Printer-friendly copy Email this topic to a friend
Lobby The Lesson topic #2966358

Subject: "Which Rock Star Will Be Remembered in 300 Years? (C. Klosterman essay)" Previous topic | Next topic
The Analyst
Member since Sep 22nd 2007
4621 posts
Tue May-24-16 08:34 AM

Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
"Which Rock Star Will Be Remembered in 300 Years? (C. Klosterman essay)"


  

          

Excellent think piece by Chuck Klosterman in the NYT. Fairly lengthy, but a very entertaining read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/magazine/which-rock-star-will-historians-of-the-future-remember.html?_r=0

SPOILER/TEASER:
Not The Beatles
Not The Stones
Not Elvis
Not Dylan

----

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top


Topic Outline
Subject Author Message Date ID
Whomever our future Chinese overlords like the best, no?
May 24th 2016
1
So Basically A Bunch Of Old C-Pop Groups...
May 25th 2016
4
it will still be Beethoven
May 24th 2016
2
the correct answer is jimi
May 24th 2016
3
Couldn't get through it.....
May 25th 2016
5
Opposite for me...
May 26th 2016
6
I could provide alot of examples.....
May 26th 2016
10
      Eh, he's right...
May 27th 2016
13
      ok, that's totally not what he wrote.
May 27th 2016
15
Man who the heck isn't?
May 27th 2016
11
      ^^^^ underrated reply ^^^^
May 27th 2016
14
RE: Which Rock Star Will Be Remembered in 300 Years? (C. Klosterman essa...
May 26th 2016
7
Also worth noting that this is an excerpt from his new book
May 26th 2016
8
ah - i didn't see that
May 26th 2016
9
He laid all the ground work to then kind of arbitrarily pick Chuck Berry
May 27th 2016
12

Teknontheou
Charter member
32707 posts
Tue May-24-16 08:56 AM

Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy listClick to send message via AOL IM
1. "Whomever our future Chinese overlords like the best, no?"
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

    
Dj Joey Joe
Member since Sep 01st 2007
13770 posts
Wed May-25-16 07:46 PM

Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
4. "So Basically A Bunch Of Old C-Pop Groups..."
In response to Reply # 1


  

          

...that everyone forgot except for China.


https://tinyurl.com/y4ba6hog

---------
"We in here talking about later career Prince records
& your fool ass is cruising around in a time machine
trying to collect props for a couple of sociopathic degenerates" - s.blak

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

justin_scott
Charter member
19862 posts
Tue May-24-16 11:52 AM

Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
2. "it will still be Beethoven"
In response to Reply # 0


          

.

************************************************************

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

drugs
Charter member
9149 posts
Tue May-24-16 03:29 PM

Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
3. "the correct answer is jimi"
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

denny
Member since Apr 11th 2008
11281 posts
Wed May-25-16 10:21 PM

Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
5. "Couldn't get through it....."
In response to Reply # 0
Wed May-25-16 10:26 PM by denny

          

This guy's perception is just so warped and biased to his experience.

He epitomizes rockism. Almost every other paragraph contains an assumption that is questionable. For someone who's seemingly going for that 'finger on the pulse' cultural critic....his worldview is so small and rigid. And white (there, I said it). It's ironic...cause he spouts a few kinda cliche statements that attempt to be racially aware...but you can see that there's undertow of a deeper bias that he's NOT aware of. Sort of like a woke person having a dream about being woke.

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

    
Jakob Hellberg
Member since Apr 18th 2005
9766 posts
Thu May-26-16 02:38 AM

Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
6. "Opposite for me..."
In response to Reply # 5


          

He sucks and the biggest reason is his self-conscious *anti-rockism* which runs through everything he writes including this text (unlike you, I don't think the assumptions he make is based on rockism but more his perception of OTHER rock-critics and their biases, it's finger pointing); in the context of today and 2016, we need MORE prominent rockist-biased critics, not less; rockism in music-writing has not been an issue/problem since the 90's. Klosterman is part of the problem and dudes like him and others still act as if they have discovered something new by challenging rockist-norms that haven't existed in contemporary criticism since at least the pitchfork era and "everyone" embracing everything from Daft Punk to Kanye to Beyonce to Timberlake to...

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

        
denny
Member since Apr 11th 2008
11281 posts
Thu May-26-16 09:09 PM

Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
10. "I could provide alot of examples....."
In response to Reply # 6
Thu May-26-16 09:13 PM by denny

          

But the first one is the contention that Bob Marley perfectly encapsulates all things that are reggae whereas 'rock' is much too nuanced and multi-layered to be represented by just one person. The only reason he THINKS that reggae can be thoroughly represented by Bob Marley is because he doesn't know alot about reggae music.

That's just the first one though....there's alot more.

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

            
Jakob Hellberg
Member since Apr 18th 2005
9766 posts
Fri May-27-16 07:49 AM

Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
13. "Eh, he's right..."
In response to Reply # 10
Fri May-27-16 07:50 AM by Jakob Hellberg

          

Bob Marley is *the* token reggae-guy and has been for decades; look in an average record-collection and the only reggae record will be Marley's "Legend"-comp. I don't know any other genre known in the west that has it as bad as reggae in that regard. That reggae *music* can't be properly encapsulated by Marley alone is besides the point; that is not what this article/text/whatever was about but rather which representative of the rock genre that will be remembered and why.

And I see no reason to make it race-related; a black-as opposed to white-*american* perspective on reggae wouldn't be too different simply because reggae didn't cross over like that in USA regardless of the race of the listeners; had it been a british perspective, there's a chance that race becomes an issue though for a variety of reasons...

Either way, using Bob Marley as the sole token symbol/face of reggae in the future is hardly a controversial standpoint because it's already like that, has been for decades and I doubt it will change...

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

            
dula dibiasi
Member since Apr 05th 2004
21925 posts
Fri May-27-16 01:49 PM

Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
15. "ok, that's totally not what he wrote."
In response to Reply # 10


  

          

>the contention that Bob Marley perfectly
>encapsulates all things that are reggae whereas 'rock' is much
>too nuanced and multi-layered to be represented by just one
>person.

you're completely misrepresenting his stance here.

what he said is that the way collective mainstream memory works w/r/t musical culture is that the fringes are forgotten, one individual eventually emerges as emblematic of an entire genre, and their accomplishments accordingly become exaggerated over time. see bob marley in reggae or kurt cobain in grunge.

he's contending that the difference with "rock" (as with jazz before it) is that as an ideology it's transcended its musical-genre origins to become definitive and pervasive of society as a whole in so many non-musical ways. hence the fact that we use words like "jazzy" and "rock-star" as adjectives to describe things that literally have nothing to do with music, in a way that we don't use the word "reggae".

___

it is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. - sherlock holmes

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

    
Buddy_Gilapagos
Charter member
49336 posts
Fri May-27-16 07:24 AM

Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
11. "Man who the heck isn't?"
In response to Reply # 5


  

          

>This guy's perception is just so warped and biased to his
>experience.



**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

        
seandammit
Member since May 28th 2003
6522 posts
Fri May-27-16 10:57 AM

Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy listClick to send message via AOL IM
14. "^^^^ underrated reply ^^^^"
In response to Reply # 11


          

www.twitter.com/seandammit

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

thebigfunk
Charter member
10457 posts
Thu May-26-16 08:21 AM

Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
7. "RE: Which Rock Star Will Be Remembered in 300 Years? (C. Klosterman essa..."
In response to Reply # 0


          

I think the question itself is interesting even if the article itself was a bit lackluster. It was at its best in discussing, in more general terms, the curious relationship between history and memory in relation to music. (I'm a history PhD candidate writing my diss now, and part of my project deals with history and memory in perceptions of the 1960s, but I have never thought a great deal about the problem in relation to music or cultural canon formation.) The point that what was once deemed transgressive and revolutionary can change or even flip entirely, conveyed via the punk and disco conflict, is a good one, I think, even if it's something we already know unconsciously. Putting the shifting sands of memory in the context of larger issues of representation and canonization is a complicated endeavor and a worthwhile one.

But Klosterman (who I don't have strong feelings for or against, as others do, although I don't find his writing especially interesting) kind of misses his own best point here. On the one hand, he tacitly acknowledges that the boundaries of "rock" have effectively blurred with pop, were blurred from its beginnings, and that determining where rock ends and something like disco begins is at least somewhat futile. He further recognizes that "rock" has as much to do with performance and character and story as with the music itself, again putting itself firmly within the parameters of pop music. But then relies on a handful of early rock folks as his possible candidates, without ever entertaining the fact that the shifting sands of memory may very well reorganize 20th c. musical categories beyond recognition. I was disappointed, in that respect, that he actually put up a name --- to me, the piece points mostly to the futility of prediction in this regard, even if it's fun to think about. (And is also a great stepping stone to really rethinking standard categories and genre divisions... how *will* 20th c. music be interpreted 200 yrs from now?)

One other point: I'm not sure how much the "big name" representatives in music actually have to do with genre. I am thinking, for instance, of the standard western classical quintet of Bach/Haydn/Mozart/Beethoven/Brahms. On the one hand, each represents a period of musical transition and development. But from another perspective, many of those changes are rather slight (especially from Haydn through Beethoven), revolutionary in their context but only definitive of a "genre" if one really gets into the music. And they were never alone, and we know that: each of these names is more like a centerpoint around which many other important names float, names that are also recognizable even to the uninitiated. So part of me was disappointed that he stuck so closely to the idea of a single representative, when I'm not sure that's an accurate version of how art history generally operates...

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

seandammit
Member since May 28th 2003
6522 posts
Thu May-26-16 09:46 AM

Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy listClick to send message via AOL IM
8. "Also worth noting that this is an excerpt from his new book"
In response to Reply # 0


          

I didn't have as big a problem with this piece as a lot of people in here, but can imagine that it might read different in the context of the book (which is all about history and the idea of "getting it wrong").

I'm also a big Klosterman fan.

I need to dig it up and refresh, but he was recently on Open Mike Eagle's Secret Skin podcast and actually addressed the fact that he tends to stay in the rock music lane in his writing and specifically avoids hip hop. I don't want to totally misquote or misinterpret but I remember him acknowledging that it was slippery ground for a white guy to pick apart that music and that he essentially wanted no part in that.

www.twitter.com/seandammit

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

    
thebigfunk
Charter member
10457 posts
Thu May-26-16 11:55 AM

Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
9. "ah - i didn't see that"
In response to Reply # 8


          

That makes a lot more sense. Authors don't always have a lot of control over excerpts when they appear, either --- so stuff could be edited, removed, etc. As part of a larger project, could be more interesting and nuanced....


-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

Buddy_Gilapagos
Charter member
49336 posts
Fri May-27-16 07:25 AM

Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
12. "He laid all the ground work to then kind of arbitrarily pick Chuck Berry"
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

And I say arbitrary because his rationale for Chuck Berry could be used to justify a slew of other musicians.




**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

  

Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

Lobby The Lesson topic #2966358 Previous topic | Next topic
Powered by DCForum+ Version 1.25
Copyright © DCScripts.com