From: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org (idealcopy-digest) To: idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Subject: idealcopy-digest V3 #242 Reply-To: idealcopy@smoe.org Sender: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk idealcopy-digest Monday, August 7 2000 Volume 03 : Number 242 Today's Subjects: ----------------- RE: idealcopy-digest V3 #240 ["giluz" ] RE: Favourite Videos (was Did You Know? - Do You Care?) ["giluz" ] RE: Ms. ciccone ["giluz" ] Re: idealcopy-digest V3 #240 [Katherine Pouliot ] Re: Ms. ciccone [Mark Short ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2000 12:14:40 +0200 From: "giluz" Subject: RE: idealcopy-digest V3 #240 > > She is definitely a pioneer and she gets props for that. > > OK- I like Madonna too, and really enjoyed Ray of Light (freely admitted) > But she is as much a pioneer as BIll Gates - matter of fact their > approaches > are very similar. > Find under-recognized talent and co-opt it, stamp the personal brand on it > and market as a 'new' product. > Absolutely true - probably the most overrated celebrity in the last 20 years. I mean she is talented, but she's more talented as a businessperson than as an artist. Her image was always more important to her than her music, and that's why she's now trying to make critically acclaimed albums instead of the naff cheap pop she used to make before. Her image and public personality changes always reminded me of Bowie in the 70's, but while Bowie's image tricks also included some really great albums, Madonna's albums just made loads of money. And the same thing that happened to Bowie is happening to her now, as far as I'm concerned: I still consider myself as a Bowie fan but I don't believe his sincerity in anything that he does - the man is such an image trickster that I now approach everything new he releases with great suspicion (especially after the 80's and Tin Machine) - what's the trick this time? It's the same with Madonna - she's changed herself too much over the past decades for me to believe that any recent change is really sincere. giluz ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2000 11:59:48 +0200 From: "giluz" Subject: RE: Favourite Videos (was Did You Know? - Do You Care?) > > For what it's worth. My 10 favorite videos in no particular order are: > > COIL-Tainted Love (my absolute favorite) How did that look like? I've never seen a Coil video (didn't know they had any). giluz ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2000 16:56:34 +0200 From: "giluz" Subject: Ms. ciccone > the divine ms. m - no that's bette midlet - anyways ns. ciccone > hails from a > suburb of detroit (my hometown) named sterling heights (also know as > stillborn hts.) > as i said in my post - i have almost always enjoyed m's records (and vids) > tho if you notice, they are all 'of a time' - not quite true of mr bowie > station to station is quite timeless to my ears (tho earthling > will be easy > to locate in years to come) Nothing's really timeless, but some things still sound contemporary (or even more contemporary than what they sounded like at the time they were released) while others don't. > the thing that struck me was how so much of middle america > consider m to be > a pioneer of fashion > all the trends which have been identified with her have been > clearly visible > in major metropolitan centres for , dare i say it, years before > presented to > the mainstream in a madonna vid. > (and this was obvious to me in detroit which is as provincial as a town of > 3+ million can possibly be - i had to travel to ann arbor - a college town > an hour away to find any screenings of european films in my youth) That's the problem with mainstream - it's not aware of anything other than itself. So everything that's new to mainstream is The New Thing, even though it's been done countless times before and decades ago at the margins. Especially nowadays, when popular culture is finally considered as legitimate art, mainstream sells itself as art, using the same jargon used for non-mainstream art: Innovation, pioneering, prophet, avant-garde, etc. giluz > > cYa > > d > > > > > She is definitely a pioneer and she gets props for that. > > > > > > OK- I like Madonna too, and really enjoyed Ray of Light (freely > admitted) > > > But she is as much a pioneer as BIll Gates - matter of fact their > > > approaches > > > are very similar. > > > Find under-recognized talent and co-opt it, stamp the > personal brand on > it > > > and market as a 'new' product. > > > > > > > Absolutely true - probably the most overrated celebrity in the last 20 > > years. I mean she is talented, but she's more talented as a > businessperson > > than as an artist. Her image was always more important to her than her > > music, and that's why she's now trying to make critically > acclaimed albums > > instead of the naff cheap pop she used to make before. Her image and > public > > personality changes always reminded me of Bowie in the 70's, but while > > Bowie's image tricks also included some really great albums, Madonna's > > albums just made loads of money. And the same thing that > happened to Bowie > > is happening to her now, as far as I'm concerned: I still > consider myself > as > > a Bowie fan but I don't believe his sincerity in anything that he does - > the > > man is such an image trickster that I now approach everything new he > > releases with great suspicion (especially after the 80's and Tin > Machine) - > > what's the trick this time? It's the same with Madonna - she's changed > > herself too much over the past decades for me to believe that any recent > > change is really sincere. > > > > giluz > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. > http://im.yahoo.com > ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2000 18:43:37 +0200 From: "giluz" Subject: RE: Ms. ciccone > > My sister's ex-boyfriend (thankfully ex) had a degree in Popular Culture > from Northwestern University (a prestigious institution here in > Chicagoland). > He parlayed that into an inside sales job at Xerox (with some > help from his > dormmate's father). > Sums up what I think all that's worth. > Popular Culture studies is a really interesting field, but not a very practical one outside the academic circles. The main problems in these kind of studies is that they're not critical enough (I'm referring to the way they're taught). Most of them take an ideological approach, like: "Popular culture's cool and it deserves to be categorised as art", which is not at all relevant to any academic studies. There is a problem when you try to seperate this field from the field of neo-marxist cultural criticism, where it originated. I'd recommend publications by Chris Cutler (Henry Cow's and countless others' drummer), Lawrence Grossberg, Simon Frith, Stuart Hall, Theodor Adorno and a bunch of others I can't recollect right now as essential for anyone interested in the theory behind popular culture / music. giluz ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 06 Aug 2000 21:43:04 -0400 From: Katherine Pouliot Subject: Re: idealcopy-digest V3 #240 Being the admitted Mac person that I am, the sound of the name Bill Gates makes me cringe. I don't think that he and Madonna can be put on the same parallel. Madonna doesn't force me to use crappy software because of her business decisions. I'm not forced to buy her albums over other albums. I don't think she promises the bands she signs something different than what they get - only because I've not heard anything to prove me wrong. Record companies in general make loads of money off their "artists" and Madonna is not in this business just to dye her hair every other week. As far as the concept of sincerity is concerned--I don't know that sincerity has anything to do with changing your style of dress or music or any of that. I change my wardrobe and my hair a lot and no one has ever told me that I'm not sincere. I just get bored easily! I'm not sure I really care about the sincerity of any artist or musician or actor, etc. Politicians, yes, then I care--and that is almost a mute point. If we don't allow others to change their minds and experiment, that is a direct reflection on the amount of room we give ourselves to change or experience new and different things. When we expect people, whoever they are, to stay the same (whether they're family, friends or musicians, etc.) then we can count on being disappointed. Wire has certainly changed their styles a lot since they first started, both in the way they look and in the way they play, I think. I think it's interesting to be able to look at stuff they did in their beginning and compare it to other time periods and recognize the differences, not necessarily to say this is better than that and criticize, but to acknowledge and check it out. Don't get me wrong - I was ragged on a lot while growing up and I do enjoy a good goof once in a while. BUT I know that what goes around all comes back around, so I don't delight in it too long. later, kath - -- Katherine Pouliot kep99@hotmail.com > From: "giluz" > Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2000 12:14:40 +0200 > To: "IdealCopy" , "dMc" > Subject: RE: idealcopy-digest V3 #240 > >>> She is definitely a pioneer and she gets props for that. >> >> OK- I like Madonna too, and really enjoyed Ray of Light (freely admitted) >> But she is as much a pioneer as BIll Gates - matter of fact their >> approaches >> are very similar. >> Find under-recognized talent and co-opt it, stamp the personal brand on it >> and market as a 'new' product. >> > > Absolutely true - probably the most overrated celebrity in the last 20 > years. I mean she is talented, but she's more talented as a businessperson > than as an artist. Her image was always more important to her than her > music, and that's why she's now trying to make critically acclaimed albums > instead of the naff cheap pop she used to make before. Her image and public > personality changes always reminded me of Bowie in the 70's, but while > Bowie's image tricks also included some really great albums, Madonna's > albums just made loads of money. And the same thing that happened to Bowie > is happening to her now, as far as I'm concerned: I still consider myself as > a Bowie fan but I don't believe his sincerity in anything that he does - the > man is such an image trickster that I now approach everything new he > releases with great suspicion (especially after the 80's and Tin Machine) - > what's the trick this time? It's the same with Madonna - she's changed > herself too much over the past decades for me to believe that any recent > change is really sincere. > > giluz > > ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2000 09:06:35 +0100 From: Mark Short Subject: Re: Ms. ciccone giluz wrote: > Popular Culture studies is a really interesting field, but not a very > practical one outside the academic circles. The main problems in these kind > of studies is that they're not critical enough (I'm referring to the way > they're taught). Most of them take an ideological approach, like: "Popular > culture's cool and it deserves to be categorised as art", which is not at > all relevant to any academic studies. > > There is a problem when you try to seperate this field from the field of > neo-marxist cultural criticism, where it originated. I'd recommend > publications by Chris Cutler (Henry Cow's and countless others' drummer), > Lawrence Grossberg, Simon Frith, Stuart Hall, Theodor Adorno and a bunch of > others I can't recollect right now as essential for anyone interested in the > theory behind popular culture / music. The ideas of Frith et al do not lie behind popular music (or any other culture); they are constructs laid on top of the culture's artefacts. Maybe some pop practitioners use the theory to guide their practise, eg Green Gartside, but they are rare exceptions. ------------------------------ End of idealcopy-digest V3 #242 *******************************