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From: gtaylor@lasspvax.UUCP (Greg Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: The disdain for newer music
Message-ID: <155@lasspvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Dec-84 10:03:04 EST
Article-I.D.: lasspvax.155
Posted: Tue Dec 18 10:03:04 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Dec-84 04:09:11 EST
References: <>
Reply-To: gtaylor@lasspvax.UUCP (Greg Taylor)
Distribution: net
Organization: Theory Center (Cornell University)
Lines: 38
Summary: 

Yeah, Mark-point well taken. However, I don't think that ego and ownership
are always the whole story. Consider, for example, the notion of "sustained
naivety;"

Scritti Politti have been around for quite a long time, being one of the 
first Rough Trade bands (for a little earlier work-though you'll hardly
recognize it-try the RT compilation "Wanna Buy a Bridge?"). Back then, they
could hardly play a note, and the stuff they did was this heavily reggae
flavored slab of white noise with fuzz-tone vocals. Then, they had a big
hit in England with"The Sweetest Girl"...anyhow, as they kept working, the
sense of shine got a bit more obvious, and the sort of idiosyncratic things
that originally attracted me to them just flew away. Not that they needed
to hang on to the little things they did to circumvent being unable to play
lightning fast solos etc, but that I guess it just became harder to retain
the sense of pleasure, determination and fun that filled their early stuff.

Don't get me wrong: I happen to think that the new Jerry Wexler produced
stuff is really stylish (though a bit too Jacksoned-up). It's just that
they are really two groups when you try to think of their work. I'd just
as easily talk about the Clash, PiL, in the same way.

And also note that I am not assuming that getting slick is all bad: In the
case of a band like Japan (who, by the way, have a great retrospective album 
called "Excorcising Ghosts" out-check it), their slicker work is head and
shoulders above their earlier derivative junk: THey went from being third-stringBowie clones to a really fine group.

It seems a bit ironic that I think we're  arguing for the same thing: the 
right of an artist to choose, or choose not to change. I am inclined to be
more mindful of the pressures generated by the "recording industry" together
with the urge for wealth in terms of the way that it creates a process that
inevitably restricts the people who might do something interesting, though.

You really interested in this? Go out and hunt up a copy of Simon Frith's
(yes, he *is* Fred Frith's brother) "Sound Affects: Youth, Leisure, and the
Politics of Rock and Roll." It is an excellent discussion of many of the issues
you raise.

Greg