From bon bon's link:

Undoubtedly there were plainchant rockists back in 13th-century France, thumbing their noses at that god-awful polyphony.

Ha! Gotta forward this to FAQWife, whose dissertation on the first known (13th Century) collection of popular music is off to the bindery this week!

The other article in Slate, about "poptimism", is pretty invigorating:

I don't know if I've ever seen an attempt to remake a canon without using negative examples. Something's always Out when you argue that something else is In (or Ideal). That was one of Malcolm McLaren's first provocations when he was still a stop owner, selling a t-shirt listing the Ins and Outs of the punk orthodoxy. (For the record: Pink Floyd was Out, Gene Vincent was In).

I'm thinking the poptimist stance has already become the new orthodoxy. It won't be hard to outflank an aesthetic that's occupying the middle. Whenever the cycle pushes too hard toward pure pleasure you get a responding chorus of punker-than-thou and keepin' it real and "real country not this Nashville crap" in response. And when the music takes itself so seriously that there's no fun, then pure pop (in each genre) reasserts itself.

(It's ridiculous though to say that John Cougar Mellencamp doesn't write pop songs, though.)

The other article in Slate, about "poptimism", is pretty invigorating: [link]

Cool. I was totally a proto-punk/punk/post-punk/alternative rockist for a long time. These days I have one foot in both the rockist and poptimist camps, but I think I still might have more weight on my rockist foot.

Hate the term "poptimism" though....

Pfft. Kids today.

Heh.

I should mention that I've always loved Elvis (thanks largely to an uncle who owns every single Elvis record ever). I even remember where I was when I head he'd died....

These days, I suppose the rockist in me has me leaning more towards his Sun Studio stuff. His version of "Blue Moon" is one of the most amazing songs ever....

Oh, yeah. I very rarely have patience for post-Sun Elvis.

His version of "Blue Moon" is one of the most amazing songs ever....

It's lovely. In fact, it's probably why I sing "Blue Moon" to Emmett as a lullaby.

Stuff:

David Bowie is organizing a big music/arts festival for NY for 2007. [link]

In the meantime he's being a big old slacker:

"I've been fed up for quite some time. I'm taking a year off — no touring, no albums. I go for a walk every morning and I watch a ton of movies. One day, I watched three Woody Allen movies in a row."

An interesting development in downloading in Canada is that a coalition of artists have come out against the recording industry's strong stance against downloading. They're basically saying that suing downloaders hurt musicians by souring the fans. This has lead to the sight of one of the members of Broken Social Scene on Report on Business Television, which is basically a 24-hour lets discuss the stock market channel.

What's interesting is that the Copyright Act in Canada doesn't yet address digital downloading (amendments to the Act keep dying on the order table), so this split between creators and industry might be a real glitch in the groups lobbying for a stronger creator's (and publisher's) rights in the Copyright Act. From what I understand, the last amendments to the Act were heavily weighted in favour of creators rights, and a lot of groups including libraries and educators were not happy. (The way the bill was set up, it meant that schools would have to potentially pay a license to surf the internet.)

As it stands now, downloading is not illegal in Canada, but uploading is.

Carl Wilson has been weighing in on the Stephen Merritt kerfluffle: [link]

Steve Mason, formerly of the Beta Band has gone missing.

The real reason FEMA failed in New Orleans is that they were pouring their resources into producing this.

Oh wait...

I don't know whether to laugh or cry....