Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site lasspvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!hoxna!houxm!vax135!cornell!lasspvax!gtaylor 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