fetishization

[anechoic <kim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>The albums are readily available anywhere, so there's no need
>for any album fetishization

hmmm...some quick notes as I am heading out the door to do errands:
I just spent the past couple of weeks writing an article for an arts
journal and re-reading Attali's "Noise: the politcal economy of music" (I
do this every couple of years and am constantly amazed by the fact that
this book was written in 1977)...there have been some interesting points
brought up on this thread but I would not agree that there is no need for
fetishization as this is what drives demand in the mainstream record
industry...Attali captures the essence of the recording industry really
well in stating that they have little to do with the actual "production of
music" (i.e. meaning) - I surround that phrase in quotes because it means
something other than what it conveys on the surface...the recording
industry is ALL about driving demand through spectacle and fetishization
(desire)...the CDs they sell are merely widgets to shift in order to make
money...in the throes of its current collapse they are mining the past 25
years of music for fragments of melody/chord changes and repackaging it to
kids growing up listening to their parents "classic rock" records...this
subtle formula of subliminal "re-familiarization" or nostalgia is how they
are making most of their money today (this does not incluse the act of
sampling as in hip-hop because those fragments are used as "citiations" and
not as slightly mutated regurgitations)...

jayrope brings up a good point apropos to Attali: "representation" is
coming full circle and starting to become more important than
"repetition"...live performance (in the underground) is starting to become
more of a way to "drive demand" than hype and peripheral promotional
scams...
sorry if any of this is incoherent...gotta run...
KIM