Taking Sides: Charts vs. Indie

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.