> The fetishising of an "aesthetic essence" (viz the boiling away of the particular to
> establish a GENRE or a MARKETING NICHE or a MOVEMENT or an ATTITUDE
> or TREND) (ie ignoring what may be difft/interestin/exciting abt such-and-such a
> record or song or performance in favour of a general rah-rah bigging up of the specialist
> section of the record shop it's stacked in/section of the musicmag it's reviewed in) as the
> grounding for excellence = the ROCKIST FOE IN PLAIN VIEW."
http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/nylpm/2004_07_01_nylpm_archive.html#109085365016
663459
Wanted to, extremely belatedly, comment on this point by the esteemed Mark Sinker (He hates me too? Oh well!) I wanted to focus on this remark of Mark's a little bit more. Not in TOO much detail of course cos I'm really thick.
It's a great remark isn't it? If there is anything I'm guilty of as a music fan it's relying on some mathematical formula of my own creation which prescribes what music is "hot" and what isn't. I may be articulating it within the framework of bigging up a Grime record but, ROCK or not, the modus operandi is the same. Rather than denounce Mr Sinker's point as callous rubbish (Preposterous! I cherry pick the tracks I like strictly on the basis of how they appeal to me! Etc etc etc) maybe it's more honest to just agree.
But don't you think its kind of naive to assume that one comes to music without a whole framework of expectations? What one knows about a record's origin, it's producer's biography, its "pedigree" has everything to do with how one consumes it, whether one "believes" it. A pop-theologian might counter with the argument that the general public, that imaginary behind the formation of the chart aren't swayed by such effete elitist ideas, that like unwashed cattle they'll buy what appeals to their "innate" sugary taste-buds, but OF COURSE that's rubbish. The same mechanisms impact on everyone's choices. Car salesmen in Woking bought Gabrielle's "Rise Again" cos she's one soulful chick. Small children bought the McDonalds tune cos it would annoy the aspirational middle-class values they sensed in the dominant culture. Public school boys buying Kylie Minogue her disco flavours. The charts may be a huge mess of signals, but it still constitues signals. It's not just a flux.
In the same piece I thought I saw Mark suggesting the charts was a useful as a roll-of-the-dice music taste: "The charts - in this theology - throw stuff in front of you for reasons which is (in strictly aesthetic terms) merely random, or anyway so scrambled that you can't read back from the ultimate public selection to the formal material choices that went into its making." If THIS is the principle behind liking chart music wouldn't you be better off just making a dada-istic rule for yourself like "I will only listen to records by people whose name begins with the letter A"?
I don't think one has to be so paranoid about the magical properties of the assemblage of signifiers which produce for one a satisfying record. Furthermore approaching music from within the boundaries of preconceptions, which though will often put you in the shit if you value being "at the cutting edge" and often out of kilter with your peers; like being three years late into dance music or missing out being a Hoxton Twat (What you mean I AM a Hoxton Twat!), as a prescription it's both eminently useful and more often than not enables one to practise an open game, to take risks and be adventurous with one's choices on the basis of their semiotic validity, as opposed to being at the mercy of something as empty as a chart or a randomly-generated rule. There's A LOT of music out there!
Posted by Woebot at August 10, 2004 08:36 AM