Unfinishedness, April 22
Over on Tumblr, Trevor posted nice things about me, which I therefore urge you to read. Appropriately enough, the passage of mine he cites as "perfect" is one that I myself find very problematic. Maybe "perfect" can mean, "desperately needs a lot of elaboration" - which is certainly more stimulating than "wraps it up so that we don't have to say anything more on the matter."
In that paragraph, I claim that the rock 'n' soul singers on the U.S. version of The Voice are looking backwards rather than into adventure, whereas the quirk girls who've heard Adele and who draw on the last two decades of quasi-eccentric singer-songwriters are hearing a world of permutation and possibility. And I perceive similarly open ears in the South Korean take on almost any music.
Now, I wouldn't say such things if I didn't believe them, but if confronted by a skeptic I'd have a lot of trouble even explaining what I mean much less supporting it. For instance, why does the re-working of disco and freestyle by Korean producers like Shinsadong Tiger and SweeTune go into my category adventure, whereas the 57 or so varieties of mewlers, bawlers, gruff baritones, AC smoothies, etc. that I'm calling "soul" all get consigned to the retro bin? Why can't the fact of so many varieties be evidence of permutation and possibility in soul, too? South Korea feels fresh to me while the American soul bores feel barely reheated, but this feeling hardly explains anything, and I lean heavily on the explanatory power of the actually quite opaque word "adventure."
Notice that down on my original comment thread I start attacking myself.
I'm sure I'm right about the Tiger/SweeTune adventure, while I'm not nearly as committed to adventure being dead in soul. But thinking about these things surely involves further thought, right? (Dept. of Tautology Dept.)
Along very similar lines, in my first quarter roundup I'm claiming that musical adventure isn't attaching itself to male vocalists these days, and that popular music doesn't have a viable or credible adulthood. These assertions are exactly as problematic and incomplete as my claims in The Voice post. Arbitrary_greay asks, "Can you elaborate on 'adulthood'?" and I've yet to answer.
Also not yet responded to by me is Mat saying, over on the "How To Pick Up Girls" thread, that "I doubt TOP thinks much about how to pick up girls, or has ever put a cell phone in anyone's pocket, or is planning to, but I think he's thought a lot about what to answer if such a question comes up on a talk show, or just as a funny line, and the same goes for the others who are savvy at the TV game." There's plenty to ponder regarding the role of standard scenarios (in setting up jokes, in being witty on talk shows, etc.) and their relation/nonrelation to the rest of life.
In that paragraph, I claim that the rock 'n' soul singers on the U.S. version of The Voice are looking backwards rather than into adventure, whereas the quirk girls who've heard Adele and who draw on the last two decades of quasi-eccentric singer-songwriters are hearing a world of permutation and possibility. And I perceive similarly open ears in the South Korean take on almost any music.
Now, I wouldn't say such things if I didn't believe them, but if confronted by a skeptic I'd have a lot of trouble even explaining what I mean much less supporting it. For instance, why does the re-working of disco and freestyle by Korean producers like Shinsadong Tiger and SweeTune go into my category adventure, whereas the 57 or so varieties of mewlers, bawlers, gruff baritones, AC smoothies, etc. that I'm calling "soul" all get consigned to the retro bin? Why can't the fact of so many varieties be evidence of permutation and possibility in soul, too? South Korea feels fresh to me while the American soul bores feel barely reheated, but this feeling hardly explains anything, and I lean heavily on the explanatory power of the actually quite opaque word "adventure."
Click to viewNotice that down on my original comment thread I start attacking myself.
I'm sure I'm right about the Tiger/SweeTune adventure, while I'm not nearly as committed to adventure being dead in soul. But thinking about these things surely involves further thought, right? (Dept. of Tautology Dept.)
Along very similar lines, in my first quarter roundup I'm claiming that musical adventure isn't attaching itself to male vocalists these days, and that popular music doesn't have a viable or credible adulthood. These assertions are exactly as problematic and incomplete as my claims in The Voice post. Arbitrary_greay asks, "Can you elaborate on 'adulthood'?" and I've yet to answer.
Also not yet responded to by me is Mat saying, over on the "How To Pick Up Girls" thread, that "I doubt TOP thinks much about how to pick up girls, or has ever put a cell phone in anyone's pocket, or is planning to, but I think he's thought a lot about what to answer if such a question comes up on a talk show, or just as a funny line, and the same goes for the others who are savvy at the TV game." There's plenty to ponder regarding the role of standard scenarios (in setting up jokes, in being witty on talk shows, etc.) and their relation/nonrelation to the rest of life.