Believe what you want, he’s not my boyfriend



Well I think if we’re all going to live up to the Fluxblog summer gangbang promise, there has to be some inter-poster interaction. And I think the uber-theme this week here is context.

You see, Eppy posts one song he thinks is no good, to provide context for another song that he thinks is great (and I kind of agree, though it’s great in a very non-Fluxblog way, which I guess is the point). Tom comes up with a theme which is about how nostalgia recontextualises music (and in the baggy post he talks about how different subgroups can recontextualise the same era in totally different ways). Paul gives us a song in the context of the city it sings about, and Jebni gives us some songs in the context of a personal tragedy.

(And by the way, that Cyndi Lauper track is absolutely ESSENTIAL – that has made my week, despite the sad context)

And me, I think context is the big bugbear for everybody today. Is it “noise” i.e. does it interfere with our appreciation of “pure” music? Or is the context part of the fun? Is Toxic more fun because it’s Britney singing it? Or is that just irrelevant?

Well, frankly, to use a Barbelith injoke in a public forum, anyone who says it’s irrelevant needs to take a quick trip to selfawaria. We’re stuck with context. Just as you can’t know your own mind by looking at it, you can’t separate your enjoyment of music from what you think that music ‘means’ culturally.

But it struck me in a cab this morning, listening to Def Leppard on headphones, that if I imagined this record (“Hysteria”) as electronica, which sonically it almost could be, how almost completely shorn of context it could be. Electronic sounds somehow (to me anyhow) seem to mean contextually less because there is more diversity both sonically and culturally around electronic music than almost any other recognisable sound.

So to illustrate that I offer two instrumental electronic music mpegs. Partly because after surveying what’s been posted so far this week, I think that’s what’s missing. And I ask – what do you think the context is? Which one do you like more? Because, me, I think shorn of context, these two are very similar. And they both make me smile. And they’re both reminding me of someone who never says quite what she means, leaving a lot to context and ambiguity.

Some music

Also some music

(contextual spoilers coming up – do not read until you have listened)

One of these tracks comes from an LP on the Karloff label, and the other from a 12″ EP on Aftershock. The latter is probably no longer available to purchase having been released about 5 months ago. But in either case, your best bet to buy em is Juno.

What should be noted about both of these tunes is that both of them are more lighthearted, melodic and poppy than one would normally expect from the allotted contexts of the artists. But you already knew that, right? (and if you didn’t fuck off, lightweight) (or congratulations true believer)