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

[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.)