Comments on: Pop Conference

By: cs

cs — Sat, 12 Jul 2003 05:48:12 +0000

I’m still on the hunt for Timberlake, but in the meantime: Scholars of this type always want to see pop music as the emanation of an entity called popular culture, rather than as music that happens to have become popular. It seems to me that the conflation of commercial pop, rock ‘n’ roll, R&B, and the long histories of the multifarious forms of country music into an entity called ‘pop music’, rather than as music that happens to have expressed quite diverse cultural values, meanings and traditions is, for all Ross’s own evident cleverness, a more greviously occludent claim.

By: Russell L. Carter

Russell L. Carter — Fri, 11 Jul 2003 19:37:33 +0000

The author is making an honorable attempt to broaden his horizons in search of the origins of his specialty, classical music. Or so he says. I think he misses the point a bit, and his comments on “Cry Me a River” reveal why. (if the tune hasn’t been on either KFJC and WFMU I haven’t listened to it; it could be great or gawdawful, doesn’t matter though). He focuses on the “seven layers of simultaneous activity”, and I guess from the view of his expertise in the classical canon observes, “it’s not something that any idiot could have done”. But I think it’s clear without having to narcissisticly cite examples from the last fifty years that compositional sophistication is often irrelevant to truly great “pop”. IMHO the key to the good stuff was best laid out by Ventura, “Hear that long snake moan”, which I can’t find on the web but seems to be taught in lotsa Universities.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 11 Jul 2003 17:29:26 +0000

I didn’t mean “human talent” in the sense that all humans have it in equal measure. I meant that unusual talent and hard work and even great achievement go hand in hand with ordinary (and often unattractive) human emotions and problems. Let me know about Timberlake – I must admit to finding it difficult to see (that is, to hear) through the fluff of the celebrity machinery, but I’m trying.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Fri, 11 Jul 2003 17:12:11 +0000

‘Tis true that academic analytic philosophers like us don’t lapse into that kind of jargon much, but that’s because we have our own kind. (Which is, of course, tremendously useful.)

By: cs

cs — Fri, 11 Jul 2003 16:13:54 +0000

Yes, thanks … a very bright article indeed. But I’m unsure about your ‘human talents’ hypothesis … this being one area of art that always leaves this particular human completely humbled. Can’t write any more, as I’m off to check out Timberlake.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Fri, 11 Jul 2003 15:48:06 +0000

My sense is that academic philosophers (like me) lapse into this kind of jargon less than members of certain other disciplines, often confused with philosophy. ... This is one of the things I like about blogs. Bloggers have their cliches too.