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]

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.