Archive
Christmas Massage (December 10) "For advertisers, it goes without saying, bland, commercial pop is the ideal medium to 'experientially enhance' the real message of (post-)modern Christmas, which is, of course: "Spend! spend! spend!""
Anti-Social Pop (November 10) "Above all, society must start taking the question of noise pollution far more seriously. This will prove almost impossibly difficult in a world stuck in a mindless consumer frenzy where noise is omnipresent - from the constant roar of traffic outside to the seemingly inescapable thump-thumping, whining-crooning-barking and repetitious crassness of pop radio in so many business premises, private vehicles and neighbourhood homes."
None of That Jazz (October 10) "Those two reputable 'pressure' groups, the Voice of the Listener & Viewer (VLV) and Friends of Radio 3 (FOR3) have at least two things in common: one, their supporters only read musoc.org's sordid pages in the privacy of a locked room, and two, their submissions to the BBC Trust's recent 'public consultation' regarding BBC Radio 3 are cut from the same cloth."
Shock As Survey Reveals Public Ignorance (September 2010) "As predictable as the Reader's Digest research is, it underlines the fact that UK society, like virtually everywhere else on the planet, is woefully benighted with regard to what was once a central pillar of Western high culture. Moreover, postmodernist thinking (if it can be called that) and neoliberalism are taking a pneumatic drill to the very foundations."
BBC Radio 3: Public Consultation Response (August 2010) "As part of its campaigning intention, musoc.org finds it appropriate to respond to (rare) public consultations of the sort currently underway at the BBC Trust, namely a review of the service provided by BBC Radio 3 (and Radios 4 & 7)."
Beyond Sandow's Ken (July 2010) "What happened, it seems, was that over lunch one day (which is how these things usually happen), Ken gave Greg not only his Manifesto, but also his permission to reproduce it on his blog...The salient fact here is that Greg, self-declared clairvoyant and doyen of American musical postmodernism, 'love[s] every bit of it' and proclaims it 'far healthier than anything I've yet seen the industry come up with.'"
Birthday Blues (June 2010) "If ever anyone doubted the brainwashing potential of media hype, they need only survey the boozed-up tens of thousands, penned in like sheep at market at their own considerable expense, bawling along word-perfectly to the puerile gibberish of their preening pop idols on distant stages."
Classical GIT Awards 2010 (May 2010) "Just like the Classical BRITs, only more so, the Classical GITs 2010, now in its first year, "celebrates the extraordinary glamour and gall of artists promoted by the UK recorded industry". Categories and winners: "
Blang Blang (March 2010) "As the huge video screens and clangorous amplification of some of his 'gigs' now attest (not to mention more and more examples of dubious musicianship), Lang Lang has become a pop star - in Sony's eyes, a 'classical Michael Jackson', perhaps."
Lo-Fi (March 2010) "Actually, why not keep those speakers in the spare room (to impress overnighting guests), and go for the top of the Bowers & Wilkins new "flagship" range, the '800 Diamond'? True, a pair will set you back £18,500, equivalent to, say, one thousand recital/concert/opera tickets or, put another way, one and a half year's wages for the millions on the UK's statutory minimum wage..."
Viewpoint: "A Spectre Is Haunting Croatia - The Spectre of Crossover", by A. Gavrilović (March 2010) "Maksim Mrvica, the world famous Croatian crossover pianist, gave a faulty performance of crossover pieces that were already too simple, too boring and too repetitive. To make matters worse, the piano sounded like a dying cat and the speakers were playing taped recordings of shallow-sounding drumming..."
Objective (February 2010) "People - bloggers - living in a neoliberal world spewing postmodernist mantras and dogmas from every business orifice tend to find themselves appalled by the mere concept of objectivity (even though they frequently, and obliviously, depend on objective assertions to attack it), because its implications draw them into sinister realms where all things are not equal and where their cultural credentials cannot glitter in the permanent sunshine and blue skies of relativism."
Faut Pas (January 2010) "Newcomers and detractors alike could be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that such nomenclature persists to exclude at worst, at best to confuse - reinforcing the prejudice that art music is primarily the domain of a cliquish band of illuminati."
B Listers (January 2010) "These pathetic lists smack above all of modern marketing - a juvenile way of packaging everything, even great composers and their music, so that it can be instantly absorbed by the great buying public."
09 Top Ten Top Ten (December 2009) "The end of every year is conspicuous by the presence of exaggerated media enthusiasm for 'Top Tens' (or 20s, 50s, 100s etc): the season when broadcasters and journalists, anxious to attract profligate punters, fill schedules and columns with the favourite pop songs/albums and films of various critics, 'celebrities' and, supposedly, the public."
Put A Stocking In It (December 2009) "Regardless of who the US, UK, Russia, Iran, China etc. are threatening this 'festive' season with their nuclear and other arsenals, peace on earth will always remain unattainable as long as every store, bar and TV/radio advert insist on belching out an endless cycle of every single pop banality ever recorded that has ever even mentioned the 'C' word."
Seedy Sales (November 2009) "And the annual Gramophone Guide, along with the media multinationals inevitably lurking in the shadows, pushing their products to the professional critics, perpetuates the idea that we consumers, music lovers secondarily, must keep on reading, keep on buying, keep on building up our precious Collections, so that we don't miss out on such and such's outstanding new interpretation of a work we all thought we already owned the most outstanding version of, because the Guide's unique diamond rating persuaded us to buy it a couple of years back."
Artful, Artless Media: A Brief Survey of Online Daily Newspapers, Part 1: USA & Canada (August 2009) "Of the 71 dailies considered: 31 (44%) had zero art music content, including the USA's two best-selling dailies (circulations over 2 million, or 10 times the survey's cut-off point), USA Today and Wall Street Journal; A further 15 had minimal art music content (defined as 1-2 items); Only 11 had substantial art music content (although never approaching levels for pop);"
Clap Them (In Irons) (July 2009) "In fact, this is an easy way to spot a cultural relativist. Clapping, to their way of thinking, signifies one of two things (and probably both): a 'Houghian' recognition that the concert-goer as paying customer should decide what goes, according to the supply-and-demand precepts of economic liberalism; or a 'Slatkinist' relaxing of stuffy 'elitist' rules."
Viewpoint: "A Call For A Return To Hierarchal Sobriety", by AC Douglas (July 2009) "In short, what I'm suggesting is a return to the hierarchal sobriety that was largely the norm in the pre-postmodern world; a frank admission of the separateness of the hierarchies of aesthetic value of the realms of high and popular culture, and an acceptance of the clear aesthetic distinction between the artifacts inhabiting each."
Dear Anne, and Tom Does a Service (July 2009) "Ironically, Midgette likens musoc.org to a kind of cultural 'Big Brother'. Ironically because the mantle of intolerance is clearly worn by even the most understated members of the massing hordes of pop 'music' fans." "Buried under the reams of bulletins and cultural musings on the great Michael Jackson, John Lennon's guitar etc, reposes the blog of The Guardian's eminent 'classical' music critic, Tom Service, who has thrown his weight behind the 'musoc.org are vicious snobs' approach to debate."
Rave New World (June 2009) "In sharp contrast to Huxley's era, today there are hundreds of millions of people - even many of those who still make distinctions between literature, fine art and art-house cinema on the one hand and pulp fiction, commercial art and Hollywood-style blockbusters on the other - who have come to believe that posturing, narcissistic media-stars warbling facile, juvenile doggerel in groaning, straining voices to an accompaniment of hackneyed, synthesised, amplified muzak, can constitute musical 'brilliance', 'artistry' or even 'genius' - let alone music."
Classic FM Countdown to the Hall of Shame (June 2009) "Classic FM is only anything more than this in that it carves up and packages the music in cynical and intensely annoying ways. At best, all it truly succeeds in doing is getting people hearing - not even really listening to - a narrow range of 'classics', embalmed in the Hall of Fame. Moreover, it buttresses the stereotype of a mummified, apolitical, anodyne, bourgeois culture with little relevance to the 21st century."