Queen Bey: FORMATION

[casecandy]

This conversation is one of the most pretentious ones on here in recent memory.

That's not a criticism! I'm pretentious, too! Just observation.

I'm starting to see why I annoy D.o.S. so much. I mean, he's a hypocrite, too. It's just, if you don't agree with what you're reading, it can be annoying to hear people drop these dissertations about why they listen to music, like

*rich guy voice*
I only listen to the finest timbral, harmonic, rhythmic, spectral, and other sonic concepts

[D.o.S.]

Anyway, what would you do in Bey's shoes? Say you wake up one day, and you're Beyonce. Formation is probably pretty close to what I'd try to accomplish. I'm not totally slitting my throat (giving away my fortune, platform, audience), nor am I pandering to total bullshit. Yes, this is wrapped up in what's probably a pretty expensive package of endorsement and corporate sponsorship, but it seems a little naive to think that 1) you can reach a shit-ton of people with a big message without making some questionable compromises; 2) that the music we collectively 'like' 'round these parts--for all its honesty, value, and integrity--has any impact beyond 'I fucking love XXXXX,' 3) that we should dismiss anything shiny based on its shininess. Being funded by evil people doesn't always mean that everything you do is evil.

I would grab my own ass.

A lot.


And it's not that the provocation is unwarranted (because obviously we love it), but I think that most of us have some idea of what it takes to make it as a creative person, Beyonce or not, and that lens definitely influences that -- particularly when you talk about something like subversion cred, but also when it comes to, you know, being a principled person in general. I don't think I'm alone here when I say that it is seems to be extraordinarily hard to have anything left of your own personal resilience or morals after the fifth time they have to get your stomach evacuated Rod Stewart style from all the 'industry bullshit' after you successfully come through the fire and become 'professional entertainer.' Sure, there's (more than a bit of) a cliche at work there, but I think we've all witnessed it to varying degrees with people (maybe ourselves) that we know well enough to comment (at least, this is what usually happens when you get musicians + creative types in a room). Simply put, you don't get into that position by accident, even if you have to be both extraordinarily lucky and extraordinarily hard working as well. That's why there's only a handful of people up there, and, by and large, none of them make interesting music.


It's also important to recognize that our viewpoints are not the only ones, regardless of how violently we might disagree -- perfectly aware that I make boring music as well -- but I do think there's something to the effect of, well, ok, she's wearing a costume and dancing around with some mildly provocative (to the landlocked states) imagery... but she's also the same person that took a million dollars to perform for Qaddafi's kids: whether she donated the money or not agreeing to the gig in the first place doesn't speak to someone with a nuanced understanding of her own personal politics.

So, you know, you wake up and you're Beyonce, and you apparently have no problem playing for the scion of a dictator for a cool million bucks. Why on earth would anyone give you the benefit of the doubt that this is more thoughtful?

[D.o.S.]

This conversation is one of the most pretentious ones on here in recent memory.

That's not a criticism! I'm pretentious, too! Just observation.

I'm starting to see why I annoy D.o.S. so much. I mean, he's a hypocrite, too. It's just, if you don't agree with what you're reading, it can be annoying to hear people drop these dissertations about why they listen to music, like

*rich guy voice*
I only listen to the finest timbral, harmonic, rhythmic, spectral, and other sonic concepts

No you're annoying because you remind me of me when I was 14. Too many lists, too many rankings, and everything is 'a masterpiece'.

Although I never listened to shitty music.


Double also I quite like this thread: it's a nice thing to check as I'm waking up. I feel like it's a useful/fun conversation?

[casecandy]

Cosign! (re: useful/fun)

I do live for lists and rankings.

But not everything is a masterpiece.

Think of me as all of the guys from the record store in High Fidelity in one entity.

So in this scene, instead of being separate characters, this is an inner dialogue. And there's more emo.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GIGcWLwSDQ[/youtube]

Also, upon rewatching this, I thought I was Jack Black, but you are Jack Black.

[D.o.S.]

I love that Beefheart scene, for sure. That shit is hilarious.

Incidentally that movie might be old enough/the star might have dipped enough that the Jack Black twist at the end will one day work as intended.

[backwardsvoyager]

This conversation is one of the most pretentious ones on here in recent memory.

That's not a criticism! I'm pretentious, too! Just observation.

I'm starting to see why I annoy D.o.S. so much. I mean, he's a hypocrite, too. It's just, if you don't agree with what you're reading, it can be annoying to hear people drop these dissertations about why they listen to music, like

*rich guy voice*
I only listen to the finest timbral, harmonic, rhythmic, spectral, and other sonic concepts

It's not necessarily about you agreeing or disagreeing, though. I talk about why I listen to music because I want people to try and understand WHY they end up with a stance like agreeing or disagreeing with somebody instead of just arguing about some kind of objective merit that any given thing has. You and D.o.S. seem to argue because you both have different ideas about why any given thing is 'good' or 'bad'.
It gets stupid sometimes, of course people are going to have different viewpoints, they might be listening to the same song but they're never going to be picking up on EXACTLY the same things, you're reacting to different things in different ways because you're different people.
I'm not saying the things each of you like might not actually be better or worse but if you don't define every fucking parameter you're not gonna reach any kind of conclusive understanding, are you?
If we look at the fucking horrendous history of mankind do you really think there's any reason to believe people will just agree on things? HAH

Empathy is beautiful. I think it makes more sense to focus on why things are appealing more to any given person rather than why any given thing is more appealing. Which seems more in line with OP wondering why fuzz nerds here usually couldn't give a fuck about Beyonce.

[Invisible Man]

What would you define as an "impact beyond 'I fucking love XXXXX'"? Beyonce obviously 'speaks' to people and I'm certainly not convinced that this track is completely watered down corporate bullshit, but people don't all need to engage with music on that level.
The reason i don't have an appreciation for most artists in this vein is because i can't feel anything worthwhile by just listening, because removed from the 'culture' the music is extremely uninteresting (IMO).
My own attitude towards music and one that is probably more common around here than most other parts is simply that timbral, harmonic, rhythmic, spectral , and other sonic concepts that are present in music are what 'speaks' to me. For me that applies to harsh noise and it applies to pop music, in my head I don't necessarily break each down differently even if one has countless lyrical/production devices, social/cultural/economic aspects poured into it to make it what it is. I can engage with music that I like on this level and it has an immense impact on me personally, because I love it so much that it makes me want to be alive. Sometimes we might be ignoring things that are quite valuable in some way or another but I don't necessarily think that's a 'tip-of-the-iceberg' approach to living.

You should feel totally obliged to talk about Beyonce here, it doesn't matter, I talk about cheesy J-Pop and couldn't give less of a shit because it means something important to me.

You're basically trying to work out why we musicians are ignorant of an audiovisual performance product though, right? This is pretty different to noise and fuzz, it's not like you'd expect a still photographer to be deeply engaged in cinema, right?

It seems like a lot of people forget that subversion isn't only about destruction, but also about undermining. So, yeah. I think it's very possible to slip something worthwhile and destructive into media in unexpected ways.

And, re: pretentiosness: Eh, maybe. Maybe not. But, in defense of the thread and its inchoate aims 1) 'pretention' stems from the Latinate praetendere, nominally descended from the pretentionem. Pretentiousness isn't arrogance. It's acting like a jackass who wants to seem like something they're not (pretending). [/guitarsolo] There's no attempt to pretend to be or do anything here. Just trying to talk with some people about stuff, and maybe do it at a level of discourse that could go somewhere. There's always pushback on that, and I figure those people can post or not as they like. And I don't mean you, CC--ILF is about as anarchistic as we can reasonably get, so knock yrself out.

Anyway, I'm not really trying to work anything specific out. This just tickled me in a way that I didn't understand fully, so I posted a bunch of ill-formed thoughts. But yeah, what you say makes sense, voyager. Just thinking that we all seem to appreciate creative destruction--maybe the only thing that you can say about fuzz as it applies to philosophy--and this vid does something there. It could be a cool crossover.

And, by 'impact,' I mean exactly what you said above about...uh...making you want to be alive. I don't want to say a lot about that, because some things shouldn't be analyzed. Mystification protects power, mysteries protect the sacred. So this thing is probably better talked about as a video than as a song. That's what got my attention, anyway.

D.o.S.: Grab-ass. Okay! I didn't know about the private concert, but that's worrying. Like I said, I'm mostly just trying to provoke this shit to a point where it turns into something useful. I have never paid attention to Beyonce in my life until Monday morning, so there's not a lot of evidence I can bring to the table. But again, she's definitely eaten a ton of shit to get where she is, but she was always already eating shit (again, black woman from the South). This might not be true--no idea--but maybe she got to a point where she can eat chicken shit and shit chicken salad. Or maybe this is an aberration, and she worked with a really talented director who turned a forgettable song into a finely-tuned bit of propaganda. That could still have value. But it sits under the Bey umbrella brand, so that's why I'm asking about it.

[Invisible Man]

Empathy is beautiful. I think it makes more sense to focus on why things are appealing more to any given person rather than why any given thing is more appealing. Which seems more in line with OP wondering why fuzz nerds here usually couldn't give a fuck about Beyonce.

Sometimes it gets frustrating that we don't encourage incremental change. Like, I can totally see a 19 year-old white girl having her mind blown by the unflinching blackness of such a huge song/performance on the BIGGEST STAGE OF THE YEAR (the Super Bowl, I mean). But there's always a vocal bunch who say "yeah, you don't know anything, and you're still massively racist." Or something equivalent to that about class, or gender, or whatever. Dipping toes into the SJW problems of past threads, but the variability of the punk litmus test is a crock of shit, and empathy is really the only way to get around this.

[D.o.S.]

I don't think anyone is discouraging that (I think we've gone out of our way to avoid it), but what we're not doing is lauding the performer for being 'risky', because, well, they're not.

[Invisible Man]

Also, if you woke up as Bey, you'd have to sleep with Jay-Z. Worth it?

[D.o.S.]

Definitely interested in what your students have to say about it in general/aggregate, though, since I don't doubt the reaction will be different.

If we're talking about the Jay-Z who rode off into the sunset with the Black album, sure.

I we're talking about the Jay-Z after that, no fucking way.

[Invisible Man]

Feel like its one of those things where I cant hate on other people who get some genuine hope and strength out of it. But I'm deeply cynical about how much rich celebrities really care about this shit. Why not write a song straight up about this issue without filling it with brand names and hiding under some (appropriated) half baked art statements? Is it because thats a better way to infiltrate your message or a way to have a a nice safe pretense of activism thats not going to alienate people whonbuy your records?

That said my sole exposure to Beyonce is white 20 something girls who act like she invented feminism so ...

Because you want to continue to do what you do. That's the most generous answer, but probably not the correct one. If you set fire to a bunch of shit and say 'fuck it, I'm out,' then you no longer have an audience. I think you answered your own question, for sure.

Hard to give her the benefit of the doubt since she's married to Jay-z and in one of his songs he talks about how he dumbed down his lyrics and tripled his audience.

This is a great thing to bring up in response to claims of pretention, btw. Some levels of discourse are alienating. Infamously.

[Invisible Man]

Students: super interesting conversations, if predictable based on similar things that've happened in the past. Three kinds of responses.

1) Vocal minority: "why the fuck do we have to dissect this; it's just good fun and entertainment." These people always persist in all arenas.



2) People who are trying, but don't 'get it.' "I like it. I'm not sold that this is everything that we're saying it is, but it seems like it's worth talking about."



3) Students of color who are suspicious of me teaching this, have complex relationships to the video and song, and try not to flip the fuck out at all the stuff that they'd love to say that would probably grind students from groups 1) and 2) into the ontological dust.

[infamousalien]

Sometimes it gets frustrating that we don't encourage incremental change. Like, I can totally see a 19 year-old white girl having her mind blown by the unflinching blackness of such a huge song/performance on the BIGGEST STAGE OF THE YEAR (the Super Bowl, I mean). But there's always a vocal bunch who say "yeah, you don't know anything, and you're still massively racist." Or something equivalent to that about class, or gender, or whatever. Dipping toes into the SJW problems of past threads, but the variability of the punk litmus test is a crock of shit, and empathy is really the only way to get around this.

This is a good point. Incremental change is usually how it works too. I also think people have a hard time accepting that people change at all. Maybe Beyonce realized that she could use her stardom and platform for something good. Maybe she's changed and learned from past mistakes (like the Gaddafi concert). A whole lot of maybes there. Is it better Crass has a blatant message they preach to the choir or Beyonce slips in a little something to a massive audience?

[infamousalien]

This is a great thing to bring up in response to claims of pretention, btw. Some levels of discourse are alienating. Infamously.