In other words, is "No Thyself" a simulacrum? My question, which I suppose comes down to the same thing, is "Is it the real thing"? And if it isn't, why not? It's the same sort of music made by the same people, so why should "No Thyself" be considered something essentially different from "Secondhand Daylight"? The real question this album poses is the significance of time, which it brings up under near-laboratory conditions. NT is not derivative, unless you see it as derived from themselves. It fits naturally into the sequence of Magazine's albums, their fifth, and not very unlike its four predecessors. If it had come out in 1985 (which it nearly could have, sound-wise), it would just have represented natural progression. The only anomaly is that gap of 30 years - is that gap enough to turn NT into a derivative throwback to an era now dead? Or is it possible and legitimate to lay down an artistic project and then just pick up where you left off thirty years later, with no inherent loss of artistic worth or integrity?
Great questions. I'm not quite sure how to answer them. I believe a possible answer could be something to the effect of, yes, Magazine is now a simulacrum of Magazine inasmuch as Howard Devoto and crew must have intentionally gone into the studio with the idea of making an album that sounded like a direct continuation of their first four albums. They had to distort themselves to become themselves.
I know that sounds like lit-crit bullshit, but it's actually common sense. Think of it this way: how many steps do you go through, on a daily basis, to make yourself appear like yourself? How many little ways do you find to try and efface the passing of time? (For a more obvious example, think of what movie stars go through.) You don't have to be a narcissist to understand what I'm talking about. It's pretty simple. The point of Plato's distinction in "Sophist" is that a simulacrum is always tinged with a deliberate lie. The raw truth is distorted-- whether subtly or not-so-subtly-- to make something appear to be what it's supposed to be. You, me, and everyone else all have to act consciously to make ourselves be ourselves, whether we're humdrum everyday folk or ostentatious dandies. So, try imagining what Howard Devoto must have gone through to recreate a 30-year old sound. He must have asked himself, at the beginning, "How can I make this Magazine record sound like Magazine"?
In short - is pop music now, in some possible sense, outside time?
This is probably a better way to approach the question. I had this same thought myself. The reason "No Thyself" may be a simulacrum yet
not sound derivative is simple: it exists outside of time, to our ears, whereas the concept "derivative" necessarily implies a passage of time. An original exists, after which something else comes into being which borrows from the original. This is the sleight of hand Plato chided. The work which is clearly indebted to a previous work sort of announces, "I borrow from Y". But the sneaky simulacrum doesn't say, but rather implies, "I
am Y". This is essentially the meaning of the term "virtual reality".
In any case, I think your questions about derivative art might indicate that you're making a negative value judgment. Would you agree? Perhaps it sounds like I'm insulting Magazine by calling the band a simulacrum. To the contrary. If, as you say, their fifth album might be the best of their career, then "No Thyself" is a positive instance of Deleuze's theory about a total, unbroken realm of simulacrum: originality doesn't matter, nor does primacy. The model no longer has any authority. Hierarchy vanishes. The paradox is that in the process of sounding like a near-perfect copy of themselves, Magazine actually stepped into freedom. All of the anxiety goes away. Howard Devoto can "be himself" again. Can you imagine the pressure and criticism if he had strayed, as Lou Reed found out recently after his collaboration with Metallica?
Just thinking about a band that did not sound like itself, New Order. I liked both "Get Ready" and "Waiting For The Sirens' Call", their two comeback LPs. But I didn't love them, and although I appreciated the ways in which they'd grown as a band, the fact of the matter is they sounded like a paler, less muscular version of the New Order I grew up loving. To have gotten their sound right, they'd have needed to take Magazine's approach. Here's the thing, though. In 2005 (WFTSC), I would have been appalled at such an approach. In 2012, I might not mind at all...
This gets back to what I was saying, above. Something has changed-- either in myself, or in the music, or both, but in any case very much affected by the current cultural/technological landscape-- so that a newer artist (M83, Destroyer, etc), whose work might ostensibly be a slavish imitation of Eighties music, no longer sounds drearily nostalgic or stuck in the past, but delightful and fresh, freed of time, unbounded by any limitations.
We are hard-wired for idiocy (If fortunately also for certain other things).
Yes, we are!
Just goes to show that marketing (in the broadest sense) is a tolerable phenomenon only for as long as it is relatively inefficient. Personally I’ve always felt that it should at all times be born in mind that something that exists to manipulate you ought never to be taken seriously in any degree or form, no matter what it has to say or how it says it. Same goes for the algorithms to which people seem to happily hand over the utterly basic responsibility of choosing what you read or listen to.
Right, but as theorists like Adorno and Deleuze & Guattari tried to show, part of the way marketing functions in our era is to make us believe and not believe at the same time. As Adorno put it, "See through and obey". We all see through ads. We're all savvy to how advertising works. Yet it works on us, anyway,
because we see through it. Here in the states,
everyone "sees through" the farce of American politics, and did so long before 2008, and yet Obama still got a huge portion of the country excited about him, as if he were a new JFK. How is it possible that thousands of allegedly sophisticated people, each of whom could give an accurate description of how money (to take only one example) corrupts Washington, still poured out in the streets when the candidate who took more money than any in history was finally elected?
Another example just occurred to me. Recently, the prime minister of Norway published his spotify favorites list on his Facebook profile, you know, like Obama did. This was picked up on in the press, and one article penetratingly observed that the list showed that politicians were now marketing their personal taste as a sort of identity grab with political overtones, and that as such, the contents of the PMs list was fairly safe and predictable for a modern social democrat. And then it went on, not to discuss the problems of this or to ridicule it, but on the contrary to critique the PMs list for not containing the right music according to that logic. The couple of current entries, included to appear up to date, would have been more effective if he’d chosen this or that song instead. He would have appeared more credible to this or that segment if he’d chosen this song instead of that, and so on. So, nothing wrong with the principle, apparently. He just ought to have done it better.
That's hilarious, and yes, exactly what we're talking about here. Obama did something slightly in the same vein (personal taste/identity grab) with an inteview he had with a popular sports personality, in which he got to talk about basketball and even mentioned his appreciation of the TV show "The Wire". Came across as personal, humble, casually and cheerfully revealing the "regular guy" behind the politician, but of course every single line was probably scripted. But, see, here again, my own complicity in the problem is apparent because I
liked the interview. I couldn't help it! I could see through it like a clear blue sky and yet I got caught up in the lie. Like a good confidence scam,
I was the most important part of the trap, saying to myself, "Sure, this is all calculated to win over voters, but after all, maybe he really does like Omar from 'The Wire'...?" I'm no better than the voter who listens to Sarah Palin and says to herself, "She's slick, and I know she'll say anything to get elected, but after all, isn't there a Mom in there...?" Same with playlists. Did you read the PM's playlist? Did you find yourself saying, "Okay, his PR person put that one in, but perhaps he really does like X, Y, and Z...surely his PR guy let him throw in a few real ones?"
