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From:
Matthew Korfhage
To:
Date:
Tue, 12 Sep 2000 13:26:28 PDT
Subject:
Re: [idm] good groups that make it big
Msg-Id:
<F385h1dItw91nsiakrq00008fbd@hotmail.com>
Mbox:
idm.0009.gz
"rebecca263" <rebecca263@netzero.net> wrote:
quoted 5 lines well, I've never heard of Radiohead, sorry to say, but I LOVED Roy>well, I've never heard of Radiohead, sorry to say, but I LOVED Roy > >Orbison's pop music, and I like Kate Bush, They Might Be Giants, XTC, > >the Ramones,sex pistols,kraftwerk,can,aznavour,pierre >schaeffer,billie >holiday,dvorak,glenn miller,raymond scott,joy >division,hafler trio and >well, etc etc.and they're ALL famous, so? :)
Yeah, Hafler Trio played our local megastadium recently, but I just couldn't bring myself to shell out the $39 (+ ticketmaster fees) for a bunch of skag sell-outs. Not responding directly to rebecca, but: As far as *pop* music is concerned, what becomes popular tends to be a matter of near irrelevance to most of the criteria you're going to toss out for quality (other than maybe level of polish). Plus, innovation needs to be taken relative to a given frame of reference. I would say that Kid Rock, an artist I don't really have all that much respect for, is much more innovative in his domain than are CiM or Lackluster in theirs, although I have a good deal of affection for both CiM and Lackluster. Radiohead, to me, is an example of a band pushing the limits of what mainstream pop can be right now, and they've been doing so since The Bends. Much of this is through making palatable in a new context a number of other genres (non-Pink-Floyd 70's prog, notably; idm, recently) that are otherwise DOA for mass appeal. People can complain about artists like Radiohead, or the more blatant examples of Beck and Tarantino, but successful appropriation into pop appeal shouldn't be looked at as something that requires anything short of a great deal of talent. And none of these three, I'll add, do I think of as pandering to a mass audience-- the latter two preen and patronize more than anything, and the former shows nothing if not disregard. And at least Yorke (of Radiohead) can summon up some genuine (schizoid, if heartfelt) sentiment. The future of idm is likely not idm. The process of dissemination and cross-pollenation has sped up considerably over the past century, to the extent that idm producers have apparently worked with *Madonna*, and mainstream hip-hop producers have been churning out some odd syncopated idm-influenced rhythms for some time now. Welcome to the logic of late capitalism, where dissidence and difference are necessary to nurture the main utilizable flow *as long as they aren't pass?* (those poor socialists). I tend to think that the category "idm" will slowly dissolve as it becomes less and less workable as a genre, just as *innovative guitar music* would seem a strange and useless category to us now unless one just wanted to write a magazine article about a few luminaries. And yes I know idm is a mailing list, not a.... Cheers, Matthew "If there's one thing I can't stand, it's up." _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org