NerblyBear wrote:

tocharian wrote:
A lot of rock's charm is that it's kitsch that doesn't know it's kitsch. It's in earnest.

Give some examples. Who are you talking about here?

steve wrote:

tocharian wrote:And yes it's hipster, and yes it's KITSCH. Thank god for kitsch, long live kitsch, and fuck this idea that rock is somehow sacred and serious.

Now I get it. You don't think rock music is capable of anything serious. You think it is all kitsch. You think everything is a matter of "taste," even judgment about whether or not somebody is full of shit.

Now I get it. You have your head up your ass.

Rock is kitsch. It's not high art. Give me a few hours (or days... my boyfriend is getting mad at me because I need to pack) and I'll put together as thorough an explanation for why as I can.

What I want to know is why everyone is so defensive about this?

tocharian wrote:What I want to know is why everyone is so defensive about this?

this is what a lot of us do, and you're pissing on it. telling us we aren't making art.

fuck you.

that damned fly wrote:this is what a lot of us do, and you're pissing on it. telling us we aren't making art.

I don't think she's downplaying the value of rock. I think she's just trying to distinguish it from more traditional, maybe more "uppity" forms of art. I would disagree with her, but I don't think she's insulting anyone.

NerblyBear wrote:

that damned fly wrote:this is what a lot of us do, and you're pissing on it. telling us we aren't making art.

I don't think she's downplaying the value of rock. I think she's just trying to distinguish it from more traditional, maybe more "uppity" forms of art. I would disagree with her, but I don't think she's insulting anyone.

downplaying what some might take very seriously is insulting. let alone calling it kitsch and saying it's somehow different or lesser than any other medium. all insults. intended or not, she just stuck her foot very far into her mouth. which makes back pedaling hard.

i await uppity, condescending, and pedantic responses.

oh, and another mention or two of her boyfriend.

See what happens to peeps who spend too much time in grad school?

Sheesh.

tocharian wrote:Rock is kitsch. It's not high art. Give me a few hours (or days... my boyfriend is getting mad at me because I need to pack) and I'll put together as thorough an explanation for why as I can.

What I want to know is why everyone is so defensive about this?

A) You're wrong, in that there is demonstrably a class of rock music that is not kitsch and has no kitsch elements. I don't know how you define "rock" music, but unless your definition includes kitsch as a requirement, you are being ridiculous.

B) Kitsch is superficial, commercial and trivial, and by suggesting that rock is subsumed into kitsch, you reduce it to a subordinate, superficial, trivial commercial category. Those of us who take it seriously (despite your protestation that we shouldn't) think this is ridiculous, and we enjoy ridiculing whoever is being ridiculous at the moment. It is especially ridiculous when spoken in defense of electronic music whose literal substance is fragments of other people's recorded work. What could be more kitsch than making records out of other people's records?

C) Having devoted most of my life to something precisely because it is not kitsch (or selectively to those segments which are not), I am sure to think someone who suggests that I am completely wrong about my life's work has his (her) head up his (her) ass.

mr.arrison wrote:I know this isn't a thread about the "band" Justice , but I just wanted to state for the record that their uninteresting, theatrical, sample-heavy performance on the Jimmy Kimmel show was both completely KITSCH and stupid.

Cmon, really... Is it supposed to be funny like Weird Al or something?

I can think of a hundred electronic/sample heavy artists doing more interesting stuff than this recycled electro-hipster crap.

That was kind of a "one-off" deal, that "performance". Justice wasn't actually on stage, they were the two hipster looking dudes that pretended to tune the song in on the radio at the beginning. I think it was just supposed to be funny. (Weird Al would have been more funny, but I don't see what similarity Weird Al could share with Justice in order to make a comparison). I like the bassline. I guess these things are tricky.. I used to like some of The Go Team's songs, but when I saw them live it ruined it and I hate them.

[FINNEGAN'S WAKE by: me]

Yo, Steve (brah),

I agree with you ([sarcasm]SURPRISE![/sarcasm]). I do not think that certain bands are kitsch. I have been making this argument to tocharian for the last half an hour or so. Rock bands from approximately 1980 onward (with a few proto-execeptions pre-dating this period) have sometimes been selectively complicated or simple/are a part of brief transcendent moments (on and off recordings) in such a way that make them undeniably artful. I don't give a fuck about what Susan Sontag's strict interpretation of kitsch consists of, we know what we know (rock can be art) to be true.

Tocharian grew up in the DC scene when Dischord was in its prime...Fugazi, Circus Lupus, Frodus, Holy Rollers, Warmers, blah blah blah. She is definitely not a retard. She just wanted to argue about modernism and post-modernism with Anya (Ace). She likes talking about ideas...I fear she is not taking real-life passions into account quite enough in this case. I prefer to speak from the gut (not that I'm ignorant of critical theory).

Frankly, she [tocharian] enjoys messing with the lot of you (as a by-product of her debate w/Anya [<-the only one of you that is truly making any sense to me in this argument]). We should appreciate that rock music is only rock and roll music...but it can also be a form of art that rivals the very best work of anybody in history. Liszt and Charles Mingus do not move me like "Pull the Cup," Spiderland, Over and Out, Can I Say, "Message Received," "Shit from an Old Notebook," Zuma, John Lee Hooker, Plastic Ono Band and on and on and on [me making a "whacking-off" motion here].

I am not a big Pavement fan (beyond the early stuff and Slanted and Enchanted), but there is something to be said for not taking anything too seriously. Quite a few of the people (probably about ten) on this board ALONE make ART that I take very seriously.


Steve/James--you are being overly defensive. I'm pretty sure the word kitsch here is being used in a more technical way than most people on the board would typically interpret it. If you're insulted by Sontag's definition of kitsch (as well as her subsequent defense of why kitsch is okay) as opposed to a vernacular sort of definition, I will by all means go fuck myself...and even if you ARE insulted from a crtical theory perspective, tocharian does not even think that kitsch necessarily possesses a negative connotation.

Rock is not kitsch (as I understand kitsch and as Steve defined it above). Why fret about it (at all)?

[/FINNEGAN'S WAKE]


EDIT: You should all calm down before tocharian calls Ian MacKaye "campy" and my head explodes.

Minotaur029 wrote:
I am not a big Pavement fan (beyond the early stuff and Slanted and Enchanted), but there is something to be said for not taking anything too seriously.

I know for a fact that Malkmus took his approach to songwriting really seriously. Listen to how intricately woven those guitar parts are. That doesn't just come about by accident.

That the band as a whole came across as party boys playing off-the-cuff throwaways was more of an extension of their personalities and not so much a reflection of the time and effort that went into the songwriting and performing.

Minotaur029 wrote:Steve/James--you are being overly defensive. I'm pretty sure the word kitsch here is being used in a more technical way than most people on the board would typically interpret it. If you're insulted by Sontag's definition of kitsch (as well as her subsequent defense of why kitsch is okay) as opposed to a vernacular sort of definition, I will by all means go fuck myself...and even if you ARE insulted from a crtical theory perspective, tocharian does not even think that kitsch necessarily possesses a negative connotation.

Rock is not kitsch (as I understand kitsch and as Steve defined it above). Why fret about it (at all)?

merriam webster wrote:kitsch
Function:
noun
Etymology:
German [Origin: 1925–30; , deriv. of kitschen to throw together (a work of art)]
Date:
1925

1 : something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality
2 : a tacky or lowbrow quality or condition <teetering on the brink of kitsch — Ron Miller>

i'm not about to argue semantics, but i will argue for one to choose their words carefully.

secondly, overly defensive? your woman called my art kitsch. that deserves a fuck you. easily. in person it earns worse, as in a loud fuck off and some rude names tossed her way since she tossed one mine.

there is nothing lowbrow about it, nothing smacking of poor quality, nothing tacky (except the baiting of arguments.)