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Topic ClosedThe cultural legitimacy of prog, metal and punk

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rogerthat View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 13 2014 at 19:53
Originally posted by Toaster Mantis Toaster Mantis wrote:

 

Couldn't you say the same thing about the more "traditional" metal subgenres like for instance NWoBHM sans its rawer-than-roadkill Venom/Atomkraft/Warfare corner, newer power/speed, the styles of doom that still are close to bluesy hard rock etc.?  

[/quote]

I am not sure I would consider doom accessible except maybe stoner rock bands like Kyuss.  Stuff like Candlemass is too slow for a typical rock listener's requirement.  I agree that NWOBHM/80s pop metal would not be a big leap for rock listeners.
Originally posted by Toaster Mantis Toaster Mantis wrote:

 


Another thing: I'm also certain that around here the more accessible metal and to some extent prog (depending on the social milieu) are actually more popular than the comparably accessible end of old punk at least as far as the general public goes. When it comes to what's acclaimed by the kind of people who write books about the history of rock music, though, and professional critics in general the script flips completely.

(that's also one of the main points of that Spiked Online article)

I am not really as sure of that but for the second part of your comment I agree with Exitthelemming.  I don't think legitimacy needs to be conferred by academics or journalists.  What matters (if even that matters) is what the people like.  

Originally posted by Toaster Mantis Toaster Mantis wrote:


I really think that depends a lot on which parts of the metal scene you are exposed to, in my experience it's usually people who got into it first through its most extreme incarnations and don't listen to very much before the 1990s (or maybe the mid-1980s) who are like that. I've also encountered at least as much genre-chauvinism from indie kids, jazz enthusiasts, prog/psych fans and the most purist folk/blues fans too for that matter.

And in Tom Araya's defense, he fronts the group most responsible for separating heavy metal from normal rock music. I'm pretty sure Slayer wouldn't have ended up being that musically groundbreaking in the first place if they didn't find the vast majority of hitherto existing rock boring.


Actually, the specific snob I had cited listens to more of 90s metal.  Don't forget that Brutal Death Metal took root in the 90s.  Tongue  It is not a question of genre chauvinism per se but the belief in a 'metal' way of life.  That makes metal snobbery more imposing - like if you don't wear long hair, you are not metal enough and all that.  It is kind of 'mandatory' to do all this to fit into the metal community.  I have not experienced that in jazz or prog, not so far.  There will always be purists as long as there is art, of course.  I find prog metal heads the least snobbish and would argue that many gravitate to prog metal because they dislike this 'metal way' and 'metal lyrics' and want something sensible within the overall package of heavy riffs/high singing/grunts etc.

As for Araya, it is not the fact that he finds classic rock boring that I find remarkable (that's ok, it's just his tastes). He goes on to presume that for a classic rock band, it would be so boring to keep playing the same songs for 30 years (whereas, so the argument goes, because Slayer songs are so fast and brutal, they never get boring).  This ties in what I said about the peculiar brand of metal snobbery. It is not restricted merely to assuming that metal is the best form of music and metalheads don't need any other music.  They even question, usually boldly and brashly, what pleasure do non-metalheads get from their music.  The thought that a classic rock artist may not have an emotional connection with his work just because it is not as fast as metal is ludicrous.  
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 14 2014 at 04:09
Originally posted by rogerthat rogerthat wrote:

I am not sure I would consider doom accessible except maybe stoner rock bands like Kyuss.


Or bands like Pentagram, Saint Vitus, Witchfinder General etc. who aren't terribly removed from Black Sabbath themselves. In the case of Pentagram, it was more a series of bad business decisions and their singer's drug problems that kept them from getting popular.

Quote I am not really as sure of that but for the second part of your comment I agree with Exitthelemming.  I don't think legitimacy needs to be conferred by academics or journalists.  What matters (if even that matters) is what the people like. 


That's the classic is/ought problem: The kind of artistic importance that goes down in cultural history is the one that can be measured by academic recognition - like it or not. Notice that the Impressionist painters of the late 19th century weren't very popular back then, but they're the ones that are remembered today as emblematic of the period. The actually popular academic painters of the day, like William-Adolphe Bouguereau who stuck to more conventional styles and mythological motifs, have basically been forgotten by all except academic art historians.

I'm also more interested in the basic analysis of exactly how that happens without necessarily getting into the prescriptive part of the equation. Why have more subcultural-anthropological studies and respectful music analysis been written about Krautrock and the '77 punk explosion than about NWoBHM, and why are they more frequently brought up by cultural historians as landmark signs of the changes that happened in the society of their time? Also, why do outside observers seemingly care more about all this than most of the involved musicians themselves?

Of course, the last question is where it's hard not to get judgemental as ExitTheLemming's post pointed out. To quote the Demontage guy once again: You could possibly point to a number of books that have been written about punk, but you could just as easily argue that the fact that there are published books about the punk movement signifies the end of punk as a movement... and what do Arts and Culture sections of upscale newspapers know about punk? And is their writing about them a sign of success or failure?

Quote Actually, the specific snob I had cited listens to more of 90s metal.  Don't forget that Brutal Death Metal took root in the 90s.  Tongue


Well, that's kind of my point. If someone really stresses the disconnect between metal and rock they've usually gotten through the former through its more extreme incarnations.

Quote It is not a question of genre chauvinism per se but the belief in a 'metal' way of life.  That makes metal snobbery more imposing - like if you don't wear long hair, you are not metal enough and all that.  It is kind of 'mandatory' to do all this to fit into the metal community.


I've definitely noticed the same, though with the caveat for the record Anglo-Saxon metallers seem to push that angle much harder than Continental European ones in addition to also being more hostile towards other alternative subcultures and musically unconventional metal artists for reasons I don't completely grasp. (not familiar enough with the metal scenes in the rest of the world to really analyze them the same way) That said, hip-hop, punk and goth/industrial have the same fixation on also being a cultural identity and lifestyle, not just a genre of music, that you have to follow if you want to be really into it. I actually think punks and rivetheads can be more puritanistic about it than metalheads but that of course depends on where and whom you ask.

Also, now that I've mentioned hip-hop I think it along with disco might be relevant to the discussion that both genres were at first seen as annoying fads at best threats to common moral virtue at worst. Now they've been rehabilitated by academic musicologists and other experts as legitimate artforms that were misunderstood at first.


Edited by Toaster Mantis - January 14 2014 at 04:43
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 14 2014 at 09:31
Originally posted by Toaster Mantis Toaster Mantis wrote:

 
That's the classic is/ought problem: The kind of artistic importance that goes down in cultural history is the one that can be measured by academic recognition - like it or not. Notice that the Impressionist painters of the late 19th century weren't very popular back then, but they're the ones that are remembered today as emblematic of the period. The actually popular academic painters of the day, like William-Adolphe Bouguereau who stuck to more conventional styles and mythological motifs, have basically been forgotten by all except academic art historians.

I'm also more interested in the basic analysis of exactly how that happens without necessarily getting into the prescriptive part of the equation. Why have more subcultural-anthropological studies and respectful music analysis been written about Krautrock and the '77 punk explosion than about NWoBHM, and why are they more frequently brought up by cultural historians as landmark signs of the changes that happened in the society of their time? Also, why do outside observers seemingly care more about all this than most of the involved musicians themselves?

I am not sure that what works with respect to classical music of the 19th or 20th century would necessarily hold good for rock and pop music of the 1960s and onwards.  Maybe it is just a wrong impression that I have but a lot of writing on these genres seems to focus heavily on the sociological context without much of musical analysis.  One of the reasons may be that from a music-academic point of view, rock music is still not taken seriously and it's only classical and jazz that are regarded as academic music.  That being the case, it is possible the writing too hunts for a fertile sociological context to the music to be written about.  There's plenty of it in 60s rock a la Dylan/Beatles or punk and not much of it in prog or metal.  This may not necessarily say much about the enduring popularity of a given music genre or subgenre, though.  The particular context of the 60s may no longer be as relevant anymore and in this much more mass media driven age of music, music that loses relevance will probably get forgotten pretty quickly.  Not that I think that necessarily applies to punk but I am just saying what attracts academicians may be altogether different from what the public wants to listen to but it is what the public wants and why they want to that needs to be analysed, not what looks more interesting to analyse or write about.   


Originally posted by Toaster Mantis Toaster Mantis wrote:

I've definitely noticed the same, though with the caveat for the record Anglo-Saxon metallers seem to push that angle much harder than Continental European ones in addition to also being more hostile towards other alternative subcultures and musically unconventional metal artists for reasons I don't completely grasp. (not familiar enough with the metal scenes in the rest of the world to really analyze them the same way) That said, hip-hop, punk and goth/industrial have the same fixation on also being a cultural identity and lifestyle, not just a genre of music, that you have to follow if you want to be really into it. I actually think punks and rivetheads can be more puritanistic about it than metalheads but that of course depends on where and whom you ask.

Also, now that I've mentioned hip-hop I think it along with disco might be relevant to the discussion that both genres were at first seen as annoying fads at best threats to common moral virtue at worst. Now they've been rehabilitated by academic musicologists and other experts as legitimate artforms that were misunderstood at first.

Point taken, I cannot comment on those examples because I have never met a punk or hip hop purist.  Maybe it's the combination of metal's extreme-ness and the snobbery that makes it more exclusionary.  It is hard to pinpoint in words but my impression is that metal has over the years evolved on an independent path with its own culture, removed from rock.  As rock sought to get dirty and simplify in the 90s, metal got more brutal and faster at the extreme end of the spectrum and more ostentatious and grander at the 'power'/'symphonic' end of the spectrum.  Metal bands, especially in doom metal, have continued to pile on long (not necessarily prog) tracks oblivious to the anti-epic rhetoric in the rock world.  All of this might mean that the initiation process itself is fairly lengthy for a new listener LOL and the effort required might repel fans.  Metalheads can be pretty nasty if you cannot name the exact bizarre subgenre combination required to be suffixed to a band.  I found a college friend to make sense of the nonsense to me, else I might have been at sea.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 15 2014 at 06:43
Originally posted by rogerthat rogerthat wrote:

Maybe it is just a wrong impression that I have but a lot of writing on these genres seems to focus heavily on the sociological context without much of musical analysis.  One of the reasons may be that from a music-academic point of view, rock music is still not taken seriously and it's only classical and jazz that are regarded as academic music.  That being the case, it is possible the writing too hunts for a fertile sociological context to the music to be written about.  There's plenty of it in 60s rock a la Dylan/Beatles or punk and not much of it in prog or metal.  This may not necessarily say much about the enduring popularity of a given music genre or subgenre, though.  The particular context of the 60s may no longer be as relevant anymore and in this much more mass media driven age of music, music that loses relevance will probably get forgotten pretty quickly.


I think that depends on where you live, a friend of mine who is minoring in musicology is going through a couple courses on popular music. As for sociological study of progressive rock and heavy metal, the former did evolve out of the 1960s psychedelic scene developing an interest in "serious music" like jazz and classical which becomes clear if you notice Yes' career trajectory out of the ashes of Tomorrow up to their gradual development of their neoclassical signature style... or for that matter Pink Floyd's evolution from Syd Barrett's vision to Roger Waters'. You could tie that into the larger pattern on the 1960s' turning into the 1970s. Then there's my pet theory that progressive rock's mid-1970s decline and both punk and metal's coming into their own at that time had something to do with the increasingly pessimistic zeitgeist in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis and Watergate.

Which brings us to: Both the late-'70s/early-'80s punk explosion and the indie rock scene that followed have been analyzed as simultaneously a reaction against the bleak conformity of the Thatcher/Reagan era and embodying the era's entrepreneurial spirit in their "do it yourself" business ethos. You could make a similar point about the New Wave of British Heavy Metal which took off at the same time. The most interesting studies of the Scandinavian black/death metal scenes of the early 1990s, Daniel Ekeroth's Swedish Death Metal and Michael Moynihan's Lords of Chaos about Norwegian BM, characterize both as the result of above-average intelligence angry young men reacting against a comfortable but boring social-democratic welfare state society where mediocrity was basically forced upon you by going in the polar opposite cultural direction. It was also around the same time that it became fashionable to talk about the "end of history" (as Francis Fukuyama called it) and the death of the grand narratives driving them.

At the same time, if we're too insistent on seeing art as first and foremost a product of the surrounding zeitgeist's (or volksgeist's) context we just end up missing the forest for the trees in many cases. See my post about Kerouac earlier in the thread for a specific example.


Edited by Toaster Mantis - January 15 2014 at 06:44
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 15 2014 at 08:52
Hi
 
Quote I am not really as sure of that but for the second part of your comment I agree with Exitthelemming.  I don't think legitimacy needs to be conferred by academics or journalists.  What matters (if even that matters) is what the people like. 

I think that within 20 to 30 years we will have our answer on this.
 
Popular music has never gotten the credit and respect, that some of it deserves for its inventiveness, because it was just popylar music, and bar music! And 100 years ago, that kind of music, never got one iota of attention that we are aware of, as there are no details or stories, or history for any of it.
 
The age of electricity and RECORDING, will change all of that, and now I have a feeling that "popular music" and other forms of music that were heretofore ignored, will get some well deserved attention, and more than likely better definition than the wishy-washy and non-musical description that rock music has helped create for "progressive".
 
So, now, we can go back to Plato, if you learned about that in school, and ask ... does might make right? ... and I can tell you one thing, right now! If that were the case, the music we love would NEVER have made the grade because folks like you are too concerned with the sales, not the music!
 
I am, NOW, a serious believer that there has always been some music, that the populace enjoyed that we will never know about or hear, because it is gone. The 20th century changed that recipe, and a lot of things can be heard, and they have put a serious dent on books on music and their definitions, when all of a sudden, they are seriously lacking, and some rock folks are doing far more than Rachmaninoff! But I will STILL tip my hat to Dean, as most of this stuff is just pop music, and it is still being treated as such in a top ten environment.
 
Again, might makes right, should not be the indicator for the arts, otherwise a commercial Blade Runner will eat us alive ... and we might as well die, and not give a sh*t about anything!


Edited by moshkito - January 15 2014 at 09:06
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 15 2014 at 09:17
Originally posted by Toaster Mantis Toaster Mantis wrote:

 
At the same time, if we're too insistent on seeing art as first and foremost a product of the surrounding zeitgeist's (or volksgeist's) context we just end up missing the forest for the trees in many cases. See my post about Kerouac earlier in the thread for a specific example.

That is exactly what I am trying to say.  I can understand the attraction of music that evolved as a reaction to certain historical events as a subject of study but not every artist making music does so for such reasons.  As Ralph Vaugh Williams said of attempts to interpret his Symphony no.6 as based on the nuclear explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, "It never seems to occur to people that a man might just want to write a piece of music."
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 15 2014 at 11:23
Originally posted by Toaster Mantis Toaster Mantis wrote:


Which brings us to: Both the late-'70s/early-'80s punk explosion and the indie rock scene that followed have been analyzed as simultaneously a reaction against the bleak conformity of the Thatcher/Reagan era and embodying the era's entrepreneurial spirit in their "do it yourself" business ethos. You could make a similar point about the New Wave of British Heavy Metal which took off at the same time.


I've always maintained that linking the advent of punk to Thatcher/Regan is a myth and historically incorrect. Neither was in power before 1979 so how could punk have been a reaction to them? The UK economy had been going down the pan since the early 70s but there was an old school Labour Government in power in 1977 (the "Summer of Punk") with a still comfortable welfare state and relatively low unemployment. I've read one theory that punk would have been much harder if Thatcher had been in power as she brought in youth job creation schemes that you had to attend or lose benefits. Under Labour you could loaf around on relatively decent unemployment benefits and form bands!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 15 2014 at 13:59
Not to mention that on the other side of the pond punk has been going on since at least the 1960s with the MC5, New York Dolls and the Stooges. I also think its taking off really begun in the post-Watergate mid-1970s' cultural climate of pessimism, that was around the time that the NY protopunk artists ExitTheLemming mentioned made their names. Still, notice that punk's most extreme incarnations ("hardcore" as it's called today) and most outside-the-box-thinking styles ("post-punk") which didn't really take off until the end of the decade... the book in question is about how the latter turned into the beginning of the indie rock scene in the 1980s.

This excerpt
from Death to Trad Rock reveals that many of the UK '80s indie groups did define their entire worldview and guiding virtues as opposed to the Thatcher administration's, even the less openly political ones. I guess some art forms really do lend themselves more easily to analysis as part of a greater context - be it biographical, cultural, historical or political - than others.


Edited by Toaster Mantis - January 15 2014 at 15:12
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 15 2014 at 23:00
I enjoy very many of the so-called Post Punk bands cited in John Robb's article (the Fall, PIL, Joy Division, Fire Engines, Monochrome Set, Wire et al) but would struggle to endorse much of anything that followed in their wake into the mid 80's. It seems significant that a bunch of artists whose only common ground was a shared antipathy to the Thatcher persona and an endorsement of Punk's DIY ethos are now largely all but forgotten. Their unquestioning support for the miner's strike from our post socialist perspective just seems incredibly short sighted. It really ain't hard to deduce that heavy industries like coal mining and ship building's days were numbered and had to be replaced by alternatives. This was always going to be a very painful process but perhaps we should have been campaigning for the need for retraining and support for the communities affected instead? it's all too easy to forget how the UK was routinely brought to its knees by industrial action from intransigent trade unions throughout the 70s.

I've always suspected that the 'C86 freebie cassette movement' was a desperate piece of aesthetic gerrymandering engineered by the NME in response to their being marginalised by Sounds coverage of '76 punk. Looking back over the tracklist, only Primal Scream ever amounted to anything. It's interesting that Robb lavishes so much attention on the Stranglers as if they were the embodiment of the prevailing zeitgeist (they were a psychedelic pop group at the right place right time in 1977 writing short memorable aggressive songs. They were never a punk bank and Entwistle really initiated the bass guitar revolution not Burnel)

Oh yes and lastly, although it's certainly a well written and passionate piece, Robb comes across in places like a nostalgic hipster pining for a past that never existed in the first place. He also completely fails to grasp that memorable commercial s.h.i.t. will trump disingenuous obscure s.h.i.t. every time. Give me Abba over Beefheart any dayShocked








Edited by ExittheLemming - January 16 2014 at 04:43
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 16 2014 at 05:10
If there's anything my studies of the subject have taught me, it's that the difference between "high" and "low" culture is mostly a matter of which audiences embrace the art in question. What in turn decides that, though, comes up to different factors.

In the field of literature, I remember reading interviews with both Stephen King and Amy Tan that at book fairs the questions they were asked by fans revolved around characterization and plot structure whereas "high" authors like Don DeLillo and Cormac MacCarthy were more often asked about the prose style. I think there's some truth about how in literature "low" audiences are more concerned with plot and character, whereas "high" audiences are more concerned about prose style and abstract theme. Just notice which authors of crime fiction have been embraced by academic elite audiences, it' s usually ones like Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy who abandon traditional narrative structures and use very stylized prose. I also remember reading something somewhere about how the metal artists became popular among cultural elite audiences are often more concerned with exploring sonic textures than with identifiable riffing and traditional narrative song structure, but I can't find it now. (when it doesn't have to do with image, like Black Ivory Tower's article about blackgaze pointed out)

Then there's the stuff I mentioned earlier about art either actively or unintentionally evoking some external context of meaning, rooted in cultural tradition or autobiography or sociological/political circumstances, lends itself easier to academic analysis despite not having any bearing on its objective quality. This might explain why academics writing about popular music might take so easily to hip-hop, indie, psychedelia and punk, whereas most metal artists' influences from "high culture" is either second-hand through pulp/B-movie escapist genre fiction or filtered through that aesthetic, but of course this theory relies on much generalization and speculation about people's motivations that's hard to verify in particular if you go beyond specific examples.


Edited by Toaster Mantis - January 16 2014 at 05:32
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 16 2014 at 05:33
I tend to agree with Iain here, that is if I'm reading him right. Very often these pieces look at history in a backhanded sort of way. They emphasise certain patterns that we today, with the gift of looking back from all kinds of different perspectives (much due to a thing like the internet), implement on days gone past without paying much attention to the people who lived it. 

Edited by Guldbamsen - January 16 2014 at 05:38
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 16 2014 at 07:01
Originally posted by Toaster Mantis Toaster Mantis wrote:

If there's anything my studies of the subject have taught me, it's that the difference between "high" and "low" culture is mostly a matter of which audiences embrace the art in question. What in turn decides that, though, comes up to different factors.

In the field of literature, I remember reading interviews with both Stephen King and Amy Tan that at book fairs the questions they were asked by fans revolved around characterization and plot structure whereas "high" authors like Don DeLillo and Cormac MacCarthy were more often asked about the prose style. I think there's some truth about how in literature "low" audiences are more concerned with plot and character, whereas "high" audiences are more concerned about prose style and abstract theme. Just notice which authors of crime fiction have been embraced by academic elite audiences, it' s usually ones like Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy who abandon traditional narrative structures and use very stylized prose. I also remember reading something somewhere about how the metal artists became popular among cultural elite audiences are often more concerned with exploring sonic textures than with identifiable riffing and traditional narrative song structure, but I can't find it now. (when it doesn't have to do with image, like Black Ivory Tower's article about blackgaze pointed out)

Then there's the stuff I mentioned earlier about art either actively or unintentionally evoking some external context of meaning, rooted in cultural tradition or autobiography or sociological/political circumstances, lends itself easier to academic analysis despite not having any bearing on its objective quality. This might explain why academics writing about popular music might take so easily to hip-hop, indie, psychedelia and punk, whereas most metal artists' influences from "high culture" is either second-hand through pulp/B-movie escapist genre fiction or filtered through that aesthetic, but of course this theory relies on much generalization and speculation about people's motivations that's hard to verify in particular if you go beyond specific examples.


At the risk of coming across like a 'low culture' toerag, what the hell does that mean? ain't the foregoing just a very eloquent way of saying those outside the 'cultural elite audience' are incapable of appreciating the abstract in a work of art? You make the notion of 'traditional narrative structure' sound like a quaint nursery rhyme that only toddlers, the nil by mouth and mentally infirm continue to invest with any authenticity. Sorry to sound so blunt but this type of arcane speculation is all the confirmation bias the rest of us need to deduce that Prog,Metal or Punk require no retrospective cultural legitimacy conferred on it by academia to validate our tastes.


Edited by ExittheLemming - January 16 2014 at 07:56
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 18 2014 at 17:21
Originally posted by Toaster Mantis Toaster Mantis wrote:

...
Then there's the stuff I mentioned earlier about art either actively or unintentionally evoking some external context of meaning, rooted in cultural tradition or autobiography or sociological/political circumstances, lends itself easier to academic analysis despite not having any bearing on its objective quality. This might explain why academics writing about popular music might take so easily to hip-hop, indie, psychedelia and punk, whereas most metal artists' influences from "high culture" is either second-hand through pulp/B-movie escapist genre fiction or filtered through that aesthetic, but of course this theory relies on much generalization and speculation about people's motivations that's hard to verify in particular if you go beyond specific examples.
 
You really want to read Patti Smith's book.
 
It's tough to figure out how to explain all this, and put it into words and many folks here have no idea, and they don't care for ideas, because Kansas is their favorite band, and all of a sudden, your argument is taken out as worthless because of another point that might not, necessarily, be as valuable or important, except to that fan.
 
The fact that some of those individualistic scenes get attention is easy, to show and explain. They stood up and did something different! Kansas, didn't! They had a pop song that did really well on radio and was fantastic for the new FM radio in America, before it became commercialized!
 
I think that as time goes by, that some of this discussion will go more towards the artistic side of the discussion, I hope anyway, because otherwise it is just like the 300 pages on Italian googah, or 300 pages on something or other, and no one, will EVER take a look at those again, and so much of it gets wasted! But I think that the eventual  demise of the populist thing is that no one will ever remember any of it. And too many of the bands out there suffer because of it, even though they tried.
 
As long as you and I see that and we make that visible, I will let the other folks do reviews that this song and that song is progressive because it sounds like Genesis! Or that it is Metal because of the compression or loudness on this or that!  Cool  Ouch  Confused  LOL  Cry  Tongue


Edited by moshkito - January 18 2014 at 17:22
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 18 2014 at 17:36
Originally posted by ExittheLemming ExittheLemming wrote:

...
At the risk of coming across like a 'low culture' toerag, what the hell does that mean? ain't the foregoing just a very eloquent way of saying those outside the 'cultural elite audience' are incapable of appreciating the abstract in a work of art?
...
 
As I have mentioned before, this is a problem that we will see an answer from in the next 50 years. Because of RECORDING, this is the first century that we have actually heard anything that was not "accepted" or considered "music" and the histroy of the art form.
 
There is no history of popular music, other than heresay and a few songs, all of which were, still following the old tradition of mouth to mouth and hand to hand, but there was no music, or notation about it anywhere.
 
I've come to believe that there always was other music's out there, popular or not, but too many of them were dismissed as just "bar room" stuff, or "whatever" stuff (so to speak!!!), and with RECORDING, this is no longer going to happen, and someone is always going to find something or other in those, and you and I can easily say and see that there are rock bands that are far better than Rachmaninoff, or Schoenberg! AND more adventurous!
 
But we have this "class" thing that is pathetic, and even some folks love to trash me on it, when I'm always the first to try and debunk that and put down the old historians of the arts, as snobs, which even my family IS, being a part of a very high literary force! They still ask me why I post in places that are not educated and would not understand what I am saying!
 
I'm here, aren't I? Now you know why! That bridge has to die and disappear. Just like we have to stop worrying about black or white, gay or straight. This is about PEOPLE and their spirit as an art form. Do we accept their beauty or not and go find excuses as to why we don't like them or the music? Now you know why I do not go around saying rap stinks, because it doesn't, specially when our attitude does more than all of it out there does! It has a right to live!
 
The cultural rag thing is for folks that feel threatened by their (lack of?) knowledge of things in general, as it threatens their "FAN" concept and ideals. Otherwise you would ask something like -- how do you see that if I may ask? instead of getting offended like so many do here! You would learn something! As would I be appreciative of your asking and helpig me clarify my comments better!


Edited by moshkito - January 18 2014 at 17:48
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 18 2014 at 21:53
Originally posted by Toaster Mantis Toaster Mantis wrote:

 

In the field of literature, I remember reading interviews with both Stephen King and Amy Tan that at book fairs the questions they were asked by fans revolved around characterization and plot structure whereas "high" authors like Don DeLillo and Cormac MacCarthy were more often asked about the prose style. I think there's some truth about how in literature "low" audiences are more concerned with plot and character, whereas "high" audiences are more concerned about prose style and abstract theme. Just notice which authors of crime fiction have been embraced by academic elite audiences, it' s usually ones like Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy who abandon traditional narrative structures and use very stylized prose. I also remember reading something somewhere about how the metal artists became popular among cultural elite audiences are often more concerned with exploring sonic textures than with identifiable riffing and traditional narrative song structure, but I can't find it now. (when it doesn't have to do with image, like Black Ivory Tower's article about blackgaze pointed out)


Very interesting points.  Metal's own tendency to constantly militate against this typecasting as, well, 'dumb', 'brawn' music seems to confirm the stereotype in a way. As Pedro just said in another context, why would one react strongly to something if one didn't feel insecure that way.  It ties in with my observations of simplistic notions about what makes for good music held in metal circles, the problem not necessarily so much that such notions are held (they may well be by individuals for whatever reasons they see fit) but that these notions are widely endorsed within the metal community and taken as conventional wisdom.  Indeed, music that was actually sophisticated would not seek to constantly shackle its frontiers by rigid adherence to metal norms and would rather seek to subvert the norm.  That is what experimentation is all about.  I just watched Todd Haynes's brilliant short on Karen Carpenter (though I am not supposed to Tongue) yesterday so I could relate to your observations above.  

I think the problem people have with this notion is that high or low may come to be equated with the respective economic or social strata.  To extend this logic, as if only academics and such other highly degree-d individuals have the right to decide what is high and what is low art.  That is something we need to avoid and whether it is high or low depends entirely on the particular individual's level of appreciation.  And by implication, categorising art as high or low based only on the profile of majority of the audience may be simplistic (though I see we are getting into ought v/s is again); the Beatles could after all combine a high level of commercial as well as critical appreciation.  Granted, that's Beatles, but critical analysis that fails to spot genius for what it is is more than a bit of a waste.

 I however fully endorse the line of thinking that an interest restricted merely to plot and narrative is a relatively low level of appreciation and that which extends to form and style is a higher level of appreciation.  If that sounds elitist, I couldn't care less about that. Wink At the end of the day, every avid reader is not necessarily a bestselling author in waiting either. Some people do get more deeply involved in art than others, deal with it.  It is only in art that people have huge problems with accepting this reality. Nobody would grudge a car enthusiast or an amateur chef his passion and knowledge on the subject.


Edited by rogerthat - January 19 2014 at 01:50
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 19 2014 at 10:58
Originally posted by rogerthat rogerthat wrote:

 ...
I think the problem people have with this notion is that high or low may come to be equated with the respective economic or social strata.  To extend this logic, as if only academics and such other highly degree-d individuals have the right to decide what is high and what is low art.
...
 
The problem is that ALL books that deal with history of ALL the arts, are done as academic pursuits, or it will be ignored, and has been ignored for hundreds of years, because the majority of the "lower classes' were uneducated, and in many cases, could not even read or write. I've wanted to put together a conglomeration of posts from folks in this board to show how valuable a lot of this work is. But even some folks get terribly yanked when that one guy did an insane breakdown of "Close to the Edge" in the most academic of styles ever done. I don't think we have to go that far, but I'm not sure that we can ignore, that kind of mentality and insanity, and would not want a portion of it, on our work. Or you can go read some pornographic stuff around the century (The Oyster comes to mind!), that has a lot of this discussion in place about the lower classes not being educated enough to even vote, let alone have a say in anything!
 
Education, is ALMOST, a 20th century thing. But you can go back to the Romantic Era of the arts, and already see the lower classes fighting back. If you ever watch the "Sharpe" series, Cornwell's stories are big on showing you how the lower classes helped bring the fight to the "people" and such as well. Even though it is a novel, the period that it takes place already shows signs of fight against the "authority" or the "upper classes" that were in power.
 
I kinda look at the turn of the 20th century as the time when things finally took hold, and individuality in the arts became OK and appreciated, specially in painting and literature. And later, in full force in music as well.
 
I think that, RECORDING, is the difference. Now we KNOW, there was music around all that "classical" and "artistic" stuff, that we know was ignored and not considered intelligent music. And there are many rock bands out there that are far more interesting than any work that Schoenberg, or Rachmaninoff put together, but they are not getting the credit because it is electric and not orchestrated in the way that "it is supposed to!".
 
It's a new dawn and day.
 
We're in the middle of it!
 
And we're the teachers and the folks that will help carry all this stuff through.
 
For me, "PROGRESSIVE" is one of the parts of it all. For me, a lot of it is the "classical music" of today, because all the other stuff has gotten boring, repetitive, and the ballerina has already banged her head and died, according to Ian Anderson!
 
But the "upper classes", will never again, have a say or control over what is good or bad or "classical music". And, honestly, I think that is a great thing!


Edited by moshkito - January 22 2014 at 10:35
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 19 2014 at 11:42
Meh, I remember reading that musicological analysis of Close to the Edge, as I recall it tried hard to prove something but kept stumbling on the fact that so much of it could be traced back to fairly standard rock music structures and progressions, even the overall 4-part structure was more related to standard rock tunes than classical sonatas. As I have often said - Close to the Edge is three normal rock songs crashed together with the final part being a coda that is a medley of those three tunes. The only classical elements are contrapuntal, ostinato and fugato motifs introduced by Wakeman to hold everything together (this much is documented by Wakeman himself) ... and of course ostinato in rock music is better known as "a riff" - giving it a musicological Italian name does not make it "art music" - no one goes running around shouting that The Kinks used an ostinato motif in You Really Got Me, it's a riff. Sorry Pedro, but it's just a Pop tune - a very good one of course, but a Pop tune none-the-less, and in this particular case I do not believe that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That's not to say that some Prog Rock couldn't be regarded as Art Music but it is never going to be "classical music".


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 20 2014 at 08:19
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

... no one goes running around shouting that The Kinks used an ostinato motif in You Really Got Me, it's a riff. Sorry Pedro, but it's just a Pop tune - a very good one of course, but a Pop tune none-the-less, and in this particular case I do not believe that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That's not to say that some Prog Rock couldn't be regarded as Art Music but it is never going to be "classical music".
 
 
Yeah, but that's like saying that Bach never worked a "riff".
 
Or Mozart! (you're kidding me!)
 
Or anyone else.
 
The only problem is that for the most part we're dealing with three lines of music (the drums need one?) where most "classical works have 10, 12, 15, 20 or more ... and that makes it, as you say "pop music" and I agree.
 
But there are compositions, by many folks that try to encompass a different sounding instrument, let's say on a keyboard, to make up for something else. I would imagine that we're looking at that as one thing only, and not it's visual design (if there was one -- hard to proove and discuss, anyway), or intent by its creator.
 
But generally, it is a cultural phenomena ... and very similar to one of the most famous attributes to "gothic literature",  the french revolution and its barbarous and public murderous activities.  This is the reason why I like "Marat/Sade" the play, because all of a sudden, it is also a group of low lifes trying to get a life, and an aristocracy that won't allow them.  They are incarcerated! It's a bit of an exageration, but it feels the same. This was what we felt in Lisbon in the 50's and is well documented, just as it was in Spain during Franco's time and the Civil War. Now you know why "Blade Runner" is so valuable to me! And its music!
 
This is the experience that I know, and one of the things that shows it the best is Garcia Lorca and Picasso ... even if we don't realize that, and what "Guernica" is really about. A kid looking out the window and seeing all the bloodshed and hurt. But we think that "reality" doesn't exist, because we are in our "safe" environs, and that can't happen! Now, I can not say that any rock bands will come to the fore and be the equivalent 50 to 75 years later, but you and I do not know this, and probably won't see it in our lifetimes.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 20 2014 at 13:49
^ Ah... what's the point. Yeah, fine, fine, fine, whatever. I wish I hadn't started now. Is there anything good on telly? Is it tea time yet? That tablecloth needs a damn good ironing. I wonder if the car-wash faeries will pass by my drive tonight, I have a strange feeling that beneath all that grime and road salt there is a shiny red sports car, I'll be glad when winters over and I can drive around the countryside with the windows open and Highway Star blasting out of the stereo, oh what bliss to get away from this preten...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 21 2014 at 06:08
Hey everyone, sorry I haven't replied to this thread for the last couple days... but I've been rather busy in real life and haven't had time to read your posts in depth let alone respond to them. Stay tuned for me to drop in later with some more in-depth commentary and clearing up some things I apparently didn't make comprehensible enough.
"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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