Sinister: intimacy and the Pop experience

[duke of harringay]

> Surely B&S's sound is far too intimate to be
> huge. A song like "Get me
> away from here, I'm dying" would be completely
> lost in a stadium.

intimacy is internal.  you listen to 'get me away'
and you think intimate, but there are, how many
people have bought 'Sinister'?  How many have a
tape from a friend?  So on that level it's not an
intimate experience at all.  it's a mediated,
illusary intimacy.  AS for stadiums, well i
dunno... that's Rock isn't it?  And anyway, a band
will inevitably change as success impinges on
their range of choices of venue etc. and the sound
will alter, whatever... an 'intimacy' will be lost
and 'original' fans may get disillusioned (i hate
to draw the smiths parallel again, but it fits...)
and move on to newer things, but... again this is
the nature of Pop.  You have to celebrate it when
it means a lot to you.  If/When B&S get to playing
stadiums, their sound will probably be different,
they will be a different band, the fans will be
different, will either have grown with or apart
from the band... all of which is irrelevant in the
here and now, however, because we aren't in love
with the band that might be, we are in love with
the band that IS.

> As for being too miserable to be popular, well
> OK so they're not ABBA
> (hey shame!). But they're complete hedonists
> compared to Radiohead, and
> OK Computer was a number one all over the world.

Radiohead are Rock and operate in a different
realm to B&S.  Their 'sadness' and their
'seriousness' are stereotyped, typically dull Boy
Rock neuroses that have been done to death a
million times before.  It doesn't convince me at
all.  then again, i might have said that about the
old Manic Street Preachers if i hadn't known them
from the start, hadn't known Richey and all his
genuine ideas and feelings.  Whatever...  There's
a humour in B&S that a group like Radiohead
wouldn't even begin to understand.  And i laugh
like i used to laugh when people told me the
smiths were miserable, because them not getting
the joke is funnier than the jokes themselves.

whatever.  keep the faith,

the duke

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