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Originally Posted by dead_battery

actually now that ive read the article im more sympathetic to it.

the problem is that the only place you could go to make music writing culturally valid would be to analyse and talk about the psychologies and lyrics and aesthetics in a way that related it to the wider cultural context.

and when you even HINT at doing that you get fucking slaughtered by the chorus of "its just fun man dont spoil it with your pretentiousness!". this is the dominant response and its incredibly loud and aggressive and anyone who dissents from that is going to get screamed at and ridiculed.

the fact is the majority AGGRESSIVELY DEMAND that instead of culture they have a kind of context free sludge of entertainment that they imagine exists in this space of pure enjoyment and has absolutely no "depth" or "meaning", things which terrify them. in fact, what they want from the entertainment junk they consume is a kind of ritual that absolves them from thought and delivers them to a space where their frivolous personalized affects are elevated into this kind of transcendental experience. at the most, they'll say things like "to me, this means..." and what it always means is something that can be interpreted in ANYWAY whatsoever and ultimately has the point that you should feelgood about yourself.

our times would rank perhaps the most conservative and stupid cultural climate that humans have ever known, and that is funny considering we have the technical means to produce culture that would have been unimaginable throughout most of history.

now, instead of politely applauding or reflecting on someones work, your audience is at best gonna cheer you on and link or like you, but more likely viciously tear into your work on boards or comment sections. what is being demanded is the impossible - that banal junk be produced that has ZERO meaning, has ZERO awareness or understanding of itself in a social or political context, but that also manages to act as a kind of soothing breastmilk for atomized and isolated individuals who want to just float around as infantilized consumers being distracted by noise and shiny stuff and the narcissism by proxy of identitarianism.

i mean, i've been RAGING about all this for years, on this board and on other places, and a few other people have, but really i'm talking like one or two at the most.

you could see this start during the early 00's when indie became hyper twee/kitsch and the most excruciatingly positive, happy, upbeat crap you could ever imagine. this was the music of TOTAL DENIAL. it was happening at a time when mass slaughter and destruction was occurring due to the collision of advanced US military technology and primitive islamic fundamentalism. the response of the culture doing the murdering was to dress up as a bunny rabbit and finger paint with florescent colours and write songs that sounded like self help affirmations.

so now look where we are - turn on your fucking tv and find me an add that doesnt start with banjo or ukelele music and a cooing voice talking to you as if you were an infant.

why? because this is what we want from culture now:

“Imaginary plenitude,” the desire to return to this (never actually existing) state in which we had a direct, unconstructed, pure and “full” perception of the world, as well as the instant and effortless gratification of every wish through thought alone.

we can't face nihilism, and so we've regressed to fantasies of omnipotence. but really, the history of 20th century culture is basically about one thing - the decline of religion and various ultimately failed strategies to ward off the threat of disenchantment through science and endow the individual or the collective human subject with some form of omnipotence, or some replacement for its loss of value and meaning to itself.

and since we're also only allowed to criticize individuals, and to knock down the individual who thinks critically at all like you've done in response to this post, then how the fuck can we expect to have a culture less vapid than we have now? since ALL THE MAJORITY OF YOU IDIOTS WILL EVER DO IS ATTACK THE INDIVIDUAL TO PROVE HE'S NOT PERFECT BECAUSE YOU'RE REALLY IMPRESSED BY THAT KIND OF RETARD CYNICISM. playing this game of implicitly demanding perfection. anything you can do i can do meta. tl:dr its cos the majority are idiots and they can now loudly air their stupidity whereas in the past it was more difficult for audiences to interact and thus quality stuff could happen due to the performer not being intimidated into silence. so send me money on paypal u fuckups

took me a while to read this, but it was worth the wait.

no, i'm not shitting you.

speaking of neil young (elsewhere) do a search here and see what people wrote about him when he made an antiwar song that wasn't like a classic but it was antiwar.

o wait this board is from 2006.

"artists should stick to…" bla bla bla etc. people were ENRAGED. how dare he! etc.

anyway it's late i gotta go but okay.

ps

the narcissism by proxy of identitarianism.

this is great. gotta go but talk tomorrow maybe. i'll think about something that you said but can't reply now.