Music as conversation

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

New Pitchfork column by me on answer records, fan fiction, music as conversation... thanks to piratemoggy for her help putting this one together!

http://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7635-poptimist-21/

Comments

[theastronomymod.livejournal.com]

An interesting read, for sure.

I do like that you have picked up on the fact that all these things are part of a continuum - that answer records, mash-ups, remixes, covers, fan fiction - and I'd add fan art - are all part of the same process. The desire to be *part* of music - in that sense of making the artform a conversation, rather than the one-way passive street of consumerism.

I've never read Jenkins' book (surprisingly) - but I just don't think I'd want to read a male perspective on fan fiction, since it is, almost overwhelmingly, such a female universe. (I am actually racking my brain to think if I've ever, actually, read fan fiction by a man - and in 5 years of curating the first pop music fan fiction site on the web, I never did. Men write fanzines, women write fan fict. It's an almost universal dichotomy.) Am going to have to have a think on his taxonomy.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

One of the main flaws w/Jenkin's book is actually that it has no capacity for considering fanfiction written about real people, since either a)it wasn't a very big thing when he wrote it or b)he had no idea it existed.

From something I wrote to freakytigger t'other day (because I am lazy & hungry & can't be bothered to write it all out again; it's not very good really but am not An Expert on these things)-
"On the other hand, what she's talking about there is from a book written when fandom and fanfiction were quite different beasts; seventeen years is a very long time in internet terms. Now, people are applying forms of literary criticism and analysis, through the means of fanfiction, to things that have never been written about; there are no canonical texts about, for instance, popstars. Fanfiction's gone beyond the limits of literary criticism into the wider realms of psychology and philosophy and, despite its self-consciously silly premise, become probably considerably more intellectual; the line between what actually is fanfiction and what isn't is becoming harder to draw, too; if something uses characters from Harry Potter and is written by a Harry Potter fan but is written as an extraction, an analysis (and the extractions are greater now, I have no doubt; whilst I don't know what fanfiction was like seventeen years ago, the advent of the internet and greater communication between fanfiction authors has blown the boundaries wide-open in terms of acceptable distancing from canon, in terms of alternate universe or 'what if' fics) then is it fanfiction any more than, for instance, Marx's critique of Hegel is? Logic says yes, obviously, it is but at the same time, there's aspects of fandom's rampant academia (and particularly its collegiate separations; fandoms are broken down into the faculties of ships and then further into the colleges of particular writing style and attitude, then even further into who rooms with who for which year and who's going on sabbatical for a year in another fandom...) that are beginning to get far more ....well, "out of control" is probably the phrase people would apply, than anything anyone could necessarily have predicted.

essentially, I think that taxonomy's a bit of a simplistic view; it generalises some things ("recontextualisation" is basically applicable to the entire of fanfiction) but then gets oddly specific about others (crossovers, which are relatively rare in comparison to and in no way incompatible with angsty or eroticised fics, in fact tend towards being almost exclusively the latter) without mentioning other specifics... like I said, it's a good list for talking about fanfiction without actually talking about fanfiction, so it'll be fine for what you're doing, I'm sure but as a crummy old fandom anthropologist it has its limitations, for me. So, it's not nonsense, it's just not, err, canon, either."

I have read lots of fanfic by men but poss. that's just peculiar to the fandoms I've haunted. Admitedly am currently hanging around the McFly one & have only seen about two males.

[theastronomymod.livejournal.com]

Oh boy this is much longer than I intended, but once I start going on this, I tend to get in full flight...

OK, maybe that's it - that men participate in fan fiction based around existing stories (tv shows, books, films, etc.) which is something I've never really had much interest in all. And it makes more sense when put in the context of he's not writing about real people fic.

Fanfiction's gone beyond the limits of literary criticism into the wider realms of psychology and philosophy and, despite its self-consciously silly premise, become probably considerably more intellectual; the line between what actually is fanfiction and what isn't is becoming harder to draw, too

Yes, yes, 100 times yes. Because I often, myself, have a really hard time drawing a line between what is my music criticism writing, and what is FF writing. The dividing line is clear when it's "Well, one goes in Plan B and the other goes on LJ, under two very different names." But when writing on messageboards, and joking around in a "fangirly" manner the two things overlap intensely. What is my personal reaction to the music, and the emotions contained within and the dynamics between musicians, and what is FF style fantasy?

But this brings me to what my problem with that taxonomy is. My experience of music is so fluid, and it intersects with every level of my life - my engagement with music, and experiences - both as a fan and an artist - aren't something separate and compartmentalised away from the rest of my life.

And I think this is one of the reasons that Tom had a problem trying to shoehorn his "eroticism" into the article, and finding it problematic. And that's because (at least in *my* experience of FF) eroticism - or at least, romanticism isn't a separate genre, it pervades every single piece of writing in the way that romance/love/sex percolates through every piece of literature in the history of the world forever. Even if something isn't written specifically as a Romance, there will still be a sex/romance element, even if it's the hastily tacked on "hero gets the love interest" subplot or the homoerotic bromance of the buddy film. This may be an overly Freudian view - that EVERYTHING is really about sex - or in a wider capacity - love. It's not something you can separate out into a sub genre and sell in pink book sleeves.

So, to me, the "eroticism" element of a fan's interaction with music is just as all pervasive. There's a HUGELY romantic element to all aspects of music fandom - whether it be expressed in the overtly sexual nature of the Fangirl - or whether it's obsessed in all the weird ways that Fanboys sublimate and repress the romantic nature of their love affair with music. Be that obsessive completism, be that the weird pseudo-romantic dynamics when musicians work together (can you count the number of times that musicians have described their bands as "it's like a four way marriage with no sex"?), be that the row of fanboys who stand in front of DJs and watch their fingers as they mix, the weird ways in which fanboys cry "sellout" as if they have had their hearts broken by the musicians that have disappointed them.

And it overlaps with all of the other taxonomical genres like crossover mashups and slash go together. (Maybe it's the nature of my particular fandom, but crossover stuff was so common that we actually gave up on keeping separate comms for separate fandoms - but that could be just because dance music really lends itself towards remixing, collaborations and "reanimations" and the artists involved work with each other so fluidly that the story lines all get tangled.)

But.. as you well know, I could write an entire column on this subject myself, and already have a couple of times.

[cis.livejournal.com]

this book here (http://books.google.com/books?id=UgZsi_DOKoQC&printsec=frontcover#PPA216,M1) has some v interesting stuff on rpf in the chapter that deals with isilya's 'not based on a true story'.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

To try and characterize fan production without immersing myself in it would be as silly as playing mix and match with dance sub-genres while never setting foot in a club.

Heheheheheh.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine what you're referring to.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHA awesome.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Just came here to do one of these ;) and figured a few people who'd beaten me to it. Although, to be fair to people who aren't demonstrably RONG, I think that "immersing myself in it" can also be an escape route, saying that there is a cultural sphere to which you are not initiated or interested, and therefore there is no way you can organize the _____ of that sphere (music, conversation, whatever) without it being an "inauthentic" representation. But I can write tons of great stuff about music for kids without hanging out with them, or using, e.g., my own kids (who don't yet exist) as a kind of anecdotal buffer zone. In fact, sometimes nothing is more irritating than using a vaguely anthropological approach to do something that just isn't a big deal in the first place, like figuring out how genres might work.

Granted, there's a difference between finding aesthetic or conceptual similarities between different songs/music and claiming that, say, the reason confessional male R&B has been so hot lately is because they're all on vicodin.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yeah! except i feel like one of my giant-big-theories-which-is-mine (ie for my music&technology book) has been pwned :/

moral: finish stupid book like 10 years ago instead of 10 years hence

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I did feel I was treading on a lot of toes doing this actually - Eric Harvey's column is all about this stuff, I should really have talked to Kate before writing it, there are indeed shades of Julia Lennon in here. It's kind of the cliffs notes version of a load of books that haven't been written!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

welcome to the internetz i guess -- and actually "my" theory is largely based on r.meltzer's

[theastronomymod.livejournal.com]

One of my writers did a dissertation on fan fict - specifically the Duran Duran fan fict universe. I ALWAYS wanted her to expand that into a book, but she was always too busy writing fic. Which is the way of things - the books get written by those who weren't actually there, because those that are, don't have the time.

Someone else just linked me this, which has just increased my respect for Franz Ferdinand 100x:

http://www.chartattack.com/news/37457/franz-ferdinand-dont-mind-being-coupled-with-morrissey-in-gay-fan-fiction

He seems like a really intelligent bloke - just wish I liked his music better!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

the kind of records that create satisfying, unifying outrage at the thought of a "classic being desecrated

I have an overwhelming urge to create a chipmunk donk/noise version of 'Imagine' RIGHT NOW.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

imagine-a-nim-nim-nah!

[cis.livejournal.com]

Beyoncé, that mistress of the in-song situation, needs a Greek chorus of R'n'B nobodies to step up and vainly say their piece. "A ring? Get real." "Babe, you will never replace me."

does "Comfortable" by Lil' Wayne count as an "Irreplaceable" answer record, I wonder?

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I wrote about how the second half of The-Dream's new album is a complex "answer" of sorts to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" here (http://cureforbedbugs.tumblr.com/post/84889393/whats-the-deal-with-the-3-year-curse). Frank suggested (I think) that it's also an echo/answer to Lou Reed's Berlin which I think I actually own but have not listened to since I bought it. Still need to do my homework :(

Maybe Britney should sing it

[koganbot]

The production/arrangement of Berlin is a botch, which means that I've spent vastly more times singing these songs than listening to Lou sing 'em. I used to sit down strumming and just go straight through "How Do You Think It Feels" ("to always make love by proxy"), "Oh Jim" ("all your two-bit friends they're shooting you up with pills"), "Caroline Says II" ("Caroline says, as she gets up off the floor/you can hit me all you want to, but I don't love you anymore"), and "The Kids" ("they're taking her children away/because they said she was not a good mother").

Re: Maybe Britney should sing it

[koganbot]

(I have no idea if The-Dream ever heard Berlin; just that his various confused and wildly ambivalent mixed-up mixed emotions remind me of Berlin.)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

it absolutely does! i mean, answering 'irreplaceable' is the entire basis of the song: "to the left, to the left / if you wanna leave, be my guest, you can step / feelin' irreplaceable, listenin' to beyoncé / but ok, i'll put you out on your b'day"

and then obv we lead into trina jacking one of wayne's songs and saying "he's a beast, he's a dog, he's a to-the-left problem", which fits into the whole narrative of trina/wayne answer records over the past couple of years. wheels within wheels

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Must stop starting .rtf document called 'MUSIC CRITICISM IS NOT A FANDOM' and then writing two sentences, thinking "I wonder what K-Punk's being wrong about at the minute?" and abandoning the endeavour.

Anyway, the good news is I think this article's dead good & am glad was a help rather than a hindrance w/my mad fanramblin'.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

writing two sentences, thinking "I wonder what K-Punk's being wrong about at the minute?" and abandoning the endeavour.

Maybe these things are connected somehow?

And anyway, now that you're not staring at a daunting blank RTF document, which is the worst way to try to write stuff, you should elaborate on what you mean by "music criticism is not a fandom" in these very comments, because I'm interested and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Oh, they definitely are. I am describing Simon Reynolds as a massive fandom wankstain so there's a certain amount of necessary linkage. I am thinking of calling the first article 'Wank? In MY fandom!' but suspect this is perhaps too obscure a meme since no one sane reads pastede, (apols to sane people who read pastede)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

some of the prob with "theory-dependent" crit -- not just music crit either -- is that there's a deferred fandom going on: viz yr "allowed" to be critical of tarantino but you have to treat eg foucault [but basically insrt guru of choice]* as if it's a different level of thinking; there's a very hierarchical and reverential (and frankly religious) attitude towards the "texts" you are using to interpret, at the expense of the texts you being "critically" interpeting... it's all so relentlessly one-way

i once said to one of the dullards-in-question that i was frankly more interested in interpreting kierkegaard in the light of crazy frog than vice versa: result = a nervous larf, and mark's "joke" filed under "contrarian anti-intellectual populism" i expect

*of course within "theory" you get to cast your chosen anti-gurus as strawmen-to-pitch-into, which is then confused with being "critical" of theory -- but the relationship of desire and fascination among thinkers really can be explored by treating it as a (very unself-aware) species of fanboyism, in which ilxish laundrylists of facts are wheeled out to smother unbeleivers in jargonised scorn...

expansion

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Music Criticism isn't a fandom, in a classic sense because it has no defined area and it doesn't and can't move as one, unlike the way that, say, the whole Harry Potter fandom might mobilise if someone assassinated JK Rowling or something (O hi dere, too much Ken Waltz during degree) but it internally behaves like one; eg massive amounts of fanbeef and internet paranoia (hem hem not that obv. am referring to real events involving anyone we know etc.) and "ship wars" re: 'no rock is blatantly the OTP not hip hop because hip hop would never get off with an acoustic torch ballad OR SUTTIN') and really I haven't thought any of this through AT ALL since I think what I mean by 'Music crit is not a fandom' is that it actually IS a fandom but still.

Re: expansion

[koganbot]

It's fandom where you're allowed to dislike what you like.

Re: expansion

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Many people in Harry Potter fandom dislike Rowling's books immensely. *g*

Re: expansion

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

yeah isn't the impetus behind a lot of fanfic "we like the characters, but we can do the stories so much better"? (i don't know anything about fanfic really, this might be small-minded of me but i am slightly terrified of it.)

Re: expansion

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Oh, you can definitely dislike what you like in fandom. Some of the most epic (as in long, not necessarily good) fics are the result of people saying things like, "The X-Files jumped the shark in season seven, so I'm going to write an alternate season seven which doesn't suck."

Fic is also a way of criticizing or exploring certain aspects of what you like. For example, confession: I wrote a metric fuckton of Battlestar Galactica femslash, and most those fics grew out of conversations about the lack of (a) queer characters on BSG, and (b) meaningful relationships between women on BSG. I also wrote something called doppelcest, where you basically make the character and the actor have sex with each other, and that was just because I was interested in the ways in which characters and actors could intersect. I mean, in my experience, fic is just a critical discussion masquerading as a story.

Re: expansion

[petronia.livejournal.com]

in my experience, fic is just a critical discussion masquerading as a story

Yeah, this is my experience too... that and pr0n obv...

Re: expansion

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. Critical pr0n.

[koganbot]

Was wondering if there'd ever been any Lou Reed/John Cale slash fiction, though my hypothesis was that all their fans were too busy forming bands to write it.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

haha JOHN CALE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- tho the slash is implied rather than overt

She used to be a dude around the block

[koganbot]

--I wonder if Murdock choose the title "Superstar" because of the Carpenters' great "Superstar" (which I took to be narrated by a groupie, though it could have just been a delusional fan).

--There's a Europop rap record narrated by a Billie Jean that's a lot better than the Murdock track; I've got it on cassette somewhere, but can't find which one.

--Is there a historian in the house? I know r&b and rock 'n' roll had answer records going back to "Work With Me Annie," "Roll With Me Henry," "Annie Had A Baby," and I wouldn't be surprised if '20s blues were full of 'em, but I don't know if pre-r'n'r pop had them.

--UTFO's "Roxanne Roxanne" inspired a whole slew of answer songs (e.g. "The Truth Can Be Told: Roxanne's A Man"), two of them kick-starting a couple of mini-careers by excellent rappers (that of The Real Roxanne [though this one's better] and Roxanne Shanté).

Re: She used to be a dude around the block

[koganbot]

choose = chose

[petronia.livejournal.com]

One meme going around fan fiction circles for several years now is that of the "remix challenge": one fanfic writer picks or is assigned a story by another fanfic writer, transforms it into a different story per Jenkins, then gives it a cute name following dance music remix conventions. ("Albert Camus - The Stranger (Fat Bob's Dislocated Goth Re-Rub)").