From david turgeon Sent Tue, Jul 27th 1999, 18:29
From david turgeon Sent Tue, Jul 27th 1999, 18:29
> > i may not be too familiar with his music, > Evidentally! How can you make such a blanket dismissal of an artist when > all you've seen is a couple of videos on MTV? easy. when an artist uses the pop music language, the video they have on mtv is the only thing you should really consider as 'their message'. at least that's the current convention. now, if he _weren't_ speaking the pop music language, but rather, say, the idm language -- then we'd know, by natural assumption, that one song isn't all there is & that there is more to be found on other albums. anyone who disses the push button objects on the strength of one release can rightly be confounded in them having better material on this or that other label. but with pop music? the message is contained in the mtv skit. that's the convention. if you dig deeper, fine, but you're only giving your own interpretation to something which is, by convention, not meant to be understood that way. this might help to understand: if you say 'i'm gone to lunch' in english, it can be interpreted a number of way, but a litteral french translation could only be understood one way -- any other interpretation would be a personal one. it's a language convention akin to the one i'm talking about. obviously i wouldn't condemn nonconventionalism in the interpretation of pop music, but then go the whole nine yard, don't just stop at 'oh but it's irony'. realize that he's part of a humongous machine designed to sell you his music, with loads of contempt for you if you don't, & that thousands of mcs might be able to do his thing much better, if only they were signed. & a minor point, to end -- perhaps pop music in a perfect world _shouldn't_ be the way i described, but then, stop buying into it, because music corporations have no intent to speak another language, unless perhaps they realize that dumb music doesn't sell. -- david