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Re: [microsound] hornby



At 7:25 PM -0800 1/20/01, Philip Sherburne wrote:
in a completely surreal maneuver, he argued that the album was music for
teenagers because the track titles didn't seem to make any sense and the
lyrics were so abstract and "experimental" - therefore, only teenagers have
the time and inclination to sit around in their bedrooms puzzling over such
things.  us grownups are too darned busy for those kinda shenanigans.

Having not read the "Kid A" review, I am not surprised at Hornby's hostility to the weird and wonderful new Radiohead, for after all the musical references in "High Fidelity" are overwhelmingly mainstream, pointing to musicians of whom few middle-aged accountants or attorneys living in Hornby's despised suburbs would not have at least heard. Yes that Otis Redding 7" was a rare one, but, if only through its recent mutilation in a gruesome cover version, his "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" could have escaped no-one. And perhaps the only aspect of the excellent novel not ringing true for me is precisely this issue of extreme obscurity: would not at least one of these record geeks be out-obscuring his fellow geek's namedrop of, for instance, the Cosmic Jokers, with a wilting reference to, maybe, East Bionic Symphonia? Perhaps the covert conservatism of the tastes in the story has contributed to its seeming universality; most readers, after all, understand why the Peter Frampton cover song produces such an ambivalent response, whereas the same audience would simply be puzzled with a discussion of the relative merits of Xenakis and Britney Spears, as one might find here. Well, I will take "Kid A" over The Boss any day (but I still wonder occasionally whether BOC stands for Blue Oyster Cult or for Boards of Canada).


np - Chris & Cosey "Heartbeat" + again the space heater
--
joshua maremont / thermal - mailto:thermal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
boxman studies label - http://www.boxmanstudies.com/