Twitter was David’s public platform and tools for practicing a new language – clear and understandable for everyone, it was a space where he made friends and enemies.

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Sun 21 Jun 2020 14:58

RT @KevinMu84216654: @davidgraeber I can’t find words, however there seems to be some links. The working class are less likely to be able t…

Sun 21 Jun 2020 12:14

@soltvaydl yes the effect of “world music” is also interesting in this regard. But in any given country – ones I know, anyway, like Madagascar – there’s a similar but less marked pattern. Everyone knew the same bands & lyrics in the ’60s….and still sort of do.l

Sun 21 Jun 2020 12:11

@oukayBoomer well we don’t really know how it was governed but it seems likely some form of participatory democracy. But so was Tripolye, the Uruk phase in Mesopotamia, Teotihuacan, Tlaxcalan… There’s actually quite a lot.

Sun 21 Jun 2020 12:09

@markgrueter nope, just keeps telling me “access denied” when I try to sign up, no matter what browser I use

Sun 21 Jun 2020 12:01

@Pete_Branscombe I have heard the theory that e.g. “there are just so many possible guitar riffs and they’ve found them all” – but I don’t really buy it. However I suspect you are right in a broader sense. It becomes increasingly easy to just grab something you know will definitely work.

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:58

@jasmignonne @chunkymark I have a backlog of about 200. I think his Radical Sacrifice is somewhere among them. Right next to the compendium on Zombie lit on my shelf.

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:53

@only_odi one or two examples (I’m actually curious – bear in mind also you didn’t say how old you were).

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:51

@DrAndrewJGreen @reventropy I don’t get it. Why would that guy think that sampling contradicts rather than confirms my argument?

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:49

@Timjag72 but since I got you here, who are the best bands you work with? I need some new music, band camp is too vast, and I am too busy to spend hours and hours trying to locate it

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:48

@Timjag72 I was much more reflecting on the general rejection of creativity (in the form of hummable tunes) in any shared public space – this is why the lack of cheesy pop tunes, TV themes, etc was in a way even more disturbing than the lack of actual good music

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:46

@Timjag72 oh I have no doubt that talented young people exist, though “reform” of the dole, etc, also means they have way less time to develop it unless they’re middle class. This is actually a bit to the side of what I was saying but your analysis sounds spot on

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:42

RT @ddowza: @ddopefied @davidgraeber The lack of choice was a ‘feature’ in the 80s-90s, as outlined by Zappa here, but the internet has ope…

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:42

@ddowza @ddopefied the space for the creation of new genres that aren’t inspired by Hip Hop/rap, but that do make their way into any sort of public space, seems to have become vanishingly small

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:41

@ddowza @ddopefied in a similar way social theory in the ’70s produced Deleuze and Foucault etc etc, destroyed the existing canon, & thus created a new one. But the mass availability seems to created a segmentation into genres that emphasise some kind of purity, too.

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Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:38

@ddowza @ddopefied this is what I was reaching for: I think 1. the creation of a canon, and 2. the multiplicity of choice has had a perverse effect. What marked the ’60s was an utter rejection of 95% of the pop culture of earlier generations. But it created a new canon.

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:37

@KeithJCarberry @ddopefied as I remark, a lot of this comes from hearing songs I’d entirely forgotten being played in pubs, bars, etc – which, weirdly, were occupied by people half my age.

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:36

@ddopefied I didn’t like most of the pop culture of my youth. Most of my friends are around 30 and they actually know all the stupid tunes from the pop culture of my youth, which freaks me out a little, because most of it was crap, & it would be easy to generate new crap instead.

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:31

@VlanciPictures comics didn’t exist in 10,000 BC. Music itself doesn’t have a life-cycle. Specific genres might retreat into repetition, as they largely do.

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:30

@paniq never liked the show tbh; but I am a huge Buffy fan, for instance, and the theme song does nothing for me. I wanted to like it. It’s trying to sound like a memorable ’60s-style theme song. But ultimately it just refers to them.

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:28

@skiamakhos this is more interesting to me. I’ve noticed the background music in films & TV seems like it’s computer generated. It’s especially fun to put on the subtitles & see it say “(foreboding music)” “(cheerful music)” as some minimalist computer-generated tone sounds

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:27

@skiamakhos well that was always the case, I’m not talking saying “there’s no good music”, I’m talking about catchy tunes becoming part of mainstream culture. That’s why I emphasised stuff I don’t even like: ’70s pop, advertising jingles, TV themes

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:25

@OmarKamel I like ska and psychedelic and bluesy things but I wasn’t exactly saying “there’s no good music any more”, I can find it but it takes ever more time. What I was getting is “mainstream musical culture no longer favours catchy tunes that everyone becomes familiar with.”

Sun 21 Jun 2020 11:23

@SamuraiElf I discover new bands I like but it requires more and more effort as time goes by. The good stuff seems ever more bound by genre. Maybe what the ’60s and esp ’70s represented was a period when insurgent music first went mainstream, so there was a burst of mainstream creativity?

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