Recommendations for personal shoppers

[KidKruger]

"I can't see why anyone would get into making music without aspirations of commercial success, to do so would smack of the worst sort of pretentiousness. I mean we've all got to eat haven't we."

No, no, no.

I have tried making various music for years with no aspirations for making money, I'd starve immediately anyway, but to stop making music because it cannot generate money would be insane ! The whole point is the kick from doing it, those (for me) infrequent moments of satisfaction, just like painting or poetry or other art forms that I'm equally shit at.

People need to get away from this obsession (not specifically at you EP) with making everything a 'success', especially financially, bollox to that. And bollox to the thought that people can't produce their stuff feeling safe to 'fail' and make mistakes and try again to improve, to their own tastes, if they want. Interests outside work are a pleasure field to wander through, not job prospects - otherwise we're just turning ourselves into something we invest in.

[Jeremy]

Well said, KK. Me too.

[Undisputedtruth]

I thought it would transcend into this, where you confuse commercial music as making money.

In certain circles, and this goes back decades, commercial music means lacking musical credibility.

[Jeremy]

I guess people have different definitions. Some people would describe any commercially succesful music as "commercial".

If we're saying that commercial music is the stuff which is cynically produced to sell units, with little regard for artistic merit or integrity, then I'd be happy with that definition. And in which case, I don't listen to commercial music either!

[maxxi]

UDT's definition seems to be that commercial music is stuff that lots of people like and are prepared to pay for.

The fact that it appeals to a lot of people must - in his view - devalue its integrity as it can only have acheived such appeal by compromise and using lowest-common-denominator musical tricks and must have sacrificed its true originality on the altar of widespread acceptability.

Thus, if the Osmonds had released "Crazy Horses" in its original form (with Jay's screaming "Fuck me Mother fuck me!" and hurling his snare drum at his simpering brothers after the first chorus) it may have been a cult hit rather than a TOTP favourite.

[Otta]

I think of commercial as anything that gets regular airtime on popular radio.

Anyway, as long as there are face melting guitar solos the world will be okay.

[Jeremy]

maxxi, I'm going to stick up for UDT here... I think you misinterpreted his last post.

[El Pibe]

I think UDT's definition is basically stuff he looks down on.

Jeremy and KK, I don't think we're at odds here. I completely agree with what you say.

I blame my original wording, very sloppy.

I guess I should really have said 'pursuing music as a career'. At the very least you'd be hoping for critical success with the hope that financial success would go hand in hand.

I've a load of mates who pursued it for years and got nowhere, trying to get noticed by the labels, some even getting signed but coming to nowt, not to mention a pile of CDs by bands I really liked who have sadly had to give it up as they couldn't make ends meet.

It's a tough business, if I was there I guess I'd deem success as being able to pay the mortgage. A mercury would be nice though ;-)

[Undisputedtruth]

El Pibe Wrote:

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> I think UDT's definition is basically stuff he

> looks down on.

It's a definition widely accepted in the cool circle. Unless you're part of it then you wouldn't know any different.

[Jeremy]

UDT, posts like that are the reason for 'the thread that was deleted'. If you reigned it in a little, we'd all get along so much better!

[Undisputedtruth]

My last answer was designed to form the next explanation to why we're from different circles and how you're not able make accurate judgements.

[El Pibe]

To 'conflates exclusivity with superiority' I need to add 'confuses subjectivity with objectivity'.

UDT, Jeremy was throwing you a bone there. He was, in parlance you may struggle to understand 'being nice to you'.

The traditional response to people being nice isn't usually to spit in their face, but each to their own.

[Undisputedtruth]

@EP,

You said this I think UDT's definition is basically stuff he looks down on, which was an incorrect assumption and aggressive in the scheme of things. So I gave an accurate to explain the differences from our different circles.

It seems to me that you want to keep prodding for a reaction and then use blame to say that I'm at fault.

[TillieTrotter]

PLEASE stop now it's getting painful.

[El Pibe]

Fair enough tillie. I'm sorry.

[TillieTrotter]

Thanks El Pibe you're a gent. If you can't do a little gentle bullying on a thread designed for it then it's time to let it go to coventry. ;-)

[????]

For what it's worth and on a tagent on the commercial thang. Many of the commercial disco bands of the late 70s started playing a far harder and funkier sound in the early 70s but didn't get either airplay and/or record sales. Many of these then chose to soften up and harmonise their sound which created, disco which eventually got airplay and whwn taken up by the white Bee Gees conquered the world (for good or bad). Much of the Early Commodores and Kool and the Gang tracks for example are great 'non commwercial' funk records. Listen to Brick House not Three Times a Lady for eg.

[????]

...or even better "I feel Sanctified"

[Loz]

Undisputedtruth Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Loz Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Just goes to show how people who think they have

> > great taste in music also think they have great

> > taste in clothes.

> >

> > Every else thinks they are preening tossers that

> > listen to pretentious crap.

>

> Nah, Loz, only the style challenged thinks that.

I'm 'style agnostic'. It might exist, but I don't care.

Style and fashion are both very much like religions. Everyone thinks theirs is the only true way. The rest of us non-believers think they are all equally hatstand.

[Huguenot]

If the definition of 'commercial music' is 'music that lacks credibility', UDT, then why have you observed that 'commercial music lacks credibility'?

It's tautology.

I don't think you're a complete cretin, desperately close, but not a complete one - therefore you must have known that 'lacking credibility' is not the only definition of commercial music.

That makes you an inconsistent troll.

Your insistence that you belong to some 'cool circle' of cultural Illuminati smacks of a lonely little boy desperate to create an identity who invents a cadre of imaginary friends to boast about at school.

It matches your conviction that you have some sort of ongoing relationship with the people in the John Lewis menswear department.

The evidence of your lack of 'cool' is inherent in your requirement to boast about it - the one thing that is notable about 'cool' people is that they do not need to boast about it.

The only people who would boast about being cool are people who manifestly knew they were not - hence every comment you make distances you further from the 'cool' end of the scale, and ever closer to the dickhead one.

[El Pibe]

It just goes to show that the exclusivity/superiority thing is an easy trap to fall into.

I've just read this review of the reissue of Ride's Going Blank Again.

The line

"But [Going Blank Again and Sugar's Copper Blue]'re both records that feel welcome 20 years later, because while their more famed peers have influenced hundreds of pale imitators, these more approachable records feel strangely undervalued"

basically equates to they're cool because people don't know about them.

[Jeremy]

Copper Blue... now there's kick ass record!

UDT cares about what is cool and likes to associate himself with cool people/clothes/music. I don't give a toss about what's cool. But the one thing that we almost certainly have in common is that we are both, quite clearly, hopelessly uncool.

[Undisputedtruth]

No Hugo, I have to disagree with you once again.

Listening to the type of music and going clubbing with like minded people you pick up on values and attitudes. It was very clear and consistent what commercialist music meant to us. And if you look at Quid's post, he also understand the background.

Now let's get to real real reason why people like you and others don't get it. Style challenged is one of them. Inability to mix in with the right crowd. I bet the bouncer at a club never allowed you through the doors. Sorry Hugo, but no amount of changing the cool rules on your part will change my experience in life and what I've learnt.

Now what we're seeing here is a small core of people, hopelessly out of touch with style and basically inept, then using the EDF as a virtual world to make themselves look good. In the real world they are nobodies, the sort of people who got beaten up because no one wanted to be associated with them. Always last to be selected as part of team when playing football.

[red devil]

Jeremy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I don't give a toss about what's cool. But the one

> thing that we almost certainly have in common is

> that we are both, quite clearly, hopelessly

> uncool.

Yeah, but it's cool to be be uncool...

[dulwichgirl2]

A change of direction.

If my husband finds a pair of trousers he likes (cords or chinos), he immediately goes back online (whence they came) and orders another five pairs.

Now this is a very sensible but, at the same time, totally "wrong"...Isn't it?