Tuesday 23 July 2019

Laidback Luke feat. Jonathan Mendelsohn - Timebomb

No proper post tonight because I've written this for Verso. It's about Boris Johnson so if you haven't had your fill, do check it out.

As is customary when the writing fires have ebbed here abides a tune for your consideration. Its title and the installation of a new leader of the Tory party is an entirely coincidental happenstance.

2 comments:

PlebJames said...

It would be interesting to know where you stand on people like Mark Fisher, who commented on culture as you might on 'proper' sociological or political issues.
Is it worthwhile to consider if there any criteria that you can judge music (and music videos) on, with any objectivity or in reference to wider societal issues?
I say this because I am pretty certain your taste in music is objectively appalling. This tune is bobbins and the video is super-duper naff central.
Why do you like this stuff?
(No offence)

Phil said...

Haha, none taken. And yes, I genuinely like dance music.

Of course, objectivity is always a chimera. But you can write about these things with reference to wider society. In one of my classes I play a music video each week and get the students to think about how sexuality and gender identities are performed, affirmed, subverted etc, and whether they swim with or against the grain of popular culture now and/or when they were first produced.

And Mark Fisher, top geezer. Spent a chunk of Christmas going through his blog. Nowhere near as well-versed in half the stuff he was into, so always come away a bit intimidated after reading his stuff. Which he wouldn't have wanted at all! But still. Much missed - I wonder what he'd have made of insurgent Corbynism and the nervous breakdown in bourgeois politics since the general election.