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tocharian wrote:

Maurice wrote:I don't understand this argument. What's inherently camp about electric guitars?

The same thing that's inherently camp about electric organs, electric cellos, plastic flowers and television. The affectation, the degree of remove from nature.

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

Are light bulbs kitsch?

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

This is an amazing, baffling quote. I never saw this. Wow.

I'm thinking specifically of the birth of rock and roll (someone wants to argue this point with me, start up another thread and we'll roll). Elvis going into Sun Studios for the first time. He starts singing a couple common ballads from the time. Lackluster. Sam Phillips shakes his head but keeps trying. They take a break. Elvis picks up the guitar and starts goofing around on "That's All Right, Mama". He thinks it's a joke. The band laughs and follow along. Phillips stops everything and jumps into that sound with both feet. Everything else follows from that.

From the start rock wasn't taken seriously by the performers. But it does demand seriousness. There is something awesome and primal about it. As I said, it's the opposite of kitsch, which is done in earnest, dead seriously, but cannot be taken seriously. Certainly, Elvis was taken so seriously he got to stop driving a truck for a living.

All my favourite bands have done what Elvis did - in essence, "let's screw things up and see what happens". Something happens that is greater than just notes on a page or a piece of music.

Satie's early pieces certainly have the same mocking motivations behind them but are of the utmost gravity and awesomeness.

I could go on and on. But anyway. You're wrong.

that damned fly wrote:
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.

Put the dictionary back on the shelf. I'm talking about this definition of kitsch.

Namely:

The University of Chicago :: Theories of Media :: Keywords Glossary wrote:Beginning in the 1960s, a movement to reclaim the pleasure found in popular arts was espoused by Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp." The camp "sensibility" offered a mode of appreciating kitsch (as well as "serious" art) because of its excessiveness, its role-playing, its overt decoration. Individuals with camp sensibilities sophisticate the understanding of kitsch, for camp judgments imply a specific way of perceiving--a trained eye or ear that stands parallel to Greenberg's elite coterie of artists and viewers.

Colonel Panic wrote:Steve, I didn't openly accuse you of espousing this view and I don't know enough about your personal taste in music to be sure, but your dismissive attitude towards recent electronically generated/composed music might understandably be perceived by some as "rockist."

but he once played alongside a drum machine...

The University of Chicago :: Theories of Media :: Keywords Glossary wrote:Beginning in the 1960s, a movement to reclaim the pleasure found in popular arts was espoused by Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp." The camp "sensibility" offered a mode of appreciating kitsch (as well as "serious" art) because of its excessiveness, its role-playing, its overt decoration. Individuals with camp sensibilities sophisticate the understanding of kitsch, for camp judgments imply a specific way of perceiving--a trained eye or ear that stands parallel to Greenberg's elite coterie of artists and viewers.

I'll admit, that does sound a lot like Rush.

DregsInTheCrowd wrote:

The University of Chicago :: Theories of Media :: Keywords Glossary wrote:Beginning in the 1960s, a movement to reclaim the pleasure found in popular arts was espoused by Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp." The camp "sensibility" offered a mode of appreciating kitsch (as well as "serious" art) because of its excessiveness, its role-playing, its overt decoration. Individuals with camp sensibilities sophisticate the understanding of kitsch, for camp judgments imply a specific way of perceiving--a trained eye or ear that stands parallel to Greenberg's elite coterie of artists and viewers.

I'll admit, that does sound a lot like Rush.

Hand the man the prize.

i put on some burial but forgot to listen while it played.

burial is crap

who'll give me odds that tocharian is walter malling?

edited on account of alcohol (c)

tocharian wrote:Put the dictionary back on the shelf. I'm talking about this definition of kitsch.

how wise. the definition NOT in the dictionary. brilliant.

if you're gonna be a stupid asshole about opinions, do us all a favor and at least wear your own opinions.

and stop backing up my statement that you're a condescending pedant. i'm sure you don't mean to be, but seriously.

unless you do mean to be, in which case fuck off.

i don't think there's really a place for you here. go play your oboe.

ivan wrote:i put on some burial but forgot to listen while it played.

tocharian, did they really teach you to improvise oboe music?

If the piece had a cadenza.

Wow. Now that was rude.

tocharian wrote:Put the dictionary back on the shelf. I'm talking about this definition of kitsch.

Namely:

The University of Chicago :: Theories of Media :: Keywords Glossary wrote:Beginning in the 1960s, a movement to reclaim the pleasure found in popular arts was espoused by Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp." The camp "sensibility" offered a mode of appreciating kitsch (as well as "serious" art) because of its excessiveness, its role-playing, its overt decoration. Individuals with camp sensibilities sophisticate the understanding of kitsch, for camp judgments imply a specific way of perceiving--a trained eye or ear that stands parallel to Greenberg's elite coterie of artists and viewers.

You're using the Sontag-only definition, and then refining it by using camp as a vehicle/venue to appreciate it? Am I getting that right?

Still bullshit.