Before The Flood

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This is a poll about John Peel's Festive Fifty, 1976. Just tick all the songs you like from the list of 50 (counting down from #50 to #1, as it happens). I've put it up because i) I'm curious about the results, ii) I'm probably writing a pitchfork column about the F50.

[Poll #1137239]

And some more general questions I'd like to think about - they're quite big questions though:

- What does rock do better now? What does it do worse?
- How does the stuff that won respect and adoration on this poll differ from the stuff that critics and fans enjoy now (a VERY broad formulation, I know)?
- Where's the modern equivalent of the audience suggested here - Pazz and Jop? the Pitchfork Readers Poll?
- What were Poco and can we eat them?

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I guess the main clue as to the non mainstreamness is the dogs NOT barking here - no "Bo Rhap"!

But also the mainstream and the non-mainstream were closer anyway?

[cis.livejournal.com]

also the mainstream and the non-mainstream were closer anyway?

yes; also, I think, that sort of process of consensus by which the not-so-much-mainstream-as-acclaimed becomes the version of the mainstream that the future gets shown? (i don't know if this is quite the nostalgia industry - people make a lot of money out of going 'wow in the eighties we liked a lot of rubbish, that was a great thing about it', but at the same time I suspect that people looking back at the eighties might assume that, i dunno, Talking Heads were more popular than they really were.)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

cf: LCD Soundsystem in 20 years time

[cis.livejournal.com]

pretty much, yeah!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

my frustration when I look back at the established canon is nothing compared to how frustrated I am when I can feel exactly the same thing happening around me, now; and it's the same process, too. White educated dudes get to pick the music which white educated dudes are 'meant' to like, ignore or snark at vast swathes of popular culture on the way, and...somehow get to dictate the shape of how future generations listen to music? It's so wrong.

[cis.livejournal.com]

what I like is how the canon industry and the nostalgia industry, which are basically the same cabal of white dudes twice over except one lot believe that humankind can achieve greatness and this greatness takes the form of Sound Of Silver and the other lot believe that humankind will only ever achieve aspartame-of-the-people cheap temp thrills and this aspartame takes the form of 'Soulja Boy', work together to form a double canon that admits to the existence of stuff outside the established canon but only in terms which reinforce the established canon! And they don't even need to plan it, they just do it naturally. humankind is frickin amazing, for reals.

is the only solution to get in there and bash the canon into the shape it should be? I can neverwork out if that's ideologically okay.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I believe that humankind can achieve greatness and this greatness takes the form of Soulja Boy!

I would kind of like to nullify the entire concept of the canon? make yr own personal canons, people.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

'I would kind of like to nullify the entire concept of the canon? make yr own personal canons, people.'

This goes against everything in our culture I think. While the canon shifts over time (eventually eschewing Floyd in favour, say, Joy Div) there's always that desire to form consensus, to convince as many around you as possible that you are right. We all do this, it just depends on the position you adopt beforehand and how you go about it as to how successful you are.

[cis.livejournal.com]

You know, I barely read modern novels at all because I've no way of knowing if one currently-feted novel is actually going to be any good, actually going to appeal to me; but with older novels, I've a good sense of whether I'm going to want to put the hours in, of what I should probably read if I want to get a broad idea of a genre or a movement in as few books as possible. And I can do that because the canon exists. I think it's really thoughtless just to say "oh make your own personal canons" -- most people just don't have the time or the mental space to do that, and without that reassuring framework in place they're very likely to just not bother with anything new, because the effort expended in trying to find something new and actually good might very likely not be at all worth it.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

But I don't trust that reassuring framework; I don't trust the methods by which it was built, I don't trust the values it espouses, I don't trust the claims it makes about being definitive. Picking something out of the canon is likely to be as random and risky as walking into a shop and picking up any given new novel. Which means that when I want to get a broad idea of something I'm back where I started: pick Novel X or Album Y, whether in canon or not, with no idea whether I'll like it.

(though with modern novels, and contemporary music, the path through tends to be things like peer-recommendations, awareness of scenes; which is why I guess I favour them more.)