My hatas blue in the face like Gonzo

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Bone to pick with this dude for quite some time but haven't said anything: YOU DON'T GET TO DECIDE WHAT THE KIDS THINK IS COOL. If they wanna get down to ninnies, as Simon Reynolds calls 'em, then that means that NINNIES ARE COOL. I'm perfectly OK with this.

And it is with this qualifying rant that I link to:

V.I.C. - "Wobble"

Comments

[koganbot]

YOU DON'T GET TO DECIDE WHAT THE KIDS THINK IS COOL.

Well, one gets to decide for oneself what's cool or not (regardless of the kids). My answer is still "No," meaning I don't think anything is cool.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I'm just suggesting that by his own framework, questionable for its own reasons, he has basically relinquished the authority as arbiter of taste in hip-hop -- he's clearly defining "cool" demographic terms, in opposition to white basketball coaches and...y'know, himself. Yet in this case, he has no problem passing that judgment.

The real problem, I think, is that his basic argument isn't really about coolness, it's about quality, i.e., he doesn't think this music is any GOOD, and "cool" is just the first or easiest justification he's thought of. He's wrong -- the music is pretty good -- but clarifying that would have prevented this essay from being written, which would have been nice.

[koganbot]

Good points. He really doesn't say why hip-hop was ever something cool to know about, or what cool is or why it might be desirable, but as you say instead he simply makes unstated assumptions that make cool the attribute of various demographics - and coolness is an attribute of himself only if he's the first in his demographic to get to it. If the wrong people get to it before he does - Bo Riley and Mike Gravel - then he's shit out of luck.

Poor guy.