Sinister: Lovin' Spoonful

[Jonathan Wren]

Perfection As A Hipster wrote:

> The Duke Of Harringay wrote ...
>
> >Jonathan Wren wrote:
> >
> >> I was eating my breakfast yesterday when, on Melody Radio (my parents
> >> choice NOT mine!) a song came on by a group called Loving Spoonfull.
> >> Now, the song was pretty insipid cack
> >
> >sorry about this in advance, but i'm feeling a bit uptight today.
> >today?  ha ha!  Look; if you don't realise the genius and importance of
> >The Lovin' Spoonful then you are... lost.  I mean, Pop.  Aw fuck i give
> >up.  Listen to Summer In The City, or even better NAshville Cats and
> >best of all Do You Believe in Magic.  Read that again: DO YOU BELIEVE IN
> >MAGIC?
> >
> >Do you?
> >
> >I don't see how you can say you love Belle & Sebastian and then say that
> >a Lovin' Spoonful song sounds like 'cack'.. I just don't get it: they're
> >the same sensibility, they're about the magic of Pop and life and aw, if
> >you don't get it then i don't care anymore.  You can just be ignorant
> >for all i care.
>

An apology. And the only thing I am going to apologise for: I should not have used
the words "insipid cack". This was wrong a) because it wasn't a considered response
b) because it is the sort of dismissive remark that I'd probably find/have found
equally annoying when people use such easy words in dismissing a band I love;
Oasis. Yes, that one.

What I won't apologise for is not agreeing that liking Loving Spoonfull is a
necessary requirement for loving  B&S.  This is simply because of the fact that the
particular song (and I can't comment on the rest of their songs) did not move me;
maybe my Frosties made me disagree with it; whatever.

What I find hard to fathom about peoples responses is that they seem to find it
incomprehensible that anyone who doesn't subscribe to their particular musical view
is therefore some sort of bad, ignorant person, who doesn't appreciate music as
greatly as they do and cannot possibly thus love B&S. This is a pretty totalitarian
view of music, and any sort of culture. For goodness sake, it's a wide world out
there and everyone (god knows, I try to be) is an individual with their own
idiosyncratic and dogmatic (in a pejorative and non-pejorative sense) view of what
is good and bad about the world. Or they should be. I may not like Loving Spoonfull
but I am not saying that you are a bad person because you do. And if I did you
could sit and bask in the fact that you know you are right. But is everyone
ignorant who doesn't like what you like? I mean, I actually have friends who
*don't* like B&S. Yes, it is possible to like such people.

Loving B&S isn't about buying into an aesthetic and swallowing it lock, stock and
barrel, and if I thought it was then I'd think that was pretty damn sad and it
might even take something out of the music for me.. B&S are about boredom, love,
loss, failure, elation, the pain of individuality etc. B&S are about questioning
and discovery. I get a buzz of B&S which, on one listen, which I accept is unfair
and I should hear more, I didn't/don't/might get from Loving Spoonfull. And if I
don't after a more considered response, does that really make me some sort of
knuckle headed ignorant idiot? The world is a big old place for people with
differing tastes.

Sorry if I've upset people and sorry for getting all pretentious. I couldn't not
say anything cos this has genuinely upset me, too.

All the best,

Jon

BTW I'm gonna be living in Exeter next year so I hope the massed ranks of LS fans
there don't come and kick the shit out of me...

...that was a joke

:-)



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