Robyn Hitchcock: "People like music for the marketing"

And ..to some extent .. who cares? You don't need a reason to like or dislike anything, but it helps if you feel the need to justify it. And if you try to justify something with a weak reason, people will call you a twat; which you are.

that is, the collective YOU

I guess this isn't directly related to the marketing aspect, but it made me think of this.

What about scenes that exist before the marketing? Unless you're a local or a Grade A seeker, you don't hear about em.

We like him because he writes songs, unlike so many of the shit bands that pop up on here.

Ned, what time are you going to be at Siberia on Friday? I have to work Friday night, but I might be able to pop by before my shift starts.

Nah, he's ridiculous. A method actor, and a bad singer to boot. And his silly whimsy has never been at all convincing, except as somebody trying hard to convince us he's weird. And the Soft Boys were never half as pyschedelic as people used to pretend -- I tried to like *Underwater Moonlight* for years, but no dice. I am glad his music makes people happy, though. Lots of people I respect count themselves as fans. But I don't see how they're falling for "marketing" less than anybody else is. He has always been marketed. (Not that he is necessarily denying this above. And not that it's at all a bad thing. But realizing that music is marketed is hardly a mark of brilliance -- where the hell has he been all his life? Under a toadstool?)

What scenes would these be? None that I've ever heard of.

Not sure as yet, more will appear on the thread on ILE. You free Saturday night?

I already said that, Anthony:

>He has always been marketed. (Not that he is necessarily denying this above.

A method actor, and a bad singer to boot. .......wrong

And his silly whimsy has never been at all convincing......"convincing" to whom? Who says he's trying to convince anyone of anything? Are you accusing his whimsy of being contrived?

... except as somebody trying hard to convince us he's weird. Perhaps that's simply his sensibility. What's wrong with that?

And the Soft Boys were never half as pyschedelic as people used to pretend -- I tried to like *Underwater Moonlight* for years, but no dice. So, because it's not as psychedelic as, say, Gong, that renders it not good?

Quite the opposite, I believe.

But I like this: I *hated* Robyn Hitchcock before I was really familiar with his work. Saw him live in about 96/97, and he made some "joke" about cancer or AIDS or some other very funny topic that really put me off.

I'm still trying to decide if'n this comment was meant as a joke.... If it was, it's kinda funny.

If not, then, depends on your definition of Marketing .. Mine in this case is record label promotion ... (whereas "affinity" may be word of mouth - so as I said, he's basically right, but "marketing" may be the wrong term.)

Then your definition of "marketing" is absurdly limited (and though I still can't think of any "scenes" featuring recorded music that aren't marketed by their record labels. So no, I was not joking.)

hahahaha

AND YOU JUST SOLD IT OUT!!!!!

xp

And how is that marketing? Are you going to go out looking for that scene now?

Haha kind of true, actually! The Soft Boys record Xhucx needs to hear is the early Raw Cuts EP (reissued as Wading Through a Ventilator).

Wait...no...maybe you would hate it? You don't like "I Wanna Destroy You?" Also: you kind of like XTC!

b-b-but his best asset is that he's a kick-ass guitar player. he's really underrated in that dept, inasmuch as he's never really rated at all in that dept. his albums do indeed tend to drown in their own whimsy, except for i often dream of trains which is head and shoulders above anything else he did and pretty much a work of pastoral genius that by all rights should've just been a crappy village green preservation society wannabe but somehow it's actually a fucking fantastic village green preservation society wannabe. it's overflowing with casually great pop hooks.

;-)
I'm just choosing a narrow defintion for this thread because of what "Marketing" implies - an intentional influence to sell .. But I fucking give! I think the definition being thrown around kind of renders the word meaningless, but marketing marketing marketing. Oh, and marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing. Marketing marketing marketing. Marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing. Marketing market-ing.

I don't read it as a critiscism per se, I just wished he'd worded it differently.

Does "precious" specifically refer to the Soft Boys'/Robyn's music? Or does it have something to do with the humor being in your opinion not funny and therefore one has to gingerly coddle these sensitive aesthetes or something?

x-posts

(Fact Checking Cuz OTM IMO)

bands are a result of the commodification process
records are a result of the commodification process
songs are a result of the commodification process
shows are a result of the commodification process

= none of these things would have developed as concepts we easily toss around and know what they are and where they stop and so on w/o the prior existence (and requirements of) marketing

if you like you could argue that the DRIVE TO COMMODIFY and the DRIVE TO ESCAPE COMMODIFICATION are the inseparable cyclic impulsions which have between them (each one forever chasin the other other) enlarged music to the fuck-off bigger-than-everything cultural behemoth it seems to have become

Probably more his words (and maybe his delivery, too, a little, though I always just assumed he was inept in that department.) (Maybe I should listen to his guitar parts more, though. That may well be the first time I've heard anybody even mention them. Who knows?)

But maybe that’s what you mean by “commodification” instead of marketing: “commodification” leaves room for a whole system of commodities, ones in which the people doing the consumption have just as much influence as the people doing the marketing.

No it's not.

Some would be completely wrong (see court composers in the 18th century, travelling minstrels from the 16th century, church musicians and court composers from the 15th century, etc etc etc). Music did not start with the Charleston!

his dad died of cancer - are you sure it wasn't some kind of reference to that?

if it's true that marketing "leeches off" creative communication, creative communication also "leeches off" marketing

the human presence isn't "at the bottom"; it's everywhere - right through the whole chain, and besides the chain eats its own tail

"recuperation" is not a one-way deal nabisco: in 188x cylinders = gimmicky device by which to sell edison's new dictation machine, except then they became something else

there wz a nice thread not so long ago about leafleting for shows: someone asking why bother, as almost everyone chucks the leaflets away, and the number of ppl they bring in probably doesn't even cover the printing costs, and somone else said, yes, maybe so, but it'S REALLY GOOD FUN MAKING THEM, it's part of what makes it fun to be in a band

"young man you're very clever but it's TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN"

>Probably more his words (and maybe his delivery, too, a little, though I always just assumed he was inept in that department.) <

I don't want to bug you about it, Xhuxk. What I was trying to get at, though, is why that word -- "precious?" I take it as a synonym for contrived, but also involving something...effete?

Talking about troubadors and minstrels, incidentally, neglects folk and ritual music of a million forms; music has a cultural place in just about every society that starts off independent of its eventual role as a commodity.

throwaway culture = what marketing (reductive defn) wants (planned obsolescence = you get bored with THAT and go buy THIS)
never-throw-anything-away culture = what it became instead (and hurrah!) (sell sorta kinda)

Think of it as a spoiled, borderline precocious little kid, begging for approval: "Cloying," maybe? And people keep patting him on the head, pretending he's clever, when all evidence suggests otherwise.

LP inner sleeve c.1965 = ads for other records on same label
LP inner sleeve c. 1985 = surface on which band elaborates diffuse and naive "political statement"

(same gag killed the SXSW thread, what will it do here?)

otm -- that's exactly what i wanted to say. i can't be bothered to read the rest of the thread.

Is it generally understood at ILM that music aka "the product" is just the product, and not art; and that furthermore, there's nothing wrong with that? Am I naive for sometimes taking my music (even my "pop" music) "seriously" as art, in the sense that at the very least it has more lasting meaning to me than the shoes I'm wearing or the shampoo I used this morning, and at the most that it changes my life profoundly for the better?

I guess I believe in "popular" art; and it seems like Robyn Hitchcock does too. The whole question dances around hip, self-conscious anti-elitism, something I always mistrust.

so OTM