Writing loads of crap this weekend, much of which has inevitably ended up on these pages, either specifically in the blog or otherwise on the pages of Tangents as, whisper it, some of those ‘record review articles’ I once said I was fed up writing. Well, I was. And now I’m less so. So there.

Also decided to try selling off some of the inevitably large collection of unwanted records living with me in the attic by launching a Tangents auction. I’m not entirely certain how it all works to be honest, but you can take a look here for details.

There’s a bunch of 7” singles up for grabs at the moment, and if it goes okay I may stick other stuff up. It’s either that or try eBay… Oh, and as well as bidding for my records, I think you fine people can also register and offer your own items for auction. Maybe you can have some fun playing with it.

Right, time for me to code up some pages and scan some sleeves.


posted by duke harringay at 5:24 PM

I don’t believe you.
Or why I hate being post-modern

I was reading an interview with Tim Benton from Baxendale yesterday, in which he was talking about influences, and the sort of music he’s been listening to recently. It was all contemporary Pop, all R&B and Garage; no indie under-achievers in sight. It all seemed fair enough, because Baxendale have always seemed to me to be ones for making great exuberant Pop statements in their records, and if the band has so far been restricted to the confines of the indie ghetto, it’s only because of their desire to be in control of their own destinies, and their penchant for marrying somewhat less than optimistic lyrics to their generally upbeat power-electro-pop. But Benton’s comments were read at the same time as I’d personally been juggling in my head notions about what I have been currently listening to, and more than this, what I have been currently NOT listening to, and trying to make some sense out of it.

Look, let me tell you what I’ve not been listening to. I’ve not been listening to chart Pop. I’ve not been listening to Steps, or Destiny’s Child, or S Club 7. I’ve not been listening to any ropey Garage tunes, or any R&B. And now let me tell you why: it’s because I hate it.

I hate it for a whole range of reasons, some of which intermingle and connect with each other explicitly or tangentially, but mostly because I hate the way those records sound. I hate the way R&B records sound most of all. I hate the way the vocalists insist on doing crap attempts at expression by wavering up and down and around and about without actually going anywhere; movements which are essentially redundant, except clearly they aren’t because they are part of the process of R&B, and fair enough to that, but it’s just a horrid process. I hate this music because it wears too few clothes, it parades too much wealth and subscribes, it seems to me, to a dubious and repulsive paradigm that says only the beautiful are worthwhile, only material wealth matters. This, naturally, as response to the visual embodiment of the music, but as I currently argue to people more than they’d care to listen, people hear music less than they see it these days.

More and more these days I mistrust people who are of my generation who suggest that they really love such contemporary sounds. More and more I have less time for those who not only tell us they adore Destiny’s Child, but also appear to insist on the worthiness of something old which is clearly naff and crap simply, it seems to me, because they are insecure in their own cultural intelligence. I can’t help but feel it’s a case of ‘yes I like listening to Albert Ayler, but it’s okay, I’m really ‘down with the kids’ because I love Steps too! And I’m not being ironic. Honest I’m not. I really do love Steps.’

And I’m being excessively, exaggeratedly unfair.

Obviously.

I remember the great bit in the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘Paninaro’ where an unidentified chap is telling us all about what music he doesn’t like. He doesn’t like Country and Western. He doesn’t like Rock music. He doesn’t like Rockabilly or Rock’n’Roll. He suggests that he doesn’t like much really, but that what he does like he loves passionately. I really love that bit, and I remember seeing a spread in i-D back in the day about the Paninari, with them all decked out in sunglasses and expensive clothes, astride their scooters, eating ice-cream. They looked like their record collections probably had loads of 12”s with Italian House Piano on. I thought they looked crap.


posted by duke harringay at 5:23 PM