koganbot

At the very end of my Why Music Sucks broadside of February 1987 I wrote a paragraph that in retrospect might seem supernaturally prophetic. Whereas now, such a paragraph, with a few of the words changed, would be the common, received wisdom. However, despite almost every sentence of it being right, I think it's fundamentally wrong. But see for yourself:

( People will cluster into cultural 'regions' based not on physical proximity but on mutual attitudes, tastes, hobbies, beliefs, etc. )

[This paragraph was something of an elaboration on a more interesting passage I'd written the previous year for an aborted book on punk rock: "It is a social achievement that parents can't understand their kids' slang or that one child will become a punk and another a Mormon and a third will go into interior design (and discos and cocaine) and none will have much to say to the others. Each incomprehensibility is a kind of vengeance."]

Compiled the Jukebox averages for the songs I like (designated YES) versus the Jukebox averages for the songs I dislike (NO) to see how different I am from everybody. I've still kept a MAYBE designation for songs I'm not sure of, though the fact I haven't ditched them yet makes it a good bet that they'll hold on.

My affinity is once again slightly ahead of my disaffinity, though the gap is narrowing and someday alienation and isolation will triumph, hurrah! This time a couple of last-minute consensus likes (Nina Sky) and dislikes (Merriweather) I agreed with helped collegiality to keep disaffection at bay, even if just barely.

( Il Si, il Brutto, il Non )

Had the vague impression that The Singles Jukebox was giving higher scores to songs I dislike than to songs I like, so I decided to run a crude check. I broke this into three groups: those I'm thumbs down on (generally a score of 6 or under), categorized as NO; those I'm borderline on (hovering right around 6), categorized as BORDERLINE; and those I like (probably better than 6), categorized as YES. "Borderline" is a weasel category, since in Year In Pop and Year In America I TICK or NOT TICK; my main reason for keeping "Borderline" here was to ensure I didn't kill Calle 13 and keep Beirut just to raise my Alienation Index. But probably I am going to kill Calle 13 and keep Beirut (and keep Mondo Diao and Ciara).* In any event, adding up the numbers, it turns out my impression is wrong, though not wildly so. (I'll point out that relative high scorers "Lions, Tigers and Bears" and "Zero" are not that far from my borderline; I much prefer other tracks on the Jazmine and YYY albs.)

( Il Si, il Brutto, il Non )