From: mbutler@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (M. COOPER / B. McQUAID)
Newsgroups: alt.music.alternative,rec.radio.noncomm
Subject: Re: Alternative radio stations
Date: 7 Apr 92 03:24:12 GMT
Followup-To: alt.music.alternative
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <1992Apr1.173932.16184@Csli.Stanford.EDU> glad@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Clayton Glad) writes:
-" I wrote:
-" 
-" >-"I noted that all of your posts on music had been about artists who 
-" >-"were well-ensconced on the CMJ charts and asked if we were justified 
-" >-"in concluding that you were of average college-musical intelligence.
-" 
-" mbutler@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (M. COOPER / B. McQUAID) writes:
-" 
-" >	They were well ensconced on the charts because I hadn't
-" >cared to begin the threads about them. 
-" 
-" Really now, Milo.  I think it had relatively little to do with you.  They
-" charted the way they did because first of all there's a large apparatus
-" in place to make sure that these records come to the attention of MDs
-" and programmers and second of all because the artists and their handlers
-" make sure the the proper image of mild counterculturalism is projected.
-" 
	That isn't what I meant.  I meant that the groups mentioned
here on r.m.a to which you refer as being all over the CMJ charts
are in discussions which were not initiated by myself.

-" >Experience with the net has taught me that it is a waste of time to begin 
-" >chatting about more obsucre bands because most people here have never heard
-" >of them!
-" 
-" Then what's alt.music.alternative for?  Isn't "alternative" synonymous with
-" "unpopular" or "obscure"?  That's how you've taught us to use the word.
-" 
	Yes, but whether the netters choose to adhere to that
definition is up to THEM, is it not??

-" >	And what's wrong with NME and MM?  You aren't reading my
-" >posts in any type of perspective.  I don't care for most of the
-" >articles in these publications, but they do, from time to time,
-" >feature articles on very creative and influential bands.  NOW
-" >who's being elitist?
-" 
-" The pokes about CMJ, NME and MM were to point out that the music you seem
-" to be interested in is not only popular, but provides a standard of 
-" conformity among a large class of college students.  Now it seems that
-" your interest in this brand of music is merely a way for you to make contact
-" with the mortals of the net and that your true musical interests are so
-" difficult and obscure that we would be blinded just to see them posted.
-" 
	Call it what you like.

-" Me:
-" 
-" >-" Pop music is music which is popular; obscure music is music which is 
-" >-" unpopular or unknown.  These each describe contingent properties of
-" >-" pieces of music and as such can't serve to prove what's "good" or not:
-" >-" obscure music sometimes comes to be popular and vice-versa.
-" 
-" Milo:
-" 
-" >	You're going to have to do better than "sometimes." 
-" 
-" Not at all.  Your claim is that "obscure" music is better than popular.
-" Since it happens -- even if only sometimes -- that obscure music becomes
-" popular your claim entails that the music changes in quality just by
-" virtue of being purchased or broadcast.  That's absurd.
-" 
	My fault, I should have said "in general."

-" >Anyway, I've said repeatedly that pop caters to the unremarkable
-" >of intellect.  Prove me wrong.
-" 
-" Okay.  I know plenty of people of remarkable intellect who enjoy certain
-" pop music.  I even know some who produce it.
-" 
	They enjoy "certain pop music."  Do they enjoy pop best?
Then they aren't of remarkable intellect.

-" There you go.  Let me recommend this method of argumentation to you.  It
-" involves making reference to people and things in the real world.
-" 
-" >	Since this is the ALTERNATIVE ROCK portion of the net, where
-" >we discuss Alternative Rock, I guess it would seem that way to
-" >some people, wouldn't it?
-" >	It wouldn't do for me to bring up Jerry Goldsmith or Gyorgy
-" >Ligeti or Les Mysteres Des Voix Bulgares.
-" 
-" Huh?  Looks like alt.music.alternative to me, and since "alternative"
-" doesn't describe a genre I don't see why any of those artists couldn't
-" be discussed here.  Besides, there's a whole world of "rock" artists out
-" there who haven't been anointed or created by the college/Brit music
-" industry. 
-" 
	Ah, but why would I discuss those artists here, and not in
more appropriate channels?

					- MILO D. COOPER  '92
					-Negro Extraordinaire
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