Sinister: irony, and the old

[grreth at xxx.com]

keywords:  magda boom, irony, baxendale.

it's funny, this irony business.  pop culture?  pulp and a hundred thousand wannabes make a statement by dressing like your mum and dad in those old slides of holidays to barry island in the mid seventies.  and maybe i'm at that inbetween age, when sweet young things like magda would call me old and people my own age with houses and cars and children would call me young.  if i said i _didn't_ need my pop laced with irony would i sound like i was protesting too much?

i live a lifestyle that a lot of people would consider to have heavy ironic elements.  my penchant for 1970s accoutrements to modern living is a case in point.  there is no snobbery involved, none at all, when i say that i feel somewhere between angry and queasy when i see the sorts of people that are cooing over things i like the look of in the expensive 2nd hand shops of brighton, say. for me there is a dizzy pleasure in the enjoyment of these things - i may raise an eyebrow archly when pouring out a cocktail mixed in some battery operated contraption or other, but i've never quoted austin powers and would much rather have a girl say "steady, badger" than "easy, tiger".

and how does that apply to music?  you tell me.  are air (french band) ironic?  is france gall?  (remember when the list was a-hum with people asking which was her best album?)  so why do people think i'm ironic for listening to the latter, when the former's simply cool?  and where does "legal man" fit into this, apart from being bad pastiche?  irony is everywhere, so enjoy it.

maybe this curious outburst has come from having a friend accuse me of "dressing up as a rockabilly" when i went to see holly golightly on saturday.  and holly didn't even give me a second glance, the old witch.  i think she's only got 4 toes on her right foot as well.

g a r e t h

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