Cultural Cowardice

[luka]

i think in terms of history we are committed to the headlong plunge. the exponential acceleration into future. i think the momentum we've gathered is already past the point of slowing let alone stopping or reversing.

 

[luka]

so you can bury your head in the sand or you can work with the (huge, turbulent) energies available.

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

this lot no fucks given

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

vs this, skulking in a flat, rolling only at night


"brave, bold..."

 

[luka]

(one of the big differences with america is the star system which canalises and quarantines energy)

i do think this is important. it's practically impossible to have anything to say once you're established in the public eye (you've already said it). what our music has done is dodge this danger almost completely. the 3 year cycle doesn't really allow for star building.

the butterfly net of the record labels and the media might catch a giggs or a dizzee or a goldie and put them on display but that's as far as it goes.

this means the music is relatively unmediated.

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

i thought this was an advance at the time


to hear that big room bass with these lyrics, capering beat, coming from where it comes from, felt new to me.

"it was all going good 'til the rave end"

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

and then more recently, a 2-step track from him
cultural bravery in the 5000 miles west of London context

 

[sadmanbarty]

off the top of my head i'm thinking that the examples of cultural cowardice we're using all have occurred when the music is embraced by a different subculture than the one that originated it.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

don't give up though please

alright alright

my psychic resources are limited rn so idk how many of these deep dives I'll do with you guys

but I thought about it and it probably is worth the effort, generally speaking

@luka - all that mystical snake oil salesman etc is half-joking (i.e. "banter" but also how you seem to carry it? reflecting I can see how it would seem hurtful or like an attack if it was all just on the level, so no shots.

@crybabies tag - big look

I do think I'm gonna bow out of this particular thread after I respond to one more blissblogger comment tho, just cos "cowardice" and "bravery" seem like such fundamentally inaccurate terms of conception that they make discussion almost impossible

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

i don't know if it's a zero sum game though

well ya there is a valid danger of confusing cultural and actual capital, and resultant power

we're not talking about damage or success, either - we're talking retreat or embrace

and it's not supposed to be taken as a literal binary - we're talking about levels of engagement, disengagement (retreat)

to cite your example - I would say Blondie was closer to being organically (nb: not same as authentically) involved with disco + thru into post-disco than say the Bee Gees but ultimately it doesn't really matter

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Heart of Glass is fine btw but the Blondie opus is the 12" mix of Rapture

generally a wonderful moment in post-disco melting pot kitchen sink - speaking of maximalism - wot do u call it club music

Debbie Harry ultimate queen of sprezzatura (one assumes Kim Gordon was taking notes)

 

[luka]

not hurtful. but i do take attempts to box me in as an attack on some level. not in a crybaby way
but as something i have to fight off to protect my freedom of movement.

i think if you find the terms cowardice/courage to be unhelpful, and i agree they are provocative, you can recast them. we're not stuck with them.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

it's not just the terms themselves, it's putting the conversation in those terms conceptually

I do think embrace/retreat is a better - or less value judgment, at least - formation

but still it's kind of reactionary way of viewing developments, I'm thinking

(pretty sure crybabies was directed me, btw, or at least that was my assumption)

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

the psychedelic avant-garde is more my kinda trip anyway

 

[luka]

I forgot about this thread

 

[sadmanbarty]

my poor mother

 

[mvuent]

rap 1990-2013: cultural cowardice?

discuss.

the evolution of east coast hip hop production from about 85-95 has to be one of the best examples of this.

it's not just that they start relying more and more on old music sonically, it's the way the beats are constructed. mid 90s--plodding and simple drum patterns, groove driven by melodic baselines; mid 80s--you get this intricate machinic / clockwork style 808 production. i'd say that a lot of mid 80s electro era beats are closer to hip hop's current rhythmic language than any classic illmatic era beats (which harken back to how groove worked in the 60s and 70s). you'd almost think these styles happened in reverse order.

...but i'm by no means a hip hop scholar. be curious if anyone who knows their shit at all agrees.

 

[CrowleyHead]

East Coast production actually gets worse from about 95 to 01 or 02. NYC has a neanderthalism, ludditism.

 

[mvuent]

oh i haven't listened to that stuff as much, but that makes sense.

i guess it also just gets me that a lot of the people active in the 80s almost didn't seem to realize how weird--revolutionary, even--what they were doing was. so you get a few amazing latin rascals megamixes in the mid 80s and then that style...more or less disappears? maybe it's unfair to say that as a total outsider, decades later--but still.

i saw a video of a talk kurtis mantronik did a few years ago, and predictably at one point your typical middle aged british guy excitedly tells him how "next level" the edits he was doing circa music madness were. but he basically just says "yeah we did that for a few years but now it's played out". like, i get him being over stuff he were doing decades ago. but it almost seemed like he thought of the aesthetic choices of that as era as the musical equivalent of a party trick: good for a short while but not leading anywhere. which seems overly literal minded.

 

[luka]

the '80s I keep thinking about as a kind of trauma event. And the '90s fixation with the '70s kept alive cryogenically through sampling is part of the reaction to that trauma.