Saturday, July 17, 2004
(9:41 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Making love understandable
The phonograph record, and all subsequent improvements thereof, is a strange invention. Originally, of course, music was played live, and only those who were present could share the memory of a particular performance. It was obviously still possible to play the "same song," but it would necessarily be different each time. Recording technology introduces two changes. First, the "performance" is the same each time, mechanically reproduced. Second, the "performance" takes place no place in particular. With the exception of live albums or bands who record in one take, most recordings are pieced together, technologically enhanced, etc.--none of what we hear actually ever happens until we push play on the CD player. Nine Inch Nails or similar bands are only extreme cases: even the lo-fi sound is artificial, since no live performance is going to duplicate the sound of having recorded onto an answering machine over the phone or whatever.So all this stuff on CDs doesn't really happen until we listen to it off the CD, and then it still isn't taking place in any discrete location, because it's potentially taking place anywhere, and any old person can listen to it. But it all still functions as a memory, even a shared memory--when I start singing, "Darlin', don't you go and cut your hair...," there's bound to be someone in the room (in the circles I run in, at least) who will start singing along. I don't have to have listened to that album with the person or under the same circumstances as that person. To continue with the Pavement example, I stole their entire oeuvre one fateful summer thanks to the magic of Kazaa. I am beyond a simple poseur, but I still know the songs just like someone who continued to follow them despite the fact that they totally sold out after Slanted and Enchanted.
We could go further: what about the broad patterns in songs? What happens when what we know about love, for example, is mediated through songs? My abortive attempt to understand the concept of fatherhood in rock music was based largely on the recognition that this stuff actually does shape how we think and how we act. Is there something in the format of the "love song" that warps us? (As a sidenote, what are the consequences of plugging religious sentiments into the format of the "love song," which is now the task of an entire industry?) Even with the first love, one can experience the uncanny feeling that "this isn't how I remembered it"--and even in a relationship where people have consciously decided to try for something different, there can still be an inertial effect, a feeling of disappointment that it just isn't happening like we all think it should be happening. There is a way that we all think it should happen. We share those memories. We know certain things -- we are all the "everyone" of "everyone knows that...." (Lacan's "big Other" = Heidegger's "das man"?)
I don't know where to go with this. I'm lucky it's just a blog post. I was going to write a deeply allusive post made up of nothing but quotes (unmarked) from other people--indirect communication, very artful, very cool, people would maybe even cry. I've been in the car too much today and can't sit in front of the computer anymore, so that will have to wait.
(Grammatical question: in the phrase "blog post," is "blog" an adjective, or is it a noun being used as an adjective? The test: can it be used adjectivally in other settings? Maybe it can; I don't know.)
