you know, it's not like i have anything particularly bad to say about grimes. her music might mostly leave me bored, but she seems to have good taste, and the masses really need some decent filters, so, hey, why not?
i had a few chances to see her in small bars in ottawa around the time this record was released and decided against it every time, because it was a bit too poppy for me and i had limited funds that i wanted to spend on other concerts. i mean, i like the general style, and i like getting smashed and dancing at shows. i saw austra a few times. but, it was just too poppy. i remember reviewing this disc when it first came out and thinking it had some potential for real success, but it's not like there was any indication she was going to blow up the way she did. it did seem really different than her earlier stuff, which just struck me as an amateur take on the cocteau twins or dead can dance sound. but, that was pretty easy to find at the time, too. no indication, really...
i guess i'll say it was a bit confusing to me the way that she was trying to market herself as something outside of the mainstream, given that she sounded so much like madonna. it didn't really make sense to me. why wasn't she trying to market herself to a pop audience? i certainly wasn't going to get into borderline, done over for the zillionth time thirty years later. so, why was i getting this disc marketed to me? it just seemed pointless. but, i guess she found an audience in the end, didn't she? lol....
Snootches Bootches
I seriously doubt she was thinking about Marketing herself like that , shes just a down to earth girl that loves to make music .. Shes just being herself and expressing herself through these videos and her music. I suppose if you really care about music you just realease music and hope ppl like it.. If your good you wont need marketing ppl will like you.. anyways she has her own audience for this anyway
CGPig
why would she "market" herself as a pop star if that's not what she wants? I think people just get too restrained trying to categorize and sort everything with genres and stuff. it's just what it is.
Snootches Bootches
thats what im saying. shes just a chick making music
deathtokoalas
well, it's obvious that that is what she wants, which is why it was confusing. only fans of pop music could possibly find anything of interest in this...
maybe the situation isn't clear. she was trying to generate an audience in the local industrial/cyberpunk community. this does not fit in well with that culture, which is all about agitprop and the destruction of musical conventions.
i mean, one of these things is not like the other, one of these things doesn't belong...
skinny puppy
collide
grimes
jarboe
see what i'm saying?
it created this sort of awkward moment, when whomever was pushing this somehow expected this group of anti-everything rivetheads (and, personally, i like the music on the fringes of this but wouldn't be caught dead looking like that) to get into the fluffiest mainstream pop music that anyone's heard in like fifteen years.
i mean, it's not that i have any particular interest in how she markets herself or who buys her records, but it was just weird that it was thought this was gonna fly with that audience, because it was so blatantly obvious that it wasn't going to. so, i, for one, was left scratching my head about it.
the young, teen pop audience is the rational one. but, you don't expect every 20 year-old kid with pop music fantasies to break out like this, y'know?
apple butter
You're confused because nothing is more pop than trying to be edgy. It's over. Outside of the mainstream IS the mainstream now. I commend you for striving for individuality, but it's a lost cause.
deathtokoalas
that's nonsense. this is just the current version of "hot topic mall goth", which was mainstream 90s culture and rather despised by people into real art. it's just another "walk to the mall and buy your identity" type of thing. there were corporatized 80s and 70s equivalents, running through cyndi lauper and t. rex and blah blah blah. and all that shit just ultimately came from andy warhol's pathetic and cynical concept of what art is.
don't trick yourself into thinking anything has changed. every generation does that, and then realizes they were wrong. nothing has changed, because the conditions for things to change have not arisen. the mass production and extreme commodification of art remains the status quo. andy warhol is not dead. to push through that change, he must be brutally murdered; his corpse must be paraded for all to see, desecrated, humiliated...
it's one thing to talk about commodification, and recognize it's endemic, it's another to give up. the entire period of commodifed art has had an underground, and it's no different today.
it's just not this. or close to this.
the confusion was grimes trying to exist in the wrong world, not that world not existing. i mean, you see this fairly frequently, actually, if you hang out with gen y kids. a lot of them just don't get that there's a cultural difference between skinny puppy and c&c music factory, because nobody's ever explained it to them and they grew up in a reality where the lines are blurred. it's in the same torrent. "80s/90s dance music" or whatever. but that doesn't mean there aren't kids that do get it, and are working on the actual fringes.
Jeremy Seip
I can't imagine how hard it must be to be an artist in this day and age. Getting shit on constantly thru social media. No wonder why there is no creativity and honesty. You'd have to be a masochist to put yourself out there and have the kids take a swing at u one after another. Even if u knew that most of the critics were coming from a place of envy or insecurity. These things weaken our psyche. As much as I might agree with some of the negative comments I don't think it adds anything constructive to the mix. We need an environment where free thought can blossom. I don't know how to fix this but it's truly the worst environment for creativity. Back when I was teen (with a gazillion opinions that I forced upon people) an artist only had to endure a few album reviews and random write ups. Thankfully billy corgan didn't have to hear my every critique. I have immense empathy for people that put themselves out there in an effort to better themselves even it's done on false pretences. Old man rant over.
deathtokoalas
i don't think we're getting to a better art scene by being filthy hippies about it. conversely, it's not like i have a lot of faith in the market to pull the best stuff out, either. but, trying your best isn't necessarily good enough. criticism is far more important than encouragement; it's part of the artist's responsibility to learn to understand what is valid criticism and what is stupidity.
so, don't coddle. it doesn't help.
to go back to my original point, grimes' fame will hopefully help others by association if she keeps name dropping. that's the actual point i was trying to get across.
corgan, particularly. he released a few pretty good records a long time ago. but he really deserves 90% of the shit that he gets...
Jeremy Seip
It's like an onslaught of voices both negative and positive silently eroding ur own sense of self which erodes the art. Obviously there are people so strong that can't be influenced but I want the shy guys and girls art too. I want it all. Take care.
U have a band or project by chance? Wouldn't mind hearing it.
deathtokoalas
click my name...youtube has highlights of the full bandcamp archive.
spankthewan
Your "music" inspired me to remove my ears.
deathtokoalas
it's probably for the best. you don't seem to have been doing anything useful with them...
i'd like to further inspire you to donate them to somebody that could make better use of them.
and instant blocks to anybody that says anything about van gogh.
polishfish
MAYBE it is possible that
you are thinking too much...
eh?
deathtokoalas
i don't know where this "too much" part comes in, or how it gets measured.
it's a persistent accusation, but i've never really been able to make sense of it. and, i'm not likely to lobotomize myself, either, so it sort of seems like there's not a resolution, if it is somehow actually accurate.
maybe it'll rain gumdrops outside tomorrow, too. who knows...
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
i really wasn't attempting to place a value on this, though, i was just pointing out that those few months when this very pop record was being marketed as darkwave were very strange to watch from a close distance.
(deleted post)
you know, i specifically said i didn't have anything bad to say, and i still get called a hater....
polishfish
not a hater, but your comment made you sound like a wine snob who dismisses a red because you "didn't detect enough oak in the bouquet"
I just meant that what you said sounded like a hasty high-brow dismissal, and I pictured someone saying it with a glass of wine, lol. You should watch her awesome 30ish minute set for a radio station- not sure which station it was...also its cool that you like dead can dance...
deathtokoalas
i think all art requires a certain level of elitism to keep it real, but it's an abstract elitism rather than the bourgeois elitism you're misinterpreting my comments as - and actually works against the bourgeois elitism. it declares stockhausen more interesting than stravinsky, beethoven more valuable than rossini, etc.
the idea of applying elitism to keep it real may seem like a contradiction, but we live in this contradictory market reality where all art is reduced to a commodity, which in turn reduces it's value to the demand it can generate. that is the actual contradiction of art in a market society, as meaningful art must move against market rules in order to be meaningful. in that context, this abstract elitism to keep art pure is actually entirely rational. you could maybe consider it a sort of punk elitism.
but i've met people that are far more elitist in this sense than i am. i can dig a madonna record if i'm in the right mood for it. it just didn't make any sense to market this to me or other people with similar tastes as me, is all i'm saying.
Paul Doe
All art is completely subjective. Rating it is subjective. Retire your thesaurus - I'm having a hard time taking your thoughts seriously because they are riddled with forced vocabulary. Get to the point 80% faster. But seriously though, fuck koalas.
deathtokoalas
art is not entirely subjective. that is precisely the market ideology that requires a level of elitism to defend against. to use an absurd example, a professional recording of beethoven's fifth would be objectively superior to a junior high school marching band practicing out of key. but, the latter could conceivably out sell the former if it had justin bieber playing oboe, therefore making it the more valuable commodity. this is the confused reality that markets produce.
it's not entirely objective, though, either. this is where critics are valuable - they are able to point out what parts of something have a higher objective value than other parts of something else. you're of course free to choose the inferior music, should you decide to. but choosing the inferior option over the superior one is not the same thing as delusionally deciding that the two things are of equivalent value.
as an aside, you are not the first person that has accused me of using a thesaurus. i suppose it's sort of comical, as my posts to youtube are mostly stream-of-consciousness and produced with essentially no effort on my behalf. i'm not even conscious of the way in which my vocabulary is (supposedly) too abstract, so i wouldn't even know where to begin in dumbing myself down, supposing i would want to - which of course is something i wouldn't even consider. maybe the problem isn't my wide vocabulary, but your narrow one?
EternalDiarrhea
Honestly, she lost me when she claimed that God was writing his music through her. Or something. Seriously.
ブロンディブラック（東京外人)
I've tried getting into her on Spotify time and time again but it's just not caught on (yet). Same with Die Antwoord.
jessica
you know, that maybe says something. i don't see any point in paying for a service that only houses 30% of what i listen to (the other 70% is self-released), but it's a little intriguing that she can get 100 million youtube hits and can't get a following on a subscription music site, where people actually shell out the cash.
anarhy09
New and interesting music? Lol. Sounds an awful lot like 90's music. Reminds me a bit of erasure-always and some other songs that can't recall by name right now. I bet that in 10 years from now on, nobody will ever remember this song or this band.
deathtokoalas
nothing i've heard from grimes has been remotely as pompous as erasure.
if you want to be really base about it, the reality is that this particular tune could pass perfectly well as a radiohead song - and once you realize this, there's not really much to say about it as innovative. it's pop music. and pop music really hasn't changed much since new wave hit in the early 80s.
kittyand fox
I enjoyed reading your diatribe and think your points were valid indeed and have no problem. I do however, like some commodified art as much as the niche, anti commercial and this song falls into a like. Arguably, all art becomes a commodity when under the only reality of capitalist success. However, where art is concerned there is always opportunities to infiltrate through this very process and I would finish off comparing this with Andy Warhol, my only gripe with your comments, which is that through and in spite of his exceptional popularity he was able to introduce some fairly radical artists and ideas well outside of the typical pop art for which he is normally associated. I would argue against him being cynical, although I can only go by secondary sources. I would also add, although not in defence of his pop art, but as a point to throw into the mix, that at the time this form of art was ironically a challenge to the status quo in its own elitist and underground way. This is not an effort to be relativist about it, not at all, just that I don't believe it's as simple to contrast the desire for popularity in this way. In conclusion I would say that debating against branded music is almost a lost cause, especially on platforms like this, which perhaps gives evidence to that fact, but nonetheless it is a worthy one.
deathtokoalas
" Arguably, all art becomes a commodity when under the only reality of capitalist success."
if you define the terms carefully, you'll see that art can never be a commodity, and a commodity can never be art. i've run through this over and over again, so excuse me for being brief.
a commodity is specifically a good produced to meet demand. that is, it's purpose in being produced is to meet the demands of the population. this is the part that you can't debate, because it's a technical term.
art is a little harder to define, but a really big part of it is working against demand. difficulties defining art aside, there is no difficulty assigning aesthetic or personal motives. that is, art is never produced to meet demand on a market. it is always produced for some other reason: personal expression, to spread social ideas, etc.
so, when you see a product in front of you, you need to ask yourself: was this designed to meet the demands of the market? if it was, it isn't art. it may be a picasso print, or a bach ringtone but don't let that confuse you. if it wasn't, then it is.
ok, so what about the grey area, which is what you were really getting at. well, a grey area may seem to exist - music that was created as art in the past, but now meets a demand because it's value has been recognized. so, art becomes a commodity. but, this is missing the point about why the art was created. the corporate logo on the beethoven cd doesn't alter the music. nor does the 4ad label on the grimes cd. creating a new market for new art is not the same thing as creating a product to meet a demand. it follows, that success does not convert the art into a commodity, although it may convert the medium into one. that is, your beethoven cd is a commodity, but the music it plays isn't.
kittyand fox
But there is art which can meet the demands of the masses, from socialist realism propoganda to book art and social land art. In fact if commodity is only in meeting a demand then art too is often a commodity because it has been used to meet the demands for e.g city renewal, selling a product, designing a product, selling an ideology etc. Debating a technical term is still do-able as this then becomes a concept creating of philosophy. So not to nit pick against u or create an argument, only a discussion, but surely a commodity is not about demand at all. In fact it could almost be the very opposite most of the time. The things we do not need, certain material possessions are not demanded but become demanded. Utilitarian items i.e a toilet or table can be art and/or commodity, depending on the different values ascribed to them, like who made it and where is it place. So context is one field of play. I think your definition of art is more idealistic, which is fine and valid but to me art such as I dunno Wolchenklauser, or Bauhaus would play with this definition of demand. Rather than playing against demand art plays with demand and the language of commodity. At best and in a modernist sense it opens up and questions values. Whereas commodity might latch onto values without really understanding them. It does in similar ways as commodity in creating new audience and demand. If an art work exists in a gallery then there is a demand for that art work, or for a particular art for particular audience for a particular desire. Anyway I feel i am diverging, so back to an example you used; A Picasso print is just as much as a commodity as a Picasso original, in fact when Picasso reached the height of his fame he was producing more selling more and even used his very signature to pay for things! Was he still making art, was the works he made still valued as art? Yes. What seems to be the issue you are making is that when one of his works is made more available to the mass, like being made into a print and in doing so its quality from a unique large scale painting into a small kitchen display print is lost. This is true, i agree and that’s what i mean by this capitalist success in a way, this fake democratisation, which art exposes and strives to challenge. If it were in a key ring form then this would be a more extreme version of commodity. But what about when no one buys these key rings anymore? Is it a commodity no one wants (paradox to the definition) or can it become art? As we know artists have used objects no longer in demand to create new art and so the cycle begins again. These are overlaps and loop holes. Your final point, is a good one, but isn't quite related to the point I was trying to make. However, the beethoven example leaves me confused as it takes a different point to where i think i am going and may actually hit the main point too. So here goes; a Beethoven cd produced by a corporate company merely reflects its safe sales popularity. But I disagree that the company does not make the music a commodity only in the sense that certain companies will do all they can to sell. In doing so they may pick music which they think will sell, which is probably something you agree with. So they see the potential for demand and commodity opportunities. If the music is good artistically or put another way, made not with the intention of making money, then is it not a commodity, no of course not, i agree, we’re on the same page still... But was Beethoven not privileged and began his life imitating from established others before actively seeking and capitalising on the bourgeois? This is why we have more accounts of classical music than folk of that time. And now his music is often more remembered with film scenes and adverts. I agree, that this should not make the music less an art, but unfortunately art is also created through cultural references and so, it must pass through different stages of commodity and art. How it overcomes these hurdles is perhaps another even more difficult art form. I agree with the notion that when music is made purely to satisfy and leach off an existing or monetary market for monetary reasons then this is commodity. But sometimes, just sometimes you get cross over or just simply music that seems a commodity because it’s just really stupid even though the artist was full of intent.
deathtokoalas
"But there is art which can meet the demands of the masses, from socialist realism propoganda to book art and social land art."
that doesn't fit the definition of a commodity.
"In fact if commodity is only in meeting a demand then art too is often a commodity because it has been used to meet the demands for e.g city renewal, selling a product, designing a product, selling an ideology etc.""
that's not art.
and the idea that it is is precisely why andy warhol needs to be destroyed.
"surely a commodity is not about demand at all."
i've provided a technical definition of a commodity. it's in any economics 101 textbook. it's not open for debate.
"If an art work exists in a gallery then there is a demand for that art work, or for a particular art for particular audience for a particular desire."
the difference comes in whether the piece was produced to meet a demand or has created a demand in itself. it is a very important distinction. large amounts of what you see in galleries are not art, but commodities. they exist purely to generate profit by meeting a demand.
i stopped reading at that point. you didn't understand anything i typed.
roxane
Your reasoning is quite interresting but there is a massive hole in it. You're thinking in terms of American definitions of "mainstream" and those are not valid in other areas of the world to some extent.
deathtokoalas
right. because grimes was hoping to make it huge in saudi arabia....
these sorts of observations may make some people feel good about themselves, but they're almost always entirely irrelevant.
roxane
I'm not talking about saudi arabia necessarily but yeah, with internet any artist can be heard on the other side of the planet. I'm actually talking about Europe because I notice quite often that people take it for granted that Western culture is generally the same but it isn't. What you guys call "hipster" for instance might just be the standard French style so it doesn't make much sense here. The way Grimes might be percieved here is different from the way you guys percieve it. I also think about Asia where Grimes is also popular to some extend. I think that there indeed she might fit the popular culture quite well. I think you need to broaden your vision of art and culture and take the rest of the world in account too, America is not the main standard.
deathtokoalas
in the past, popular culture tended to flow in a one-way direction out of the anglosphere, which to an extent includes germany and japan (but has not really included france in the post-war period). when influences from india or asia or latin america worked their way into the anglosphere, it was usually through an english intermediary. an example would be george harrison's use of the sitar. i think that's slowly changing and that media from outside the anglosphere will become more and more important within it over the course of the next few decades.
but i really don't think how grimes might be perceived in asia ever really crossed her mind as important to her as she was writing, nor does it have any meaning in the context of how she is perceived in the anglosphere.
if you want to have a conversation about globalization or multicultural inclusion within a classroom or something, that's your prerogative. but i really don't see the relevance of any of that within this conversation.
i mean, the basics of what i'm saying about commodities apply regardless of whether you're talking about domestic or foreign markets. i'm not trying to write off grimes as a hipster in the first place, i'm just pointing out that it didn't make sense for her to market her peppy, super mainstream pop music to dour, nihilist rivetheads. if there's an implication there, it's that she isn't much of a hipster, but was misunderstanding her potential to appeal to hipster audiences.
i'm not one myself, but i like abstract music, so i've associated with quite a few hipsters and i can't imagine any of them enjoying this at all. what defines a hipster, to me, is the tendency to fall for musical hacks that somehow get promoted as groundbreaking or brilliant: it's an inability to see through the hype. sometimes, it's just a level of ignorance regarding the history. you'll see hipsters loving something that's a rip of something twenty years before it. other times, it's a lack of musical training: you'll see hipsters misinterpreting half-assed improvisation or random note bashing as brilliant composing. what i tend to do is walk into that space and try and explain to the hipsters why something isn't actually as good as they think it is. so, i get a natural overlap with the hipsters, in that we both like the actually interesting and groundbreaking music. but i'm really the anti-hipster in the sense that i'll smash through that hype and very loudly reject it.
this doesn't really have the level of nuance necessary to create the confusion. it's just pop music.
roxane
My point is that "pop" music depends on what is popular within a country's culture. You should come one time in Europe and see the differences among the different cultures and sub-cultures. I'm currently living in the Netherlands and there mainstream is EDM and a lot of American pop music whereas in France we have our own pop music because the state is funding French musicians and there is a mandatory rate of French music that has to be broadcast (I think it's 20% or something). I don't think Grimes made any speculations or market strategies to get popular according to some standards, maybe she wanted to attract hipsters because, after all, that seems to be her culture, but here in Europe it doesn't make any sense to talk about it. Maybe it's pop music, maybe it's not, maybe nobody cares it depends on your standards anyway. I personally don't think much about "pop music" especially coming from America, what I listen is mostly British or French and I'm just glad when they make it big.
deathtokoalas
canada has similar cultural requirements, and it's produced a successful local industry. but, here, it functions more as a launching pad. a lot of successful canadian artists going back to bryan adams owe their success to those requirements. that may have actually helped grimes; i don't know, i don't listen to the radio anymore. but back in the 90s there were a number of canadian rock bands like i mother earth, the tea party and our lady peace that really built their career on those requirements, as they applied to radio and muchmusic (the canadian version of mtv). it's also the reason rush continues to get such heavy airplay.
there's a concept of global pop music that is more or less identical to "english pop music". i'm not going to go back and rewrite any posts or ask any other commenters to do so because it is clear from the context, but you can make that mental adjustment if you'd like.
s65s85dfyfjh
"this doesn't really have the level of nuance necessary... it's just pop music." Yes. This. It feels like a whimsical, pseudo-inspired riff on pop culture, without saying much more. Which isn't even necessarily a bad thing; it's just pleasant background music and flashy visuals without too much deep thought.
Byu Bianca
like honestly, honestly my opinion is that you kind of DO actually think too much. No one (well, except you) cares THAT much about who listens to her or about which kind of "culture" she fits in. Her music sounds good, at least to me (and no, I do not listen to pop. I prefer rock, metal, punk, indie and almost anything that are a part of them). By saying to the person that didn't like your music that their ears weren't any good in the first place was extremely stupid of you. Why? BECAUSE PEOPLE USE THEIR EARS TO LISTEN, TO HEAR. That person listened your music and said it wasn't good. Be over with it. Let it be. It's probably not the first time it happens and it sure won't be the last. MUSIC IS SUBJECTIVE. ART IS SUBJECTIVE. Just let it be. Also no, koalas shouldn't die just because you want to. You are entitled to your opinion and I get that but I see no reason why koalas should die.
deathtokoalas
well, i think you're over-estimating how much i have invested into thoughts i post to youtube. on grimes videos. and in general.
also, i'd like to inspire you to remove the right ventromedial area of your prefrontal cortex.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
none of the above, i was just trying to be specific. i mean, i could have suggested planting a pen in her noggin', but it wouldn't have really gotten the point across - which is that i was being sardonic. nor was it even meant as an insult.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
such an operation would not lead to death, it would merely render one unable to understand sarcasm.
Sérgio Ferreira
hey, +deathtokoalas, I understand your point but I think you're misleading what Grimes is herself and what those big fat and mean corporations try to make out of her. I can only give you my point of view on her as a fan and I have quite tried to understand why I liked her. When she blew out back in 2012, I remember I hated those hip-hop 90s goth clothes and also thought she was this "new thing" coming out and trying to be created by nowadays mass-crafters like Pitchfork and those NY niche critiques. I mean, she was not the average indie rock or electronic singer we could find revisiting 80's and 90's dream pop around that time. She had something in common, but with a different mix to be understood. Around that time I was learning more about those old 4AD bands and also about industrial pioneers (I mean the true ones, like Cabaret Voltaire, Einstürzende Neubauten, Throbbing Gristle). So Grimes, picked me up with this song right on time. She sounded like Elizabeth Frazer at some points, had tracks sounding pretty much like distorted beaten up Japanese Nine Inch Nails, with this eerie feeling. I still had itches with her sayings about Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and how did she mixed up all of those influences. She has referenced those I quoted, and among others, Nine Inch Nails, Dolly Parton, j-pop, and so on.
I made out all of this just to explain my point clearly that I don't really think she can't simply be put in the same bag as other pop singers (like Azaelia Banks, Charli XCX, and so on, and so on), even if you didn't bring those to the discussion. She may indeed have a simple and catchy sound, but that doesn't mean the more carefully listeners can't consider her as artistical, nor I think she brings Andy Warhol pop art theories in consideration for her music and videos. She just came from this underground music circuit that apparently went in Vancouver and released a few albums while crafting and perfecting this anime, internet-inspired, maybe a little innocent and young style. I don't think it came to her mind she was trying to fill the needs of some y-gen pop, darkwave, hipster or other fan boy, I think she just happened to fit in.
MR B
Y U HATE KOALAS U EVIL BEEEOTCH!!!!!
deathtokoalas
koalas need to be destroyed due to their horrific levels of cuteness. it's not something vindictive, it's just an unavoidable conclusion.
MR B
its a very avoidable situation! why dont you target possums are something!
deathtokoalas
possums aren't cute, they're kind of gross. but, the level of cuteness demonstrated by koalas can just simply not be allowed, under any circumstances.
MR B
so you just say fuck it, kill all the pretty, cute, innocent animals? I bet you hate kangaroo's too dont u
deathtokoalas
no. koalas are singularly condemned.
their cuteness is just perverse.
