NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/bit/listserv/allmusic/15622

Text File | 1993-01-28 | 8.9 KB | 208 lines

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Path: sparky!uunet!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!paladin.american.edu!auvm!EIGHT-BALL.BOEING.COM!CRISPEN
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Date:         Thu, 28 Jan 1993 13:01:49 EST
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From:         crispen <[e-mail]>
Subject:      The wrath of "Bob"
Lines: 194

OK, let's take them in order.  First, thank you dear ALLMUSIC friends
for not mentioning that I flamed Mr. Rand for a message he sent on
CLASSM-L!!!!  Evidently all the coffee I drank yesterday went straight
to my temper and completely bypassed my brain.  After thinking about
it, I decided not to send it over there.  It was dumb, anyway.

Tim Johnson <[e-mail]> sez:

> Playing these words games is a tricky and a dangerous
> business, people do it all the time, and the correct
> response is to harangue folks about the meaning of
> the word until you can divorce it, by force of habit,
> from the connotative weight, or change the wrong usage.
...

> We must pay very close attention to word misuse.  Words are
> the building blocks of thought, and people can mess
> with your mind very easily if you let them choose the
> words.  Language is power - it is subtle, and thus
> even more dangerous.

No one, least of all I, would disagree that, if words are as I
suggest, linguistic agreements, then forcing the agreement to
have connotations for your side (Pro-Life) instead of for the
other side (Pro-Choice) is a good way to gain power over the currency
of discourse.

But the linguistic community (defined here as folks who know enough
about the words they use to have sensible conversations) doesn't have
arbiters.  That's why neither side in my example above uses the
other side's terms: the Pro-Lifers call their opponents Pro-Abortion
and the Pro-Choicers call their opponents Anti-Choice (I think the
"conservatives" won that battle of catchy phrases).

And my second question is, just who is asserting power over me and
my friends if we choose to call They Might Be Giants and Jane's
Addiction "alternative"?  And what harm is that doing me?

You answer:

>  "Alternative
> Music"  I'm not getting corporate pop, I'm getting the
> alternative.

But, you know what?  They're fairly close to right.  The label is
descriptive of *an* alternative to the endless profusion of
girl singers with rhythm machines in the Top 40.  I get the
connotation that you have to be a little savvy-er than the
average 13-year-old-blonde to appreciate this music.  It's the
"select choice for discriminating listeners" ;-)

At any rate, if I go the the Alternative bins of my record store
I'll probably find music that's a little more challenging than
most of the music I find in the rock & pop section.

So, what harm?  A connotation (questionable in my mind) that
Alternative is *the* alternative rather than *an* alternative
seems kind of weak.  What other harm are the evil scum who run
record labels doing me?  BTW, I've never seen a record by my
personal bete noir MCA in the Alternative section.

Ken Koester <[e-mail]> says:

> I give up--yet *another* round in the alternative wars--funny how we used to
> have the same wars in '70s about "progressive".  Hell with it--alternative
> to *me* means 15th century instead of some closely-split hairs about one
> 20th century rocker rather than another (-:

Now, are you talking ideally or realistically, Ken?  If I hear you
say "alternative", you'll be talking about 15th century music, and
you'll expect me to mean the same thing when I use the word?  If
that's truly so, then what you're saying is that you don't intend
to make sense when you talk.

Ken, my paraphrase of Whorf/Sapir that words represent linguistic
agreements is IMHO about the only way out of the endless wars about
what is "really" alternative/progressive/metal.

Sonia Kovitz <[e-mail]> asks:

>  Please explain to me what on earth this ornery nose-poking
> curiosity into essences has to do logically with the range of one's
> tastes (in anything).  Are we talking boobs=brain cc's or what?

Absolutely nothing.  I should have prefaced my last couple of
paragraphs with "And another thing..."

And more weightily, she observes:

> You see, that's what I'm talking about.  Asking questions and trying to define
> things is:
>
>
>                                   BONK

Quite right, and so far the only unanswerable reply I can think of.
Looking to find what things Truly Are (though we know we can't do
it) is a worthy occupation for the mind.  And a truly constructive
occupation to boot.

Marco says:

>         The point is that categories in themselves are wrong. I wouldn't
> mix two very different worlds and requirements -- that is the commercial
> one and the artistical one. Record labels need labels (sorry for the pun)
> to commercialise their products. Art doesn't need any label, *per se*.
>         I've resigned myself to hear my music called "progressive". It
> is wrong, and most of all it is false.

Was it Saint-Ex who said that to tame something, you first have to name
it?  Yes, labeling is an assertion of power.  And labeling your music
or mine "progressive" does violence to its nature.  BUT -- who asserts
the power?  The linguistic community, not the record company.  Mere
assertion of a label doesn't mean the label sticks.  And what harm is
done?  If you take the label with a grain of salt and use it only to
answer the question "What is this most like?", I don't see any.

Let's take an example.  I said (with great reluctance and with many
qualifiers) that _The Chessboard_ was sort of progressive, and I
listed some folks I thought were your influences.  I don't believe I
misled anyone.  But, suppose I had said that _The Chessboard_ was
death metal.  Your reaction, I'm sure, would have been "What the
hell?"  So I offer that my application of the label "progressive"
wasn't wrong.  I simply used it the way everybody else uses it,
and information was exchanged thereby.

Terrence Michael Drozdowski <[e-mail]> sez:

> Exactly, why argue over it, I mean, WE all know what alternative is, and
> what bands are, so why?  (although, could anyone tell me why the Seattle
> bands are considered alternative?  I consider them metal.....)

They're about evenly mixed in my record store between the Metal and
Alternative bins.  In a record store in Seattle I saw them grouped
under "Pacific Northwest".  But most folks allow a separate genre
called Grunge.  By purest chance I had two tapes in my car that I
hadn't heard before yesterday morning.  One was by a metal band and
the other was by a grunge band, and I had no trouble in deciding
which was which.


On a juicier topic, PG Herzberg <[e-mail]> sez:

> but... Oh Calcutta is a play on words it should Oh quel cul tu
> as!(sp?) Which is oh what a nice arse you've got! in English.

Alas, Paul, "O, quel cul t'as!" refers to an even nastier body part.

[e-mail] (Rev. Dave) sez:

> there was a big stink in one of our neighboring Albama municipalities
> (that's Huntsville, Al., Rev. Bob's neck o' the woods) over the
> production of Oh, Calcutta.

All too true.  We try to pretend we're civilized, but at bottom we're
still Alabamians.

> Well, the most
> humorous thing about is that Huntsville is home to one of the largest
> porno shops in the U.S. (or so it claims).

Wait a minute!  What porno shop?  Have I lived here for
7 years without knowing about a porno shop?  And here I've been
contenting myself with imagined fantasies about Libby Doe, Marsha,
Sonia and Rotcod Zzaj.  Tell me more!

>    Sorry, to slice yer home town Bob, but the whole situation has
> struck as just outrageous.

Don't worry about it.  Huntsville isn't my home town anyway.  I live
on the other side of the airport in Decatur "Soon to Be the World's
Cleanest City" Alabama.

Gary sez:

> What?, oh yeah, the power of this list, sorry for the digression....
> You all have turned me on to *so* much music, that if not for this list, I
> would have never known it existed. Before I signed on, I had my Metal and
> Hard Rock, of course, a little interest in New Age and Reggae, and a few
> other things here and there. You all have helped me out with these genres
> all well as many others, *even* metal. I guess what I'm trying to say is
> THANK YOU!!

And thank you right back, Gary.  You've helped in my education, too.
I'm not going anywhere (I hope) but I'd like to thank you all, not
only for filling my shelves with records I never would have thought
of before, but for helping me sharpen my critical thinking.  I have
yet to say something dumb without getting put thoroughly in my
place, and I'm everlastingly grateful.  Thanks to y'all, I listen
better to music now.

Love and kisses (too long already for sig)
Bob
[e-mail]