SPECULATION: I don't wanna read a thing

[Tracy 2112]

Bottom line, I don't know dick about the music industry. I have no right to say anything about how anyone runs their life and/or career...

Usually, when someone thinks they "have no right to say anything about how anyone runs their life and/or career", they don't say anything about how anyone runs their life and/or career. Usually.

That being said when you post such a radical, passionate side to this matter, you've got to expect a few difference of opinions. We don't want anyone to disappear or get angry. This is a forum. Debate, joke, jab - all in good fun.

Differences of opinion, debate, jabs are all good. Stifling conversation is a different story. But that's just one man's opinion. I've enjoyed Mama's posts and I hope she sticks around.

And I was pointing out the irony of posting several really long opinions and then contradicting them all by saying you actually have no right to have an opinion. She sort of stifled the conversation herself and that's funny. It's all in fun, lighten up a wee bit. 

[Santo]

And I was pointing out the irony of posting several really long opinions and then contradicting them all by saying you actually have no right to have an opinion. She sort of stifled the conversation herself and that's funny. It's all in fun, lighten up a wee bit. 

Gotcha, the lack of inflection and passive aggressive orders, the Achilles heels of sarcasm on the internet. Since we're being the irony police, I call shenanigans on your last comment.   

[IMeMine]

So I read this thing in this Greil Marcus book I'm reading called "Mystery Train":

  The audience that gather around rock n rollers are as close to that ideal community as anyone gets. The real drama of a performer's careers comes when the ideal that one can hear in the music and the audience that the artist really attracts begin to affect each other. No artist can predict, let alone control, what an audience will make of his images; yet no rock n roller can exist without a relationship with an audience, whether it is the imaginary audience one begins with, or the all-too-real confusion of the audience one wins.

The best popular artists create immediate links between people who might have nothing in common but a response to their work, but the best popular artists never stop trying to understand the impact of their work on their audiences. That means their ideal images must change as their understanding grows. One may find horror where one expected only pleasure; one may find the truth one told has already become a lie. If the audience demands only more of what it has already accepted, the artist has a choice. He can move on, and perhaps cut himself off from his audience; if he does, his work will lose all the vitality and strength it has when he knew it mattered to other people. Or the artist can accept the audience's image of himself, pretend that his audience is his shadowy ideal, and lose himself in the audience. Then he will only be able to conform; he will never be able to create.

The most interesting rock n rollers sometimes go to these extremes; most don't, because these are the contradictions they struggle with more than resolve. The tension between community and self-reliance; between distance from one's audience and affection for it; between the shared experience of popular culture and the special talents of artists who both draw on that shared experience and change it- these are the things that make rock n roll at its best a democratic art... 

That is really interesting and thought provoking, I'm going to have to get this book.  I'm not familiar with the author at all.  Thanks so much for sharing Mama :)

[Penny Lane]

So I read this thing in this Greil Marcus book I'm reading called "Mystery Train":

  The audience that gather around rock n rollers are as close to that ideal community as anyone gets. The real drama of a performer's careers comes when the ideal that one can hear in the music and the audience that the artist really attracts begin to affect each other. No artist can predict, let alone control, what an audience will make of his images; yet no rock n roller can exist without a relationship with an audience, whether it is the imaginary audience one begins with, or the all-too-real confusion of the audience one wins.

The best popular artists create immediate links between people who might have nothing in common but a response to their work, but the best popular artists never stop trying to understand the impact of their work on their audiences. That means their ideal images must change as their understanding grows. One may find horror where one expected only pleasure; one may find the truth one told has already become a lie. If the audience demands only more of what it has already accepted, the artist has a choice. He can move on, and perhaps cut himself off from his audience; if he does, his work will lose all the vitality and strength it has when he knew it mattered to other people. Or the artist can accept the audience's image of himself, pretend that his audience is his shadowy ideal, and lose himself in the audience. Then he will only be able to conform; he will never be able to create.

The most interesting rock n rollers sometimes go to these extremes; most don't, because these are the contradictions they struggle with more than resolve. The tension between community and self-reliance; between distance from one's audience and affection for it; between the shared experience of popular culture and the special talents of artists who both draw on that shared experience and change it- these are the things that make rock n roll at its best a democratic art... 

That is really interesting and thought provoking, I'm going to have to get this book.  I'm not familiar with the author at all.  Thanks so much for sharing Mama :)

Don't stop there, Greil Marcus is one of the definitive music writers. Check out all his stuff.

[IMeMine]

Don't stop there, Greil Marcus is one of the definitive music writers. Check out all his stuff.

Thanks, I will!