Sinister: mythical cheesy snacks

[The Fragrant World Of Princess Honey]

Not speaking as list mummy you understand but as Honey, listee...

I don't what all the fuss about selling out is about.  If I was a "pop"
band and sold out Wembley Arena I'd be very pleased and tell my gran,
if she was still alive.  Am I missing some intricate ethical point
about leaving some seats unoccupied so that older people or small
children could have them or something?

What's interesting about Sinister again just now (and as you all know,
Sinister is really a mass public experiment, a microcosm of society:
you are all in a bowl under a microscope and I get paid by the
goverment to do this) is that on the "sell-out" topic we seem to have
had one or maybe two mails about Top Of The Pops or something, saying
"not that I'm saying they're *really* selling out.." and then a barrage
of other mails saying "they're not selling out!!".  Oo it's like 1999,
or 1997 all over again.  And then others saying "well I don't really
agree about the selling out thing because I'm not sure it means much
but in 1997..", indicating disappointment that the band aren't doing
what they "did" "before".

If you make a pop band in your own image, and interpret their every
move as clever subversive shenanigans, you might consider that it might
be because they aren't very good or comfortable or trusting with
cameras and journalists and things or just think it's a bit stupid; and
when they get a bit happier, or feel they need to say something, or
feel it might be fun to do a Beatles-style conference because after all
they'd only be watching TV in Glasgow if they didn't, or, indeed, make
a strategic error, break all the microphones before they start, swallow
a cheesy snack the wrong way and end up having an embarrassing coughing
fit that makes the front of "Smash Hits", you might want to try and
reassess why you liked LPs 1 and 2 so much.  You might find it was
because of the music, and/or in various measures because you had a
feeling the people behind the music were interesting, or nice, or
pleasantly odd, or kind, or a bit like you, or not like you but more
like the kind of people you'd like to talk to in a train station for a
bit.  Or you might find it was because you thought they were media
terrorists, subverters of mass content, clever manipulators of the
global structures that surround us, in which case you might not like
them much after album nos. 3 or 4.

If I started to feel that way I might start to ask if my own personal
myth about what the band were trying to do was actually my own personal
myth, particular if I missed the myths (try saying that when you've
drunk a shandy) I had when I were 16.  It's just that they probably
won't be able to live up to those ideas maybe?  Particularly if they're
mine and not actually theirs?  They might've just been a particularly
nice set of people in Glasgow who bumbled along mostly like the rest of
us, but had the lucky gift of mostly being a bit happier together than
they were apart, a certain lightness of touch to all things public, and
a certain finesse at handling the somewhat murkier world of people who
like to represent or shrink-wrap their kind of creativity.  And then
they decided they might try and shrink-wrap it too for a bit even
though it was a bit of an odd thing to do, but so other people could
hear it, seeing some seemed to like it.  And they found a business who
saw the opportunity to make some cash and at the same time listen to
something they quite liked, a business that was smaller than some of
the others and so more or less promised to let them do it how they
wanted, because that's how they'd keep them, and mostly they did.  So
they thought it might be something to do for a bit.  And hey, it was
fun.

And if they did a single that wasn't like the other singles, and
was shorter and you couldn't hear the last minute of the final song
without buying two versions, yes you might pause and wonder why and
look at them askance for a minute or two.  But you could ask them why
they did that, I guess.

Of course if you don't think their songs are as good as they were
before, that's a different point.

Honey x

P.S. list anti-crush, yes Denise, but a few kinder people than me
convinced me it might be a bad idea :)  I'll start taking private votes
again.  But don't come running to me when you've got 10 hate votes and
you don't know WHY and it makes you CRY!


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