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From Simon Reynolds' Blog last year: Correspondent Matt Wright wonders whether "advocating for a return to a past aesthetic ideal”--“the modernist principle of pushing forward and advocating the Truly New”--as espoused by K-punk and (most of the time) myself, whether that was in some senses “anti-modernist /nostalgic”, in so far as one of the salient features of modernity as it's been for some while now is the fading away of the idea of the vanguard, its retreat from the centre of cultural life. This is an idea I’m presently trying out, like a new pair of shoes that are slightly uncomfortable, that you have to wear in a bit: the idea that we are now in different times, or more profoundly, living with a different sense of temporality. Indeed, have been for some while. I do think the uncanny persistence of indie-rock, the fact that it has outlasted all the obituaries written for it, is something to reckon with. Explaining it by positing an inherent lameness or laziness to its audience seems… inadequate. Perhaps it’s a format that does a certain thing particularly well, and the mystery is not the survival of the format, but the survival of the need for it (society's to blame?). Maybe it’s that indie-rock is actually like metal, a fixture on the music-culture menu now, again serving a certain population that keeps reforming itself and rewewing itself, again because of a certain stasis in society. Most of the time, metal's internal fluctuations are no interest to those not immersed in it, but every so often it'll throw up something that grabs the wider world's ear. And yet, metal does change, almost imperceptibly; you put a metal track from 2006 next to one from 1984 and they’re not the same. And so it goes with “indie,” that increasingly inadequate term; if you tele-transported an Artic Monkeys song back to 1985, it wouldn’t, actually, fit right in. |
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Talking of a sense of temporality changing radically, the fading or disruption of a former sense of forward propulsion through time… Alex Turner is 20, which means he was born in 1985, the annus disappointingus at which Rip it Up ends; the year when Retro-Rock displaced the early ideals of “independent”; his is a generation that was born under the sign of anachronesis, perhaps. Except perhaps not… because in the 90s there was a sense of future-tilted motion, largely due to E-lectronic music (do all the hurtling-into-the-future period--sixties, punk/postpunk, rave--have in common the quickening of culture caused by amphetamines?). Then again, it’s bizarre how "indie" has outlasted the irruption of “faceless techno bollocks,” the culture of DJs, beats, and E’s; how it’s outlived the future-surge of the ‘90s*. This struck me really forcefully with the unexpected appearance, near the end of “I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor,” of the phrase “banging tunes in DJ sets”. It suddenly made me wonder what dance music meant to this generation. The last convulsion of dance culture in Sheffield presumably would have been Gatecrasher, and that would have been 1999-2000--six years ago, an eternity when you're young. It would be something that AMs’ older brothers and sisters would have been involved, maybe; music for the AMs generation begins with the Strokes most likely. Jesus, for some of the young kids getting into AMs-type music now, the ones aged 11, 12, 13, raving might even be something their parents did! Or perhaps--and this is almost worse in a way--perhaps clubbing-and-drugging is something that’s around still but relegated to a leisure option, something they’ll dabble in a bit for a while (a teen rite of passage, doing your first E’s), or even to keep on dipping into, now and then…. but not a cause or a creed, no longer based on the military/religious models that underpinned rave in the ‘90s, not even a vibe-tribe or AWOL. |
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...while writing this I’ve been listening to that Boxcutter Breezeblock set that folks have been bigging up, except that the mp3 is of the whole Breezeblock/Mary Anne Hobbs show, which I’d never listened to before, and pretty diverting stuff it is, mix of dubstep/grime/drum’n’bass/UK hip hop/weirdbeat/melodic IDM/all sortsa beatz-oriented electronic music… but then I got this sudden feeling that "the future" itself had somehow become a minority interest, a niche market to be catered to... An enclosure where the Nineties never stopped happening. |
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I can't read so much in italics, can you post a link? |
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i stopped reading once it became obvious he doesn't know what "presently" means |
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"irruption" hahahaha and right before that, he's shiteing on like: Talking of a sense of temporality changing radically, the fading or disruption of a former sense of forward propulsion through time… Who the fuck is this twat? |
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Ok, I did read it. Well I agree with the closing statement, referring to the Grime/IDM etc ghetto "but then I got this sudden feeling that "the future" itself had somehow become a minority interest, a niche market to be catered to... An enclosure where the Nineties never stopped happening." Which makes some sense as to why I keep listening to this bloody rubbish, despite my advancing years, as I am STUCK in the 90s (when I was happy). But then, to return to the begining of the article, where he says about the mystery of Indie Rock's longevity "Maybe it’s that indie-rock is actually like metal, a fixture on the music-culture menu now, again serving a certain population that keeps reforming itself and rewewing itself, again because of a certain stasis in society." I'd say you could say that about Electronic music (IDM *wince*) as well, it's become a fixture now, albeit for a smaller audience, and there's not going to be any big changes anymore, just, as he says like with Metal, it changes imperceptibly over the years and is of no real interest to anyone outside the "scene" and only occassionaly will bubble into the larger conciousness. I've just kind of repeated the second paragraph. But a very good read. |
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boxcutter is rubbish |
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oh, oh, question for you.. is "conjugate" only used in connection with verbs? if so, what is the equivalent for other classes of words? |
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this thing looks so boring i even preferred reading redrum's posts |
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*important, serious response* |
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interesting text, thanks |
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like.. in what way? i can't imagine doing something similar to conjugation to any other type of word |
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You might as well write an article about why people still eat chocolate. The problem with that blog is that it's horribly over-earnest. Why the need for the clunky, arched eyebrow diction? He's not talking about post-structuralism - he's talking about the Arctic Monkeys. |
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well, that's what I mean.. I always thought it was called conjugation for all words.. when you change the word according to, for instance, how many things you want it to apply to (one car, several cars) or what degree of.. "strength" you want it to be in (strong, stronger, strongest), etc, for each class of words where it's possible to do something similar. You see, in norwegian, we call all these operations just "bøying" (translates as bending) whether it's a verb, a noun or whatever, but as you didn't see how you could do something like conjugation to other types of words, there must be some other word for it for those other types of words..? |
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good, too: "the patient unfurling of the label's sonic signature-- not to mention its continuing currency in dance circles-- is testament to the curious slowness with which this decade marches forward"--" "curious slowness with which this decade marches forward" - so true! (note to self: well, change that then!) |
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number of things: plurality changing one -> plural: you could say "pluralise" but i'd really only use such a word if i were writing a paper in which it was necessary to write "pluralise" a lot. otherwise i'd just say "change to a plural" or something. stength: um.. i'd say "declining adjectives" to describe the action of listing adjectives with their comparative and superlative forms. so yeah.. to the best of my knowledge there isn't a single word or a group of words for describing that kind of action.. conjugation i'd use only for verbs, decline/declining for others.. but that's probably as a result of the influence of my german education. meh |
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ok, so I'll just have to.. describe it, in a way, if I am to write about it in english... it seems odd, though, that there isn't some sort of word for it.. it wouldn't have to be one specific one for all word classes, but a general one that includes them all, even conjugation. Oh well... |
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Interesting read, despite my utter disgust with blogs as a format. And yeah, pretty much everything is a niche nowadays. The only thing 'sweeping the nation(s)' anymore seems to be these horrible hipsteresque iPod-fueled ideologies of 'randomness' and faux-individuality.. a feeling more than a specific music style (although they do definitely have some styles attached to them...) The very proliferation of the niches seems to be part of that feeling.. the 'postmodern' acceptance of all styles, the shallow assimilation of those for your own purposes and to help in the even shallower process of identity formation. That's why everyone on myspace like 'Everything' in their music taste.. and why they think they're 'random' and their tastes are 'eclectic.' It's a big illusion, but a bona-fide trend if you ask me. It's just no longer relegated to one musical style. Boy, look at me, being cynical about Simon Reynold's essay and then I go write a big load of BS myself.. sorry about that. |
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