Sinister: why this is important

[J M Forsyth]

>(b) I used the phrase homogenising cultural muscle to mean the power
>which the culture industries (and in this case music) seem to exercise
>to squeeze the best ideas out of the most interesting music and replace
>them with hackneyed, lowest-common-denominator ideas of what will
>_sell_,(meaning what has sold already). Not an absolute rule, but a
>general one.


Thank you, that is clearer. My difficulty was in determining whether you
meant a culturally-homogenising muscle, or a muscle which, concomitant with
(in spite of?) its homogenising powers, was 'cultured'; whether you meant
the brain, or whether indeed the phrase was leaning towards being a specious
form of phrasal verb.

>>ii) Isn't this being-let-down-by-bands-and-populism thing (something
>that
>miraculously ceases to bother you when you give up reading the music
>press,
>by the by),
>
>Thanks dad. I did stop reading the music press for a period of about
>five years, not that you were to know that, of course) and it didn't
>prevent my mistrust of the music business. Neither did it diminish my
>interest in the business's machinations.
>
>> if it has happened with what seem to be some of the bands you
>most like, as central a part of your enjoyment of pop as any other?
>
>No, not as central as any other. Interested as I am in what pop means
>and how it works, the central part of my enjoyment remains the things
>the noise  does to me. Long may it remain so. Otherwise, I might as well
>be thinking about milk cartons...


A fair piece of pedantry provoked by my poor phrasing. No, of course it's
not as central as any other, but, so qualified, I still wonder whether or
not what I'm suggesting has any truth - noise on most other mailing list
contains the same anguish about the impending (or otherwise) popularity of
the subject, despite the perceived uniqueness and superiority of each list's
deity.

On another note, I'd appreciate it if you took the foot off the pedal a
little. The Internet is too regrettably reminiscent of a Wild West saloon -
all calm and honky tonk, two seconds later everybody leaping into a brawl.

Regards,

John.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
.     This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list.
.        To send to the list please mail "sinister at majordomo.net".
.  For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see
.            http://www.majordomo.net/sinister
. For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister at majordomo.net
-----------------------------------------------------------------------