Disqus - Latest Comments for byebyepride

Re: Blue Lines Revisited - One For Your Christmas List

byebyepride — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:54:19 -0000

ok so k-punk snark is k-boring but the blurb for this is pretty indistinguishable from miranda sawyer's execrable column in the observer music monthly last weekend. The key thing that voids both is the use of the term 'we'. Who the f*ck is 'we' in this bukkake-fest? Who gives a shit about MJ or his demise? The only utopia here is for ilx 1.0!!! Real talk, out.

Re: Blue Lines Revisited - Interview with Al Ewing (SFX Mag)

byebyepride — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:28:34 -0000

Nice to see a shout-out to the Driver there. I get my kicks on route 666 indeed.

Re: Blue Lines Revisited - perpetua: Music nerds are supposed to enjoy making...

byebyepride — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:22:15 -0000

See this is the thing I never got good at! I don't write stuff down, then I forget it, then my itunes library gets wiped out, and I don't even listen to the things I used to like any more... let alone have enough knowledge skills to participate in a conversation. Wish this wasn't also the case at work...

Re: Blue Lines Revisited - Sleepwalking To Disaster

byebyepride — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 03:05:28 -0000

I have seen no evidence that support for independence in Scotland has changed significantly since 1979 - i.e. according to the attitudinal stuff that C works on it still putters along at about 25-30%, never more. Now I assume this would translate into a much higher percentage in a referendum since turnout would be uneven across people who want FREEDOM! and people who don't - or don't care much either way. And the original post you're quoting simply says that it's 'unpredictable'...

People here are pretty satisfied with devolution, but there's been plenty of incompetence and within-the-rules-cheating in Holyrood (Salmon takes two salaries, from Westminster & Holyrood), and I think there's a lingering sense (however unjust) that these jokers couldn't be trusted with defence and such. The lack of transformation of the NHS up here compared to down south is quite striking. Also worth remembering that the SNP haven't really won in Scotland - they've benefited from the total collapse of the Labour party in Scotland, combined with the credibility failure of the Westminster govt. The SNP are now seen as a party of fairly competent governance rather than a fringe group thanks to Salmond's iron grip (they're currently an ungainly coalition held together by success and his authority) but there's no reason to think that Europe votes will necessarily translate into Westminster votes or Independence votes - having multilayered elections makes people quite canny, so they may well vote for a party that is clearly committed to fighting Scotland's corner in Europe - whereas the party of UK govt will always appear slightly compromised in that context - but there remains a sense that a vote for the SNP at Westminster would be wasted.

Re: The Trouble with Pop

byebyepride — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:55:12 -0000

I think there's definitely something in the 'shared' experience as well. If you have a culture based around talking about 'new' music (new still meaning here stuff that for the most part sounds like the old stuff, or draws on a recognisable palette of possible styles) then since a lot of the ways people listen to and most of the ways people talk about music are social, then listening to new stuff will allow you to be part of those conversations, those experiences.

I'm not sure that I agree that people are less exposed to 'new' stuff: it seems to me more that the 'shared-ness' of the new stuff has decreased: my default assumption, for want of any evidence, is that the demographic that always cared most about newness still cares about newness, but that they care in smaller clusters of listeners, have more restricted conversations, or are less reliant on big media gatekeepers (radio 1, Top of the Pops, the NME) than they once were. So less of their sense of the newness will be associated with 'national cultural event': but then was this ever true of pop music to the same extent as sport, or politics, or even TV? (Your example of hearing music in shops implies ubiquity but not necessarily recognition of ubiquity, i.e. it might just have been the case, rather than there being people going 'wow I hear this big tune everywhere it is awesome we all love it together'.

My experience has been that amongst my pals / acquaintances, the time period for the kind of interest in 'new' music you describe was quite restricted anyway (6th form and university years) and very often quite passive in comparison to the few dedicated pursuers of newness (NME readers, I guess, who'd bolt to Potterrow to listen to the Fall, when even Teviot would be jumping around to Britpop).

I wonder if in addition to being equally shared, but in smaller circles, the the kind of newness you're talking about is more mixed with 'new to me'-ness (wow! we're all getting into this cool old shit - they called it ska) than it once was, owing to the permanent availability of the rock archive.

Re: The Trouble with Pop

byebyepride — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:40:40 -0000

I think there are different attractions for different groups of people. So to clarify the baseline of my answer: the artist tries to make something new because he wants to be original; the critic looks for something new because identifying change rather than continuity makes him seem ahead of the pack; but I guess you're meaning from the listeners' point of view, and I'm figuring that you mean 'newness' not in the sense of paradigm-displacing 'is this even music?' mindfuck but in the sense of wanting this year's album, rather than the last one. So not 'new to them' ('dude I never heard of this band the Monks') but 'new to the world' ('this band is so happening right now dude'). So what are the different attractions [NB I don't vouch for any of these!!]?

-- 'current' as opposed to that which belongs to an older generation? (you're so past it)
-- 'current' because new must de facto be good? (history is progress...)
-- 'current' because no one from the past (even the near past) can have experienced the exact same world I'm experiencing so their music won't have anything to say to me.
-- 'current' because the first thing you hear will always sound amazing (of course this can only last for a while! And I suppose it's a good counter example because the first thing some people will hear and love will be 'old' - since what they hear will be what their parents listen to)

but these are the sort of rationalisations you might get if you asked someone to explain their feelings (not that the feelings aren't true). Presumably there are more objective factors too... i.e. that for years an industry has made its money by selling new products, with relatively limited availability for most of them after a short time. Like publishers, record companies have found it hard to predict what will sell in large quantities, so that means trying lots of product lines, and only republishing some as 'classics' when the market for them has been proven. People's behaviour has adapted - the whole culture of charts, reviews, fandom etc. relies on the general baseline being 'what's this like compared with other things this year' rather than 'what's this like compared with something really good from the past'...

Re: Bonkers - Dizzee Rascal

byebyepride — Wed, 27 May 2009 03:38:53 -0000

no. f*cking 1 in the area. Hell yeah. This whole COUNTRY gone Bonkers.

Re: Bonkers - Dizzee Rascal

byebyepride — Sun, 24 May 2009 16:29:34 -0000

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Re: Bonkers - Dizzee Rascal

byebyepride — Sun, 24 May 2009 16:25:41 -0000

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Re: Bonkers - Dizzee Rascal

byebyepride — Sun, 24 May 2009 16:20:00 -0000

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