Music you pretended to like

linebaugh

Well-known member
I think the financial side means more now than before. Citizen Kane and vertigo had they been made today would be considered very good indie films and thrown on the pile of other very good indie films that dont make much money. You need something extra to become canonized in todays hyper saturated market, if canonization is still possible.
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
I think Heat was the last thing to get 'canonized.' Suddenly one day it became everyones favorite movie and talked about all the time
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
Ive heard Hugh Kenner and his cohort are largely responisble for James Joyces canonization. And I guess having a sub culture that throws all their energy behind the conisderation of something is how anything ever has been canoninzed, but the process feels more conspicuous now. The sub cultures more niche. Thats what happened with Heat. It became the movie that was used reguarly in twitter replies and memes and etc by the cool people online.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
This is taking us far from the thread topic, but here's some stuff from post 1980 that appears in sight and sound's top 100 (nothing from after 2001, though – perhaps you wouldn't expect anything to be 'canonised' after less than 20 years, but it would be interesting to speculate on if anything from the last 20 years will ever or can ever make it).


28: Mulholland Drive, David Lynch, USA 2001
35: Sátántangó, Béla Tarr, Switzerland/Germany/Hungary 1994
42: Close-Up, Abbas Kiarostami, Iran 1990
69: Blade Runnerm Ridley Scott, Hong Kong/USA 1982
69: Blue Velvet, David Lynch, USA 1986
69: Sans Soleil, Chris Marker, France 1982
78: Beau Travail, Claire Denis, France 1998
84: Fanny and Alexanderm Ingmar Bergman, France/Sweden 1984
84: A Brighter Summer Day, Edward Yang, Taiwan 1991
93: A One and a Two, Edward Yang, Japan/Taiwan 1999

Then OTOH there's the canon of popular taste, e.g. https://www.imdb.com/chart/top
  1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) 9.2
  2. The Godfather (1972) 9.2
  3. The Dark Knight (2008) 9.0
  4. The Godfather: Part II (1974) 9.0
  5. 12 Angry Men (1957) 9.0
  6. Schindler's List (1993) 8.9
  7. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) 8.9
  8. Pulp Fiction (1994) 8.8
  9. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) 8.8
  10. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) 8.8
  11. Forrest Gump (1994) 8.8
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
Ive heard Hugh Kenner and his cohort are largely responisble for James Joyces canonization. And I guess having a sub culture that throws all their energy behind the conisderation of something is how anything ever has been canoninzed, but the process feels more conspicuous now. The sub cultures more niche. Thats what happened with Heat. It became the movie that was used reguarly in twitter replies and memes and etc by the cool people online.
i read something interesting, that i can barely remember, about the canonisation of the mona lisa, and how it only really became 'a thing' in maybe the late 19th century, and that it particularly became a thing in america, and then it became a big deal in europe through importing that idea through US culture

this may be very badly remembered
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy

"Despite Vasari’s compliments, art critics did not begin praising the painting as a Renaissance masterpiece until the 1860s. The Louvre acquired the painting in 1804, but it didn’t draw too many visitors until 1911 when headlines firmly planted her in the public consciousness.
That year, Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian carpenter who was working at the Louvre, decided to steal it by tucking it under his jacket and walking out of the museum one August day. The incident instigated a meeting of the French Cabinet and the resignation of the Louvre’s director of paintings.

Spurred by the ensuing media frenzy, museumgoers went to see the empty space where she had hung at the Louvre. Postcards were printed, Mona Lisa dolls were made and marketed, a brand of corsets was named after her (foreshadowing how she’s used to merchandise all manner of wares now). Even bigger crowds came to see her when she was recovered two years later, with more than 100,000 people viewing her at the Louvre in the first two days alone."
 

shakahislop

Well-known member

"Despite Vasari’s compliments, art critics did not begin praising the painting as a Renaissance masterpiece until the 1860s. The Louvre acquired the painting in 1804, but it didn’t draw too many visitors until 1911 when headlines firmly planted her in the public consciousness.
That year, Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian carpenter who was working at the Louvre, decided to steal it by tucking it under his jacket and walking out of the museum one August day. The incident instigated a meeting of the French Cabinet and the resignation of the Louvre’s director of paintings.

Spurred by the ensuing media frenzy, museumgoers went to see the empty space where she had hung at the Louvre. Postcards were printed, Mona Lisa dolls were made and marketed, a brand of corsets was named after her (foreshadowing how she’s used to merchandise all manner of wares now). Even bigger crowds came to see her when she was recovered two years later, with more than 100,000 people viewing her at the Louvre in the first two days alone."

even better, famous coz it got nicked
 

version

Well-known member
Something similar happened with Moby-Dick, iirc. It wasn't really seen as that great until decades later.
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
Kafka was unknown in his own time, right?

Likewise Nietzsche sold a spectacularly small number of copies of his books. Like 462 copies of Zarathusra or something of that order. His ascent to renown and influence only started to occur near the end of his life, when he was too ill / insane to enjoy it or even be aware of it. And then within a decade or a half of his death, German soldiers were being issued pocket editions of his works to read on the front. Every other major artist or literati - or aspiring fuehrer - had read his works and been deeply shaped by then.

Harold Bloom says that the canon is created by later people within that art form. And by critics. But mostly by the artists, because they are the ones who are influenced. Figures that are no longer an influence on current artists or writers are gradually evacuated from the canon. An example would be George Bernard Shaw, absolutely towering figure in his own time but now utterly irrelevant. People from GB Shaw's era if you could transport them into our present wouldn't be able to believe that such a central figure could be so utterly eclipsed and forgotten. There are loads of other examples. And tons in music. Elvis Costello is someone who is without progeny and has dropped off the radar in terms of young listeners. Whereas the Beatles's centrality seems fairly unshakeable - they are like Shakespeare. But who knows... given time, they too might be erased. Conversely, non-canonical figures drift into the Canon. Kate Bush at one point was not a likely contender. Critics would have pointed to I dunno Graham Parker as a figure likely to endure hahahaha. But, in part because she's influenced so many later musicians, she's now firmly established in the Canon.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
the canon (especially in film) is also too focused on 'firsts' and 'importance' or being 'challenging' rather than 'best' (obv by best i just mean most enjoyable, fun etc).

That wasn't really my point though. Ascension is a more challenging record than Love Supreme, but most music critics are stuck in the anally retentive adolescent rock n roll phase.
 

woops

is not like other people
Something similar happened with Moby-Dick, iirc. It wasn't really seen as that great until decades later.
there are many such stories. van gogh only sold one painting in his lifetime to his brother who felt sorry for him. john kennedy toole killed himself after failing to get his book published. milton made a fiver from writing paradise lost. etc
 

DLaurent

Well-known member
I pretended to like jazz for my first 10 years or so of listening to it. Started at age 16 because I heard it was good and was probably 26 before I really got into it. Love it now.
 

maxi

Well-known member
Kate Bush at one point was not a likely contender. Critics would have pointed to I dunno Graham Parker as a figure likely to endure hahahaha. But, in part because she's influenced so many later musicians, she's now firmly established in the Canon.
the question this prompts for me is why is one artist influential on the next generation and the other isn't? one thing seems sure: the influence generates more influence as more artists are influenced by the influenced artists, and one artist will sound 'ahead of their time' or modern by virtue of the fact that new artists sound like them and their progeny. whereas the other will sound dated because their sound was left in the dust.

is this just arbitrary? or are there things inherent in those influential artists' sounds that caused them to resonate with later artists? but why would that be? is it more down to complex cultural factors, lyrics, aspects of their image that might be more politically or otherwise relevant further down the line e.g. bowie's androgyny.

can it also be down to who had the best PR machine continuing to push their work, and who continued releasing new music/touring and putting new generations on to their earlier work
 

version

Well-known member
the question this prompts for me is why is one artist influential on the next generation and the other isn't? one thing seems sure: the influence generates more influence as more artists are influenced by the influenced artists, and one artist will sound 'ahead of their time' or modern by virtue of the fact that new artists sound like them and their progeny. whereas the other will sound dated because their sound was left in the dust.

is this just arbitrary? or are there things inherent in those influential artists' sounds that caused them to resonate with later artists? but why would that be? is it more down to complex cultural factors, lyrics, aspects of their image that might be more politically or otherwise relevant further down the line e.g. bowie's androgyny.

can it also be down to who had the best PR machine continuing to push their work, and who continued releasing new music/touring and putting new generations on to their earlier work

This wasn't written with music in mind specifically, but seems just as applicable here:

" . . . all unconsummated historical possibilities don't disappear when its time is over, it goes somewhere and lies in wait and the energy present in these possibilities lies latent in the world itself, like blood running under our skin, just waiting for the particular moment to constellate with other moments and other people and become potent and alive again . . . "

-- (Someone on Twitter)​
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
My introduction to jazz was Bitches Brew when I was about 16. I wouldn't say I pretended to like it (who was I trying to impress? No one) but I was certainly very, very confused for several months. Completely alien, mind-bending material.

And it happened again and again when I got hold of On the Corner and In a Silent Way a few months later.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I wonder what music I'd like if I was on a desert island and had no conception of being personally embarrassed.

Would I still like jungle or would I be rinsing David Gray all day?
 
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