are the times finally changeing?
Amazing detail in Simon Reynolds Slate
piece on Hot Chip and Scritti Politti:
"This cruel dilemma—fidelity versus mutation—has convulsed British music repeatedly over the decades: from the schisms of trad jazz vs. free jazz, to blues purism vs. progressives, to more recent debates about hip-hop, where the argument is about whether British rappers should ape American MCs or instead inject stilted Anglo cadences into their flow and parochial references into their lyrics."
Why is this so significant? Well, remember that in Energy Flash, Reynolds used analogies where blues purism and progressive rock were on the same side, against the music supposed to
really push things forward in the early seventies (heavy metal, basically). Just like the punk myth would have it, prog is seen as something holding rock back, rather than pushing it forward. Now, however, blues purism is set against "the progressives", including, we must presume, prog. Not only is prog finally recognised as valid mutation rather than retrogressive decadence, but the dirty word "progressive" is even used as something positive. When a former prog-phobe brought up on the old punk mythology can come to this, well, somehow it just makes me think that maybe, someday, prog will actually get the place in music history it deserves, and the legacy of the punk brainwash will be behind us.
