Taking Sides: Charts vs. Indie

Sterling, I didn't mean to ruin your thread... There's a lot of "noise" in arguing here. From now on I won't worry about the static in my transmissions. I think some people just need to get a bigger antenna so they don't accidentally confuse me with a different broadcast.

And it could all get very complicated if you try to say 'yes, but...'

Is this noise?

But, if we're going to be so stringent about our definition of "charts," why don't we look at what we mean by "indie," or, as Tom pointed out, "indie charts." To me, "indie" means an artist releasing his/her/their records on a record label independent of multinational conglomorate ownership. By this definition, PJ is in no way indie, because she has always been on Island. If we're looking at "indie" as an amorphous term that to us pop elitists now means "alternative," well then, why not just use that word? Because it's played out? Why not then, say, "underground?"

And: "indie charts." I've noted an odd opposition between American and British charts--the chart-toppers in America are NEVER on independent labels (well, the Baha Men were; odd, innit?), while in England, a lot of huge chart artists (Moby, Britney Spears) are officially "indie," and alot of indie/alternative/underground artists actually make it onto the main commercial charts. So what I'm saying is, ummm ... well, what's up with that?

Links:

NME's Indie Chart

Bill board's Indie Chart

But, if we're going to be so stringent about our definition of "charts," why don't we look at what we mean by "indie,"

Well, we did, here. Sterling's radical 'if it aint in the charts it must be indie' stance is ermm.. challenging. More than anything, it goes to show that we all have different ideas about what it means and that the word only serves to obfuscate arguments.

What would happen to music if there were no charts?

Has anyone ever decided the prefer something most days of the week but, say, never on a Sunday?

Which makes this an impossible discussion to have. I mean, if we're going to use "chart music" and then contradict each other because of country differences, it's asinine: in the UK, the Manics are "chart music". In the US, the Manics are lucky if they sell 3 copies of an album. There's no way to compare "chart" and "indie" meaning non- chart on this message board.

And every Saturday for me is going to be Kylie night from now on.

Indie music is more relative. We can't apply the same values to access if one artist is better or worse than another. It's not competing. Unless you want to read some common values into it: expressive qualities? conviction? obscurity?

It's like the difference between poetry and advertising copy. Both may be interesting, interact with each other, or even be the same thing but ultimately they have different meanings depending on the context you read it in. Would chart music still win if we knew it was rotting our minds? Whether or not one is better than another is taste. And that'd be my taste on this debate.

Never mind. I'm going to go and take off Mogwai and go listen to some S Club 7 now.

Grumble grumble, etc.

As for authenticity: it's certainly a complicated and usually badly used notion, but I don't think that's a reason to throw it out. I think there's something to it, despite the beating it's taken. Go ahead and get rid of it and then try to analyze Call the Doctor for me. Things that are "authentic" often are so because of a certain way that they truthfully or accurately reflect or arise out of real situations that people find themselves in (or, mimics being like that well enough - fuck, it's complicated). And I'm not just talking about writing true-to-life songs about breaking up with your girlfriend, or your dog dying, or whatever. I mean it very abstractly, broadly enough to include all the forms of life, relations (and power relations!), and so forth, that make up peoples' lives. There's something real there that matters - "authenticity" is not complete critical bullshit - just because it's real people that are making music, and how their lives are can affect how their music turns out.

I would grumble a lot less if you were going for something that sounded like it was trying to see traditional pop vices as virtues without being destructive to all kinds of other musical virtues - in other words, if your theory sounded more inclusive. But that's because I think that just one explanation like this won't do it. Pushing on like this you can get a useful critical trope, I think, but if that's all you want then you shouldn't bother arguing for it too much (just start employing it), because the arguments will all sound funny.

But my reaction here should be familiar to you by now, so don't mind me too much.

and for the record, i think fugazi probably question the notion of material success better than jay-z.

Sundar, what you wrote was really interesting. How does chart pop compare to traditional popular forms of music in non-Western societies?

Sterling, how can you compare things that are 'utterly complementary'? Won't it all just depend on what you mean by 'better'?

Minority voices need to be heard.

The picture is a lot more complicated than a massive pop-center with lots of non-pop satellites, just because of each listener's complicated relationships with the different kinds of music.

(Short, epigrammatic version: there is no center.)

with regards to a center: do all musicians want to be popular, i.e. to hit the charts? do they want their records to sell a lot and to be accepted and heard by a great number of people? is it the goal of a musician to have his product heard by the most people as possible? or do certain types only make their music for an enlightened crowd and don't want the masses to buy into it as it would somehow cheapen their work?

The way you characterize social engagement, it sounds like chart and non-chart music can be just as equally socially engaged. It's just that non-chart music is not challenging norms, etc., in order to find the 'next big thing,' i.e. achieve chart success. If that's so then, once again, this is not something special to chart music; you're left with the only special thing about it being that it tries for chart success (which by itself doesn't sound very compelling - I think what you're pushing for needs something more than that, as you've recognized with this talk of social engagement).

Most chart-oriented music fails miserably compared to the tops of the charts (don't forget about the music that never makes it onto the charts in the first place, and not for lack of intent). Whereas music that's looking to affect individuals, period (no requirements of chart success, i.e. "affecting" individuals as far as their wallets), succeeds if it affects individuals.

There's nothing new about this. There was a whole debate around this in the early 80's when 'Smash Hits' enshrined unashamed commercialism in place of the comfortably diy post-punk 'indie' that came before.

What do I mean by social engagement? Sure. Pandering to the public. But also constantly challenging accepted norms in a thirst for the "next big thing" (SC)

Of course there are always a few pop visionaries who have that thirst, but the *vast majority* of chart producers and songwriters are, and always have been, primarily concerned with imitating whatever they consider to be the most current formula for commercial success. They're not looking for the "next big thing". They're waiting for it to appear, and when it does they start copying it.

In saying this, I'm not suggesting that 'Indie' is better. If, by 'Indie', we mean the mainstream of alternative rock, it operates in exactly the same way. The market and infrastructure may be on a much smaller scale but the same processes are at work - the need to generate sales to keep people (bands and label staff etc.) in work, and therefore the same adherence to an established formula (eg Starsailor - presumably signed because they sound like the Verve).

Any music situated in society must have it's own image of what that society it exists in is. Not only is pop the foremost prevailing reflection of that society, but indeed it acts back on its base, defining the terms of discourse by which society addresses itself.

I'm afraid that by bringing in this stuff about "success" I've opened the door to questions of intentionality of artists. But if we accept the "authenticity first, success second" (if we get rich, that's a bonus) school of artistic "authenticity" as representative of the non-chart scene, well then we can note that these two goals are incompatible with non-chart music -- that authenticity is subjectively a bar to success. But what do these folks then reply? That in their ideal world, such music would be popular -- which then immediately transforms chart-music into inferior in their eyes, and further means that their ultimate goal is a semi-religious one -- turning people away from "false prophets and idols" towards the path of righteousness -- a goal which they will indeed fail in. However, in doing so, innovation is also fostered -- all elements which are deemed inessential to the fundamental "authenticity" of the music become subject to question and reevaluation. This can lead right into the charts, or can lead nowhere if the band isn't up to the task, or is unable to differentiate essential from nonessential elments of their being (i.e. "if it isn't on an 4-track, it's overproduced")

Absent that answer (semi-religious), there is the acceptance of marginalization -- the valorization of unpopularity as a marker of success -- this in turn produces increasingly irrelevant and dull scenes. Do they succeed? Well, they're no longer "authentic" in any sense, but merely self-perpetuating simulcra of authenticity.

Josh, if you're going to throw aphorisms like "there is no center" around, I might need to start explaining how "a letter always reaches its destination." We wouldn't want that, would we?

As for Sundar's comments -- is there any "democratic" way to determine taste? I mean, should we be able to vote on what we like? What would that mean? Media certainly doesn't just give the public "what they want" but also determines what the public wants -- but it does the second only on the basis of giving the public something they'll want. And you imply some sort of conspiritoral theory of culture -- this process is neither conscious on the producing nor consuming end. Rather, it just sort of happens in the relationship of the two. Music's constant self-innovation points to the fact that cultural demand is neither innate nor static.

Oh, and Tim, is Britney less "authentic" than SK? Ask a 13 year old girl.

i'm not sure how to answer this. i say that the music industries and mass media are industries with concentrated power and ideological interests able to influence public consciousness (which goes beyond aesthetics of course - though even aesthetics have ideological implications, cf. susan mcclary). your response is "is there any democratic way to determine taste?" well, there quite possibly are more democratic ways of organizing cultural institutions. and in fact, for all its sad failings, some elements of indie culture, e.g. community radio, are attempts to make steps in this direction.

of course the standard indie-kid/frankfurt-school dismissal of all mass culture as being corporate propaganda/empty pap is problematic as well. there definitely are populist elements at work, there definitely is an "efficiency" of sorts, there definitely is some room for oppositional voices. and most importantly there is always room for the audience to play a role in determine the meaning of cultural products. however, the opposite position is just as simplistic. these are complex relationships that should be considered more critically.

"And you imply some sort of conspiritoral theory of culture -- this process is neither conscious on the producing nor consuming end. Rather, it just sort of happens in the relationship of the two."

i implied nothing of the sort. because of the power relationships and economic and ideological motives that are part of global capitalism in our era, these processes occur. they still reflect power imbalances and have major ideological implications. "it just sort of happens" is disingenuous.

yeah, of course, responses to non-chart music are constructed too. for that matter, most human responses to anything are constructed. but just to leave it at that ignores real power relationships involved in this construction, i.e. it is *how* it is constructed, who is doing the constructing, what the implications are of the construction.

Don't musicians play a role in shaping what is popular? Is it impossible for us to react to something in the music itself? Aren't some musicians trying to communicate something or to achieve something artistically? Aren't some musicians playing at least in part for their own enjoyment?

I think David is right to challenge the idea that responses to indie pop are not constructed. But I think it's inaccurate to say that the only way we react to music is based on some sort of social conditioning.

It could be that a lot of the music that makes it onto the charts is good in a way that indie pop is not, and vice versa. This is what I thought was interesting about Tom's article on Outkast.

I'm unsure how exactly you think it is that this enters into your pop-as-center idea. I think the degree to which pop reflects society is a lot less than you seem to. Without that super-strong reflection, I think it's quite easy to see how a genre of music or a certain listening mindset could not really give a damn, or be affected much, by what pop music is like. Society is complicated, and music is complicated. Complicated enough that pop doesn't have to enter into the picture. (If it really is the center, the periphery must be pretty damn big.)

(Oh, and re letter delivery: bring on the Lacan, I'm on summer vacation, plenty of time!)

= what I think — I think — tho probably not how I'd say it.

You know when they say "All reading from the same hymn sheet": well the charts is the hymn sheet (but of course which way up the sheet is depends on where you're standing, and some people can't see properly and some people can't see at all). "Indie" is everyone standing apart from each other, each with their own personal hymnsheet that they wrote earlier and haven't shown to anyone else yet.

The sung hymn IS more complex than the sheet-music says — but you can only "engage with" the nature of the complexity by running it past and thru those simplicities you grasp well enough to also grasp that they're TOO simplified. (And, yes, if you just say Oh it's all so COMPLEX, Let's do lunch, then actually you're just stepping away to allow the Dominant Simplification continued unchallenged Mastery of its Domain. Tho — contra a v.boring and common NoPoMo counter-simplification [Sterling not guilty, I won't say who is] — noting the fact of greater complexity than the hymnsheet maps isn't IN ITSELF to say, Let's Do Lunch. It may by contrast be: Let's Skip Lunch and Explore this More — Millions Not Yet Born wd Prefer We Got It Sorted Now.)

((ps I *think* Sterling has an idealist Theory of Communication grafted into the middle of his materialist Analysis of Politics/the World: not that he actually behanves as if believes it, except sometimes just to SAY he does. It depends on how much work and what kind of work the word "fundamentally" is going to be required to do, as he drops it [somewhere far above]: I think there's a whole planet's-worth of not-dealt-with complexity swept up into THAT word — all ready to fall back out of Bart's toy-cupboard as soon as Marge leaves the room... ))

A class studying non-Euclidean geometry is not socially non-Euclidean as compared to a class studying counting up to 100.

Sterling Clover, OG Challopper.

Indie is obviously better than charts. Not because lower production costs is a good thing, but because chartpop has been going in the wrong ways for the past 20+ years.

Before 1985, chartpop was always superior to indie though. No exception.

Decline and Fall of ILM, Part 73947359.