Collection of unrelated points

[petronia]

1) ARGH RIAA I'LL JUST GO BACK TO POSTING LOTS AND LOTS OF MP3S FOR DOWNLOAD NOW HUH

2) 100fandomhell: out of curiosity I tried counting the number of fandoms I've written in since April 2005, according to the stated rules (i.e. JoJo and SBR count as two, so do FFVII and FFVII:AC). It came up to 27, matching sub_divided's total. That's with the RPF, too... Academically, how would one count RPF anyway? Does all of bandom count as one?

3) Skimming through the discussion around Sherbourne's "minimal malaise" article in teh 'Fork, which I missed by about a month. Think I saw someone on ILM write "[...] the dance music equivalent of internet fan fiction". O RLY. XD Guess I'll just fire up Soundforge then... Seriously speaking, I don't have any conclusions - the world described here (and at Blissblog) is clearly the one I inhabit insofar as it pertains to dance music and coffee bars but I don't know how I feel about that. Obviously there is a level of discomfort or I wouldn't even be thinking about it, and I have been - thinking about it - for a long while, before it got summed up with useful k-punk neologisms. Like, I saw a review of Kompakt Total 9 the other day that described a sort of fourth-dimensional "nomadalgia", i.e. if this were 2020 and you were listening to Kompakt Total 21 it would still sound pretty much the same. But what if you like how it sounds? People don't complain about rock that sounds like it did twenty - oh wait, they do. Actually, a lot of the time I think people who angst about the lack of evolution in rock should chill out as no one complains if a new track is made to sound like Detroit techno or acid house. Except they do, apparently. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: PEOPLE JUST LOVE TO BITCH

Might try to address the world-is-flat global creative hegemony aspect in-fic, had the thing not grown to encompass about fifteen disparate points already, as usual. ^^; (Then again, maybe this is the point of the fic in the first place?? Id est, WTF ACTUALLY IS ARCADIA WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE. It wasn't supposed to be a dialectical process, but. This should have gone in carnet as is talking to self and I know very well it's incomprehensible. XD;)

4) I've been watching a lot of Olympics coverage, though I haven't posted about it. The fact that the opening ceremonies were on 08/08/08 meant that all over the world, millions of Chinese watched bits and bobs of it during downtimes while participating in a wedding party, just like I did. In the very reception hall there were two Chinese weddings taking place on three floors, and the groom of the other party was a guy who'd gone to CEGEP with us, so some of the people who had previous commitments turned out to be previously committed upstairs. They came down to say hi, rumour had it however that the upstairs wedding had no open bar. XD

Comments

[beeblebabe.livejournal.com]

My sources tell me that the problem is not actually the RIAA; they're just having some server and hardware difficulties and will be back.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

How bizarre. Why don't they come out and say it's not the RIAA if it really isn't, then? (I still don't understand how Muxtape makes money anyway)

[beeblebabe.livejournal.com]

Because it's ... well... kind of funny?

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

But they are saying it's the RIAA on their page... It seems kind of unprofessional to claim that the RIAA is involved when it isn't, especially when no one appears to get that it's a joke.

[beeblebabe.livejournal.com]

Hey, don't quote me or anything. This is just what my tech media cohorts are telling me.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Well, the RIAA seems to think they're the problem. (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080819-riaa-confirms-its-behind-the-muxtape-shutdown.html) If they happen not to be I don't think we ought to inform them. XD;

I'll be over at Insanejournal 8tracks (http://8tracks.com/) like everyone else.

[beeblebabe.livejournal.com]

Like I said, I'm just trusting things I hear from people who work at a technology publication with 25 years of experience.

...

...

*faceplant*

(So maybe they gave a line to our guys? I dunno.)

[beeblebabe.livejournal.com]

What's super funny/lame is that we (and you know me, so you presumably know what I mean when I say we) just put Muxtape in our list of top 100 new undiscovered sites, and then this happened, and then we got totally freaking dissed on Valleywag. So this whole thing stings extra over in my sector.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, can see that. :/ IDK maybe they think they can broker a deal and don't want to close any doors?

[cis.livejournal.com]

It feels like axis-of-kpunk have been talking about 'creatives' for a while now and the psherburne column came at the right time for them to fit it in - IT had a thing called something like "when i grow up i want to be a freelance curator"a couple of months ago. Sometimes I think they're right but that whole crotchety-for-the-sake-of-it schtick can really get tedious. I absolutely cannot read blissblog now, I get about a sentence in and he mentions the 'Nuum and I think 'oh christ reynolds give your ridiculous self-invented concepts A REST'.

corny kompakt fux0r that I am I"m really enjoying total 9: matias aguayo's 'minimal' is utterly brilliant, don't believe a word people say about the dj koze mix which is palpably inferior.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

It also relates to the discussion surrounding that AdBusters hipsters article (w/ Momus commentary). And the Amazing Girls one, at least in my mind. Maybe everyone is into their late-twenties self-reflection angst stage. Or maybe it's me projecting. XD

Too late! XD Actually, I don't prefer one to the other, but Koze's mix slots flawlessly into the playlist I happened to be making. (And of course the nuance the music puts on the lyrics differs, though again it's not a matter of preference. Did I mention SRS LULZ.)

[cis.livejournal.com]

SRSLY DANCEABLE LULZ

[petronia.livejournal.com]

NO ME HACE PUMPIN' PUMPIN' PUMPIN'

Kompakt needs to make the t-shirt stat.

[cis.livejournal.com]

más nocturno
más profundo
más sensual

i kind of want remixes of 'minimal' in every conceivable style. merengue! psych! bubblecrunk!

[cis.livejournal.com]

yes - it's funny how I'm coming down on the side of the 'creatives' not because i like them particularly (my very least favourite member of the neojaponisme gang is ian 'let me plug my latest shisty bit of alternacorporate twaddle' lynam who is a 'creative' if i ever saw one) but because the people agin them are e.g. O.Hath, who I actually really like but when on the moral high ground is unbearable, and yr pal and mine Momus who is always wrong no matter which side of the argument he's on.

The Amazing Girls article? I have perhaps forgotten this.

UGH sabina HONESTLY. I do not see what anyone sees in this rmx! it is laaaaaame.

Robert Babicz' 'don't look back' and Télépopmusik's 'Don't look back', distinct similarities in chord sequence thereof: coincidence, or secret remix? (oh oh btw i liked yr comment wherever it was where you pointed out to d00dz that 'falling hands' is a kylie remix)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Amazing Girls link and discussion here (http://sub-divided.livejournal.com/137470.html); Charmian also has a post IIRC. The other day I unrelatedly ended up reading the Wikipedia entry on Parisian grisettes and realized you could replace all instances of the word "poet" with "indie rock dude" and all instances of the world "milliner" with "American Apparel" and it would still make sense.

I, I don't know! What don't you like about it? XD; It's intentionally breezy-cheezy but Kompakt have been playing that card forever.

"Amanda" is a secret remix of this (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WbbwCxFeWpg); my comment was kind of muddled - and off-topic - but it's starting to bother me that I've never seen anyone else point this out! Not that I think there should be some kind of pakuri controversy but surely it would add to the discussion re: Mayer's tracks. Babicz versus Télépopmusik I'm going to have to ponder at length. XD

[cis.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone who isn't you has even noticed the secret-remix falling hands thing! a quick google even reveals Tim Finney on ILM (http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?showall=true&bookmarkedmessageid=75&boardid=41&threadid=9349) talking about Falling Hands and Kylie in the same breath and yet. On a classic microhouse thread!

DJK's 'minimal' sounds - as I just remarked to someone else somewhere else on lj - like DJK just hit the 'sleaze' preset and wandered off. it's so... whatever! the whatever-instrument-it-is is just loops and loops ignoring the fact that it goes out of tune with the vocals! (though actually if you want accidentally out of tune, that jürgen paape track is a crime: the bass is a quarter tone out and it's abs unbearable).

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Arrr well the logical conclusion to that is that peeps are not as big Kylie fans in the collective as they claim to be or like to think. :/ (It also makes me wonder how often this gambit was used by Mayer/Kompaktians in general - maybe the Occam's Razor explanation for why tracks like "Heroin" sound so much like dub versions of nonexistent 80s club hits?)

Ha idk I think it's the slight dissonance of the backing track that keeps it from sounding like softcore pr0n OST altogether!

[cis.livejournal.com]

Okay having read the Amazing Girls article I think it's very different from my idea of 'creatives', who I see as much more grounded, much less aethereal creatures: for me the 'creative' is a male type, twentysomething, raw jeans and limited edition trainers, expensive minor-brand tshirts, vinyl toys. People who treat niche capitalism as some kind of ethical statement, somehow morally superior, who work in advertising and graphic design, who love banksy, who yes hang around in hoxditch. westfearneon, sadly now deleted, did a brilliant post on expats in japan and how a large proportion of those are in the creative classes.

I do however relate to creatives as people relate to AGs: I have that same mix of envy and disgust, sadness that I could never manage to be them and frustration at people who are entranced by them and not by me. I kind of think they're parasites? But I like them?

[petronia.livejournal.com]

The idea of "creatives" is like the idea of "hipsters", really XD (let alone the obvious overlap) - it's defined in concentric circles and anyone who's even talking about it (cultureblogger!) is at least within the double ring... Subdee and I were talking about it, trying to pin down that sense of discomfort, and came up with this idea of taste materialism - a kind of Yuppie 2.0 for the digital age, if one will, who accumulates capital not in currency but in the "right" kind of information.

[motorbike.livejournal.com]

OH RIAA NO ;_________;

[petronia.livejournal.com]

They won't keep me (http://8tracks.com/petronia/petronias-august-2008-mix) down, anyway!

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

For bandom, each individual band would count as a fandom (considering I'm planning on using all three incarnations of Sailor Moon...)

Technically, we count fandoms according to the writer's "start date," or else Candy-chan would be, like, done. She's scary.

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

They say this year 08/08/08 wasn't a good date, though! I mean, the number's good, obvs, but it's during the Hungry Ghost Festival and everything.

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Just saw this entry and read the article you link on minimal techno growing out of a homogenized global culture that can travel and doesn't need to escape from work on the weekends. Sounds about right to me. ^^; Here are the songs on the "major cosmopolitan cities namechecked on massive club hits" mix I told you about:

Estelle - American Boy ft. Kanye West

Global Deejays - The Sound Of San Francisco

Pet Shop Boys - Paninaro / New York City Boy

Teuvo Loman - Helsinki City Boy

And something called "Moscow" I have to bug Yin about because I can never remember the name of the DJ. (Not Ghenghis Khan.) So these are songs that feature either a rollcall/checklist or that are self-referential/parodic -- you know, like it's practically a requirement for club hits to reference these particular cities. I love geography references in songs, but the point here seems to be, no matter where you are, it's all the same!

Incidentally, this is insanely catchy:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=L_1maePHaZk.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

You've got the inherent dance music skew as well, i.e. the cities that have a presence within the mythology of House or Rave or whatnot - NYC, Detroit, Chicago for classic house, Manchester for acid house, London for d&b, Berlin for minimal et cetera. Then there are the cities that have proper "scenes" and thus get namechecked, of which Montreal is actually one. XD