What, did Judy write this post?
Is "Pop" here used in opposition to broad categories like "Jazz" and "Classical", or narrower ones like "Punk" and "Prog"?
so you like your men to be "manly," huh...
more than 2 instruments typically bad.
Guitar + bass + drums = typically bad? If you like the beta Band, you should check out some old Gomez.
Early Morphine is very good despite having three instruments.
Is one of those instruments a wind instrument?
Bari sax is not a wind instrument. It is a bari sax.
I do not like mewling wussies. I do not like guys who talk about their feelings.
C'mon Ogged, cut your schlong some slack. You're going to hurt its feelings.
Wow. First some amazon.com reviewer claims the days of ELP were the dark-ages of music and now ogged seems to think the Beatles were bubblegum?
Dude - bubblegum is for early adolescent girls. The Beatles were not bubblegum.
Okay, re-reading I see ogged does not think the Beatles were bubblegum, but he dislikes them anyway.
I wonder if it was a case of extremely raised expectations? Before I saw "Jaws" I heard over and over again how great it was. When I finally saw it it was good, but it could never live up to the hype.
Is that it?
Tripp, of all people, I thought you with your old-timey "rhythmic gymnastics is for fairies" would be with me here.
I can't believe y'all aren't more grateful that I solved the mystery of why pop sucks. You're getting this stuff for free.
Good grief, he supposes we'd pay for criticism like this?
Personally I m still smarting from the Beatles jibe, but hey I liked King Crimson too. How many instruments were there?
This book divides male pop music into two groups: the angry rebels and the sensitive mama's boys. The book tends to side with the sensitive mama's boys, like My Bloody Valentine and U2 of the Actung Baby era. Bono was so offended that U2 was listed as sensitive mama's boys that he gave interviews asserting his band's masculinity while promoting his next album.
You know what I hate? Mewling posts that natter on about the author's feelings toward pop music. At least this one wasn't earnest. Zero instruments, ha!
The band that recorded "Far Away (So Close)" had masculinity? Hey now, check your change.
At least this one wasn't earnest. Zero instruments, ha!
Why would you think he wasn't being earnest?
I don't think a capella fits ogged's conception of non-wussy.
I'm pretty sure that's Ogged on the left in that picture, back in his heavy days.
I assume you're neutral on the White Stripes (2 instruments, some wussiness; Jack White can sing covers of Dusty Springfield).
Dude, you have a categorical issue though, indicated by SB above. Define the difference between pop and rock. And saying, I knows it when I hears it, doesn't count for much.
This exchange with Chopper is what I'm thinking of when I say "pop."
By apostropher's logic in 22, ogged's favoritest one-instrument outfit ought to be this guy.
25: You like Pearl Jam, but not earnest bands? I have to go lie down.
That was you in 22. Also looking forward to your demonstration that the pan flute is not a wind instrument.
No one seems to have a sense of humor about how the music they like sucks so bad.
I think you're allowed to not like that genre. I don't know if you're allowed to say that, in some objective sense, the whole artistic category sucks. But as I'm writing this, I recall from the Pet Sounds thread that you more or less acknowledged your appreciation of the technical mastery there, while still disliking it.
I'll freely confess that there are whole art forms I don't 'get,' but I can in some intellectual sense appreciate that they're hard to perform and clearly represent to some large portion of humanity a desirable aesthetic experience, so I wouldn't say they suck. I just wouldn't sit through them, is all.
There's a new book out about this problem, by John Carey, called What Good are the Arts?.
Well, of course you're allowed to say it sucks. You're just wrong.
Whoops, I meant 21. Anyway, the pan flute is not a wind instrument because a pan flute is also a bari sax. Save your breath, ogged. It's saxes all the way down.
a sense of humor about how the music they like sucks so bad.
I retain a love for early KISS that dates back to the late '70s, when I was a dues-paying private in the KISS Army. Had the patch on my jacket and everything. They call me Dr. Love. I've got the cure you're thinking of.
You sir, it's true, can never be accused of taking yourself too seriously.
29, 30: Do you put Pearl Jam in the "I like it but it sucks" category? If we're allowed this category, isn't this just a discussion about why, in music as in restrooms, people hide their true (as perceived by ogged) motivations?
I think you need a cross-tabulation diagram to express the relationships between insincerity/earnestness and rock/pop-ness.
What does insincerity have to do with anything?
Pretend he wrote "irony", and resume the exercise.
36: I actually don't think that the Pearl Jam of, say, Ten, sucks. I am, however, embarrassed that what's in it resonates with certain stupid parts of me.
Yeah, what SB said. Because I suspect there's a substantial Earnest Rock category, and an Ironic Pop category.
For that matter, is there a Sincere Irony category?
I thought our earner of slols was a she. No? And I wouldn't put "irony" on the other side of the slash either. Townes Van Zandt on Abnormal and Boubacar Traore on Sa Golo are not (mostly) ironic, but neither are they earnest.
I was, actually, going to ask why for the second time someone here assumed I am a 'he.' Now that it's come up, I don't see why I should say. Does anyone else here?
I thought our earner of slols was a she.
Pronouns suck! Sorry, s.
And I wouldn't put "irony" on the other side of the slash either.
Has the proper distinction to do with having vs. not having a sense of humor?
I do have a massive talking schlong. Think what you will.
I would, then, like to know what is on the other side of the slash from earnest. Or does earnestness not have an antonym? Is it like cheese, such that there is no opposite? Or, you know, hat?
Now that it's come up, I don't see why I should say. Does anyone else here?
No, I for one certainly don't.
more than 2 instruments typically bad.
I've got a posse of Gid Tanner's Skillet Lickers and Carolina Tar Heels who are looking to kick your ass over this.
Huh, why did I assume slol was a she? Interesting.
I said the instruments thing was a matter of taste.
So why the fuck did this post only come up on my RSS feed when there were already 49 comments?
Also, the Beta Band isn't earnest? Come now!
What is on the other side of the slash? Hmm. Humor, surely. Also, a word so troublesome I regret, even before typing it, typing it: authenticity. Bwhahahaha!
To be honest, Adam, the only Beta Band song I've heard all the way through is "Round the Bend." I just did a quick Rhapsody listen to make sure the rest wasn't the Beach Boys.
You regret it because you think, what could be more 'earnest' than the concept of authenticity?
No, because it's so hard to define, and so often freighted with issues of prejudice, race, class, etc.
You don't like earnest music because earnesty lacks authenticity? Your cold, flabby cynic's heart wouldn't feed a baby vulture.
I know you're all just trying to hurt me because I've sussed the secret of pop's sucking.
What is on the other side of the slash?
Hetting, which apparently is slash with a moustache.
To be honest, I don't like what I take to be 'pop' much either. I'm just not happy with the terms of analysis. Is 'pop' music just, you know, popular music you don't like?
There is broad appeal and there is mass appeal. Mass appeal is somewhat of a pejorative term, suggesting a kind of lowest common denominator and the music (or whatever) that caters thereto. Broad appeal refers to something much harder to dismiss -- an appeal that cuts across different demographics. Lots of different types of people have historically liked Beethoven, but die-hard Christina Aguilera fans are a fairly homogenous bunch. The "category" of "pop" requires at least this dinstinction.
The Beatles clearly have broad appeal. Not to sound too rhapsodic or anything, but their music has influenced artists, writers, musicians, intellectuals and non-intellectuals alike -- people of many ages, races and nationalities. It's totally cool not to like them, obviously. But I think it's apparent that by any objective definition that one can come up with, they don't suck.
I think what most people think of when they hear the word "pop" is something artificial. The term is appropriate; it's so insubstantial it's like a bubble to be burst at any moment. What we think of as "pop" tends to be crafted and/or approved by committees of business people with the intention of making a great deal of money, not by artists trying to communicate with other human beings. That's an off-putting idea. But not everything that a lot of people like is "pop". A whole lot of people like The Godfather and The Marriage of Figaro.
Sorry for such a long comment, but this is a subject I spend a great deal of time contemplating.
Joe! You've come back! Hooray!
Joe Drymala is banned!
Mississipi John Hurt combines wussiness, authenticity, and mad guitar skillz to create the only country blues singer I want to be listening to right now.
'Twas this discussion that got the better of me.
I'm glad you're back, Joe.
Mississippi John Hurt is awesome.
Now, slightly seriously, are the rest of you not bothered by earnestness? Or mewling? Let's stipulate that some of us have a lower tolerance for these things, but surely everyone finds them objectionable?
Mississippi John Hurt is awesome.
But he's no Mississippi Gary.
Now, slightly seriously, are the rest of you not bothered by earnestness? Or mewling?
It is for this very reason that, since I was old enough to have any kind of taste I have found the Rolling Stones to be Brechmittel.
I suspect the example is not unique.
Ogged, I figured you liked Gid Tanner and the Tar Heels.
As for mewling--check the Radiohead thread. When I'm listening to stuff, I sometimes think, "I can see how someone who was unsympathetic might find this mewling, and it would suck to be them, because then they wouldn't enjoy this awesome stuff."
Earnestness--come come, isn't it time we transcended this hipster irony? cf. Radiohead again.
This is tough. Earnestness in and of itself cannot be thought of as a flaw. Arthur Miller is pretty earnest, as is a great deal of Shakespeare.
Musically, someone like Elliot Smith is painfully earnest. As is Kurt Cobain. They're so earnest it hurts.
But I know what you're getting at. I think you're referring to not earnestness per se, but a pose of earnestness, a sweet-boy I-feel-your-pain type of rock-lite that has always been popular with the chippies. Also known as Coldplay.
1. Earnestness and mewling bother me when I identify them as earnest or mewling.
2. But it is clear that I identify earnestness and mewling differently than you.
3. Also, having identified them, they do not necessarily bother me enough to cause me to reject a song / band out of hand; they may be mitigated by other factors.
4. They do not in any case define a song as 'pop'.
An example of pop music that is neither earnest nor mewling:
They Might Be Giants, "Where do they make balloons?"
An example of earnest music that is not mewling: Bruce Springsteen, "Into the fire."
An example of mewling music that is earnest, but not pop: The American Boychoir, entire oeuvre.
This is why I suggested a diagram.
a great deal of Shakespeare
Is Shakespeare ever earnest, in the sense I thought we were using "earnest"?
Slol, that's helpful; I didn't say anything about how much I hate clever music, like TMBG, because I do enjoy having some commenters.
I apologize for the poor formatting of that comment. Clearly I should not be allowed to play with html.
I don't know what sense you're using it in, but I tend to think of "earnest" as an artist trying to be laid-bare honest, trying to say something authentic in spite of the risk of being laughed at as a sentimentalist or something.
74: I don't think you like any kind of music.
Hmm, that's not how I mean it. Like I said upthread, Townes Van Zandt on Abnormal is certainly laid-bare, but I wouldn't call him earnest. Maybe what I mean is something like what you say: a disposition of seriousness where one believes that the person bearing the disposition hasn't earned the seriousness.
Earnestness's opposite is irony, to me.
(Please note that textualist's definition of opposites does not contradict this statement.)
Not indicative of Shakespeare's earnestness or lack thereof, but I like this quote from Timon of Athens.
"More whore, more mischief first; I have given you earnest."
We are headed in a frustrating via negativadirection here. It wouldn't be so frustrating if ogged were God, but I suspect he's not.
To the extent your differentiating between earnestness and authenticity, are you really just saying that you don't like music that sounds cliched, but does not recognize that it is a cliche?
74: Grrrrr.
Why do we hang out with you, anyway?
I'm pretty sure I should be offended by that, no matter what.
"Gleefully obnoxious cleverness" is awesome. So is gleefully obnoxious cleverness.
It wouldn't be so frustrating if ogged were God
Another candidate for Unfogged's slogan.
SB, I would like to have some discussion of what "earnest" means because I, honestly, thought everyone was basically on the same page, but it turns out not to be true. It doesn't really matter what I, personally, think. The post was tongue-in-cheek, which I assume is obvious (not that I like "pop" music, but you understand).
ogged,
Tripp, of all people, I thought you with your old-timey "rhythmic gymnastics is for fairies" would be with me here.
Google the hated Bobby Sherman and you will see I am definitely with you regarding bubblegum music, and especially the "boy bands" that came along. I never liked that.
Mostly I responded to you not liking the Beatles. At the time, "liking" the Beatles was a form of rebellion and was frowned upon by the establishment. While their style of music is rather melodic and rarely angry, they were still seen as edgy and rebellious. For example, gasp, they had long hair! So they were "masculine" for the time.
Over time I've started to like more and more of the harsh guitar sound of, say, 3rd Degree's Medication.
Guitar, keyboard, drum... that's too much??
Ogged prefers his sitars unearnest and pure.
I really wish exbeforelast weren't so handicapped by the "little boxes," as she's the only person I know who has a lower tolerance for earnestness than I do, and would do a better job of explaining what it is, anyway.
89: I wasn't trying to derail the earnestness discussion. I was just stymied that we know now very well what you don't like (but not very well the why – hence earnestness etc.), but not so well, in positive terms, what you do appreciate.
But I've given examples in this thread of what I like. And linked to that post of what's on my player. Is it still so mysterious?
I may have suggested that 'earnest' meant 'unironic', but I didn't mean it; I would, however, say that it is the opposite of ironic. That Jededidah Purdy guy who wrote the book attacking irony was earnest. Also sucky.
[Digression: Sadly, I cannot find a link to the relevant Tom the Dancing Bug cartoon. But while looking for it I did find this permalinkless site. Scroll down to 'sandwich'.]
But earnestness can be good in its place. Woody Guthrie was not earnest nor ironic. But Hank Williams could be earnest. Earnest is simple, straightforward standing up for what you believe in and what's right, and while that can be annoying as hell sometimes it's just what's called for.
Right, you've said very generally and abstractly what you don't like, but have been content to give particular examples of what you do. I don't mind trying to figure out the pattern, if there is one, but I wouldn't mind some help.
Can you give an example of an over-earnest song?
I know what I dislike about earnestness (earnesticity?) in writing: the deliberate, overly calm, manipulative prose that you imagine the author would read aloud while gazing at you intently.
I'm having a hard time thinking of a song that fits that description that doesn't suck for other reasons.
89, 93: I've also used "earnest" as a pejorative in describing art. (Also "sincere," which is why I suggested "insincerity" as an antonym.) But I don't think we really know what we're talking about here.
(How has nobody said anything about "the importance of " etc. yet?)
I'm beginning to think "earnest" simply means, more earnest than I feel like being right now or than I feel like being about this subject.
Specifically, I believe "earnestness" here implies an unforgivable ignorance of the layeredness of the topic or moment, at worst a willful obtuseness to multiplicity of meaning.
97: Sounds like Bright Eyes! To my knowledge I have never heard Bright Eyes, and want to keep it that way.
(tip: dooce)
ps fastest 100 forever? Or are you all going to stop here, just to make me look silly?
Specifically, I believe "earnestness" here implies an unforgivable ignorance of the layeredness of the topic or moment, at worst a willful obtuseness to multiplicity of meaning.
Progress! Well said.
To my knowledge I have never heard Bright Eyes
You should at least hear this.
How about Pearl Jam's Black as an earnest song? I think maybe I just don't like it when people think what they have to say is Very Important. Not sure.
As usual, I have to go out when the comments are rolling...
apostropher, that song needed a melody.
Good point--Pearl Jam is, like, the definition of earnest. Cobain had too much self-loathing to be earnest--and too much "can you believe I'm a star"? Pearl Jam: Earnest earnest earnest. Making soundtracks for Dead Man Walking with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is a pretty earnest thing to do, too.
Peter Gabriel is earnest and I like it, as far as pop/rock music goes. He also benefits from that look-how-sucky-the-old-band-got-when-I-left syndrome (cf. David Lee Roth, Bill Clinton).
>Specifically, I believe "earnestness" here implies an unforgivable ignorance of the layeredness of the topic or moment, at worst a willful obtuseness to multiplicity of meaning.
Earnestness is not nessesarily opposed to irony or multiple levels of meaning. See George Jones' He Stopped Loving Her today .
Good point. "She's Mine" is the same. There's dramatic irony here, but it's not the meaning the opposite of what you seem to say kind of irony that you find when, say, Johnny Rotten sings "I mean it, man."
Townes Van Zandt is awesome but has some moments of embarrassing amounts of what I would call "ernestness" See, for example, his recording of "Darcy Farrow"
So where do Joni Mitchell or Nina Simone (from your shuffle) fall on the ernest / not ernest scale?
I consider "You Turn Me on I'm a Radio" on of the greatest pure pop songs of all time, whereas "Woodstock" has stong elements of ernestness.
How do you categorize Nina Simone singing something like "Four Women" or "Mississippi Goddamn" (which are not ernest, but are outside of the standard ways in which emotion is expressed in rock music)? How about "Wild is the Wind"?
BTW, how do you feel about Smokey Robinson? Pop or not pop by your definition?
There's a whole case of whup-ass sitting on my shelf, should you give the wrong answer.
ok, here is why were are confused:
ogged, earnestness is meaning what you say. Irony is not meaning what you say, or in other words, earnestness with a moustache.
What you dislike is not earnestness, but fake earnestness -- that is, pretending that what you say is very heartfelt, when in fact it is a bunch of crap a canadian guy wrote and you sung, accompanied by a synthesizer. Often perfomed along with beating of the breast-plate.
Hah! Fake earnestness: Frankie goes to Hollywood, dude.
But what is pop? Or what is pop to ogged?
This feels like another situation ideal for the 25 question diagnostic.
Ogged, how would you rate the following?
1. Video Killed the Radio Star
2. No More Drama (Mary J. Blige)
3. Miss Independent (Kelly Clarkson)
4. Sweet Child of Mine (Guns and Roses)
5. Ganster's Paradise (Coolio)
6. Like A Prayer (Madonna)
7. In Da Club (50 Cent)
8. Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)
9. Hunger Strike (Temple of the Dog)
10. Mmmmm Bop (Hanson)
11. Crazy in Love (Beyonce)
12. Born to Run (Springsteen)
13. Always Something There to Remind Me (Naked Eyes)
14. Bizarre Love Triangle (New Order)
15. Hungry Like the Wolf (Duran Duran)
16. Stand (R.E.M.)
17. Ray of Light (Madonna)
18. I Saw the Sign (Ace of Bace)
19. You're Still the One (Shania Twain)
20. Building a Mystery (Sarah McLaughlin)
21. Every Day is a Winding Road (Sheryl Crow)
22. Love in an Elevator (Aerosmith)
23. Don't Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchestra)
24. Bust a Move (Young MC)
25. Take a Chance on Me (ABBA)
According to this list, ogged listens to the Indigo Girls. And of course Pearl Jam. Pop, yes, earnest, yes, "wussy", yes. I wouldn't be surprised if he occasionally put on some John Denver (NTTAWWT). What are we arguing about?
111: horrible typo! horrible horrible! Must stop drinking at work.
Definitely on the beating of the breast-plate. Plenty of singers sing heartfelt songs written by other people; it's more the 'Look at me, I'm being deep! and emoting!!11!' that irks.
hats, scarves, Townes Van Zandt. The important issues of the day. Love, loss, the proper mechanisms for running, the meaning of words easily found in a dictionary. Whose cock is larger.
Speaking of basketball and earnest singers who are also great who also sometimes sing songs written by other people:
What was Stevie Wonder doing at the game last night? Is it wrong for me to wonder?
Text, 118 is a beautiful comment.
thanks SB -- every once in a while, like a monkey on a typewriter.
REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED. Anyway, I'll stop here before I reach SCMTim-levels of appreciation.
Too late, SB. You can't take back Teh Gay.
Of all the days to have the work internet connection be down.
What cala said at 117; definitely not what text said at 111. Still, what irks about what Cala describes is hard to formulate precisely.
ok, turning attention to baa's list...
Baa
I don't know about ogged but I am an easy grader.
1. Video Killed the Radio Star -6
2. No More Drama (Mary J. Blige)- n/a
3. Miss Independent (Kelly Clarkson)- n/a
4. Sweet Child of Mine (Guns and Roses) 7
5. Ganster's Paradise (Coolio) 9
6. Like A Prayer (Madonna) 7
7. In Da Club (50 Cent) 8
8. Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana) 9
9. Hunger Strike (Temple of the Dog) n/a
10. Mmmmm Bop (Hanson) 6
11. Crazy in Love (Beyonce) 9
12. Born to Run (Springsteen) 9
13. Always Something There to Remind Me (Naked Eyes) 8 warwick version 10
14. Bizarre Love Triangle (New Order) 9
15. Hungry Like the Wolf (Duran Duran) 7
16. Stand (R.E.M.) 6
17. Ray of Light (Madonna) 8
18. I Saw the Sign (Ace of Bace) 8
19. You're Still the One (Shania Twain) n/a
20. Building a Mystery (Sarah McLaughlin) 7
21. Every Day is a Winding Road (Sheryl Crow) 8
22. Love in an Elevator (Aerosmith) 6
23. Don't Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchestra)8
24. Bust a Move (Young MC) 8
25. Take a Chance on Me (ABBA) 8
There is broad appeal and there is mass appeal.
Robert Fripp has a similar formulation.
I've decided I'm glad I missed out on most of this discussion thus far. I imagine talking to Roger Kimball about the rocking roll is a similarly surreal experience.
Your definition of "earnest" seems to be the sort that takes Bono as its exemplum. It's ok to find that kind of whatever irritating and dislike it, but it's not ok to take the word "earnest" and use it for that purpose.
I have a jazz question. Should I be excited about seeing the following people whom I've never heard of: Geri Allen, Kenny Barron, Uri Caine, Randy Weston with Ray Drummond & Al Foster?
I also wish I'd been around for more of this thread.
Like I said, b-dub, I thought everyone used the word "earnest" in this sense. Post and learn.
w/d: yes, yes, yes, yes. Is there a choice involved? Does it depend on your tastes in any way? Howcum I don't get to live in New York?
Making soundtracks for Dead Man Walking with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is a pretty earnest thing to do, too.
That was a good song, though.
Ogged's Most Hated Band: Head of Femur. Record release shows with 18 and 22-piece bands (or thereabouts, including, for the first, tubular! bells!), former member of Bright Eyes in the core band, potentially wimpy sounding singer (though not on all tracks).
I have an album with Kenny Baron and ... Charlie Haden? It's very ... polite.
Howcum I don't get to live in New York?
Because you are an academic. Upside: after tenure, you can sleep until noon.
Robert Fripp has a similar formulation.
I take that to be a compliment.
As opposed to all the hardworking people who blog and comment until noon.
Too late, SB. You can't take back Teh Gay.
Here I am, commenter of officially ambiguous gender, and it's a compliment to text that vaults me into Teh Gayosphere? Interesting.
That should be "undetermined gender", really.
I would propose that The The's Hank Williams tribute album, Hanky Panky, is earnest, and if it were not earnest—if it were a cynical former new-waver mocking the country star, or a bunch of ironic covers a la Cake's cover of "I Will Survive", or otherwise an instatiation of too-easy superciliousness—if it were not earnest, I say, it would have sucked. But it is earnest, and that is part of what makes it good.
(The Hank Williams sample over the outro to the last song on the album is a bit much, though.)
135: neither a compliment nor abuse, merely (pointless) observation.
A choice involved? About six months ago, I chose to buy tickets to this event.
Teh Gay is gender-neutral
Sorry for the confusion – I know it's gender-neutral. My point was that for me, I reckon there are nothing but diminishing returns at the margin of Teh Gay.
I can't believe what comes out of my fingers here, sometimes. Blibbity de doona boona studebaker.
I didn't really know what I meant by the accusation, anyhoo.
I have bit my tongue so far, but I can maintain my silence no longer, people. It's spelled "Teh Ghey".
I think the Barron/Haden album has that reputation. But Barron is, in general, an excellent mainstream/modern pianist--more the quintessential sideman than someone known for his own work, but the one album under his leadership I have is quite good.
Allen and Caine are a little more avant-gardey--Caine plays in a sort of polystylistic way (he's best known for a bunch of avant-jazz interpretations of classical composers, at least one of which is actually good--I speak of the Mahler project, the Goldberg Variations one bugs the fuck out of me for some reason), Allen is more elliptical I think is the cliché I want to invoke. Weston is older but also on the free side--but in an African-influenced very rhythmic way. Drummond and Foster are one of the best rhythm sections around. I'd be excited.
134: I knew that.
Anyone up for forming a band called "Teh Teh"?
Sigh. "I have bitten..."
I make a lousy pedant.
Anyone up for forming a band called "Teh Teh"?
Nice, but as a courtesy to ac, we should probably call ourselves "Lotion".
What kind of music, and would we wear mustaches?
I always want to spell it "moustache".
Apo -
My recollection is that "a big gay" was usually used on unfogged. (An FL contribution, I think.) I think use of "teh gay" (or "teh ghey") is recent, no?
If `motion' is the noun form of `move,' then "lotion"....
I always want to spell it "moustache".
Joe, meet text.
"Lotion": we'd play a kind of unctuous if not greasy lounge jazz, yeah? Maybe the upthread mention of Morphine is exerting an undue influence on my terpsichurgy.
If it's "Lotion," we cover "Lust for Life."
I should mention that I'm not too jealous of w/d this week, since I am getting to go to an interesting show at the Empty Bottle in Chicago Friday, and am meeting w-lfs-n and Kotsko for dinner beforehand. In case anyone's going to be in town for a wedding or something.
Thanks, Matt. I'll be in L.A. this weekend, in case any hot movie stars are reading.
I don't know what that makes ``notion'' or ``potion'', though.
If `motion' is the noun form of `move,' then "lotion"....
Is the noun form of "Louvre"?
Nor do I know squat about quotation marks. See comment about html way upthread.
Yeah, a quick googlefight verified that "moustache" is Teh Perfrrrd. I've been taught otherwise, though, by liberal Darwinists.
According to OED,
15- (now chiefly U.S.) mustache
Ah, and if flagon is the plural of dragon – no, wait. The pistol in the vassal, um. It'll come to me.
Sigh again. I remember seeing interesting music shows. The highlight of last weekend was Sunday afternoon with fifteen grade schoolers at an alcohol-free bowling alley celebrating Apostropher Jr's eighth birthday. I did, however, discover via the giant video screen over the lanes that every crappy bubblegum hit from the 70s and 80s has been redone by groups of acne-free teenagers in bright clothing.
I think the pistil is to do with the stamen.
According to OED
No imitating w-lfs-n!
'postropher, you might find this fresh-faced band's interpretation of an old classic of interest.
The pistil in the petal's in the flower with the power.
I know nobody cares anymore, but baa made the list, so I answered (me in italics).
1. Video Killed the Radio Star Goofy, silly, so bad it's good, thumbs up!
2. No More Drama (Mary J. Blige) There's something about the sleepy, drawn-out vocals in R&B that makes me want to kill myself. It doesn't make my earnestometer go off though; maybe that's because black people are allowed to have emotions.
3. Miss Independent (Kelly Clarkson) No discernible content.
4. Sweet Child of Mine (Guns and Roses) So earnest it makes me laugh every time. But I love it.
5. Ganster's Paradise (Coolio) Wouldn't listen to it, but it doesn't suck. Unlike the Beatles. Not notably earnest.
6. Like A Prayer (Madonna) Not *even* earnest. Thumbs up!
7. In Da Club (50 Cent) I really don't know what to make of hip-hop. I don't even know what they're saying.
8. Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana) Earnest, but self-deprecatingly so. Brilliant, in fact.
9. Hunger Strike (Temple of the Dog) Laughably earnest. But not mewling!
10. Mmmmm Bop (Hanson) No content, but that voice is right out.
11. Crazy in Love (Beyonce) Again, just does nothing for me. I have no reaction. I wouldn't want you to play it over and over on a first date though.
12. Born to Run (Springsteen) Hmm. The first tough call. Earnest, or authentic? Dunno. Love it.
13. Always Something There to Remind Me (Naked Eyes) This, in my limited experience of the genre, is the epitome of a good pop song. Catchy, doesn't make any empty emotional claims, doesn't sound like the self-pitying bleat of a coddled and immature young man. Thumbs up!
14. Bizarre Love Triangle (New Order) This seems to be from a different planet. I listen to it with anthropological interest.
15. Hungry Like the Wolf (Duran Duran) Also not even earnest. Just performance. Gotta admit, I like it.
16. Stand (R.E.M.) I'm not even going to re-listen to this. Is anything by R.E.M. *not* painfully earnest?
17. Ray of Light (Madonna) I hadn't heard it. I don't like it, but I don't want to kill her or myself when I hear it.
18. I Saw the Sign (Ace of Bace) Pure pop, does nothing for me. I guess we're supposed to want to sleep with the woman with the Nordic accent.
19. You're Still the One (Shania Twain) This is girl-mewling. Also kinda earnest. Too bad, because she's pretty hot.
20. Building a Mystery (Sarah McLaughlin) Unbearably earnest. Reaction: Shut the fuck up, nobody cares.
21. Every Day is a Winding Road (Sheryl Crow) Catchy, has no soul, meh, I've half-enjoyed listening to it sometimes.
22. Love in an Elevator (Aerosmith) Gold old-fashioned rock music. I approve.
23. Don't Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchestra) No. Whatever it is they're doing with their voices, I don't like it. No content, so not earnest.
24. Bust a Move (Young MC) This sounds fun. I approve.
25. Take a Chance on Me (ABBA) Of course I love ABBA, but it's impossible to make any objective judgements about ABBA, so this one doesn't count.
Ganster's Paradise (Coolio) Wouldn't listen to it, but it doesn't suck. Unlike the Beatles. Not notably earnest.
Head spins, falls. Fetch the smelling salts!
16. Stand (R.E.M.) I'm not even going to re-listen to this. Is anything by R.E.M. *not* painfully earnest?
"Underneath the Bunker", from Life's Rich Pageant. Its presence takes the album from great to freaking great.
Damn! Is it earnest? I'm at work, so could barely hear the words.
It's hard to say whether anything from the first three albums is earnest or not, given the nigh-indecipherable lyrical delivery.
Always Something There etc. has good pop cred because it's a Burt Bacharach song. Which when I was 13 I didn't understand the significance of.
"Underneath the Bunker"
Hadn't ever heard it. Must admit, until he starts singing, that's a witty tune.
REM -- Is "Superman" painfully earnest?
To add to 171 -- do you not know the original on which it is based, "Pasttime Paradise" by Stevie Wonder, which while full of earnestness is also a complex meditation on racial disharmony that has tough words for those on both sides of the racial divide?
Or at least "Amish Paradise"?
And doesn't knowledge of either or both of those songs reveal Coolio's attempt to be that much more awful?
I hadn't heard the Coolio song before; didn't know anything about it. Just played some of it before I commented.
Superman not earnest. Also on LRP. The album that rules, rules, rules.
You talkin to me?
Not dissin' REM (early REM, anyhow - they've badly, badly lost direction over the last few albums). I was fanatical about them up through, oh, Automatic for the People or so. Nonetheless, between the mumbling delivery and the elliptical lyrics, I maintain it's not so easy to begin separating the earnestness from the irony until LRP.
181: I like Fables of the Reconstruction myself. In things like this, I figure, go for the hard stuff. Murk murk murk, mumble mumble mumble. (And I haven't actually listened to any of this in a while.)
"Superman" is a cover, isn't it?
Ok, listening to a bit more of that album (LRP), it does sound pretty good. Hadn't heard it. REM question answered.
I think REM started shooting up earnest heroin right before recording Green.
Ogged,
Why are you afraid of life?
Umm.. ahem Shiny happy people and earnest?
The truth hurts, Austro. Everybody hurts.
Everybody hurts some of the time, and some people hurt all of the time, but you can't hurt everybody all of the time.
Re: 189
Also, you can't pick your friends' noses.
You can if you're a rhinoplastic surgeon.
Re apostropher in 182: my 175 was to ogged's 173. The answer is, no, he wasn't talkin to me.
Which brings me neatly to a point... what about the B52s then? Can this be classified: I have loved the joie since I first heard them as a confused 12 year old with the radio beneath the bed covers...
you can't hurt everybody all of the time
This shouldn't keep you from trying, though.
We may be reaching the critical mass where comprehensibility vs. aesthetics is a close battle regarding nested comments. That would, however, eliminate much unintentional comedy.
And another thing I have never been able to work out. Is Black Sabbath to be taken a face value, or are they just taking the piss?
Okay, since you answered the last list here are some specific songs that I'm curious about. I'll keep it to 10.
1: David Bowie -- Ziggy Stardust
2: Smokey Robinson -- Second that emotion
3: English Beat -- Tears of a Clown
4: The Zombies -- This will be our year
5: Spoon -- Fitted Shirt
6: Ken Stringfellow -- Here's to the future
7: Bootsy Collins -- Stretchin' Out (In A Rubber Band)
8: Nick Lowe -- So it goes
9: Big Star -- Sittin' in the back of a car
10: Bruce Cockburn -- People see through you
11: Warren Zevon -- Carmelita
(okay, that's 11).
just taking the piss
I'm not sure how this translates into American.
20. Building a Mystery (Sarah McLaughlin) Unbearably earnest. Reaction: Shut the fuck up, nobody cares.
I feel like this response is probably expected from the person who brought you "the grime of its wandering," but it doesn't seem fair to pistol-whip poor Sarah McLaughlin here. It's not like she actually expects men to like her music.
How about the Carpenters? They were once a red-hot avant-jazz band influenced by the Mothers and Coltrane, no lie.
20. Building a Mystery (Sarah McLaughlin) Unbearably earnest. Reaction: Shut the fuck up, nobody cares.
Agreed, this song is Not Good. It's one of life's great tragedies that SM had only two excellent albums in her (sez me – adjust downward if you must). So sad.
It's "McLachlan", by the way.
I'm not sure how this translates into American.
Taking Teh Pisss?
I'm not sure how this translates into American.
=pulling the leg.
199: face value, and loads of people, intelligent people, think they were doing great work, too.
202: Kidding, I think. And, I think, no (I'm thinking only of Paranoid because no other Black Sabbath is necessary). They really mean the Iron Man to be that misunderstood kid in all of us, with superpowers. It roxors anyway. "Vengeacne from the grave, kills the people he once saved"--take that, mom! Grounded, shit.
I'm all strung out on earnest heroin on the outskirts of town.
Nick, that one'll have to wait until later, as I can't constantly play music at work.
Ben, I used to think so too. seriously. I loved them still with Ronnie James Dio, but recently I have begun to wonder. Just askin.
Vengeacne
I had this when I bought Paranoid, with the emphasis on "venge."
Dio has rocked for a long, long time.
You've got to bleed for the dancer!
202. What Ogged and Matt said. Otherwise known as "Extracting the Michael" for reasons totally unknown to me.
I love Dido! Oh, whoops.
Black Sabbath -> Melvins -> Earth (previous name of Black Sabbath) -> Boris and Sunn 0))). And where would we be without Julian Cope's bizarre sprechstimme (search for "and I do walk") in "My Wall"?
"They'll tell you black is really white, the moon is just the sun at night.."
could be about this place.
213: I'm going to claim that was subconsious genius instead of a stuipd tyop.
Dio? Really? Actually there was a guy in high school who always wore Dio shirts, with excerpts from the lyrics prominently displayed, so I guess he had fans. Still, I always figured Ozzy got what Peter Gabriel, David Lee Roth, and Bill Clinton had.
Ok ... what did those three people all have?
Julian Cope's bizarre sprechstimme
womb-men!
Kwashiorkor, if I'm not mistaken.
You speak the truth Matt, but at 15 I thought it just rocked.
I have the next example lined up, and this is trickier: Jethro Tull?
I'm largely with Joe O, in that I largely picked songs that I more-or-less like to fill out that list. Only exceptions In Da Club, which find catchy, but dislike, and Building a Mystery, which I should have replaced with that song from Sixpence None the Richer (but I thought no one would have heard of, and embarrassingly I couldn't remember the name of at the time). Also, kudos, Joe O for picking out Gangster's Paradise and Bizarre Love Triangle as particularly excellent songs on that list. You are the G all the little homies wanna be like!
Ogged,
13. Always Something There to Remind Me (Naked Eyes) This, in my limited experience of the genre, is the epitome of a good pop song. Catchy, doesn't make any empty emotional claims, doesn't sound like the self-pitying bleat of a coddled and immature young man. Thumbs up!
Yes! Glad to see that the use of church bells didn't push it into the dread "too many instruments" category. Also, have you noticed that you have an extremely moralizing response to art. Would you like, e.g., "Stand" if (like opera) it were moon-man language and you didn't know what it meant. For all I know, the lyrics for the Magic Flute are all drawn from the diary of a nuclear-freeze advocating teenage girl, but that doesn;t make it bad...
I now know two (2) people who are prepared to deploy "kwashiorkor" in conversational context. SB, are you also prepared to give it to another team in charades?
Some people have told me that Jethro Tull is not taking the piss, but that story is too ridiculous to be believed.
Ben: Have you considered looking at 105?
I have the next example lined up, and this is trickier: Jethro Tull?
I feel silly for liking Thick as a Brick so much. But really their first few albums (Stand Up through TAAB inclusive) are good. I haven't heard any of the others. Take them at face value, m'man.
Ian Anderson on one leg playing the flute? Oh, definitely taking the piss, and marvelously so.
Chinese proletariat confronts Communist Party - 9 comments
Pop music sucks - 230 and counting.
Also, have you noticed that you have an extremely moralizing response to art.
I have noticed this, if he hasn't.
I've got this weird feeling that I should look at 105...
Thick as a Brick, if nothing else, is hella ambitious.
Yeah, I do like Jethro Tull. I don't think they're kidding, but they're having a great time.
Ian Anderson on one leg playing the flute? Oh, definitely taking the piss, and marvelously so.
I think he's just an eccentric fellow.
He makes mad dough from his salmon operations these days.
For me Tull is just such fun, even when being *serious*.
But then being too old to rock and roll but too young to die brings a kind of melacholic clarity.
I think the juxtaposition of David Lee Roth & Bill Clinton is timeless.
Apostropher--but Spongebob up a 2-year-old's ass: Only 2!
have you noticed that you have an extremely moralizing response to art
Depends on what you mean by moralizing, I guess. That's a slippery word for me. But yes, I do think of the work as a reflection of the character of the artist, and that has a lot to do with whether I can enjoy it.
Would you like, e.g., "Stand" if (like opera) it were moon-man language and you didn't know what it meant.
I listen to a lot of music with lyrics in languages I don't understand, and I'm always concerned that, if I knew what they were singing about, I would no longer be able to enjoy it.
But then what about "Skating Away"... made me almost cry recently... how bout that for "not" earnest?
Ogged's 240 is right re: Having a good time. I imputed the piss-taking too rashly.
jeez, this thread moves fast.
NickS at some low number above mentions the English Beat cover of Tears of a Clown. This is an excellent cover, and you should all listen to it now.
Also, ogged, what does it mean that earnestness is for you the key moral failing of a pop artists? Two points:
1. Dylan -- kinda earnest
2. "Do they know it's Christmas" -- earnest, but admirable!
3. I'm sending my love down a well.
4. Yes, REM is earnest, but earnestness here also correlates with increasing suck-a-tude. (most notably, in "losing my religion")
But yes, I do think of the work as a reflection of the character of the artist,
This is an oddly earnest position to take—or one that relies on earnestness in the artists if not in their art.
There's a lot of refreshing going on, isn't there?
The artist doesn't have to be earnest to reveal his character, Ben.
240;249... I saw them in here a few years ago. Joyful was the word, indeed.
SB, are you also prepared to give it to another team in charades?
Kwashiorkor isn't infectious.
It is a shame the onion has pay archives or I could link to "ZZ Top gives keys of hotrod to Clinton". That was teh funny.
Also, 'twas the Chinese peasantry rather than the proletariat.
Nominations for most cloyingly earnest song ever?
I'll start the bidding with Whitney Houston singing "The Greatest Love."
Also, ogged, what does it mean that earnestness is for you the key moral failing of a pop artists?
It's been established, hasn't it, that ogged's conception of earnestness is rather simplistic? The best I can do is that it's moral failing because it tends to correlate with not seeing, or not wanting to see, the complexity involved in whatever the person is talking about.
Dylan's "Hurricane": hella earnest.
Give me one moment in time, and I'll think of it.
Dylan -- kinda earnest
This is probably true. But doesn't being brilliant somehow mitigate being earnest? Not just in the sense that we put up with one to get the other, but insofar as earnestness is a pose, or an aspirational pose, brilliant expression makes me think that the artist isn't posing. This is the fine line of "pretentious" too, I think.
EBB -- Earnest But Brilliant.
See Anderson, Paul Thomas.
I'm always concerned that, if I knew what they were singing about, I would no longer be able to enjoy it.
There are a few songs which I enjoy less now that I know what they are about. Speaking of which, holy shit, have you ever actually read the lyrics to brown sugar?
The best I can do is that it's moral failing because it tends to correlate with not seeing, or not wanting to see, the complexity involved in whatever the person is talking about.
Huh? I never said anything like this, did I?
you ever actually read the lyrics to brown sugar?
Good lord.
Yes, "Brown Sugar," which rocks, is legitimately appalling. Took all the fun out of it for me.
253: What if Bono were taking the piss? Why should you think that the understanding of the artist you get from the work is accurate, unless you have some reason to think that the artist is expressing himself straightforwardly through his work? (Or if you were, say, psychoanalyzing the artist based on his work, or engaged in some other form of deep interpretation.) I just don't see what the guarantor of the earnestness of the work reflecting some earnestness in the artist you have unless you think that the artist must be represented directly in the work (that's not the same thing as thinking that the artist is earnest, I guess, but: that the artist isn't an ironist, or really that the artist isn't an artist, whose planned construction of the work distances itself from him). A very earnest artist could produce cynical or clever or multi-layered works if he recognized that his intended audience doesn't dig earnestness.
Here's a pop song you should listen to: "The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side". You probably won't like it.
brilliant expression makes me think that the artist isn't posing.
Earnest = posing?
(ogged, maybe you didn't say anything like that. I think I picked it up somewhere upthread. It may be that I have no idea what you mean by "earnest".)
BW, you adhere with admirable tenacity to the idea that when in this thread we say "earnest" we mean what in the wider English language people mean when they say "earnest," while clearly, we don't.
sl, give the guy a break, he arrived late and this is one fast moving thread.
I agree that artist posers suck. And they suck because they are pretending to be great, meaningful artists. And being great or meaningul can seem like a pose but really it transcends poserhood.
I guess my feeling is that earnestness isn't bad, but also isn't good. Much like irony, and that other artisitic bugaboo, authenticity. What is unequivocally bad is making a fetish of these things, and confusing them with The Good, at which all things (earnestness, irony, authenticity, artificiality) aim. Fetishizers of earnestness (or irony!) can be great and meaningful, although the odds are against them.
Perhaps the fastest snowballing thread in Unfogged history, and if I'm not mistaken, there hasn't been a cock joke since, like, comment 10.
And they suck because they are pretending to be great, meaningful artists. And being great or meaningul can seem like a pose but really it transcends poserhood.
This is exactly right. In fact, baa's entire 275 is exactly right.
Austro: I said he was admirable. Besides, I've had to take a few knocks from w-lfs-n in the past.
I can't speak for ogged, but here's one try at it from upthread, which I think SB endorsed.
Apo, music is much too important a subject for cock jokes.
it's hard to be *earnest* about schlongs, Apo.
So, on Townes van Zandt's Live at the Plugged Nickel (er, I think. Double live, sounds reasonably early.), when he gets choked up singing that song about a dog, you don't think he's being earnest? That he is "in earnest"? Is there a difference between being in earnest and being earnest? Help me out here.
278. Tcha haven't we all. Gotta stick up for him though, even though the adective was used. Only, it seemed ironic.
Just as there's a difference between loving someone, and being in love with them, perhaps?
There's an important distinction here between "genuine" and "earnest." "Earnest" implies an effort at authenticity and effort renders emotion inauthentic.
278: that's where I got the layeredness-thing ("Specifically, I believe "earnestness" here implies an unforgivable ignorance of the layeredness of the topic or moment, at worst a willful obtuseness to multiplicity of meaning."), but when I used it above, ogged got all "wtf dude I ain't said that".
there's a difference between loving someone, and being in love with them
AAAAAHH!!! AAAAAHHH!!! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Sorry, I have particularly bad associations with that sentence.
"Earnest" implies an effort at authenticity and effort renders emotion inauthentic.
What? Only to people to whom it's reflexively pejorative.
Also, slol, when you said: "You regret it because you think, what could be more 'earnest' than the concept of authenticity?"—right on, man.
Yeah, I'm gonna shut up now because it's clear I mean something different from ogged, if not in fact from everyone else, and what do I know.
The only LHF not associated with the mineshaft on this site. Or maybe not....
and effort renders emotion inauthentic
So not! It takes effort to communicate emotion authentically. Perhaps one might say that visible effort makes emotion seem inauthentic, but even there I disagree--sometimes emotion can come across precisely because we can see the effort people are taking to express it.
Is there a difference between being in earnest and being earnest? Help me out here.
Miles. "In earnest" just means sincere, expressing what one feels or believes. To be "earnest" (at least as I've always used it) means to act with an eye on oneself, aware of what one takes to be ones own deep and serious thoughts, feelings, beliefs.
Previewing now: it seems strange to say that being "earnest" is thus an ignorance of layeredness, because it introduces another layer (that of self-regard or bad conscience). I see what you mean though.
Just as there's a difference between loving someone, and being in love with them, perhaps?
Don't think so--earnestness is a general, continuous state, while being in earnest applies only to specific things. But what I really meant was, are there two entirely different senses of "earnest" at play.
I would still like ogged to articulate what earnestness is. Baa's first paragraph doesn't strike me as saying anything about earnestness specifically.
(See how I shut up? For three whole minutes!)
291, 294: what I meant is, there is a romantic sensibility in which the only authentic expression of emotion is unfiltered by intellectual effort, technique, etc.
But we here are all good Wordsworthians and hew to an appreciation of craft.
Can we use "earnest" to mean what Ben and most everyone else means, and "o-earnest" to mean what ogged means?
To be "earnest" (at least as I've always used it) means to act with an eye on oneself, aware of what one takes to be ones own deep and serious thoughts, feelings, beliefs.
Oh, I see. You're just insane, at least wrt the word "earnest", which you have probably never encountered a native speaker of english using.
We can use "o-earnest" as soon as we know what it is.
Can we use "earnest" to mean what Ben and most everyone else means, and "o-earnest" to mean what ogged means?
Come ON. Everybody I talk to uses it this way. I'm gobsmacked here, seriously. I'm starting to think you all are fucking with me.
I mean, really. If I weren't feeling all time-crunchy about responding to this thread I'd try to think up a good, honest, english word that actually means what you're using "earnest" to express (since it's a trait that annoys me to no end myself and I'm sure I've used words instead of phrases to describe it before).
Maybe we can just say "self-consciously earnest". But that doesn't even capture it correctly.
When you hear someone described as "earnest," what does that mean to you?
Yeah, "pompous" is definitely part of it for me too.
I'm going home now. I won't be surprised if I get back here and there are 600 comments.
303: Kind of doe-eyed and gooey, probably not the fleetest mind in the business.
To 302, not to 303.
(I regret that this thread is probably going to take away my claim to be the only person to have left a comment 500. Can we bring girl27 in for it? Or Daniel Davies?)
When you hear someone described as "earnest," what does that mean to you?
Straightforward, sincere, not given to wry detachment, or indulgence in silliness.
Not really. If I mean Pompous I say Pompous or "Self-Important"... For me "earnest" means simply serious as in "takes life seriously"
SB, what about when you hear it used as a pejorative, or does this not happen in your world?
Kind of doe-eyed and gooey, probably not the fleetest mind in the business.
Now this strikes me as an idiosyncratic definition.
Is there anyone here who when asked for a self-description would put "earnest" as their first adjective? Why? (30% of your grade.)
311: In German the word "Ernst" as in "Ein ernste Typ" simply means " a serious guy".
313: I told you, I'm given to using it as a pejorative too. (Much in the same way you might say, "she's got a nice personality.")
Just not the same way as you, apparently.
But Sarah McLachlan is not pompous. I can't help feeling there's also just a general presumption against emotion here. Sarah McLachlan or Dido are more emotional than some other singers you could name, but since they are women aiming their stuff primarily at other women, it seems less off the mark to me, or less earnest. Their songs are more "private" and so less big and grand and posturing.
Yeah slol, we agree on the pejorative, just not the content, I think. SB, however, seems to use it in a neutral way. I think that's unusual.
I'm going with SB's definition. "Humorlessly convinced" is a big component.
317: Of course, in the dictionary definition you would have to put serious. But all along I've been thinking somewhat in terms of, let's say, the subdialect of written English we might call TLS-prose, where if you say someone is "earnest" this is self-evidently Not a Good Thing.
My suggestion of 'pompous' was for what Ogged means, not what everyone else does. My use of 'earnest' is probably more along the lines of 310 or 307; not much of a sense of humor, believes in what they believe in, tends to view things morally--and I wouldn't use it as a self-description. In fact, 'not much of a sense of humor' is a pretty bad pejorative for me.
what about when you hear it used as a pejorative
When I hear it as a pejorative, which is not often in my uniformly ironic environs, I take it to describe someone who "doesn't get the joke", or who displays the traits I mentioned when it's inappropriate to the situation.
But it's not automatically pejorative, and if someone did use it that way, I would ask them to elaborate.
I think. My thoughts here are kind of half-formed.
I can't help feeling there's also just a general presumption against emotion here
No, because Billy Holiday is not earnest.
322. agree. however: Humourlessness and taking oneself seriously are different vices from taking life and experience seriously and to heart.
not much of a sense of humor, believes in what they believe in, tends to view things morally
But this is just what I understand the word to mean. Is the problem here that to me this is obviously damning?
Actually 309 is really what I mean by 'earnest'--and lack of indulgence in silliness is still a pejorative. But not a big one--I think 'earnest' is basically neutral. Not what I look for in art, though.
'Pompous' probably isn't good for what Ogged means, either. You can be pompous and ironic, you can be conscious of your emotions in a fake way (what Ogged means, yes?) without thinking they're Important.... back to the drawing board, yes.
I still think so.
I think this is the pretty letter issue again.
to describe someone who "doesn't get the joke"
Bing! That's it.
So look, there's no doubt that the dictionary definition of "earnest" sincere, with serious intent, whatever. But surely within the context of pop music there's a degree to which all earnestness can be thought of as false earnestness (or self-regarding earnestness) which is I think where ogged is coming from. Example:
"The always-earnest pop icon addressed the reporters"
(implication: pejorative)
"The always-earnest physician-advocate addressed the reporters"
(implication: not so pejorative)
And yes, I would describe myself as a bit too earnest.
Ok, there's more to it than just what I agreed to in 327, because there has to be the self-regard.
Thanks baa, I was wondering whether I should bring up Amnesty International, and decided against it. ;)
331: Not sure, baa. "The always-earnest folk singer [e.g., Pete Seeger] addressed the reporters." Pejorative? Well, maybe you and I are not big Seeger fans, but I don't think everyone needs to take this as pejorative.
331 and 333:
So in "o-earnest" there is this essential element: it is inappropriate for a pop star to take him/herself, particular missions, the world, etc. seriously to the degree that the head of Doctors Without Borders might.
So are we saying here that self-irony is the path to salvation (assuming a theist view)? Because if so, this reinforces a great deal of the debate I have with my German colleagues, who famously never get the joke.
Well, yes and no, slol. Typical conversation I've had dozens of times:
Someone: I met Jimmy D the other day. He works for Amnesty International.
Me: Oh, yeah, what's he like?
Someone: He's one of these earnest young men. You wouldn't like him.
336: Yes, well, I wasn't going to bring up the national stereotyping, but of all peoples not to see the downside of earnestness, the Teutons would have to rank up there.
338. Yeah, but if it was me saying that, I would mean that it's somehow jarring for a young person to be so steadfast and unsmilingly serious.
In the opposite sense that it would be jarring if the Pope or the President were a little too much on the jokey side.
There is something inappropriate in too much earnestness for ordinary people, who need to take a moral holiday every now and then.
or the President were a little too much on the jokey side
Is you seed him lately?
Oh, how about that. I know two people, both of whom I'd describe as earnest – but one of them neutrally, and the other negatively. The salient differences between them, as far as I can tell, are that the first is highly intelligent and has a sense of humor (albeit of the non-sillines indulging variety), and the second is an alien from outer space. Seriously. No sense of the absurd, and no awareness of subtext, of irony, nor even of standard pop-culture references. But interestingly, neither had he any self-regard that I could detect.
I am very confused. If the problem is earnestness, and earnestness is somehow related to claims about Great Truths, how does this relate, in the main, to the vast majority of pop music? Isn't, the connotation of "pop", in part, that it is pointless? Even if some pop music is earnest, it's hard to understand "Do the Locomotion" as aspiring to make claims of importance.
318 and 325: I wonder if ac has a good point here.
Is there a gender difference to the threshold of o-earnest?
I'm reconsidering the offensive component of pejorative earnest; thinking perhaps "shows a lack of perspective" is better. This is tentative.
There's a gender thing for me, insofar as I'm less annoyed by emoting women than by emoting men.
Isn't, the connotation of "pop", in part, that it is pointless?
Well, exactly, which is why it's so damn annoying when it's all "feel my pain" "the world is rotten" "save humanity."
You know, all through this thread the standard classifications of the skoolyard have been going through my head: "Pretentious Crap" vs. "Rocks" vs "Sublime".
Just a thought.
A person I would ordinarly never, ever whup upside the head nearly caused me to do so, by claiming that popular (distinct from pop, maybe? broad appeal?) music was by that very fact incapable of being sublime. Whup!
I think he only listens to opera.
Is this thing on?
When I left, ogged had asked what we think of when someone is described as "earnest". I'm going to pick up there without having read any of the intervening comments, because I want to talk about a man. Not a simple man, perhaps, but an earnest man. A man named Craig Segall. Now, this guy, this is about as earnest a fellow as you could hope or fear to meet, but he's in no way self-conscious about it. He's doing his law school thing so that he can work on behalf of the environment, mostly, doesn't think or expect that he harbors a truly great understanding of how the world works but is in fact very well informed about those subjects that interest him (pace slolernr). Nor is he a starry-eyed idealist; if anything, he's a True Believer in the system and its ability to overcome what he sees as worrisome setbacks and missteps. He's got that, let's call it squirrelly eagerness without charisma, which, combined with activity, often renders the earnest so damned annoying to the rest of us, but I think one of the main factors in his earnestness is that he really believes, in spite of everything, that people are good at heart.
Another example of an earnest person is someone who's always volunteering (not overextending (and not resume-padding, because these people, though they may be o-earnest, are not earnest, but rather cynical manipulators), but say consistently volunteering at the same place) and always trying to get you to go along, and not understanding that it's much easier for you to stay at home instead.
Contrariwise, this fellow has o-earnestness coming out his pores, but is not otherwise earnest at all.
Now I will read the intervening comments and discover that this one was pointless.
I'm reconsidering the offensive component of pejorative earnest; thinking perhaps "shows a lack of perspective" is better.
When Kurt Tucholsky and Stephan Zweig committed their respective suicides, they were in deadly earnest, and perhaps lacked perspective. Is that perjorative?
I think the reference to the subject and/or medium is the real clue. It's been said already: It's Pop, already... the only question is can I bump-an-grind the hott blonde on the dancefloor to the beat?
But then: If you believe Forster and subscribe to music being the deepest of the arts and deep beneath the arts (how pretentious is that?) then you have to ask where do we draw the boundary between bump and grindness and Coltrane.
Oh. The wildest pickup ever of my unreconstructed youth was at an acid-jazz concert... even these boundaries are blurred.
320 and 309 would probably have sufficed.
When used pejoratively, up the recruitment factor. (Also what SB said.)
And I agree with ac re: emotion, Lady Day notwithstanding.
Someone: I met Jimmy D the other day. He works for Amnesty International.Me: Oh, yeah, what's he like?Someone: He's one of these earnest young men. You wouldn't like him.
Are you sure Someone was using o-earnestness as his or her definition? Because Someone could well have been using earnestness, and you would never be able to tell, since you probably dislike both the earnest and the o-earnest.
But it's ok. There are plenty of good earnest folks.
(Austro: I thought "ernst" meant "honest"?)
Ben, there is a difference between "Im Ernst" and "ein ernster Typ" . The adjective describing the person is much as we mean by earnest but without the overtones and "Im Ernst" means to be "honest" about something.
Isn't, the connotation of "pop", in part, that it is pointless? Even if some pop music is earnest, it's hard to understand "Do the Locomotion" as aspiring to make claims of importance.
Yeah, but "Do the Locomotion" isn't really trying for much. The idea that popular (I'm saying popular as opposed to mass, like Drymala's upthread distinction, IIRC) music or popular interests in general are in themselves incapable of importance is silly. "Easter 1916" rather than "Sunday Bloody Sunday", sure, but it's not like by plugging in you relinquish your ability to say interesting and worthwhile things tout suite.
Why is it o-earnestness given baa's 331?
But then again, surely it's true that there's a difference between those who annoy merely by being earnest (let's call them do-gooders) and those who are self-regardlingly earnest.
Why is it o-earnestness given baa's 331?
Clarity? Even supposing I agreed wholeheartedly with baa's 331, it's nice to use different words for different things, innit?
You know, ogged's whole "earnest" business was probably a just a ruse to keep Beatles fans from giving him a sustained group hate.
Group hate begins … now.
The o-earnest person "shows a lack of perspective": I was thinking about this story, which I may get wrong, in which Melanie Griffith was in a movie to do with the Holocaust. And it was apparently the first time she had heard about the Holocaust. And she was going around telling people how bad the Holocaust was. Which it was! And it's good that we know about that! And it's good that Melanie found out about it! But, you konw, for Melanie to tell people she had just found out about it and that it was bad showed a lack of perspective on her place in the world, such that
(a) She thinks she's doing good because she's a star telling people about this terrible thing they should know about but
(b) The ordinary person might think jeez, where you been, lady.
This strikes me as a little o-earnest. And I may have gotten the story wrong, and Melanie Griffith may be a great scholar, but I hope this makes the point.
So, does 351 count as confirmation of Godwin's law?
Yeah, I'm down with that b-dub. Clearly, facts on the ground indicate a need for two different words here.
Right, I'm for bed, unfortunately. I shall take bets on the 600 by 8am CET tomorrow. For reference it is now nearly 1am.
The probability of mentioning Craig Segall goes to one?
Melanie is suffering more from ignorance than lack of perspective though.
I'll be surprised if this thread makes it to 400.
In not having known about the Holocaust, she's ignorant. In then thinking it's her job to go telling people about it, she's showing a lack of perspective on her place in the world.
Ben, can you clarify 360?
But yes, Im curious about 351 and Godwin too.
Ok, let's say that "earnest means" 309 and 320. Good. We're all agreed? Ben, since you seem to have a conception of "o-earnest," can you tell us what gets added to or subtracted from "earnest" to give us "o-earnest"?
Current average: 0.88 posts per minute. Insane.
I'm now wondering if this entire thread is a big in joke that I didn't get. I really was not/am not that into music, but isn't the argument that the music that most people like really sucks because it's fake and pretentious a fairly standard trope of adolescents who want to live "meaningful" lives? And isn't that the essence of what you're saying is the problem, ogged? Was this just a really, really long joke?
And it's slowed way down. From 3:15 to 4:15, it was over 2 posts per minute.
So you're saying that I'm enacting precisely the kind of earnestness I'm decrying? That's supposed to be a joke? No, them's fighting words, Tim, and now we have to duel.
No, seriously, I don't think I'm doing that, because I'm surely not trying to live a meaningful life.
351 contains the phrase "he really believes, in spite of everything, that people are good at heart", which echoes a famous quotation from Anne Frank's diaries.
Here's a misleading, poorly conceptualized, and pretentious analogy between "earnest" and "o-earnest". An earnest person is authentic. An o-earnest person is someone who's read about "authenticity", and now wants to be authentic, and is therefore trying.
Ha ha! That was stupid. An o-earnest person is like someone who keeps worrying about whether he's punk, say. I'm trying to get at the "acts with one eye on himself" bit—this is a person who is concerned with keeping up appearances, to himself as much as to others. I'm not sure you could say that o-earnestness is like self-regarding earnestness, simply, because the self-regarding part, to me, undermines the earnestness part.
379.
Ogged, through the whole Profgrrrl date thing you never called SCMT once. Now, though, you send a calling card and a second? This casts interesting light.
Austro, I have no idea what you're saying, but I'm wondering why you're commenting from bed.
This thread is weird for me to read. I'm tone-deaf about music: not literally so, although that too, a little, but I am completely unable to care about it at all. I mean, I like some music, and I like singing badly, but if all methods of recording and replaying music disappeared from the world, I wouldn't fundamentally notice all that much, other than that it would be easier to have conversations in bars.
So this whole conversation about earnestness and o-earnestness, normally the sort of thing I'd be fascinated by, falls apart for me because none of the examples conveys anything meaningful (I mean, I've heard of lots of the musicians, and am familiar with some of the referenced songs, but have no idea what they mean to any of you.). It's a peculiar feeling, like trying to follow an argument in a language you don't really speak.
[We now return you to a thread which is not all about me.]
Too little earnestness can also be a problem.
Here is an Umberto Eco quote that has always bothered me:
" I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her, ''I love you madly,'' because he knows that she knows (and that she knows that he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say, ''As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly.''"
Does anyone really think that is a good idea?
The other thing nobody's quoted, which I thought they would have, is the variously attributed, but in my experience to Louis B. Mayer, "All that matters is [earnestness]. If you can fake that...."
Insomnia, Wireless and a vague memory of SCMT trying to scupper the romance.
From the postscript to The Name of the Rose, right? That's an example I've thought about lots recently.
I know a girl like you wrt music, LB.
I imagine Austro must be, of all of us, the nearest to Heidelberg, and therefore should know from dueling.
386: in a discussion about stale words, someone once said something that I think is true and insightful: the word "love" seems always to renew itself.
if all methods of recording and replaying music disappeared from the world
Would there still be singing and playing-upon-instruments? If not, I would probably do something I'd never have a chance to regret.
386.
I have always believed that a world in which the Sonnets from the Portuguese could be recited and received in earnest is the one I want to live in.
392. Ogged, are you saying the world can't get enough of silly love songs?
Huh, I'm not sure I know anyone like LB. There's very little music that I like but I like it a lot. I'm not sure I could go a day without listening to something I love.
No, I'm saying that silly love songs will never kill love.
There's very little music that I like
Yeah, I've gotten that impression.
391.
There are, unfortunately, schlagende Verbindungen in Vienna too. Very Brown in the political colour spectrum. Lets not go there.
Damn, I was hoping that would be 401.
#1. Hey, Standbridge. Did it really sound like the ramblings of a drunk? I'll take that as a compliment with one martuni to go. Ogged, you sure know how to start a rumble.
Huh, I'm not sure I know anyone like LB.
It is interesting -- plenty of people have no interest in visual art, or literature, or film, but not caring much about music puts you way outside the norm. I fake it socially, doing a lot of smiling and nodding and pretending to be more interested than I am in the musicians who I kind of like. It's easier than explaining that no, I have no musical taste.
I've been trying to pin down what this whole conversation reminds me of, and I'm coming up with two things: First, the bit in High Fidelity where the narrator's girlfriend introduces him to the nice couple with the terrible record collection, and second, Holden Caulfield complaining about phoneys.
Re #380: I think if you look at the amount of time that regular commenters like myself spend here, it's clear that none of us are trying very hard to live a meaningful life. (Note that this plus his acknowledged earnestness may explain why baa is somewhat infrequently here.)
What I really meant was that your complaint seems to have the form or shape of laughing at what a ponce one used to be. So, I wonder, for example, when you have a kid and decide that, yes, life is meaningful and spiritual, etc., will you then look at this thread scornfully?
My 393 crossed a line. I should have said merely, and earnestly, now that you mention it, that music is very inportant to me.
Did it really sound like the ramblings of a drunk?
No, I was referring to the text affair. It looked to me like someone was impersonating ogged, because I believed him, prior to reading his post, to be a basically reasonable person.
when you have a kid and decide that, yes, life is meaningful and spiritual, etc., will you then look at this thread scornfully?
Sure life can be meaningful and spiritual, but that's no reason to take it so damn seriously.
in a discussion about stale words, someone once said something that I think is true and insightful: the word "love" seems always to renew itself.
Verbatim out-of-the-blue quote from my son when he was four years old: "There's no limits in love. You can always love more. But there are limits in driving. And that's the difference between love and driving!"
Now that's a kid who understands love; and whose father has been pulled over a lot.
My dad took me to the top of the World Trade Center when I was four. And some man there had a cart with donuts. I asked my dad, "Dad, are the donuts free?" Dad said, "ac, you'll find in life that nothing is free." And apparently I said, with great confidence, "Love is free, daddy."
I guess you had some learnin' to do, eh, young lady?
Would you rather live in a world in which donuts or love was free? Love is nice, but fried dough...
Then it does sound like the ramblings of a drunk? Pop music is fake earnest, that's why everyone likes it so much. Sorry, can't track all FOUR HUNDRED fricking posts right now.
You can basically skip the first hundred or so, Jude—until I showed up, that is.
Then it does sound like the ramblings of a drunk?
No, not really.
Thanks, Ben. We need a Cliff notes version of this thread.
Cliff notes version
"Earnest" is a multivocal signifier, Ogged doesn't like the Beatles, "When the President talks to God" needs a melody, Ronnie James Dio rawks, Ian Anderson is eccentric, Ben's internet was down at work today, "taking the piss" means "pulling your leg."
And once again, I just missed 420.
To be included in the second printing of the Cliff Notes: it's spelled "teh ghey."
Maybe I can get this to 500 all by myself.
What's really remarkable is that most of these comments were on-topic.
Remind me how charades works. If I give the K-word to the other team, they have to act it out and recognize it, right? I don't understand why I would ever hesitate to give the other team the K-word.
That's how it works. (Craig's the other person who's deployed it conversationally, and in charades-like contexts.)
Fear of enraging the opposing team?
I like making up clues for people to act out, but I odiate every other aspect of charades.
Whoa. Ragin', Dude. On-topic marathon men. Hey, that's what they're talking about in the cartoon thread. Super heroes. Further continuity.
Yeah, fear, good point.
SB: "Kwashiorkor".
Dude with scissors: Death!
Another random thought for Ben and others similarly disposed. If you like JT up to TAAB, try Songs from the Wood. It's poppier in bits, but, except in the case of "Solstice Bells" – which you can safely skip unless you enjoy hand-clap sound effects – it's all very good. Compared to TAAB, not only do the songs work better as individual songs, but the concept/theme hangs together better, too. And there's no annoying A-side to B-side noodling.
If you hate it, though, this comment never happened.
I love pop music so, of course, I've missed most of the discussion.
having only skimmed the comments it strikes me that (ogged) ernestness in pop music (or any pop art) consists of three traits.
1) Sincerity about the "meaning" or "message" of the work.
2) A belief that the "meaning" or "message" of the work is important.
3) The belief that the listener should find the work either moving or convincing.
I suspect that ogged objects to the self importance of (2) and the intrusiveness and pushiness of (3).
#210 -- But Warren Zevon is hardly ernest at all. "A Certain Girl" is one of my favorite parodies of a pop song and I think Carmelita has a strong element of parody as well.
What strikes me as odd about ogged's preference is that I am much more willing to listen to bad ernest music than bad music that's overly theatrical (say Bryan Ferry).
I've also finally thought of the band/album that conclusively disproves ogged's criteria. The lead singer is not manly, the band has lots of instruments, and it is, if not ernest, self-important. But it is nevertheless a clear pop masterpiece.
Talking Heads -- Stop Making Sense.
I also realized that I didn't include any female singers on my list. So, ogged, if you do decided to listed to the songs on the list I would like to add the following:
1) Joni Mitchell -- Coyote (the standard against which all singer-songwriters should be judged).
2) Marianne Faithful -- Broken English (very ernest but fantastic, IMO)
3) Patti Smith -- Talkin' bout my generation (live) (totally punk, and impressive for the way the way the music falls apart -- intentionally)
4) Laurie Anderson -- Finnish Farmers
(or, if you can't find that, Lighting Out for the Territories)
That brings the list to 15. But listen to as many as you find interesting.
# 204
Speaking of the carpenters I have to recommend Curtis Mayfield's cover of "we have only just begun" on the Curtis/Live album. Unbelievably beautiful. That entire album is great, but that is one of the few tracks that is not explicity political and his singing is amazing.
Songs from the Wood
I've always cited that as my favorite JT album (and once upon a time, I listened to them lots and lots), but I think that may be mostly because it was the first one I heard. Anyhow, yeah, great album.
Jesus Christ. You kids have been busy. ogged, or whoever else wants to chime in, here's the thing that kills me about really great pop*--it can be its own meta-commentary. That is, a singer is allowed to be both sincere and artidicial, and the potential for artificiality serves as commentary on the sincerity, validating it (Jeff Buckley's version of "Hallelujah"), disregarding it out of pure joy (The Cure's "Why Can't I be You?"), commenting on the nature of sincerity in pop (I'm thinking specifically of the moment in XTC's "Mayor of Simpleton" where whatsisface sings "I can't put on an act," and that's the only time that they put a reverb effect on his voice in the whole song), ect. [(c) w-lfs-n]
(side note--have we really defined pop? To me, many of the songs mentioned here fall outside of the boundaries of what I consider to be pop--for me pop is by definition unserious music that occasionally can transcend its own unseriousness, and falls ouside of identifiable other genres that have their own forms (e.g. country, rock, punk, metal, jazz, etc.), although pop can superficially take on those forms. So: Nirvana, not pop (with the exception of songs like "Molly's Lips"). Pearl Jam: not pop. U2, pre-Zooropa (that's the album where Bono was The Fly, right?): not pop.
A few more comments on the list of songs that I gave. They are all, in one way or another, songs that I consider great that violate one or more of ogged's rules.
They are also, as Chopper mentions, a deliberate effort to find the bounderies of what ogged wants to call "pop."
So here's why I picked each of them:
1) Ziggy Stardust. Personal prejudice, I consider this album one of the greatest pop albums of all time. David Bowie has amazing singing talent and is noteworthy because he sings with great focus and intensity while not being either "authentic" or trying to directly address the audience. There's always a distance with Bowie. I like that style but I'm curious what ogged makes of it.
#2, #4, #6) are have singers that I wouldn't consider "manly" but they all have noteworthy performance styles. Smokey Robinson is pure pop as pure performance. The performance has almost no emotional force, it's just a good performance of a great song.
Numbers 4,5,6 all came from a CD that friends of mine gave out at their wedding. I take the emotion in all of them to be sincere and interesting. All well writen songs. #6 has a non-trivial amount of angst, but I think it distinguishes itself from much angsty pop music by expressing relatively subtle and complex emotions.
I take "Fitted Shirt" (5) to be about societal standards of masculinity and the singer's ambivilence about accepting the vision of masculinity that he sees in his father.
The bootsy collins and the English beat are there to push the boundries of pop and to violate the "fewer instruments are better" sule.
The Bruce Cockburn is there because I'm curious how ogged feels about explicitly political pop music.
For the warren zevon see my comment #433.
Another comment about ernestness.
In the introduction the Curtis Mayfield song I mentioned above he says, "A lot of folks think this particular lyric is not appropriate for what might be considered 'underground.' But I think underground is whatever your mood or feelings might be so long as it's the truth. I think it's very appropriate we might lend a few words of inspiration right here."
Which is a pretty grand claim whe you consider that the words "the truth" are sitting in the middle of it.
But then he goes on to sing the song with complete conviction and to turn the Carpenters' song about marriage into a song of racial consciousness and black longing for simple middle class life.
Good ernestness or bad?
Wow! Here I thought this thread was dying when I left!
1) O-earnestness does require a certain amount of self-awareness. Not quite calculated, but you get the sense that someone who is o-earnestly concerned about the environment read a book called 'How People Worried About The Environment Act.'
2) Earnest can be used perjoratively, at least colloquially. Ogged's conversation upthread about the 'earnest young man type' makes perfect sense to me. It seems to me to imply either a) inauthenticity on the part of the young man or b) the young man is earnest about things aren't worth that level of seriousness or c) these things are worth that level of seriousness, but the earnest young man seems unaware as to why.
3) "My Immortal" by Evanescence could be a nominee for the most o-earnest song evah. I'm in love! You're not ! I hurt! I've really been alone all this time!
4) R.E.M. doesn't get o-earnest until Automatic for the People (and really, it's only "Everybody Hurts". Green isn't any good, but not really o-earnest, just sucky.
I have often seen Songs from the Wood and Heavy Horses cited as being very good Tull albums.
I'm pretty sure that being conversant with Jethro Tull has shown SB to be male.
Is this thread still alive. I'll try to listen to Nick's list in the morning.
Converesly, I'm pretty sure being male has shown SB to be conversant with Jethro Tull.
We'll make five hundred yet, boys, girls and those of indeterminate gender!
Curses! And I would have gotten away with it pesky kids dog etc. etc.
I was trying to create an illusion of multiplicity. What's that term that guy used? That's what I was going for, except it would be a misapplication.
Remember yesterday when Ogged "threatened" to c&p all posts and comments to "Waste?" If you really wanted to rack up comments, you could do that, in the commetns.
I get Ben's angle in 441, but w/d, what the heck is going on in 443?
ogged, if you are going to listen to the list I'll continue to give introductions (I think it's only polite to give people something to listen for when introducing them to new music). In no particular order.
The version of Coyote that I've heard is off the Band concert album "the last waltz." Her focus is really strong on that performance. Overall I would highlight the wordplay in the lyrics and the way it passes through a huge number of different images while making them feel connected emotionally.
My affection for "Broken English" could be described by the Bruce Sterling definition of slipstream (via making light) "a kind of writing which simply makes you feel very strange; the way that living in the late twentieth century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility."
I think the synthesized soundscape works for that song, and I think Faithfull's singing is powerfull and caries authority that feels abstract rather than specific. I think the song takes the paranoia of the cold war and makes it an even more abstract blend of fear and anger. I'm not at all sure how that one will work listening at work, but it's worth a try.
I'm a Laurie Anderson fan, you'll either love her or hate her. Listen to it and let me know what you think.
If you can find the live version of "Sitting in the back of a car" off the Beale Street Green album, the guitar playing is impressive. You can see how Alex Chilton earned his reputation.
FYI the Bootsy Collins borrows much of the band from Parliament, but I think that's a more accessible piece than many parliament singles. I like Bootsy Collins' performance style. I first saw him in the "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" documentary and appreciate his sense of fun. He seems all about having a good time with music.
Just when I thought I'd finally be able to catch up with the comments after being away for a while, I get to a thread like this. I can't add much; LB's 385 and 404 (first paragraph) pretty well apply to me, though I suspect I listen to more music than she does. Music reviews are generally incomprehensible to me even when I've heard the music being discussed.
My understanding of earnest seems pretty close to SB's in 309 and 323, but I have to admit I've never spent much time thinking about or discussing it. I would like to know, however, how people would characterize John Claverhouse: naive, optimistic, or earnest?
I dunno about "earnest" but for the love of God, ogged, if you hate mewling wussies, never, ever listen to "Sylvia's Mother" by Dr. Hook.
Here's a pop song you should listen to: "The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side". You probably won't like it.
Ben, I believe we might be soul brothers. I was just listening to 69 Love Songs last night, right at the moment you may have been typing this!
Perhaps the fastest snowballing thread in Unfogged history
I like to think that it's due to my return.
An o-earnest person is like someone who keeps worrying about whether he's punk, say. I'm trying to get at the "acts with one eye on himself" bit—this is a person who is concerned with keeping up appearances, to himself as much as to others. I'm not sure you could say that o-earnestness is like self-regarding earnestness, simply, because the self-regarding part, to me, undermines the earnestness part.
Here's the thing about this, though. All musicians have an eye on themselves. Unless maybe they always write and play in some kind of permanent unconscious acid trip or something. Musicians may not be trying to be "earnest", per se, but they're definitely trying to be good, and doing so consciously. They sit down and write music and lyrics (maybe), and during that process, they make countless decisions about what to use, what not to use, what to improve, what direction to take said creation. These are conscious decisions. One simply cannot create something great without consciously trying to create something great. It doesn't happen by accident. Dylan was trying to write something fucking bloody brilliant when he wrote "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" (for example) and it worked.
I suspect even people who are (were) "punk" put thought into how they could be Punk as opposed to Not Punk. There is certainly image-consciousness involved.
Another example I can think of is Leonard Bernstein, one of the most self-conscious artists of the twentieth century, desperately trying to be important and great like a Mahler or a Toscaninni. In large part he succeeded, although perhaps it is worth noting that the most "serious" pieces he wrote are not his best-regarded pieces today. However, the most "serious" conducting jobs he did (Mahler and Beethoven) are some of the very best interpretations available for those composers.
Another example worth noting is William Faulkner, who tried to play the part of The Great Writer even from boyhood, going so far as to dress differently and speak differently than his peers.
Also, James Joyce.
I could go on.
All musicians have an eye on themselves.
Not Doc Watson or Stevie Wonder.
Also, James Joyce.
Very loosely tangential, but I found this interesting last night.
They have eyes on themselves, they just can't see with them.
"Here is an Umberto Eco quote that has always bothered me:
" I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her, ''I love you madly,'' because he knows that she knows (and that she knows that he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland..."
Spoken by Duke Ellington, who had no problem at all with its antecedents. Shame on Eco.
"210 -- But Warren Zevon is hardly ernest at all. "A Certain Girl" is one of my favorite parodies of a pop song .."
"A Certain Girl" was Ernie K-Doe's follow-up to "Mother-In-Law" in 1961 or so.
apo, that just made me angry.
Didn't mean to raise your blood pressure, Joe. It makes me more sad than angry, and reminds me again of the Herzog quote.
It pushed that button in me that carping critics so often push. Mamet called them the "anti-Stratfordians": critics who are obsessed with tearing down obviously great artists, because doing so gives them more power than the great artist him/herself.
It's amazing to me that someone like James Joyce can go out of style among the fancy critics du jour. Amazing and sad, like you say.
re: 458
I was real tired and decided to write almost stream of consciousness (which I did a lot more of here at about the same time), and thought for some reason that it would be funny to write the converse of a sentence with the word conversant in it, if it wasn't strictly in the form of a conditional.
#470
I see, via allmusic, that "A Certain Girl" was written by Naomi Neville (Allan Toussaint) and was a hit for, among other people, the Yardebirds.
Huh, I never would have known.
I still think that the Warren Zevon version is a great example of a pop song that is simulataneously a great pop song and a parody of a pop song.
I wonder how the Ernie K-Doe or the Yardbirds sang it?
In what universe is the lead singer of the Beta Band not a mewling wussy? I think the reason they aren't more popular is precisely because they lack earnestness, though. I really like them.
Is Candide earnest?
andrew, if you're asking about the musical/operetta by Bernstein, I'd have to say it's a touch on the earnest side at the end, but that's it's weakest moment. I was referring more to Bernstein's big, ponderous symphonies.
If you're asking about the text by Voltaire, I got nuthin'.
it's weakest moment
its! its! its!
For your consideration:
Best Artist Transformation From Ironic To Earnest: Beck, Sea Change
Worst: Tom Stoppard, The Real Thing
I can't be the only one dreaming of 500. Where's Weiner in all of this?
I think the quest for 500 has become earnest--we've got one eye on the quest now, instead of authentically wanting to comment.
(Unless things break big real soon, I won't be around to leave 500, so I want the thread to die before it gets there. No one gets to leave 500 but the Weiner!)
Where's Weiner in all of this?
I've heard that's a common question ATM.
In theory ogged is off listening to music and should comment again at some point.
You know what would be great? A sort of google-type search engine where you could search for melodies. Like, if you have a melody stuck in your head, you could google for it and determine its origin.
I mention this because I just heard a certain cell phone ring that annoys me greatly, and I want to share that annoyance with you folks. It sounds like a Strauss waltz (Johann, not Richard*) but I don't know which one.
________________
*Or Leo, for that matter.
Best Artist Transformation From Ironic To Earnest: Beck, Sea Change
It's nobody's fault but his own.
Was it the Blue Danube? (ba-bump-bump-bump-bump... eek eek! eek eek!)
Skater's Waltz? (neeer, neeer, na-neer)
Those seem the two most likely.
Neither of those, because I know those by name.
A sort of google-type search engine where you could search for melodies. Like, if you have a melody stuck in your head, you could google for it and determine its origin.
There is one. You enter the melody as a series of up-down shifts (so you don't need to know the note values absolutely, just relatively, and not even the intervals at that), maybe also some clues about rhythm, and it gives you matches.
Warning: Google Image search sucks, and Google Melody likely would also.
(I can feel it coming...)
I could even name the notes, as solfege syllables.
I can feel it coming...
Do I even have to say it out loud? At the Mineshaft.
Another, Java- and keyboard-based.
They would be:
So-Mi-Miiiii,
So-Mi-Mi-So-Mi-Mi(trill on this which goes Mi-Fa-Mi-Me)-Mi-Soooooo...
Going to lunch, so I'm going to miss the big one.
I posted two links for you, Joe. I'm not going to do all your work here.
The second "So" in the second line of my transcription might be a "Me". I don't remember.
Here is some zero-instrument "music" that I'm sure ogged would love.
(Or at least there was some such there, until this:
UbuWeb 1996-2005What used to be there: Demetrio Stratos' album Cantare la Voce.)
Dear Friends,
UbuWeb is offline for the summer.
I've now had "Second that emotion" bouncing around my brain (along with several of the other songs I mentioned) for the last few days. Which reminds me, is there any mainstream pop song that has psychosexual overtones that are as odd as Smokey Robinson's Shop Around?
"When I became of age my mother called me to her side
She said, 'Son, you're growing up now, pretty soon you'll
take a bride".
...
My mama told me, 'You better shop around'
(Shop, shop around)
Uh-huh don't let the first one get you'
(Shop, shop around)
Oh no, cuz I don't wanna see her 'wich-you''
(Uh-huh, 'before you let 'em hold you tight'
A yeah-yeah 'make sure she's alright'
Uh-huh, 'before you let 'em take your hand my son'
'Understand my son'
'Be a man my son'
'I know you can my son'"
Am I the only one who finds that odd?
w-lfs-n?
You're all warned, it's just a matter of time before I get earnest and hysterical again.