im a bit dubious about how you draw up your mediocrity table though. how do you do it? the idea that taste is limited to food only is daft.Kings of Conv', to be honest, is incredebly (sp?) "mediocra", its easy to listen to and isnt really ground breaking, but the fact is that it is fab to listen to and warms you up inside.
I find some of the new Kings album dull, and some brilliant. And I'd argue that in a lot of ways it is ground breaking. Some of the lyrics are particularly interesting and I'm not sure I've heard anything strikingly similar, at least not in the way Limp et al rip each other off. Anyway the medicocrity = popularity thing only really works one way. Popular stuff is 90% mediocre, mediocre stuff is NOT 90% popular. I cite every pub gig I've ever been to as evidence for that. To be honest, if it was truely mediocre I doubt you, or many other people on this list, would listen to it. Just because it's simple acousticy songs doesn't make it mediocre.
suggesting that 1984 "follows the surface rules" is laughable(even though i havent read it yet, shhhh).
Erm... it has a standard sci-fi type plot that involves people pushing against the system, has a love interest, has a hero and an enemy and is written in standard third person prose. Ok, so the sci-fi thing wasn't following the surface rules then... but it wasn't very popular when it came out. It's the subtexts that are really interesting, and, although those are about as strong as they could be, people still miss them and read the story for surface meaning. I'll never forget someone in my A-level Theatre Studies class saying "I don't like it, it's boring and Winston is really wet, why didn't he just do something about it instead of sitting back and letting it happen? I gave up after the first 30 pages." Apparently this girl is now into GYBE! which I find a little confusing... though I imagine she's just being pretentious, she always was one for using big words where they didn't belong. Oh, and I'd also like to apologise to the list for the last mail, I'm unsure as to why I sent it and it really doesn't have much of a point. Ho hum... I'll think more before I post in future. Peter +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+