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Trying to drum up interest in Mark's UK rockwrite anthology (which needs to happen, Kickstarter here, quick, only 3 days left) by reengaging controversies from last year's Freaky Trigger thread on the Overground/Underground conference. Posted comments on Paul Morley (here, here, and here), whose work I'm now just starting to explore. Excerpts from my comments:
Okay, Morley's 1982 "Quick Before They Vanish"* piece, let's see how it operates. It courts and uses our response, e.g. wants us to balk at his claim to like everything (no one likes everything; that's not what liking is about) and wants us to compare ourselves to those people who are into only the Pop Group, one side of a Roland Kirk LP, and just the best bits of Sandinista. Also, while the specificity, Pop Group–half-Kirk–bits o' Sandinista, bring such people to life, we're to recognize that they're a type and they're hyperbole, so it can be similar artists not those three in particular and there might be five not three, or 105 or 505, the important attribute being the progressive discernment and diminishment, from a group down to a side down to only the good bits.
[*Link only works sometimes, other times gets me an error message. If you can't access the piece, email me and I'll send it to you. Also, if you clink the link at Pˆnk S Lord Sükråt Cunctør's comment on the Freaky Trigger thread it's more likely to work, though I don't understand why; it's the identical URL as on mine.]
Morley's tone has a certain uncertainty; there's no hesitance, it's a strong commanding voice that relies on us to amplify its doubts.
He starts, "when people ask me what music I like… I say 'everything.'" I think he's trying to imply that, whatever their restrictions, the charts, for at least the moment, carry a message of everything, that they are somehow open to more than they'll ever contain, and you can't ever be sure what they'll contain. In any event he likes everything, but then of course he immediately, deliberately contradicts this: it turns out not only doesn't he like everything, here off the bat is this Genesis song at #10 that he can't stand. So now that's the challenge, does his "I like everything" manage to prosper nonetheless? Morley hates the next song too, Charlene's "I've Never Been To Me." "It's a great feeling, isn't it, to hate things?" He's performing a quick martial arts wrist flick, so it's not "I like Genesis and Charlene after all" but I like hate and I like that Genesis's and Charlene's presence here gives me the opportunity to hate them. By implication, this could also be standing on behalf of the bad bits of Sandinista. If Sandinista were all good would it be as good?
(Okay, here's something the piece isn't stating, and if it's implying it this may be inadvertent: but, if we'd be diminished without the opportunity to hate Genesis, we're also diminished without the opportunity to put the Pop Group–Kirk–Sandinista Bits people in their place. They broaden Morley's story just as much as Genesis and Charlene do. So we can say that — obviously — Morley includes these people in the story. But I don't think we can meaningfully say the charts include them in their story.)
( A fantastical reordering of the world )
(But this is pretty great.)
Okay, Morley's 1982 "Quick Before They Vanish"* piece, let's see how it operates. It courts and uses our response, e.g. wants us to balk at his claim to like everything (no one likes everything; that's not what liking is about) and wants us to compare ourselves to those people who are into only the Pop Group, one side of a Roland Kirk LP, and just the best bits of Sandinista. Also, while the specificity, Pop Group–half-Kirk–bits o' Sandinista, bring such people to life, we're to recognize that they're a type and they're hyperbole, so it can be similar artists not those three in particular and there might be five not three, or 105 or 505, the important attribute being the progressive discernment and diminishment, from a group down to a side down to only the good bits.
[*Link only works sometimes, other times gets me an error message. If you can't access the piece, email me and I'll send it to you. Also, if you clink the link at Pˆnk S Lord Sükråt Cunctør's comment on the Freaky Trigger thread it's more likely to work, though I don't understand why; it's the identical URL as on mine.]
Morley's tone has a certain uncertainty; there's no hesitance, it's a strong commanding voice that relies on us to amplify its doubts.
He starts, "when people ask me what music I like… I say 'everything.'" I think he's trying to imply that, whatever their restrictions, the charts, for at least the moment, carry a message of everything, that they are somehow open to more than they'll ever contain, and you can't ever be sure what they'll contain. In any event he likes everything, but then of course he immediately, deliberately contradicts this: it turns out not only doesn't he like everything, here off the bat is this Genesis song at #10 that he can't stand. So now that's the challenge, does his "I like everything" manage to prosper nonetheless? Morley hates the next song too, Charlene's "I've Never Been To Me." "It's a great feeling, isn't it, to hate things?" He's performing a quick martial arts wrist flick, so it's not "I like Genesis and Charlene after all" but I like hate and I like that Genesis's and Charlene's presence here gives me the opportunity to hate them. By implication, this could also be standing on behalf of the bad bits of Sandinista. If Sandinista were all good would it be as good?
(Okay, here's something the piece isn't stating, and if it's implying it this may be inadvertent: but, if we'd be diminished without the opportunity to hate Genesis, we're also diminished without the opportunity to put the Pop Group–Kirk–Sandinista Bits people in their place. They broaden Morley's story just as much as Genesis and Charlene do. So we can say that — obviously — Morley includes these people in the story. But I don't think we can meaningfully say the charts include them in their story.)
( A fantastical reordering of the world )(But this is pretty great.)
