7 January 2005

Today's reading list

  • Moral Values My Ass
  • Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism
  • K5 Article on Wikipedia Anti-elitism
  • Academia and Wikipedia
  • Nickelback
  • The Identity of a Song
  • Music In and Out of Time
  • Moral Values My Ass
  • [ via Patridiot ]

    A potty-mouthed Kid Rock plays at the inauguration. Expect claims of academic left-wing social decay by the right.

  • Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism
  • [ via Kuro5hin ]

  • K5 Article on Wikipedia Anti-elitism
  • [ via Corante ]

  • Academia and Wikipedia
  • [ via Corante ]

    Round-up of the flurry of Wikipedia comment. The results: Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia, but has great merit for what it has to offer. Only said with loquacity.

  • Nickelback
  • [ via Mikey Smith ]

  • The Identity of a Song
  • [ via Scott Spiegelberg ]

  • Music In and Out of Time
  • [ via Arts Journal ]

    Wonderful musings on song recognition that begins with Mikey Smith's pairing of two different Nickelback songs that mash-up very closely with no editing whatsoever. Scott Spiegelberg labels them, together, merely a quodlibet [Wikipedia] and not outright copying. Or self-copying. I love music that feeds on itself and feel that a primary fault of much of rock music is that themes are not investigated thoroughly enough or with enough invention. How inventive is the Nickelback work? Listen and decide for yourself.

    Spiegelberg then points to an article by Kyle Gann pondering the deficiencies of young or untrained listeners:

    What’s disappointing is that for young musicians, momentary identity is often everything, and what happens in the piece hardly exists. ... From experiences in my criticism class, I’m tempted to think that this is a listening habit inculcated by pop music. Most pop songs retain pretty much the same sonic identity from beginning to end.
[ posted by sstrader on 7 January 2005 at 2:06:22 PM in Today's reading list ]