BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Radio & Music >

Girls Aloud

  
  

Page: 1(2)34567... 9

 
 
Matthew Fluxington
13:01 / 05.01.03
Second, indie is basically aimed at a young demographic, and I kind of assume that people have always passed onto mainstream pop after an indie period - but the net, and forums like ilm, have catalysed post-indie-pop-fandom into a quasi-subculture. Is there anything sadder than a middle-aged guy in a Ramones T-shirt? Tastes change, and the "aggregate of image, style and behaviour" you want from your music changes with it. At some point, indie rock fans stop needing to distinguish themselves from the kids who beat them up at school?

On one hand, I see what you're trying to say, and on the other, that's just incredibly insulting and seems to willfully miss the entire point of DIY. It's insulting, because it reduces people's tastes and interests to a belief that what they like, what they love, is just a haircut or a pose. I can't stand this "music as fashion" myth. If you truly love music, the fashion and "youth culture" around it has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Music is the important thing, the rest is all by-product.

"Indie" is not aimed at a fucking demographic, much less a young one - indie is based on DIY. It is based on not working with corporations, it is a rejection mass marketing and Clearchannel and MTV and every other corporate tastemaker. Indie is an understanding that there's a lot more to music than the small percentage of it that can be marketed to mass audiences. It's a huge, broad thing - indie really should not be a synonym for shitty UK guitar bands, okay? Because that's not what it is, it's far bigger than that.

And there's nothing sad about a middle-aged Ramones fan wearing a Ramones t-shirt. The Ramones were a great band, and their fans should be proud of what they like, just like anyone should.

I'll tell you what's shallow and pathetic - people who, as they age, are constantly trying to embrace some lame notion of a 'zeitgeist', and rejecting things that they once liked because it's no longer fashionable. At some point, you've got to stop being a dumb, insecure teenager, and come to terms with yourself and be an adult. I mean, listen to yourself, Crunchy - Because albums are boring and for old people? What the fuck is wrong with being old? What the hell is so fucking great about being young?
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
13:02 / 05.01.03
There is no new punk, punk is the new homogeny.

I say this on no uncertain terms: You have no understanding of what punk is.
 
 
suds
13:19 / 05.01.03
flux, calm down, you'll give yourself a heart attack. music isn't as interesting without the context that surrounds it - which includes fashion and gossip and "youth culturre".
anyway, about girls aloud. does anyone else think that one with blonde hair is DIRTY looking? and NOT in a good way! i saw her on cd:uk with PLASTIC TROUSERS on! she has a filthy look in her eyes, like, constantly! has anyone else noticed this?
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
13:29 / 05.01.03
music isn't as interesting without the context that surrounds it - which includes fashion and gossip and "youth culturre".

I don't think that's really true, at all. There's a lot of music in this world, and a majority of it exists without those things, and it doesn't make that music 'less interesting'.

As for 'youth culture', again I ask, what's so special about 'youth' that it must take precedence over the music of the past, and the majority of music that exists which is not specifically meant for a 'youth culture' audience? This obsession with 'youth culture' is just symptom of a corporate culture which preys on people's insecurities about aging by exploiting the notion of 'youth culture'.

Fuck 'youth culture'. Fuck 'relevance'. Art and music is far greater than superficial concerns like that.
 
 
suds
13:35 / 05.01.03
flux! i'm surprised at your conservative values!
one true voice are rubbish. they are as boring as westlife!
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
13:41 / 05.01.03
What's so conservative about my very liberal attitudes about music? I would think that focusing one's interests entirely on the narrow, limited range of what corporations have on offer, and reducing something as broad as music to moronic binary oppositions is the 'conservative' thing to do. And I really don't think that understanding that there's a lot more things than 'youth culture' is a sign of conservatism, particularly since the music of 'youth culture' these days tends to be peculiarly conservative itself, Missy and friends notwithstanding.
 
 
rizla mission
14:23 / 05.01.03
A big "YAY!" to everything Flux said before 'youth culture' entered the discussion, a vague kind of "hmm.. ok, maybe" to everything said afterwards..

I think the idea (& practice) of "youth" plays a huge part in the development of pop (just to be awkward that's the WI-IDE definition of 'pop' I'm using now, eg, just about everything) music, what with the *immense* importance of mad, youthful energy of the kind exhibited largely, though not wholly, by people who are young.. the kind of energy which can literally turn musical shit into musical gold and frequently does..

Equally important is the way in which subsequent generations go out of their way to reject, reinterpret, deconstruct the musical ideas of previous generations in a way that the originators of said ideas could never concieve of - if the music-world functioned as some kind of unified generation in which age was unimportant, I honestly think things would get really, really boring.. some kind of scary Jools Holland netherworld with everyone respectin' everyone else all day long.. it's conflict with the leftover musical values of previous generations that inspires new musicians to Kick Out The Jams.. (and I don't just mean punk rock and so on, hopefully what I'm saying applies to everything).
 
 
The Falcon
14:50 / 05.01.03
Flux is 100% correct about punk, though.

'S not a sound.

Blink-182/Sum 41 are not punk, as I understand it. They are as punk as (and strangely similar to) Avril Lavigne.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
15:01 / 05.01.03
I think Riz is pretty right on, and I don't want to seem like I'm *against* youth culture, so much as I really don't like how too many people fixate on it to an unhealthy degree, and consequently ignore many good things. There's lots of nice things to be said about youth, as well as bright shiny pop, but it really isn't everything, and I wish more folks would see that 'youth culture' is just a small part of a bigger picture.
 
 
The Falcon
16:27 / 05.01.03
There again, I'd rather listen to something new rather than something old.

I would, too.
 
 
suds
16:30 / 05.01.03
i'd rather listen to something great!
by the way, right now i'm listening to one true voice and i cannot get over how bad they are. what the hell is this slush with mid 90s beats? girls aloud pisses all over this filth!
 
 
Jackie Susann
00:13 / 06.01.03
I don't really think you can say DIY - or any kind of music - sits outside fashion, gossip or culture - those things are all parts of any kind of music. Whether it's Britney or indigenous ceremonial tradition, there's no pure music floating around without a context.

Also, I'd suggest that music is generally more enjoyable for the purist, regardless of whether your purism is directed towards pop, indie, or whatever. Most people who take an 'i like all kinds of music' attitude seem to have a pretty anemic, uninspired interest. Even Flux is completely puristic in his devotion to an ideal of disinterest.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
01:04 / 06.01.03
Well, I think it's a big mistake to confuse context with 'fashion'. There's an incredible amount of recordings made which really have nothing to do with fashion at all. Nothing exists without context, but lots of things exist without fashion and gossip, I assure you.

I think it's very hard for some people who are stuck in this corporate mindset of music --> lifestyle --> fashion --> product to think of things outside of those terms, but there really is a lot more to music than that. There's a lot more to this world than shallow concerns.
 
 
The Falcon
05:07 / 06.01.03
There is?



........

Is there?
 
 
rizla mission
10:51 / 06.01.03
Also, I'd suggest that music is generally more enjoyable for the purist, regardless of whether your purism is directed towards pop, indie, or whatever. Most people who take an 'i like all kinds of music' attitude seem to have a pretty anemic, uninspired interest.

..you what..?

Try telling that to, well, me for a start..
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
11:27 / 06.01.03
Also, I'd suggest that music is generally more enjoyable for the purist, regardless of whether your purism is directed towards pop, indie, or whatever. Most people who take an 'i like all kinds of music' attitude seem to have a pretty anemic, uninspired interest.

..you what..?

Try telling that to, well, me for a start..


...er, and me, second. Glad someone could be arsed to spot-the-sweeping-statement-of-anecdotal-fact
 
 
Jack Fear
12:22 / 06.01.03
You know, when I listen to the Goldberg Variations, first and foremost in my mind is all the dishy personal gossip about J.S. Bach: all those kids! That rapturous, rock-solid piety! That blissful prolificity! That by-all-accounts happy homelife!

And when I go to a symphony concert (or "gig," as the orchestral hipsters amongst us would have it), it's such a thrill being part of the "scene," with the crowd in their knee breeches and tight waistcoats, the mingled scent of sweat and wig-powder filling the hall, fists pumping and cigarette-lighters held aloft as the big man takes to the harpsichord—it's visceral, d00d.
 
 
suds
13:04 / 06.01.03
"I think it's very hard for some people who are stuck in this corporate mindset of music --> lifestyle --> fashion --> product to think of things outside of those terms"
i want to know who these people are, and how you seem to know the inside of other people's minds so brilliantly.

"lots of things exist without fashion and gossip, I assure you." - we call these things DULL.
 
 
The Natural Way
13:18 / 06.01.03
Suds: I really hope yr just playing.
 
 
Old brown-eye is back
14:35 / 06.01.03
Losing.....will.....to......live..........
 
 
Jackie Susann
23:52 / 07.01.03
I can't figure out if Jack is trying to support my point or contest it. If the latter, sarcasm aside, how is knowing about Bach's life different from knowing about Britney's? It might not be called fashion or gossip, but with any given kind of music there's a context of appreciation, of inclusion and exclusion, of knowledge accumulation and proficiency, which works to distinguish levels of fandom, and fans from non-fans. (In some contexts, the word 'fan' may be inappropriate, but substitute 'listener' or something). This has absolutely nothing to do with corporatism and product. It's just as true of a friend's experimental garage band on their second gig: common assumptions, preferences, and stylistic distinctions circulate through their friends in the audience in a way that's not qualitatively different from what binds the audience at a Britney show.

Let me try this another way:

Do most of the people who buy Britney records dress alike? Let's say yes.
Do most of the people who buy Bach records dress alike? At least as alike as the Britney buyers.
Do most of the people who buy >insert sufficiently credible indie act here< records dress alike? Ditto.

Why is one of these fashion and the other two fashion-free?
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
02:14 / 08.01.03
Yes, I suppose most people do wear pants, shoes, and shirts...
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
02:37 / 08.01.03
I think you're starting to confuse the discussion - no one's trying to put down pop music here. One thing some of us are reacting to is Suds' notion that (paraphrasing) 'music is not interesting without gossip and fashion', and that when things exist outside of those concerns, it is dull. That is so shallow and ignorant that it makes my head spin.

I don't think it's right to confuse biographical information and context with gossip, it's just not the same thing. I think it is also a mistake to fixate on what people are wearing in the context of music because those are temporary things - ultimately, music is an invisible thing, and the visuals really don't mean as much in the long term. This isn't to say that talking about pop stars and such in a gossipy way is wrong; it's not, it's just that not all music exists on those terms, and if you're examining all music on those terms, then I'm afraid that you're missing the point entirely. It may matter what Britney wears in her videos; but the clothes that Yo La Tengo, Memphis Slim, John Cage, Derrick May, Albert Ayler, The Kingsmen, Smokey Robinson, or Autechre (to name a few) wear or have worn really doesn't mean much in terms of the music that they have made.
 
 
Jackie Susann
02:45 / 08.01.03
I don't think it's right to confuse biographical information and context with gossip, it's just not the same thing.

I still don't see why, except that one is socially legitimated and one is considered trashy. What's the difference, objectively? What are the terms on which one can consider music without missing the point?
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
03:12 / 08.01.03
Well, how are you defining gossip? I'm taking the term 'gossip' on how Suds herself is gossiping - talking about how one pop star looks 'dirty, but not in a good way', or fixating on their clothes, or wondering who they are dating, etc. I think you'll find that those kinds of things really don't apply very well to music made by people who don't consider appearances and public life to be part of their job descriptions as musicians, people who make art out of sound. Most people who make sound recordings are, for all intents and purposes, invisible and relatively anonymous to the audiences who only ever hear their recordings. These things especially don't apply well to old music, particularly old music made by people who aren't very famous or well documented. Now, don't you think it's more than a little dumb to lump the enormous number of recordings and musicians who are not famous as being 'dull' or uninteresting? I mean, speak for yourself, but avoid really dim generalizations, okay?
 
 
Jackie Susann
03:22 / 08.01.03
Well, I'll try. I think our basic disagreement comes out here:

Most people who make sound recordings are, for all intents and purposes, invisible and relatively anonymous to the audiences who only ever hear their recordings.

I am contesting, first of all, whether there are really that many occasions where audiences "only ever hear their recordings" without having a context which makes hearing that recording fit within a certain set of social parameters - even for really, really old music made by non-famous people. Second, I am contesting the idea, which has been recurrent in this thread, that there's a qualitative difference between those contexts and the contexts of pop music (call them "gossip and fashion"). To people who've only ever heard her recordings, what Britney wears is exactly as relevant as what John Cage does (and I am disinclined to accept that Cage's audience are completely indifferent to his attire). On the other hand, to people who do know who Yo La Tengo are, their position relative to other acts of similar style and genre is every bit as relevant as the pure pleasures of the sounds that come out of their CDs.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
03:43 / 08.01.03
Yes, Crunchy, but I can't see anyone in this thread trying to say that music exists in a vacuum; and even still, it doesn't mean that even though nearly all music does have at very least a tangental relationship to 'gossip and fashion', that it has much relevance in the understanding or appreciation of that music. For some musicians, especially modern pop musicians, image is very relevant in considering their music; but for many more it is little more than a minor footnote, or a piece of information that is missing entirely. Is that so hard to grasp?

It's just the same with judging music in the context of the people who listen to it - it's just not very important with lots of things. You can find similarities between the behaviors of people who listen to a lot of recordings, but I seriously think that for a lot of music, it's just not very important unless you're doing demographic research and marketing.

FIY, John Cage has been dead for many years now.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
08:05 / 08.01.03
One of my best friends almost punched me the other day when I started singing along to S Club 7 in the pub. Mind you, it could just have been the singing.
 
 
Jack Fear
13:16 / 08.01.03
Crunchy: your argument seems to be that all people everywhere listen to all music in exactly the same way, which seems to me to be absurdly reductionist, as well as patently false.

Much recorded orchestral/classical music is marketed without any biographical information about either the performers or the composer: a cult of personality around a classical performer is the exception, rather than the rule—there are a handful of world-famous operatic tenors and sopranos, a smattering of instrumental virtuosi, a few world-acclaimed conductors still among the living—while the great bulk of players toil workmanlike in the middle rows of large ensembles, subsuming their individuality into the grand effect. In the cooperative context of the orchestra, the Promethean individual creator with hir attendant personal dramas is actually a liability.

And what about music as used in religious or magickal ritual? Folk musics as oral history? Music created for meditational or therapeutic purposes? Film soundtracks? Ambient soundscapes? Dance music, with the studied anonymity of the artists? I would argue that none of these can reasonably be considered using the same criteria by which one would consider pop music. Different means, different ends.
 
 
pointless and uncalled for
14:38 / 08.01.03
Erm Flux - it's entirely possible that my post was a fraction less than serious. Did that occur to you or was your post more along the lines of personal prejudice?
 
 
Linus Dunce
15:05 / 08.01.03
"Indie" is not aimed at a fucking demographic

And they give away the CDs for free, right? It's all product. Think of Indie as the little nozzle attached to a hoover to clean out the nooks and crannies the big sucker-thing missed. And just enjoy. It's all music.
 
 
Linus Dunce
15:22 / 08.01.03
Oops, sorry, hoover = vacuum cleaner, not Dir of FBI.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
18:40 / 08.01.03
Unfinished Post that can't wait

Wow, what a can of worms I have opened, more or less deliberately. I'm kind of in two minds about it, because on the one hand I think there are some really interesting directions it could spin off in, and yet on the other I think there are some weird misunderstandings going on...

(For the purposes of this post, I'm going to start using a capital P to distinguish Pop in the Girls Aloud, Britney sense from the wider kind of pop music as Riz mentions it - though I'd argue that even using the word as such a grouping is making a statement, and a good one.)

A couple of clarifications. Firstly, it wasn't my intention to set up a false binary/dichotomy wherein shiny 'commercial' Pop = good and underground/DIY/indie = bad. On the contrary, the term 'purists' was arrived upon as the best available term to describe the kind of people who would believe in such a binary opposition, albeit with the values reversed, and object when artists start to blur the line between the two in any way. Specifically, when people from the Pop world are perceived to be dabbling with the trappings of less mainstream subcultures (musical or otherwise), although of course when formerly underground acts cross over, there are some who have a standard objection to this as well (I think the 'selling out?' debate has been done to death though, don't you?).

Secondly - and I hardly think I need to point this out - I don't have a problem with DIY music at all. The music that has me most excited at the moment is all about that cut-and-paste, messy-round-the-edges, take-it-apart-and-glue-it-back-together-yrself ethos, but free from any kind of snobbery and coupled with a love for all that's sexy, energetic, instant, accessible and glamorous about Pop - eg, bootleg culture, Fischerspooner remixes, I'd argue electroclash but some may quibble with my definition, definitely people like Har Mar Superstar, the boys at It Came From The Sea who talk about mixing El-P into Pink...

So in some ways this thread backfired in that there would seem to be few people who qualify as purists or snobs in that sense posting here.

On the other hand, I think there's an entire essay to be written about Jade's likening of Pop to "having sex with a prostitute". A frequent criticism of Pop artists is that they "use sex to sell records", and it's commonplace in even the most otherwise right-on and respectable music publications to compare certain female artists to sex workers...
 
 
suds
13:14 / 09.01.03
flux i am neither shallow nor ignorant. enough please.
 
 
The Natural Way
13:23 / 09.01.03
Yes, but yr comments that border on "If Heat magazine aren't interested, then it's rubbish" are. And you started it by calling Flux conservative, when, it sounds to me, as though his tastes are far, far broader than yr own....

So, nyah!

I think yr great, suds, but I don't know what yr going on about here.
 
  

Page: 1(2)34567... 9

 
  
Add Your Reply