Flaccid House
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Just back from a week sitting by a hotel pool in Rhodes where this musical guff was ubiquitous. I would rather listen to ANYTHING other than this crap. Music, if you can even call it that, for people who don’t like music. Or dancing. Or anything?!
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Can’t really get on board with the RA article. Primarily because it conflates so many things under some kind of assumed universal ‘dance music culture.’ It reads like a culture-wide malaise pinned on dance music, when most of what it diagnoses are wider societal symptoms: phones out, identity-performance, algorithmic taste. Basically platform culture leaking onto the dance floor.
Sure headliner monoculture is real, but it’s driven by festivalisation, PR and follower-count bookings. Ironically things RA itself has helped amplify. And the supposed “progressive politics in retreat” pendulum is pure nostalgia. Hedonism and activism have always been around in pockets. People have and should be able to go out and have the best fucking night of their lives without “taking a stand.” A night out doesn’t cancel political engagement the rest of the week. Mega-festival crowds seeking pure entertainment aren’t morally vacant, either.
As Terre Thaemlitz has gone on about for years, “community” often sells a fantasy of belonging while ignoring the real forces that shape ‘scenes.’ I’m with @AJE: you can’t force people to feel things or superimpose sentiment. Giant Steps last weekend was the best night I’ve had in years, and I’m hardly part of any London “community” after over a decade away. Although was nice to have a drink with Piers, of this parish. These parties survive precisely because they don’t get involved in any of the shit this RA writer is going on about. At times when reading the article I wasn’t too sure what point was in fact being made (probably an argument that can be made about this post as well and that’s fair enough, I’ve gone off on all kinds of tangents here)
None of that is a surprise really because RA is what it is these days. Lazy third year “vibes” discourse from afar and very little reporting on those whose work actually keeps culture(s) alive. To paraphrase Weatherall: dance-music journalism was never the finest example of the journalistic art. So no surprise really.
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I agree with you about RA. Akin to what Vice became IMHO, forever railing against the norm in the hope to be edgy…
Edgelords more like 
This is why I get bored of the “music is political”and acid house evangelism narrative- because there’s myriad perspectives.
The Guardian and publications you mention would have you believe this broad strokes view, because it suits their sociopolitical narrative and it’s easier to sell a myth, it’s no reflection of the nuances and subjectivity of individual experiences, as you seem to suggest.
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really enjoyed the communist museum in Dubrovnik. Absolutely fascinating. Unlike any other I’ve visited
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Thanks for the recommendation. It’s an amazing film really enjoying it.
Unfortunately, I can’t stop associating Albert Finney with Keith Floyd, but that’s my issue I suppose
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Great points…but I think she’s on to something at least in describing what that particular scene feels like (and the beige music).
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exactly >>>
People have and should be able to go out and have the best fucking night of their lives without “taking a stand.” A night out doesn’t cancel political engagement the rest of the week.
Italian is a great language which I would love to get to grips with. I still chuckle thinking about Roisin Murphy putting real passion into ‘Ancora Tu’ without understanding a single word 
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Yep, very true. It’s had an idealogical myth built into from the very start. See also the early to mid 1960’s. The varied realities of Human nature always persistently endure.
Another current example is the world of psychedelics.
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Reading this for the second time. Essential reading with all that’s going on right now. I’ve bought this for a few friends and family who are strongly vocal about the whole Isreal/Palestine situation.
Having grown up in a very pro Palestinian family, through my mother who has been involved in the cause (and Amnesty) since before I was born. This book (and others) is the long story of two peoples and corrects many of the nonsense given as fact, by both sides.
Highly recommended
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I read this a couple of times and it’s very thorough and fun and clever, but underneath all of that, is it also a bit snide? Ive never been moved by Eno, and I guess he’s more for the head than the heart, so maybe thats why I dont feel the same sense of betrayal by him that this author seems to feel.
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Marina Warner’s latest - about the idea of Sanctuary and how it came to be defined and thought about - gives a deep perspective on the current politics of fear around Migrants and Refugees.
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Interesting. Will stick my neck out and have a gander
Apologies. As you were.
Brian Eno is just doing his thing isn’t he? whether we or the critics like it or not. Good for him.
Mr Penman seems to want to put him in a box- it’s a good example of the contrast between the lack of constraints in art and the obvious confines of criticism.
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