Communist music reviews

[luka]

Third does this all the time obviously, and Mark fisher dabbled in it, and Ben Watson is prone to it, although what they are defending/castigating in Marxist terminology varies enormously (which obviously is very telling in itself) with Ben it mostly comes from Adorno. I don't really understand it at all. Can someone, third, Eden, other_life, help me grasp where it's coming from? I want to get a handle on communist aesthetics and the theoretical basis of this stuff. This thread as a useful companion thread to Edens 100.

 

[luka]

This isnt intended as an antagonistic thread btw, it's not a debate. Its a request for information. It's just from a desire to communicate better and understand you all better. I want to know how people's minds are working.

 

[luka]

From my perspective politics is always looking to piggyback on music because music attracts a broad coalition, investment, involvement, passion, commitment, gathers people together across class and cultural lines, without even trying to, whereas politics can only, by its very nature, attract inadequates and discontents.

It seems far more fruitful to analyse politics as aesthetics than aesthetics as politics. Because art, as primary creation, is the master discourse.

 

[luka]

Corpsey, as someone who gets called 'bourgeois' on a daily basis will no doubt participate fully and eagerly in this thread

 

[sadmanbarty]

As we all know all the best music is fundamentalist religious, mysoginistic, homophobic and emerges from (and celebrates) capitalism.

So not very left wing.

Presumably communism then is a metaphor. But for what?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Came here hoping for a description of the top 40 on Radio Moscow in a given week in the 60s/70s. Deeply disappointed.

 

[thirdform]

interesting thread.

 

[thirdform]

As we all know all the best music is fundamentalist religious, mysoginistic, homophobic and emerges from (and celebrates) capitalism.

So not very left wing.

Presumably communism then is a metaphor. But for what?

Sure. the proletariat celebrates capitalism though. if we're not fighting a common enemy we're in competition with ourselves. the difference being that the bourgeoisie is always in competition with itself even when organised as an immediate force of kinetic violence whereas when we organise and are not a social fact, because the proletariat is not of civil society it is able to coagulate

 

[thirdform]

I reject utterly the idea that there is an intrinsic moral or culturalist virtue within the proletariat.

 

[thirdform]

proles are more likely (not inevitably) to be less racist and religious fundamentalist, etc etc compared to their bourgeois counterparts, but that's because of the reality of their placement within capitalist production. whereas whilst the bourgeoisie sees politics as alien to itself it still needs a space within to negotiate the abstractions of free enterprise. hence the ability to dress up misogynistic, homophobic views in politic language. but that doesn't mean that all proles are automatised to be woke, far from it. people can't boiled down to neat contradictions like that imo.

 

[thirdform]

From my perspective politics is always looking to piggyback on music because music attracts a broad coalition, investment, involvement, passion, commitment, gathers people together across class and cultural lines, without even trying to, whereas politics can only, by its very nature, attract inadequates and discontents.

It seems far more fruitful to analyse politics as aesthetics than aesthetics as politics. Because art, as primary creation, is the master discourse.

well, no, technology is the primary master discourse. not in terms of capitalist sci-fi fantasy, in the sense of applying modifications to nature. don't forget the greeks called art tekné. we can say art is the supreme discourse only if we link it to the labour of transforming nature.

 

[thirdform]

Third does this all the time obviously, and Mark fisher dabbled in it, and Ben Watson is prone to it, although what they are defending/castigating in Marxist terminology varies enormously (which obviously is very telling in itself) with Ben it mostly comes from Adorno. I don't really understand it at all. Can someone, third, Eden, other_life, help me grasp where it's coming from? I want to get a handle on communist aesthetics and the theoretical basis of this stuff. This thread as a useful companion thread to Edens 100.

Ben is trapped in the commodity/anti-commodity paradigm. that's why he still exalts the art proper notion of free improv. his is a protest against the factory. however as i grew up in a time of mass deindustrialisation and mass deskilling i had to come to terms with the fact that nothing we produce escapes the factory, or should I say the commodity paradigm. Today we live in a world where capitalism has totalised worldwide. hence i became far more radical in that i saw the best music as reflecting the atomisation of labour within a social context.

Dem 2's Da Keep owes as much to Japan, South Korea etc as it does to New York and London. and not just in its immediate production but how it is received on walkmans, mobile phones etc. because just because an idea can be transfered across the world through digital connectivity and supply chains doesn't mean it doesn't exist or is received within, a social production context.

 

[luka]

interesting thread.

Really only as interesting as you make it, the most I can be is a foil

 

[thirdform]

 

[luka]

Me and Barty are natural men, we haven't had to think our way out of the rat trap of theology so we are way behind you in some things and you have to slow it down so we can understand

 

[luka]

It
One of the difficult things about communication is knowing how much to take for granted and how much needs to be explained.

 

[luka]

In some ways we overestimate the amount of work we have done that others haven't and we get too proud, or condescending, but there's an opposite danger, assuming other people have done the work we have done and that they can see what we can

 

[sadmanbarty]

Are you saying that proletariat music is music that reflects a factory?

Automated sounding, pounding, metallic timbers, inhuman, hard, etc.

Bourgeois being softnesss, overtly emotional, human, gentle, oceanic, etc.

 

[luka]

Barty lmao are u thick?

 

[thirdform]

Are you saying that proletariat music is music that reflects a factory?

Automated sounding, pounding, metallic timbers, inhuman, hard, etc.

Bourgeois being softnesss, overtly emotional, human, gentle, oceanic, etc.

I wouldn't say there is a proletarian or bourgeois music because as Luke said the classes are always so intermingled in capitalist society anyway. But I would say that dichotomy is one aspect of it, though not the sole aspect. a lot of left wing folk is overtly human.