John Peel (Slight Return)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Remember all that John Peel talk on Poptimists last week?

Here's my latest Pitchfork column which is what it was all in aid of really.

Comments

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Lovely, well done.

One side of Peel's "Reithian" approach we didn't discuss last week was his devotion to all those doom metal bands with extremely short songs ... or is that what you mean by "grindcore" in your piece?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hope some actual grindcore fans will school me on this.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Whether I was right to offhandedly refer to the short growly things Peel liked as "grindcore" I guess!

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Hm, you may be pitching this to the wrong community!

Liked the column - is it time for another discussion thread about the relevance of musical educators, the pros and cons of tailoring to musical preferences, etc etc?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think we talk about that stuff a LOT on Poptimists! All the various orgafun things - Podcast Panel, League Of Pop, Pop World Cup, etc. - are at heart efforts to get people listening to stuff they might not usually listen to, my feeling being that in a free-audience (as opposed to captive audience) era you need participatory gimmicks to do it.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I like them. Didn't mean to imply I didn't think there were any/enough, hence my use of "another".

I'm interested in the idea of the gimmicks as being less overbearing than the more, hm, paternalistic image of a Peel-type figure. I'm not sure that's the case, but can that inkling of parental figure can lend a bit too much 'government infotainment' quality to the attempt to widen people's musical horizons? Or do we need to keep poking people into awareness of stuff because other elements of our culture would otherwise tend towards isolation and introversion?

I haven't formed good answers to these questions yet, which is why I was wondering if they've already been answered very well and I just don't know about it (very likely).

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

they brung the funny. you got the feeling they named the tracks so they could HEAR John Peel say the words