ILMism ?

Was this anything characteristic of ILMism? Was it a smirking, ironic in-joke, or did everyone really love Ms. Spears' music that much? Personally I never thought it was terrible... but never anything approaching great; music that wore thin for me rather quickly. Anyone want to save me the effort of searching for those old threads and fill me in?

You'd better get out of here. There's a posse forming.

Oh I agree, there's no way Loveless should be as high as Britney!

Haha, there, you got me. Only took 4 posts for someone to spit out "rockist" at me like the most foul of insults. Yes, I find full albums more rewarding than singles, yes I personally consider Radiohead and My Bloody Valentine to be - frankly - incomparably better than Britney Spears. No, I don't put borders around what genres I like, and no, I really can't see anything especially redeeming about Britney Spears' music (certainly I realize this could be because of overexposure via every median channel, but the fact remains). Yes, I do like Annie. Etc.

Honestly, how does the word rockist have any meaning when it's not being levelled at a music critic? If I'm not deriding music for not adhering to rockist values, if I'm not trying to tell you what you should like, why should it have any relevance that I - *gasp* - tend to enjoy (though not as a rule, obviously) rock more than teenie-pop? Yeah, I guess this is ILMism, though certainly not everyone exhibits it.

ps what is "teenie pop"

pps weirdo americans feigning BEWILDERMENT at ILM is ILMism as much as any popism. "Now I'm new here, and hence I SPEAK IN A DETACHED TONE" etc etc. what a fucking loser.

Whatever. You were gagging for it.

hehe. Ignore this tendency, & it's really not a bad board to discuss,get info about a fair range of off-the-radar music.

p.s. how about the Sugababes? Backstreet Boys? Gareth Gates? etc

;-)

or, what ronan said.

xxxxxpost

now.. that pretty much defines feigning BEWILDERMENT.

but each to their own. Just ignore it if you don't care about it.

Like this whole thread.

-- Ronan (ronan.fitzgerald6NOSPA...), November 12th, 2004.

Haha, I get it. Hey everyone, Ronan is such a typical ILMist! It seems like everyone's greatest fear here is being pidgeonholed or labeled in any way. Shake it off, it's a joke. Really, the whole topic behind the thread is a bit of a joke if you think about it.

Anyway, it looks like you misread my post. I only asked whether people were serious with the Spears thing. I wasn't feigning anything: I realize that people have very different tastes, but when there is a reasonably broad consensus on a piece of music, I usually try to check it out. More often than not, even if it's not music I'm generally into, I can find a quality in it to appreciate and enjoy. So this was kind of an anomaly for me, what can I say?

Really don't know how to respond to the ps and pps. I mean, I don't tend to see a lot of trolling on these boards so I won't assume anything, but... meh, I'll just leave those alone.

In conclusion, I am rockist, as much ILMist as any brand of popism is, a and a typical weirdo american.

For you that would be the Britney discussion.

For me - Daft Punk, Basement Jaxx

How about crack?

I don't want to site examples, because I really don't want to get into the argument that much. Of course there can be differences of opinion on whether it can be just as worthy/enjoyable as 'real' music (another minefield given the workings of the music industry...)

I just think denying all knowledge of the concept of teenie pop is a little bogus. How much you like it is another discussion entirely and totally separate from the politics imo.

Not really, at least not consciously. While skimming the rockism thread, the thought did pass through my mind though - what relevance does "rockism" as a concept have if we're not talking about music criticism, and just someone's tastes? I dunno, that's a discussion for another place and time I suppose.

I don't think anyone's denied that! If anything it's more a subject that is taken for granted, much like the fact that record companies and charts are subject to corruption and influence that has jack to do with whether or not people like something that is popular.

xposts

Most people who discuss these things are really passionate about what they discuss. I would never believe that a thread loving Girls Aloud would be anything but serious, even if it isn't my cup of tea. People make pop, make money from pop, live pop, and know what a good pop tune is. Me - I prefer microhouse and grime right now, but it moves around. I think the idea that some grown individual can't appreciate a pop tune itself is quite anal - someone has to write it, and they sure know their stuff.

There are some possible answers to that on this ILE thread, which mostly avoids the subject of music criticism, and for long stretches even manages to avoid the subject of music.

;-)

Missed this one. Well yeah, I do like these boards so far, I just remember seeing a few trends on ILM and was wondering if they rang true to anyone else. I've never heard of sugababes and gareth gates. To be honest, I didn't really give the BSB a fair shake, so I'll withhold comment ;)

xpost

manufactured pop sounds just as deriding to me, but ok, substitute that for teenie pop in my previous posts i guess.

This has honestly never fitted the Sugababes. As far as Backstreet go, I'm not sure - which age bracket do gay folks fall into ;-)?

seriously, half the rubbish boys-with-guitars groups that pop-haters tend to love could be defined like this too.

xpost: sleep

I may not be being totally serious with some of my choices above ;-)

ppppppps. This isn't really the only music board I've seen this tendency on, but it probably gets discussed a lot more seriously and with in-jokes and meta references because a high percentage of posters here are journalists, dj's etc.

I agree with Lex and BARMS whatever.

Mostly I just could not give two shits about the whole is/isn't manufactured argument. Any company that exercises creative control in their contracts with artists can be accused of cynicism period.

Anyway, back to the silly/fun topic. I won't say ILMism is popism, and there does seem to be a very eclectic bunch of tastes here. But it almost seems like the main hallmark, if any, of ILM as a whole is that wants to be anti-anythingism. Some sentiments I picked up when I found the old ILM Top 100 thread. First and foremost, rockism = bad, throw out the canon, next list will be singles/songs only instead of albums, etc. If it's mentioned on any other list (especially RS), it can't be on ours. "Not enough rap." "Can't believe canon-album-x made top 20." Stuff like that. It just seems like it's implied that there was some greater goal than just listing your favorite music, i.e. the list was supposed to turn out a certain way, something that went to lengths to spit at anything canonical.

I just skimmed the thread, so tell me if I misread anything there (likely :p).

No Melissa, you're off the hook! You like Radiohead!

in any case it's stunning that you could be so insulated that it doesn't occur to you that people can happily like britney spears. how many albums did she sell again??!! maybe these aren't people with whom you usually hang out.

-- Alex in SF

Fair enough. But I thought a few of the recent rockist threads brought some tendencies that could be traced back to the same attitudes I saw on the old top 100 thread. I think it was Hurting that was immediately called out as a rockist when he "admitted" that he didn't care for 80s music, and generally liked music better 30 years ago. It was as if this was clearly an uninformed, ignorant opinion to hold.

Personally I can't really get into 30+ year old music as much as I can with more recent tunes, but the sentiment was familiar to me. I have tried to enjoy lots of different music, and in some cases I guess I just don't get it... and in other cases, I think it is just bad. This happens a bit in all genres, not just mainstream pop, but it's not something I feel the need to change in order to dodge a label.

Slipping back into rockism-debate territory again here, but like I said, if anything it's the forceful rejection of anything 'canonical', the aversion to any set of tastes that can be labeled, and a little bit of popism that best defines ILMism for me. A lot better than traditional rockism, in any case though. I mean, get over the fucking beatles already am I right?? :)

*clings to a 13 year old album as favorite-of-all-time* :(

You be ILMin'! As in:

You promised you're girlfriend you'd take her to a show
But you went to the WFMU Record Fair
You be ILMin'!

I think I am mixing up Run-DMC and Cool J here, but so be it.

http://www.werenotsorry.com/images/notsorrydamn.jpg

Nick, whatever your problem is with the rest of the thread, this sum-up of Chuck Klosterman more than makes up for it. I'm afraid I'm going to have to quote this anywhere and everywhere the man's name comes up.

klosterman = ihhtp:www.fleshlight.com/main/images/products/featured/smf_butt.jpg?

er, so i just noticed that, on the noize jackazz board or whatever it's called, dan selzer accuses both me and matos of claiming that disco never had negative connotations in the '80s, when neither of us ever said anything such thing here or anywhere else, and when matos repeatedly (see above) took pains to explain the obvious, which is that acknowledging that disco never died (which it obviously didn't) does NOT mean that the word never had any negative connotations (which it obviously did). so dan: do you still not get it, or what? i thought you did, but now i'm confused. either way, please stop putting words in our mouths. it's not nice at all.

>I don't care about nice (Ok, yes I do, you can talk about music without trying to belittle someone) but Disco had incredibly negative connotations in America during the 80s. Everyone BUT Matos and Chuck Eddy acknowledge this. <

-- Dan Selzer (danselze...), October 8th, 2004.<

anyway, it was comments like:

In other words, the specific SOUND you're referring to in the late '70s never died, get it? It's still probably the biggest kind of popular music in the world. It didn't just mean Saturday Night Fever leisure suits in 1978; why should it mean that later?

from Chuck that started this off. I will repeat, and maybe it was my sheltered upbringing in suburban New Jersey but to most of the people I've ever spoken to, to almost all representations in popular culture, to most of america, disco meant EXACTLY that and I'd bet millions of dollars that if I walked up to Rico, the white camaro driving 20 something that was dating a high school friend of mine in the late 80s who made me my first mix straight off WKTU of club hits and back then said, do you like disco? He, like most of america, would have laughed at me.

another great Chuck quote. Chuck, if you think all those things share the same relationship to 70s disco that 80s italodisco does, you are not spending as much time with dance music as I am. And even if they share the same "relationship" which, not being familiar with fast Celine Dion and Leann Rimes songs I cannot attest to, it is just the slight differences, that make for the creation of different genre names. I think you are being way to universal with the term DISCO and that that is unfair to disco!

and finally, I think proving my argument, Chuck again:

I don't even think people who bought Shannon's "Let the Music Play" or Michael Sembello's "Maniac" or Irene Cara or Laura Branigan records in the early/mid '80s considered themselves disco fans; they probably would've just called it "pop" or something! But again, not realizing you like disco is hardly the same as not liking disco.

You can call it disco all you want, that doesn't change the fact that Shannon didn't call it disco, and her fans didn't call it disco. And it didn't sound much like what most people thought disco sounds like, and I don't consider it disco...and I think I have a wide idea of what disco is!

Just not as wide as yours.

Yes, it did. If "Let the Music Play" had come out in 1977 or 1978 (when disco meant several different kinds of sounds that people could dance to, not just one, though for some reason Dan always seems hesitant to admit that), people would have had no problem at all calling it disco, and that goes for any of the other examples I give in those italicized quotes. Just because the music industry taught people to call disco other things (*because* of the negative connotations that the word had accrued by the time Steve Dahl built his disco bonfire etc.) doesn't mean the music industry wasn't full of shit in doing so.

Oooh, now it's "Mad World"!)

I will say that I too have been confused by Chuck's views on 'disco backlash' in other threads. He did point out to me that it was not universally reviled by actual music critics (by showing me a P&J poll from the late 70s - maybe even '80) which was interesting, but I'm not sure how he (sorry, 'you' Chuck - haha) feels about how criticisms of disco worked in the broader culture/press.

YOU KNOW IT. God, I love that song.

I am now listening to "So Addictive". This is maybe the best work mix I've ever created (it's 5 hours long).

but chuck is def NOT ILMism, I don't know what ILMism is anymore...

xp

I would LOVE to be in a position that everyone just says "let's go to that party where Dan is DJing because he plays good music" but people want to know the genres.

funny - i was just watching *diner* last night (found a VHS copy of 3 bucks while xmas shopping, hadn't seen it for years), and there's that scene where the guy gets mad at his wife for misfiling one of his r&b albums in the rock'n'roll section, and all i could think of was, "well, lots of r&b IS rock'n'roll" (i mean, we're talking 1959 here, folks). the couple times i tried organizing my vinyl by genres, i got totally frustrated, because lots of music if not most of it just plain DOESN'T fit neatly into one genre crate. at least not much music that i LIKE, since i tend to prefer stuff that straddles genres and lands on the cusp (i mean, donna summer was using rock guitars on *Bad Girls* right when the Stones were going disco with "Miss You," right?) In some ways, I'm jealous of the kind of literalists who think music classifications are way tidier and simpler to figure out than I do. But maybe our brains are just wired differently; who knows.

New Wave Dance 1, New Wave Dance 2, NYC Club Classics, Disco 1
Italo-Disco, Hi-NRG, Freestyle/Electro, Disco 2
Chicago House and Detroit Techno, New York House and UK techno, Hip-Hop, Newish stuff

and the bottom 4 cubes are filled with random crap.

Had all of these been alphabatized, it would take me a ton more time to pull out records. Now I just think about the kinds of stuff I want to play and I know where everything is. All the records that I don't play at dance clubs are alphabatized in a large shelf. The only confusion comes from bands I like to play, when I file them away into the big shelf, I always forget to bring them to parties. Some bands are split up, like New Order's LPs are on the big shelf, but the 12"s of Perfect Kiss, Confusion, Blue Monday etc are on the Ikea Shelf.

Chuck, I consider myself a pretty eclectic DJ, and a fan of many many types of music, but I think genre classifications are a necessary evil, that can sometimes be your friend. Despite all those cubes, every few records I come accross something where I just can't tell where it goes, and certain records are constantly getting moved around between different cubes depending on what I think it is at the moment! Esp between the "NY Club Classics" and the "Freestyle Electro". I keep moving things between those two.

imagine Herbert tracks made out of the furniture, or sexy Luomo tracks with lithe Euros intoning the names of the different products, maybe get Bob Blank to do some remixes . . . let's do this!

I think what makes me uncomfortable about genre is that I can hear a word like disco or punk or r&b, and I get an abstract idea of a form of music, but I con't define the genres at all, without referring to bands as examples. I suspect genres are phantoms, and close examination only reveals more and more problems. But maybe "Any classification is superior to chaos", I don't know - I think I do alright without one.