Actually, I'm glad you linked to this, Alex. I found it interesting and amusing in a number of ways. Interesting, because it at times echos my own feelings (and those of many) on the whole matter of having grown up with LPs, knowing music as having all of these secondary components (sleeve art, liner notes, the time you have to absorb what you've heard on Side 1 before you -- as your own volition might have it -- flip the disc and wade into Side 2, etc.) And amusing for the way the author cagily and clumsily stacks this against his own political views, acknowledging the cognitive dissonance that results from the contradictions.
But the only true WTF part for me was:
"It’s reasonable to surmise that album art, like comic books, filled a gaping visual void in middle-class American life and inspired countless young people to begin to think about the world in visual terms."
HUHHHHH?? Since when has the middle class [sic] suffered from any sort of dearth of such things? As if their schools were the ones where the art[s] programs were the first thing to be cut? The remark probably would've deeply offended me and pissed me off, if it hadn't made me fall over laughing instead.
BTW: *Very* much enjoyed the piece in Wave Composition.
It is a weird piece isn't it? Further compounds my total lack of understanding for the American Right (that mix of easygoing folksiness and extremist intolerance: how is it possible to maintain?)
Re. Wave Comp, is there anything of an experimental bent you'd like to contribute? I know the editors are looking for interesting contributions ...
Re, "folksiness" = populism, usually of a rhetorically disingenuous, faux- variety. It has a long history on these shores. Riddled to its core with dubious myths and unexamined contradiction.
And I'm giving your other point some thought. If I come up with something that I think's worth pitching, I kick it it their way. Thanks!
3 comments:
Actually, I'm glad you linked to this, Alex. I found it interesting and amusing in a number of ways. Interesting, because it at times echos my own feelings (and those of many) on the whole matter of having grown up with LPs, knowing music as having all of these secondary components (sleeve art, liner notes, the time you have to absorb what you've heard on Side 1 before you -- as your own volition might have it -- flip the disc and wade into Side 2, etc.) And amusing for the way the author cagily and clumsily stacks this against his own political views, acknowledging the cognitive dissonance that results from the contradictions.
But the only true WTF part for me was:
"It’s reasonable to surmise that album art, like comic books, filled a gaping visual void in middle-class American life and inspired countless young people to begin to think about the world in visual terms."
HUHHHHH?? Since when has the middle class [sic] suffered from any sort of dearth of such things? As if their schools were the ones where the art[s] programs were the first thing to be cut? The remark probably would've deeply offended me and pissed me off, if it hadn't made me fall over laughing instead.
BTW: *Very* much enjoyed the piece in Wave Composition.
It is a weird piece isn't it? Further compounds my total lack of understanding for the American Right (that mix of easygoing folksiness and extremist intolerance: how is it possible to maintain?)
Re. Wave Comp, is there anything of an experimental bent you'd like to contribute? I know the editors are looking for interesting contributions ...
Re, "folksiness" = populism, usually of a rhetorically disingenuous, faux- variety. It has a long history on these shores. Riddled to its core with dubious myths and unexamined contradiction.
And I'm giving your other point some thought. If I come up with something that I think's worth pitching, I kick it it their way. Thanks!
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