Those things are certainly not a waste of time (the term is 'ideology critique', and this has a long tradition, for what that's worth); I'm afraid your comments remind me of those of old-style arch-conservative academics who attempted to make a false distinction between those who just stick to 'the facts' and those who supposedly bring extraneous agendas to bear upon the subject - this criticism has often been used against feminist scholars, for example. There's no such thing as a purely objective analysis of anything, there are different ideological viewpoints from which to approach it. Ben approaches it from the point of view of his own rather particular branch of Marxism; other writers on Zappa or anything else equally bring their perspective to bear, however much they might try to render it invisible. He also relates Zappa's work to a variety of other paradigms, not just obviously 'politlcal' ones but such things as Joyce, J.H. Prynne and so on. Those who take a narrow formalist view to bear on any artistic work are equally 'talking constantly about oneself' in the sense of privileging their own set of priorities. I'd much sooner read something from Ben's perspective than from those who take Zappa's own explicit ideologies as read, uncritically. Alas this latter approach is the case with an awful lot of writing about music of all sorts, leading to a stream of fawning hagiographies, or stuff that purely equates work with its creators' intentions. An awful lot of writing on Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage, Cardew, Ferneyhough and others (and earlier stuff including my own on Finnissy) has been like this. Of course composers prefer this, but that doesn't make it any better. I'm sure Stockhausen would prefer if no-one actually looked at all the ideological implications of his guru status, false mystique, cult of personality, etc., but that wouldn't make such work unimportant. The same is true of any number of male artists who prefer not to see their work in the ways that some feminist ideology critiques discern, and so on and so forth.

Any popular musician who makes so much of the idea of 'No Commercial Potential'. as Zappa did, is immediately invoking the issue of the relationship between their work and the economics of musical production. Most writers on Zappa just accept Zappa's own view of this uncritically; Ben looks at it more deeply from a different angle. I can't ultimately accept his viewpoint in terms of the possiblities of being able to produce genuine counter-cultural subversion within the confines of the culture industry, as Ben seems to be arguing (from a neo-Situationist point of view), but wouldn't dismiss that possibility out of hand. But that's simply a different interpretation (partially to do with a slightly less high opinion of Zappa himself and a greater scepticism about Situationist ideas). Furthermore, I think he takes feminist critiques of Zappa's work far too lightly. But this was the first book to even start to look in detail at these issues, and a major addition to Zappa writing for that reason.

Me too. I just don't accept that any subject matter is equally interesting, and I think to say that Watson's approach to Zappa is interesting because of its elements of ideology critique is to risk taking Watson's own prejudices 'as read, uncritically'.

That statement seems blind to the fact that such issues can themselves be absorbed back into the cultural mainstream, blanched of all critical potential. Hearsay could now be enough to get a 'popular musician' (your phrase) invoking such an issue.

Ian, if you find my arguments so tiresome you don't have to read or respond to them, as you said yourself. But here are three more anyway.

(1) If you ask anyone who has the remotest knowledge of the field who the two most important improvising musicians in the UK over the last forty years are, I will bet you anything that the two names will be Bailey and Parker.

(2) Bailey and Parker (and Tony Oxley and Michael Walters) founded the Incus record label in 1970 and ran it together for 15 years. So that's a part of Bailey's biography which is intimately connected with Evan whether or not anyone thinks he's important.

(3) I'm not going to defend Paul Griffiths in particular (he may pop up and do so himself) but the subtitle of the book is "directions in music since 1945". Britten's music is not really influenced by any of these directions. At least I would assume that would be PG's reasoning.

Arch-conservative enough for you?

Yes, I agree. I said "valuable" not "brilliant"!

q-t, I agree with absolutely every word of that. (Admittedly, not with the sentences that came before or after it - I don't find Bernstein's libretto 'hackneyed and masturbatory', actually, I even find it rather moving in places, and it's not completely clear to me whether you're sympathising with Benjamin or with Adorno when you say that the latter 'tore that essay apart' and that Benjamin 'was trying to force something that he only half believed in'. Still, thanks for saying so well what I'd have liked to say myself.)

Well, whether they're lost on him is a moot point - he may be aware of them privately - but they certainly get lost when he starts indulging in polemic.

Sure, but that shouldn't preclude alternative opinions as well. Many with extensive knowledge of the new music field would say the most important immediate post-war composers were Boulez, Stockhausen, Nono, Cage, Maderna, and a few others (and I would agree, overall). But that sort of group-think is one things; there's room for different forms of canonisation. I don't share Richard Taruskin's view of the nineteenth century in which he argues strongly against the centrality of the Austro-German tradition (giving much greater weight to Italian, Russian and other traditions, in particular those which weren't particularly informed by Beethovenian ideals or influenced by Beethoven's music), but it's a coherently argued position from one well-familiar with the music. I know for a fact that Ben certainly knows Parker's work well, he just doesn't accept that it is as important as others think (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with him, just defending his right to have different opinions, which add to and enhance the range of perspectives available).


I'm not at home at the moment and don't have the book to hand; I'll have a look at what exactly he says about that when home.


Britten's music is a direction since 1945, just as is, say, Carter's. By the way, I'm not attacking Griffiths here; he has his own view of what's important, as does every writer on the period. Just saying that there's rooms for different canons (not arbitrarily selected - in the case of Britten or indeed many less 'avant-garde' figures, there is a strong case to be made for their influence and success at the very least) according to different aesthetic preferences.


You take a comment on one opinion as being indicative of a view on all opinions. It isn't.

If you look at the context within this thread, this was in response to the (tired) old criticisms of Ben writing mostly about his own prejudices rather than about the subject of his work. The point is that Ben doesn't have to raise the issues of commercialism and the culture industry into Zappa discourse - they are there already. Whether they can be absorbed back into the cultural mainstream is another issue entirely. Zappa brought that subject up, repeatedly (whatever his motivations - and I'm a lot more suspect of those than Ben is), Ben follows it up. I reckon some Zappa-worshippers would prefer that either Zappa's views are taken on face value (which is not what Ben does, he comes to support them as the result of a moderately intensive critical investigation) or not mentioned at all.