18th January 2012
Quote
But it is in the context of time passing that the real process of a bad song in a real life begins to function. A bad song is absorbed whole, in the moment, unconsciously. The person whose life it enters barely knows it’s there - it’s just part of the day. But as time goes on, and the song fails to live up to the life of the person carrying it, it starts to break down. It reveals itself as a tumor in the psyche. Never saying its name, it frames the bits and pieces whoever absorbed the song was willing to settle for - and that’s all there is.
Of course, almost everyone settles. No one wins. The absolute was denied in the Garden of Eden, and the defining characteristic of human beings remains their ability to want what they know they cannot have. That contradiction produces rage, desire, hate and love, and real art brings all those things to life. Art that quiets or buries those cultural instincts can’t survive the human faculty - it falls apart. But as it does, it humiliates whoever carries it.
— Greil Marcus, ‘Corrupting the Absolute’, in In the Fascist Bathroom: Writings on Punk, 1977-1992
Tagged: not totally sure how much I agree with thisbut Greil Marcus definitely really cares about music a lotso that's cool I guessGreil MarcusIn The Fascist Bathroommusic
