Rules Of The Game #21: When The Wrong Song Loves You Right

[koganbot]

I talk about Celine and the White Stripes. I quote Nia (and once again rely on her brain).

The Rules Of The Game #21: When The Wrong Song Loves You RightThis time I'm doing something of a free association, stitched together at the last minute - I'd envisioned writing a different piece and then abandoned that other piece and did this - and the

Comments

[skyecaptain]

Didn't we have a conversation about this over on the teenpop thread at one point, where it got to be that "seriousness" as concept started getting too big to be useful? Only because you can "take seriously" without being "serious."

I think the seriousness at issue is the one that says: "anyone could make good music." I don't think there's anyone that would deny this in the abstract, but the problems tend to start (in terms of Ashlee, anyway) when you start running down a list of whom the category "anyone" includes. "Britney?" "But shedo with it." Etc.

Clearly "stupid respectable intellectual culture" is itself "hiding something," i.e. you're suggesting that there's something actively anti-intellectual about the way it conducts its business. Respectable isn't inherently a negative trait; it's just a trait like "good taste," which has been tainted for rock criticism -- I like Ashlee respectable. I think her music will probably suffer if she goes frivolous on her next album. But that doesn't mean that I have to privilege "

[skyecaptain]

*uh, that should read she had nothing to do with it.

[freakytigger]

Also isn't there a potential BIG disconnect between humour and fairness?

[koganbot]

"Judging fairly" feels like the wrong phrase here. Maybe "fair" is a word that's contaminated too. It seems so dispassionate. I'm all about social complicity in what we're listening to, whereas "fairness" implies a site of neutrality from which I'm doing the judging. Really, I have a feeling what galls you and I is something along the lines of "Projecting stupid things onto Ashlee and Britney and Celine and whoever (even the Cheetah Girls) that aren't true and allow you to remain smug and ignorant and stupid while maintaining the idea that you're taking a critical stance." But "judging fairly" seems like a pale virtue in response to this vehement flaw.

In one of my rough drafts to Intro number one in Real Punks I said that humor was the rock critic's substitute for personality. My idea was that the standard record review went "Identify the genre, compare to previous groups, say whether it's good or not, and throw in a joke to show that you're real and not just a hack." Of course, throwing in a joke makes one a hack, too. But also,

[koganbot]

I use the phrase "what galls you and I." What's wrong with me? Or should I ask, what's wrong with I? (Will, I heard the phrase "with you and I" recently on a pop record. Was it Britney? DeAnda? Vanessa H.? It normally makes me grit my teeth.

[koganbot]

Will = Well
Anyone = Anyway (in the post above that)

Parentheses, I order you to close. Close, I tell you. Close.

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