Labret, will you bring new ways to arouse Oprano

[[Labret]]

Originally posted by Vick@Nov 24 2003, 12:38 PM
[Labret] - if you have the time we'll start on music

We'll lay any animosities between our board personalities aside and go

My forte is American Music 1955 - current but am versed in other areas as well

want to start with the Ramones and their cultural significance?

Sure, but first just let me start off by saying that no matter what you say to me regarding the corporate churned out horse shit that you are going to try and explain bears some sort of cultural significance, I will laugh at everything you have to say.

You have already proved any point I would try to make regarding "popular music".

I take a very marxist approach to popular music and its funtion. Borrowing from the Frankfurt School, popular music (ie the crap you poison yourself with) can be encompassed in three general claims. Everything you listen to is a result of standardization. To quote a man of unrivaled genius,

"once a musical or lyrical pattern has proved successful it is exploited to commercial exhaustion, culminating in the crystallization of standards. Standardization of song hits keeps the customer in line by doing their listening for them, as it were. Pseudo-individualization, for its part, keeps them in line by making them forget that what they listen to is already listened to for them, or pre-digested".

I can spell that out for you if it does not make any sense.

The standardization creates an atmosphere of passive listening. The vicious cycle that capitalism locks people into (work, desire for escape, work, desire for escape) leaves little energy for actual "escape". America is a nation that avoids effort. It rewards those that create things that remove effort, esp in leisure. Music is no different. Popular music is the non productive correlate to life in this country. Soulless and without value.

To argue with me about the cultural significance of the crap you love would be about as beneficial as arguing whether or not a bag of doritos or a can of pringles has more cultural significance.

Forget the third point, which wont matter anyhow as it just relates the above to the socio-psychological funtion of it all.

Carry on.



Last edited by [Labret] at Nov 24 2003, 01:24 PM