Thursday, the day of abomination

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Let's talk about HATE, poptimists. It'll be therapeutic.

What horrible, terrible, reprehensible musical things have occurred thus far this year? Did The Saturdays covering 'Just Can't Get Enough' make you cry? Do The Lonely Island make you want to beat your own face in? Do you think Lady Gaga just hasn't received enough press coverage? Is The Dream overrated? Did Royksopp, in your opinion, shove out a massive log of POO? Have you heard that new single by The Enemy?

[Poll #1376740]

A post about ORGAFUN coming later, once we've ~expelled the hate.

Comments

Re: OK, quickly, before I have to leave

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

is there a case for a once-and-for-all public takedown of this meme

it's the bastard descendent of the original 60s white-kid response to 50s and 60s black music, but that (a) introduced and mixed in stuff that wasn't in the original* and (b) actually was a first populasation and presentation of music that was REALLY HARD TO FIND AND HEAR in 60s white-kid-land

*including elements introduced by people strugglng to learn to master stuff they hadn't grown up with -- fruitful misconcpetions blah blah

but this is (i) no longer remotely a valid excuse and (ii) a product of active refusal to engage with stuff that's readily available, a censorship born of smug laziness

(caveat: i haven't heard hypnotoadz* and as usual lex's rage makes me kinda want to!)

*BETTER NAME ALERT

acksherly

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

if i didn't have ten million other things on* i would do this, it would be good for me

*why hullo "the state of rock", you seem to be no more than 10 million pages of scribbled notes!

Re: acksherly

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I would try to do it but Lex or Martin would be much better at it. The whole meme makes me furious, from Girl Talk to Dan Black to fucking Kanye West. GJHSDHJFSFSGSGJGFSKDSaaaaargh.

Woke up today and all I could say is "Um."

[koganbot]

For the sake of your research, here's Asher Roth's "I Love College," though I don't know if it fits your takedown because, (1) it's not really going on about its cleverness in what it's appropriating, and (2) it's powerful, delivers its sensibility, is currently in my Top 20. (It ain't crunk, but I bet Lil Jon is a fan.)



(If that embed doesn't play in the U.K., here it is on Dailymotion.)

Re: Woke up today and all I could say is "Um."

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

there's no general reason why this tactic -- cover a song in a rather different mode -- shouldn't make for stuff that's really interesting: but what's become pertinent is that it so relentlessly now produces bad work (with the good stuff the exceptions proving the rule)

Re: Woke up today and all I could say is "Um."

[koganbot]

But Asher is not covering a song in another mode. That's only Dan Black. The crew upthread are misleading you.

My being pedantic

[koganbot]

"Exception that proves the rule" originally was using "prove" in the archaic sense of "test," but now means either, (1) when you examine the exception it turns out not to be an exception, or (2) you're just saying "the exception proves the rule" because you don't know how to explain the exception.

Re: My being pedantic

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yes i just like to use it to bug people -- it drove my logic tutor mental

Re: My being pedantic

[koganbot]

But usage (1) is really good, when you can pull it off. (I did it in my John Conlee review, where I said "Conlee generally chooses to wallow rather than dissemble. His basic theme is not getting over it (the nuthouse song being the apparent exception that very much proves the rule); this can mean being true to a true love, but more often it means not letting go of a lost love" (the nuthouse song has him confined to a mental institution because of the amnesia by way of which he manages to forget his lost love).)

Re: My being pedantic

[koganbot]

The British Invasion bands had to write their own songs, since they weren't going to find music biz professionals who knew how to write them. (Exception that proves the rule would be The Animals' "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place," written by Brill Building pros Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Weil's lyrics have the protagonist desperate to break out of poverty; Eric Burdon sings them as if he's desperate to break out of the world.)

http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/archive/2007/aug/02/the-rules-of-the-game-no-9-the-teens-are-cool-but-

Re: Woke up today and all I could say is "Um."

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'I Love College' isn't going on about its cleverness but it IS going on about its craziness, which is even worse. It may deliver its sensibility but that counts for nothing when said sensibility is utter bullshit - students going on about their crazy, wacky antics are intolerable at all times - and in any case literally every line is such a hackneyed cliché that it doesn't deliver much of anything.

Re: OK, quickly, before I have to leave

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

well, it engages with it, but from a distance; and the way it engages, it makes the arm's length seem more the point than the source material. And the arm's length consists of fear, awkwardness, mockery, distaste, openly revelling in one's own half-assed lack of skill - what all of these things are essentially saying is "we don't think hip-hop culture is worth anything more than being the butt of an ineptly executed joke". UGH.