thirdform

pass the sick bucket
But General Levy would have been more of a pop thing, right? I'd not be surprised if 'Face' readers saw that as a novelty single, comical even.

Whereas Metalheadz was cool enough to have people like Bjork attending their raves.

well yeah, because she was shagging goldie.
 

luka

Well-known member
Why are you pretending not to know what middlebrow is? It's used as a pejorative as it is situated between low brow and high brow and considered to lack both the vulgar virile vigour of the former and intellectual consistency and experimentalism of the latter. It's neither earthy enough nor austere enough. Doesn't grab you by the balls, doesn't expand your mind. It's not a difficult concept to grasp.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
a lot of these guys were international djs by 92, 91 even. jj frost, fabio, grooverider etc etc certainly were. it's inevitable that they would have encountered the pop world long before the face encountered jungle.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Why are you pretending not to know what middlebrow is? It's used as a pejorative as it is situated between low brow and high brow and considered to lack both the vulgar virile vigour of the former and intellectual consistency and experimentalism of the latter. It's neither earthy enough nor austere enough. Doesn't grab you by the balls, doesn't expand your mind. It's not a difficult concept to grasp.

well, a lot of highbrow stuff isn't intellectually consistent. Brahms for one.
 

luka

Well-known member
Third don't nitpick. It's a rough sketch of what middlebrow stands for it doesn't need to be any more detailed.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Third don't nitpick. It's a rough sketch of what middlebrow stands for it doesn't need to be any more detailed.

no, I outlined what middlebrow is. metalheadz def has had some middlebrow stuff in its lifespan but your forum persona is so fashion obsessed you can't actually define what artistically middlebrow is, whereas I can. Kate Bush is artistically middlebrow, there is literally no way around that. she isn't weird enough to be opera/avant jazz/classical, and not earthy enough to be a soul diva. metalheadz just has jungle you don't like. fair enough, but that artcore aspect to jungle has always been there since day 1.
 

luka

Well-known member
Yes alright you win your entirely personal and idiosyncratic definition is the correct one despite it not being shared by anyone other human being on earth. we will refurbish the entire language to fall in with your requirements
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Yes alright you win your entirely personal and idiosyncratic definition is the correct one despite it not being shared by anyone other human being on earth. we will refurbish the entire language to fall in with your requirements

Well, barty did say I am godlike so i can be a dictator.

Nah but seriously this attempt to squeeze jungle into a roudy avin it lineage like acid tekno or breaks it just doesn't work that's the problem. fact is there has always been that we wanna be real musicians shtick in the jungle scene when it split from hardcore. unfortunately or fortunately depending on your perspective. this is always why i emphasise the automated, assembly line techno elements. I don't just do it because I'm a techno fan...

Grime's champions also tried to do the same thing and then they fell off hard when jammer became a parody of himself. well of course, they had completely different values to you! those shared values never existed, these are illusory communities of economics and social relations.
 
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version

Well-known member
Is there a distinction to be made between middlebrow and the combination of high and lowbrow? Someone like Joyce strikes me as the latter, but probably not 'middlebrow'.
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
most good things end up "middlebrow"

liking Velvet Underground is middlebrow, Can and Neu! are close to middlebrow now

it's not an intrinsic property of a piece of music, or a novel or film - it's a stage in the dissemination of it to a large audience - basically as soon as it ceases to be the preserve of the early adopter / hip etc, and finds a wider audience, it becomes designated middlebrow.

it's a reflex in snobbery and the self-definition of oneself as part of the vanguard of taste

Jane Austen is middlebrow, Van Gogh is middlebrow - doesn't mean that they a/ aren't excellent and b/ once innovative in their moment

i'm getting a horrible sense of deja vu suddenly, i think i've written these very same thoughts in a Dissensus thread in the mid-2000s

i wouldn't be surprised if the phrasing was almost word for word
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
so what's absolute lowbrow? Because I don't think that would get much warm reception on dissensus. richard allen skinhead novels? Disposable James Patterson crime fiction? edm?
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
dancehall might have been 'lowbrow' in the early 90s but was it really come mid-late 90s? and I doubt it was in Jamaica either.
 
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