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Underground > Radio & Music >

Har Mar Superstar !

  
 
Alex's Grandma
17:28 / 06.09.04
My feeling is, not.
 
 
Ganesh
17:55 / 06.09.04
He speaks very highly of you.

Any chance of unpacking your opinion a little? Y'know, maybe explore reasons beyond obesity and 'idiocy'?
 
 
reFLUX
19:47 / 06.09.04
Har Mar IS a Superstar!
 
 
flufeemunk effluvia
21:57 / 06.09.04
Who is this "Har" "Mar"? Why is he a "Super Star"?
 
 
w1rebaby
00:02 / 07.09.04
What? What? What?
 
 
No star here laces
00:38 / 07.09.04
Peaches, only more stupid and less funny, something I didn't think was possible.

His fatness is irrelevant, only his suckiness is pertinent to the discussion.
 
 
not-so-deadly netshade
00:55 / 07.09.04
UGH! Middle-class, smalltown, American college kids WORSHIP this idiot. SO annoying. He's part of that whole, stupid, student "bad is the new good" mentality.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
06:59 / 07.09.04
Um... Most of this thread so far is not tolerable. Some people actually like the tunes, you know.

For those who aren't familiar: Har Mar's music is a mix of soul, funk, r&b and pop, with a dash of humour and usually a large helping of filth. Because he's a short, balding, tubby white guy who knows how to put on a live show and has a sense of humour, he's often written off as just an 'ironic' joke for hipsters, but I prefer to think of his music "less as some kind of stupid retro joke and more as being part of a tradition cut short by pop fashion" as some blogger dude put it. If you're looking for tracks to download, check out 'Cry 4 Help', 'Power Lunch' or 'Body Request' - that's one song from each album so far.

I think that there was a period last year when Har Mar was getting so ubiquitous in certain areas of the media that it was inevitable that he'd start to piss people off, but you also have to factor in the fact that some people just hate fun...
 
 
The Natural Way
10:56 / 07.09.04
Especially mods. In Brighton.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
13:00 / 07.09.04
Any chance of unpacking your opinion a little ?

Fair enough, fair enough. Well more than anything else he just reminds of me of the office prankster at a karaoke evening, in an afro wig and a gold medallion, that kind of guy, who based on the interview this week in The Independent On Sunday is nevertheless alarmingly serious about what he does, to the point of apparently seeing himself as some sort of force for social change, because he has " the guts " to strip down to his underwear while on stage. Which all just strikes me as a little deluded, as well as something, as a routine, that's going to get old very quickly. As with The Darkness, ( who Har Mar Superstar dismissed in the interview as " not having much of a shelf life, " - physician, heal thyself, ) novelty acts are bad enough at the best of times, but somehow even more hopeless when they're unwilling or unable to acknowledge what seems to be obvious to most people watching, IMHO.

But fair enough, I didn't mean to sound size-ist - it's not as if he's all that fat anyway, and what he is carrying seems like part of the act, more than anything else.

And yes, I admit it, I do hate fun.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
13:08 / 07.09.04
Surely novelty acts are defined by their intent: just because what Har Mar does seems absurd or ridiculous to you doesn't mean that he's 'really' a novelty act who's in denial...

Out of interest, Alex, have you heard any of the music he makes? What do you think of it, if so?
 
 
No star here laces
13:45 / 07.09.04
I've heard his music and I have to say that remove the vocals and it's utterly derivative and uninspired toss that has been completely surpassed and made irrelevant a long time ago by a multitude of far more talented producers.

As for the vocals, um yeah, well if they rock your boat, if you find them daring or challenging, I'm very surprised.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree defending this guy.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
14:24 / 07.09.04
I LOVE Har Mar. He is a ridiculous bundle of all that is good with the world. And he makes me smile. Leave him alone. You should feel ashamed of yourself, you have started a thread purely to rag on someone for being fat and stupid and you've put it in the wrong forum. Someone move this to conversation.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:31 / 07.09.04
Relevance is a bullshit concept, as is the idea that everything has to be "daring and challenging". Of course I don't find Har Mar's vocals "daring and challenging", any more than I find Astonishing X-Men, The OC or a plate of meatballs daring and challenging. When was that ever the point?
 
 
Alex's Grandma
17:22 / 07.09.04
Fly:

I'll admit that my semi-irrational loathing of Har Mar Superstar was partly based on seeing one of his videos a while ago now, back when he still had the 'tache, so I downloaded DUI in the interests of objectivity. And I can't say I really enjoyed it. For one thing, he seems to have nicked his act wholesale off Bobby Conn, and to a lesser extent Beck, the whole inept white soul singer shtick, and for another, I've never been much of a fan of the source material ( Prince, The Jacksons ) in the first place really. The whole project seems to me to have an overwhelming air of naffness about it - I was actually quite surprised by how bad I found the music, to be honest, I was expecting a cut-price Scissor Sisters maybe, not Prince as redone by The BMX Bandits, Michael Jackson reimagined by Daniel Johnson, and I can't help feeling this has best before Summer 2005 written all over it.

I'm not saying pop stars have to be beautiful, or even especially talented, but they should, I think, at least try and look cool, ( and there are any number of ways, I'm not being prescriptive, ) or failing that sound it, in the same way a plumber should know about drainage. Granted that's a bit of a personal prejudice, but then again, who still listens to The Housemartins these days ? Or Slade or Billy Bragg or Elton John or whoever ?

Basically, I just feel the aesthetics involved here aren't really to my taste.

But Anna, yes, I am very ashamed of myself.
 
 
I'm Rick Jones, bitch
18:05 / 07.09.04
But Anna, Har Mar hires lapdancers to be his backing dancers, a profession which you seemed to be pretty angry about a couple of threads back.

Saw him at Leeds 2003. Top fun. He's a complete asshole and ugly as a boot but he sounds like Prince so I'm sold.

You hear he's starting a band with Conner Oberst, Flux..?
 
 
Brigade du jour
21:41 / 07.09.04
I'm not saying pop stars have to be beautiful, or even especially talented, but they should, I think, at least try and look cool

Yes, but ... almost every popular musician since popular music began has tried to look cool. Many, if not most, have succeeded, and okay, maybe that's exactly why they've been so popular.

But isn't it, at the very least, a nice change when someone who isn't afraid to demonstrate how much fun he or she is having does so? We can't all be Radiohead, after all. In that sense (if no other, I admit I've only really seen pictures of this guy and couldn't help a wee chuckle) surely he is tolerable.
 
 
No star here laces
00:12 / 08.09.04
"Daring" "Challenging" and "Relevant" all become meaningful concepts when a musician, and Har Mar is a perfect example, goes out of their way to cutltivate a schtick and a persona that is a part and parcel of the entertainment package they provide.

Rachel Stevens' schtick is "fun sexy pop" and thus while it is stupid to lash out at "some girls" for not being as experimental as Radiohead, it is fair game to lambast her for dressing like shit or for producing dreary ballads.

In the case of Har Mar Superstar, he doesn't get a free pass just for trying to be 'fun'. Is he fun in a way that your dad would understand? Is he even fun in a way that the majority of the populace would find fun? No.

We are not talking about a populist act here. We are talking to someone who is trying to provide fun with a knowing "you all know what I'm doing here" wink. And as such he's lashed himself body and soul onto a ramshackle raft of culture that for the sake of a better word we can call "electroclash" some of whose signifiers include a playful sense of retro, fast clicky beats and badly rapped lyrics about sex.

And within the context which he exists, he's frankly boring. If you're still amused by him, well I congratulate you on your attention span. Hence I think it fair to call him "irrelevant" musically, as within the basic musical framework that he operates there are many producers moving the game on considerably and believe it or not producing more fun and surprising versions of pretty much the same thing.

e.g. Tiga's "where were you in '92" mix of "Shake your dix" or Tiefschwarz's mix of "Micky mouse motherfuckers", or even that Miss Kittin track.

(I'm obviously referring to dance records with comedy swearing here)

Coming on then to the lyrics. Um, I think we can agree that they're not clever. They're not tuneful. They're not hauntingly beautiful. So in what exact sense are they enjoyable? Isn't the intention there to surprise and amuse the audience by being in some sense daring?

"But intention doesn't matter"

Well lets assume for a second that it does otherwise we might as well disband the forum and all descend into our individual solipsistic morasses.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
10:49 / 08.09.04
1) Was listening to 'Body Request' again last night and you know, it really is "hauntingly beautiful". Like a requiem for the best summer evenings ever. It moves me in exactly the same way as 'Too Young' by Phoenix.

2) Accepting that an artist has a persona is not the same thing as thinking that this persona + the music has to = daring and challenging. Why can't it = comforting and enjoyable? Wait, it's because you're a) denying (in a smug arrogant arse way, "I think we can all agree", bah) that anyone could enjoy the music + persona in any other way (well I do, so nyah), and b) assuming that Har Mar's intention is to be daring. Y'know, when I saw the guy live, he didn't seem very concerned with being shocking - he might quip about being awesome, but he's not aloof and "fuck you" like Peaches, there's no fake blood spitting or anything... He just strikes me a little fella that really loves old funk, and gets really into singing and dancing about to it. Even the stripping seems almost a practical thing: dude gets sweaty moving about so much! It's not that I think intention doesn't matter, I just think you're making a mistake in assuming you know his intentions (just like the boring anti-pop peeps who say "this was clearly made to make money, not as a serious artistic statement" about chart stuff).

3) I don't actually understand this sentence: And as such he's lashed himself body and soul onto a ramshackle raft of culture that for the sake of a better word we can call "electroclash" some of whose signifiers include a playful sense of retro, fast clicky beats and badly rapped lyrics about sex. It really comes unstuck at the end: I don't know any Har Mar songs that have "clicky beats" or "rapped lyrics", and if he lacks these signifiers, how is he "electroclash"? I think you've constructed an enormous ironic hipster fashion strawman - I'm not asking that you consider Har Mar Superstar out of context, just that you recognise the difference between his music and that of other artists who share the same or a similar context.

4) What I mean by relevance being bullshit is that it leads to exactly the kind of mentality that makes people treat having a longer attention span than them as a bad thing. I much prefer Alex's simple explanation that it doesn't meet his aesthetic tastes, rather than the idea that "these other people have moved on therefore X should never be done anymore".

5) I reckon your problem with Har Mar is exactly the same problem you once had with Gold Chains. May I remind you that you revised that opinion once you got over the whole "he's a goofy white guy doing his own take on black music with humour and a slight degree of knowingness" problem and realised he had at least one 100% awesome tune? Free your mind, playboy.

6) Seriously, fucking 'Body Request' people. I have no idea if the rest of The Handler is like, but that song is a classic.
 
 
No star here laces
15:22 / 08.09.04
Well I base pretty much my entire opinion on that "deeper, deeper, i can feel your beeper" song. Which I loathe. On a personal aesthetic level. That do ya? (and it has clicky beats and an overdriven synth bassline)
 
 
reFLUX
20:10 / 08.09.04
why is everyone trying to justify an opinion based on the fact that you either like him or you don't. stop trying to say the other person is wrong and accept you are not right and nither is anyone else. it is your opinion that matters, and it is just that, your opinion.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
20:12 / 08.09.04
Can't we all just...get along?
 
 
The Natural Way
21:33 / 08.09.04
God, I hope not.
 
 
Char Aina
01:57 / 09.09.04
[flyboy hat]
But Anna, Har Mar hires lapdancers to be his backing dancers, a profession which you seemed to be pretty angry about a couple of threads back.


yeah, but he's not black.
[/flyboy hat]
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
06:43 / 09.09.04
reFLUX: you are familiar with the concept of a discussion forum, right? If people disagree, they tend to debate these things.

toksik: stop trolling, please.
 
 
Char Aina
07:08 / 09.09.04
are you using trolling to mean joking?
have you forgotten trying to sugest that someone was racist for using the organ grinder/monkey pairing to describe a black artist and his mentor without fully thinking through the ramifications of such a metaphor?
have you forgotten asserting that many people have a problem with rap as mysoginistic because of the race of the artists?

i thought i was being funny...
you know, taking something you do to people and overdoing it for effect?

no, anna is not a racist.
no, i dont think that really is her reason for having a double standard; i think it far more likely that she finds one aesthetic appealing and not the other.

my apologies if you feel that i was serious.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
07:51 / 09.09.04
Okay. Anyway, there are some issues about race and sex that relate to Har Mar Superstar - with regard to the issue of stripping, we should probably start by taking on board the fact that Har Mar gets down to his posing pouch and I'm fairly sure he was doing so before he had any backing dancers to do the same. However the next interesting question would be: "So how does body shape factor into all this?" - ie, as far as I'm aware Har Mar doesn't have any short, tubby backing dancers, and one wonders whether he ever would, or to what an extent a female artist with a comparable build to Har Mar who did a similar performance would be accepted (and by whom). The exact question is, I guess, something like: "Is the way Har Mar relates to body image subversive (because men are now oppressed to a degree by messages that tell them they have to be slender or buff, and he's short, tubby and proud) or conservative (because a short, tubby, not-conventionally-attractive man surrounded by tall, slender, conventionally-attractive women is actually a pretty familiar one in sexist culture)?"
 
 
Ganesh
09:13 / 09.09.04
I think Har Mar's appearance and behaviour are subversive: judging by the criticisms most commonly levelled at him (fat, sweaty, balding, ugly), he outrages, in many, a sort of inbuilt aesthetic hierarchy; I think there's a tacit sense that Someone Who Looks Like That Has No Right Behaving Like They're Sexy, and he flouts that.

I'm not sure that pop and beauty (usually = youth) have always been quite so closely correlated (I can remember '70s mingers of all shades). Within the current climate, however, a sweaty, overweight man stripping down to his underpants and dancing provocatively is subversive.

Go Har Mar Superstar!
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
09:22 / 09.09.04
On balance, I agree.
 
 
No star here laces
14:06 / 10.09.04
I think, all other things being equal, I prefer my musicians to be goodlooking.

The trouble is all things are not often equal.
 
 
reFLUX
20:44 / 10.09.04
good looking? it's music not a fashion show. i don't know what half the people who make the music i listen to look like, and i'd rather not. who gives a shit. music should do away with image not create it.
 
 
reFLUX
20:46 / 10.09.04
Har Mar might be a fatty but he still makes tight ass music that's funny and grooves me off.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
00:00 / 11.09.04
Some music can do without image - indeed, for some acts, as the man says, image actually detracts from the music, if you're so inclined as to judge.

In a lot of cases, image is inextricably tangled up with the appreciation of the music - the whole is the nexus of appreciation. Cf most groovy r n' b based pop music imported from America. While the music may be fantastic, the concentration of image, aesthetic and CHOON is what makes it work so beautifully. In a lot of cases, context, while not everything, is certainly a serious factor.

Har Mar is one of those cases. He's a fantastic performer, with some great tunes. He's no Prince, nor Michael Jackson. But he is a great pop star. There aren't many of those about who don't subscribe to a hefty dose of the body fascistic mentality that oppresses men and women all over the whitebread world today. There's Barry White, I guess...

The problem with this thread isn't the twatty jibes about sweaty little unattractive fat men. The problem, as usual, is the transfer of arbitrary signifiers (personal taste) into qualitative judgements. It doesn't need to be new, or relevant, or stunningly original - it just needs to appeal. Plenty of folk find Har Mar appealing. However, just because you don't doesn't mean you need to readjust your music set. It's just stuff, you know?
 
 
I'm Rick Jones, bitch
18:09 / 26.09.04
Seeing him tonight at Leeds Met. More later.
 
 
I'm Rick Jones, bitch
22:29 / 26.09.04
FUCKING GREAT!!!!!!!!!!1

More tomorrow, it is late
 
  
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