From Sharon Maher Sent Fri, Apr 9th 1999, 00:40
From Sharon Maher Sent Fri, Apr 9th 1999, 00:40
Forgive my comments here, if they sound harsh. I recognize the author of the post i'm responding to was only voicing his memory of the opinions of Simon Reynolds. Not having read his book i can't really judge his attitudes. However i still felt very motivated to speak my opinions: I disagree totally. I understand the rationale - that armchair avante-garde chinstroking elitism - ie you stay at home waxing poetic about difficult music - is less revolutionary than challenging the status quo via partying and drug use. First off, i'd argue that partying and druge use does not challenge the status qou. That's called teenage rebellion, and its had its cultural and musical movements for the last century. Read a book on the 60s if you don't belive me. However, furthermore, Reynolds' is suggesting that IDM is primarily an acedemic or avant garde medium, which it isn't. If you ever take college courses on electronic music in this country, you'll see that there is a large gap between the so-called avante garde and the vernacular. In my experience, a band like Einstruzende Neubauten receives no attention for their groundbreaking efforts where as artists like Philip Glass and Steve Reich are revered. And that's because the movement of a band like Neubauten was not rotted in academia and thus has to be dismissed. As for the present day, i see an artistic movement that directly counters the highly-commerical record industry very revolutionary. If your aim is to release challenging music and open minds as opposed to making money, isn't that challenging the status quo? I would argue that subverting the record industry is far more revolutionary than being a raver. However, my suspicions are that Reynolds doesn't see it this way because subverting the record industry would mean disinfranchising the place he's built for himself so that he can make a living off of very smugly assessing the relevancy of bands and music movements. Such as the piece of shit that he wrote in the first place. > As far as Simon Reynolds' tirade, I can't say that I disagree entirely. Maybe > it's because I've read his book "Generation Ecstasy" (also worth scoring) and > know his whole argument. If you read that one you'll understand better where > he's coming from - he's more interested in music as an agent of social change > and personal transformation, and idm seems a bit too self-indulgent and > deliberately elitist to work in that direction. Compare someone who makes > "difficult/avant garde" music to a kid who goes out to raves every weekend and > eats loads of drugs - Reynolds would argue that the kid is actually doing more > to push the envelope, challenge the status quo, etc. while the "avant-garde" > musician is actually just working within the system for primarily self-indulgent > reasons. As long as the kid is conscious of his actions (which most aren't), I > can't say he's wrong on this one.