Mediocrity = popularity. To buttress this assertion by way of example: Gray David, Toploader, Starsailor, Bridgett Jones' Diary [film and book],Captain Correlli's Mandolin, Stereophonics. The fact that "Mediocrity = popularity" has a little to do with the concept "lowest common denominator". Take the recent example at Glasgow University where a distinguished intellectual [some might say Scotland's leading author; I wouldn't] was beaten by a two-bit comic with the catchphrase "Gonnae no' dae that". The case for the prosecution rests.
Erk, Starsailor should always be referred to as Shitsailor, even though that term is hopelessly tacky. If anyone has a better subversive name I'd like to know. Anyway, I have a belief that taste does not exist for any form of art. Taste is limited to food, where it can be explained but the biology of people's tongues and the inability to taste certain flavours. Music, however, as well as book and music is explained by something else. The main thrust of the argument is 1. Ease. If something doesn't break any boundaries or do anything new at all, it's easy to listen to. There is nothing unexpected to get your head round, nothing interesting that you need to dissect. People who have no real interest in art (the majority or the work/money/sex population) just go with anything they can enjoy after listening to it only once, ipso facto Mediocre Music (tm). The only things which usually break through this are bands/books/films/art which can follow all the surface rules, while doing something intelligent through subtexts or complexities or whatever. I use the majority of surviving 60's music as an example here as well as some classic books, like 1984 and such. However there are also other things that seem to make up 'taste', 2. Mood. This is very important as far as I see, and goes someway to accounting for the difference in taste between 'serious' music fans. However, this can usually be bypassed continued listening, and, to some extent, by guessing which mood you'd have to be in to enjoy something. Listening to Nick Cave or Sleater Kinney when you've just fallen in love isn't necessarily the best thing, and everyone knows The Stone Roses are best enjoyed in a field on a hot summers day. 3. Music experience. This seems to be both enlightening and limiting, though more of the former than the latter. You can often listen to something and here it sounds a little like something else you've heard and dismiss it, but I guess this ties into '1', if you put enough effort in, and it is genuinely good, you can usually understand why it's good, and minor differences are the things which shape music anyway. Most music has basically the same formula, but I think that the more music you listen to (properly, not just let it plink away in the background), the more you can understand subtleties, and the more you realise quality over easy hooks and gimmicks. 4. Image. This really is important to bands other than the S Club brigade. Image is a way of making your music say something, and, as that's pretty much all music does, I'd say it was pretty important. While individual songs should not be valued according to the bands assumed persona, I'd say that bands as a whole should, nay, have to be. A faceless band, saying nothing, but doing it with good tunes, is still a faceless band. Having said that, I don't have that much of a problem with bands not writing their own material. If someone can write and someone can sing, why not let them specialise? It's only the 1 writer = 20 bands ratio and the number of devaluing covers of great songs which is currently adding to the hermoginisation (sp) of our pop scene. I also find the contast stream of bands who 'can dance', to be bizaree in the extreme. When the hell was it decided that dancing ability helps to make a good record? No matter how hard a strain, I can never quite make out the footsteps of dancing barbie clones on 'Reach for the Sky'. The pop scene also seems to have a heel of a lot to do with promotion. Seeing as I've introduced bands like Looper and Kings of Conveniace to friends with resonable degrees of success, I think some of the problem with mediocrity is that people don't both filtering. As lot of people just like anything and don't bother to think about it. It's there, it's in our culture... why question it? This seems VERY dangerous to me, and, without being melodramatic, I'd say it's the kind of attitude that made the holocaust possible. Having said all that, I recently saw 'Rock Action' by Mogwai at number 12 in the album charts in HMV. Needless to say I bought it immediately (I've been meaning to buy some Mogwai for ages), and it's great. I'm wondering if this is leading up to a revolution... what with Gorrillaz (sp?) in there too and number 9 or some such. Nah, they probably just put it in the wrong slot, either that or I was dreaming. I didn't pinch myself, and the CD a couple of times though... Anyway, this rant was a roundabout way of getting out of doing an essay... please forgive me.
On a scale of 1 to pish-poor-awful. 1 being the least pish-poor-awful and pish-poor-awful being the most pish-poor-awful. I reckon I'd have to say Feeder are about 9. Y'know. Pretty high.
"I got a brand new car... *muffled screams*"
PS Just a little note on Disco; it's an unfairly maligned genre of music, y'know. Donna Summer's I Feel Love. Ah mean, c'mon. "It was unprecedented. No verse, no chorus, just Summer's purring mantra set over endless, oscillating, undulating, repetitive sequencer-driven beats."
Wow, Kid A ripped of Donna Summer! Who would have thought it. Actually, I love that album, I was just being silly. Many times I've laughed when people said "I don't like it, it's got no guitars", actually it was more crying that laughing, but there you go.
PPS That's my fifteen minutes. Anybody care to debate? Go on, you know you want to. I've never actually had an argument/convo with anyone on Sinister. I always shy away from real discussion.
Do I qualify? 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 +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+