28/10/2009
» Tom Ewing on Baggy
A fantastic, incredibly self aware piece on the author’s relationship with the Baggy/Madchester phenomenon driven by the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays.
His point that you can’t divorce yourself completely from your times and the influences around you is an important one and I think acceptance of this fact is the key to good music criticism. Many people have a hard time over coming their own ego and admitting they enjoy some kind of art for reasons other than that it is intrinsically good, entertaining or otherwise valuable.
I’ve often supported the idea proposed by some scholars that the neuro-chemical changes of adolescence literally burn certain events and tastes into our brains, including music. I’m sure there are socio-cultural milestones that can evolve or perhaps even override that influence (say for example radio or tv appeared when you were quite a bit older) but for most people their teens and twenties seem to be particularly sticky.
I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with admitting, as Ewing does, that the Stone Roses are important to him because he was the right age, in the right place at the right time, influenced by the right combination of marketing as journalism for it to be important to him. I also think it’s far more palatable approach to history than stubbornly trying to justify a particular band as the G.O.A.T. when in point of fact you were just impressionable when you were exposed to their music.
Link posted at 10:55
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