Jump to content

Is all our culture just Karaoke now?


Park Life
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 89
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

All the characters running the Sex Pistols were posh blokes. Every single last one of em. From art collagey McLaren to the EMI blokes to the the lad from the Wombles that played on most of the tracks.....But somehow they escaped it...They refused to be defined by it imho.

Edited by Park Life
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah but that's you applying a bizarre standard to it iyam. Go back to about 1991 and you had Simon Bates playing sloppy shite on Radio 1. Does that mean it was culturally dead then? I still don't know what the fuck that means btw. But the output on Radio 1 is just what the people running it decide they want the station to be at any given time. You'd be better off checking out Radio 6 on a Saturday night tbh. And you're also coming at it from 20 years down the line. We're old farts.

Charts have totally changed too. As has the way people listen to and obtain music so the comparison is unfair.

Yeah am probably using the wrong words, they're not a strong point..

 

But you've got to pretty much accept that if the mainstream is now regularly playing the stuff we heard in clubs 15-20 years ago then things haven't moved on musically which is surely what is the most important thing about what may be termed "dance music culture"? There's nothing original driving change, the clubs and radio stations make the most money from trance and no ones willing to take a chance to take something a tiny bit weird but hugely better in qualityto the masses. So due to mass market forces the culture isn't evolving. You can be sure before Bates and DLT got the bullet the playlist as well as fuckin "our tune" also contained the Progidy and they'd have had to have played it....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah am probably using the wrong words, they're not a strong point..

 

But you've got to pretty much accept that if the mainstream is now regularly playing the stuff we heard in clubs 15-20 years ago then things haven't moved on musically which is surely what is the most important thing about what may be termed "dance music culture"? There's nothing original driving change, the clubs and radio stations make the most money from trance and no ones willing to take a chance to take something a tiny bit weird but hugely better in qualityto the masses. So due to mass market forces the culture isn't evolving. You can be sure before Bates and DLT got the bullet the playlist as well as fuckin "our tune" also contained the Progidy and they'd have had to have played it....

There's a new gate keeper ain't there?

 

Anu rose out of the machines and into frenzied bodies and it scared the jehovah out of the handlers. Actual laws were passed in 3D time.

Edited by Park Life
Link to comment
Share on other sites

All the characters running the Sex Pistols were posh blokes. Every single last one of em. From art collagey McLaren to the EMI blokes to the the lad from the Wombles that played on most of the tracks.....But somehow they escaped it...They refused to be defined by it imho.

And that's the difference, they were all art school posh, all ideologically driven, so was punk. They used young working class kids to send their message to the masses. Mike Pickering imported some banging tunes. Am certainly not saying one is better than the other but to claim rave was similar to punk in ethos us just plain wrong iyam.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah am probably using the wrong words, they're not a strong point..

 

But you've got to pretty much accept that if the mainstream is now regularly playing the stuff we heard in clubs 15-20 years ago then things haven't moved on musically which is surely what is the most important thing about what may be termed "dance music culture"? There's nothing original driving change, the clubs and radio stations make the most money from trance and no ones willing to take a chance to take something a tiny bit weird but hugely better in qualityto the masses. So due to mass market forces the culture isn't evolving. You can be sure before Bates and DLT got the bullet the playlist as well as fuckin "our tune" also contained the Progidy and they'd have had to have played it....

I wouldn't know about the present in all honesty. I was really arguing against the notion in was dead by the mid 90s. I hear a canny bit of new stuff but it's more the retro stuff that turns me on but I also accept that's an age thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And that's the difference, they were all art school posh, all ideologically driven, so was punk. They used young working class kids to send their message to the masses. Mike Pickering imported some banging tunes. Am certainly not saying one is better than the other but to claim rave was similar to punk in ethos us just plain wrong iyam.

The Pistols were only one band though. Influential, aye, but probably not that lasting a legacy beyond these shores and loads of other people got there first. There was a lot of revisionism with all the masterplan stuff behind the Pistols. If McLaren and co were that clever they'd have come up with more than one decent LP tbh.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wouldn't know about the present in all honesty. I was really arguing against the notion in was dead by the mid 90s. I hear a canny bit of new stuff but it's more the retro stuff that turns me on but I also accept that's an age thing.

I wouldn't have been able to comment much about current stuff either until about 6 months ago but during the day if they're playing a dance track radio one is like a "TRANCE NATION 97" compilation. It's fuckin dreadful.

 

EDIT: I was referring to Chez's comment about how huge it is now. Undeniably true but in that regard also musically stagnant.

Edited by PaddockLad
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Pistols were only one band though. Influential, aye, but probably not that lasting a legacy beyond these shores and loads of other people got there first. There was a lot of revisionism with all the masterplan stuff behind the Pistols. If McLaren and co were that clever they'd have come up with more than one decent LP tbh.

Agreed, if you believed in it as a movement that meant something in 76 by the end of 78 you'd have probably been suicidal the way things panned out..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wouldn't have been able to comment much about current stuff either until about 6 months ago but during the day if they're playing a dance track radio one is like a "TRANCE NATION 97" compilation. It's fuckin dreadful.

 

EDIT: I was referring to Chez's comment about how huge it is now. Undeniably true but in that regard also musically stagnant.

Electronic music is the only dynamic form of music and if there is a 'punk' ethos, it lives on in the underground forms of modern dance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was a pretty big RUN-DMC fan as a kid - till I realised they were merely appropriating the Beastie Boys.

 

Who were merely reappropriating Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and so on and so.

 

Agreed, if you believed in it as a movement that meant something in 76 by the end of 78 you'd have probably been suicidal the way things panned out..

 

The thing about punk now isn't really about the material from that era but the legacy it left behind and the influence it had over cultures that followed it.

Btw the world is a far different place now and with the internet, social media and the immediacy of things I doubt we will see a cultural explosion the like of punk again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agreed, if you believed in it as a movement that meant something in 76 by the end of 78 you'd have probably been suicidal the way things panned out..

I think that the only meaning behind punk as a movement was its do it yourself ethos. Which, to be fair, lives on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.