomania'. Clearly this is the awesomest section.

The articles I link to above seem intent on putting Justice and Simian Mobile Disco in the green or pink sections for better or worse, when I think they're obviously part of X. It's a difficult category to do well in, and a lot of the time it doesn't produce great results. But it can be WONDERFUL as we poptimists know. The ideal song in X would be one where you don't even notice the guitars or the bleeps, but they're still there (the song I have in mind right now is 'Something Kinda Oooh').

I sympathise with Burns in his dislike of dancing to Justice/Simian, because I prefer *to dance* to pounding 4x4 beats that build up and drop out and that you don't need to know the words to enjoy - getting your head down and grinding away for hours rather than having to 'sit the next one out'. But I would also therefore dismiss a whole bunch of stuff in the pink section (I can't really dance to breaks, for example). That doesn't mean it shouldn't be there! Or that other people aren't allowed to find it good!

But the real advantage of having X present in your genre-list is that rockism should be meaningless here. There are influences from every direction, and people who complain about their precious rock/dance being 'infected' by other stuff will be waylaid in the purple and green sections. Although after reading Burns' essay I get the impression he's doing his best to remove X altogether and make everywhere a battlefield. Sadface.

Comments

Other examples of X?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

- New Order
- Prodigy
- Groove Armada?

Sort of related...

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

...though just as much to the earlier thread this week about Scouting For Girls et al:

http://music.guardian.co.uk/pop/story/0,,2246111,00.html

- relevant here, I think, as e.g. I am unable to parse this sentence at all: "(How the ambitious Kaiser Chiefs would respond to being classified alongside the Wombats is open to question.)"

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I vaguely agree with Todd Burns, fwiw, though I don't think he puts his case well at all. My beef with Justice is that you can't dance to it, it doesn't follow the rules of dance music, but it DOES follow the rules of rock music. It's dance music for rock fans to feel slightly better about themselves to. Saying "I like dance music, I like Justice, they're the best in that field" - which is what the bulk of the criticism has been - is like saying "I like hip-hop, I like MIA, she's the best in that field". ie, those people only really like dance music when it's NOT dance music, hip-hop when it's NOT hip-hop, and their refusal to actually engage with what dance and hip-hop fundamentally ARE prevents them from recognising this.

I also disagree that X is the best area, and I certainly don't think anyone should aim to end up there. It's like fusion cooking, a bit of this and a bit of that makes the whole thing seem either slapdash or just a bit grim. Of course, it can end up great, but this is more happy accident than the rule. Basically I think that formalism, genre rules and so on, don't really constrict so much as provide a template which the artist can make their own; and it bothers me when acts which make a big deal out of deviating from genre rules get so much praise for it. It's almost like they're saying that those rules, that formalism, and therefore the genre itself, is worthless.
Whereas formalist signifiers often act like a shared language, an indication that the artist is on your wavelength. (This could be the build-and-release structure of dance music; or the r&b/hip-hop tendency to quote lyrics or beats from other r&b/hip-hop; etc.)

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

rockist.


KIDDING, KIDDING.

X is the best area though, happy accidents are where all the stellar bits of pop happen. templates are kind of ok, but mainly so one can play *with* the rules, not *by* the rules...

Re: Other examples of X?

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

new order are TOTALLY yellow ;) as are the prodge come to think of it.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

also:

your beef with justice is that YOU can't dance to it, not that it is undanceable to

isn't it?

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

I like the point Todd's making, and the way he's written it is entertaining but perhaps not the best way of getting it across. I don't think that any genre mix is better than any other, or indeed better than any pure genre. Most magic is content, not form, and broadly, all my least favourite music criticism celebrates form for form's sake.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yeah but to "play with the rules" don't you have to be a bit of a formalist?

(actually one area of fruitfulness is where the somewhat-formalist listener has hishead fkd with the accidental or unintended formalist-busting activity of the idiot-savant maker: the busting being a total free lunch on the part of the "doesn't really get what s/he just did but it's awesome anyway" artist-type...

one of my (many many many) beefs abt "influence" is that it is flailed around to firm up arguments from intentionality which are exactly not the point

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

heh but after the first accident, can it any longer be thought of in that way or does X become a template of itself? Xenomania are arguably in a rut now, judging by the last GA alBUM. One I happen to still enjoy, but IMHO it's as much a formula now as the one Status Quo are alleged to have developed in the 70s (cf. latest Popular discussion).

Re: Sort of related...

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Wombats = Absolute total Art Brut copyists, is my guess.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

b-but form is how you know what's content!

(actually that makes it too first-step-second-step: what i mean is, the act of recognising and distinguishing content-to-be-discussed IS the act of suppling form)

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

x = prance?

Totally off topic but zomg innit

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Lex I just heard the nu Mary J Blige! That 'fine-fine-fine-fine-fine' bit is brilliant! The middle eight is all weird and flip-flopping all over the place in an unsettling but interesting way. And the video is awesome :)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Well, they're undanceable by the rules of dance music - ie they completely abandon the concept of the groove, the steady beat to lose yourself in; it's all chopped-up and awkward instead. Which is closer to the rules of rock, really. No coincidence that I've rarely seen people actually throwing moves to Justice, it's more...jumping up and down, "moshing", that sort of thing.

My other problem with Kat's conceptualisation is that it doesn't take into account r&b or hip-hop! I know the other blue bit is meant to be the black bit but none of the examples of X have had anything to do with it, when have Xenomania ever acknowledged hip-hop? (Please don't cite GA 'rapping', please don't.)

Re: Other examples of X?

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Uhhh... past a certain point in time, perhaps. No Good is pretty purple (as are SMD for that matter)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Prodonck?

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

No, the middle circle is pop, which is why the pure-blue bits are pop without dance or rock.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

-adonk

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

yes EXACTLY - this is why old-Timbaland was so amazing because he wasn't cack-handedly wading into the r&b genre and ripping up the basics just to be an "innovator" - some of his early stuff is TOTAL HOMAGE to trad r&b values and rules, but at the same time presented in a completely new way, but the innovations would never have had any heart if he hadn't been steeped in the genre already...

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

Okay, for "form", I really want to say "style", referring to those categories above.

(That said, I still don't think in the art of the pop song you need to understand or identify form to get what's content).

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

My venn is a bit misleading here what with me missing out the intersections for hip-hop/jazz/industrial/whatever etc. In reality X would be made up of absolutely everything, not just pop/rock/dance (that's just what the articles were focussing on and what *my* focus falls on). So I think there's still plenty of room for interesting X.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Yes - hiphop etc deserve intersecting circles of their own, I just left them off as they weren't mentioned in the Burns beef.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

But GA rapping IS acknowldeging it! It's just that YOU don't like it. Hip-hop was a party music, you know, and some of GA's rap bits are in the spirit of "Rapture" if not anywhere near as well-done.

(Though you are correct about Justice and the rules of dance music, though in this case it seems to be wilfully avoiding rather than not understanding)

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

Okay, serious answer: "7 Ways" by Abs.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

fair dos, but that's still dancing. i'm not really arguing with the central point that justice probably are rock, just that "dance" music doesn't have the monopoly on dancing.

kat does point out that it's not a grand unified venn diagram of all music, just a visual aide for this pretty particular discussion...