One of my favorite word twists, which I think I only ever used on my blog, is "common groove"
Basically I have this perspective that the best black music, whether it's funk or disco, tends to be the most commercially successful stuff. The cream rises to the top.
Because of all these obscurantist reissue labels, you have a generation of hipsters who have listened to all this objectively second or third division disco, funk, etc - but never actually listened to Rose Royce or Stevie Wonder or whoever - the stuff that got into the charts and that masses of people bought and listened to.
All that stuff is common groove because there are loads of vinyl copies lingering in the world, going cheap - and full of wonderful music. You could probably pick up 7 albums worth of it for the price of one of these stupid reissues.
It relates to Northern Soul actually - that was the original 'rare groove' although they didn't use that term, they talked about "rare soul".
They had a whole inside-out perspective where they wouldn't play Motown because it was 'commercial' - meaning simply that it was so indisputably good that normal people liked it and bought it!
Might have been yourself or a comment left here, along the lines of a person can know all about 'Independent soul and funk music from Ohio 1973-1976' but nothing about the Ohio Players!
ReplyDeleteI don't remember that but it's bang on. Wish I had come up with it!
DeleteAgreed. But isn't the same true of all popular music? You get similar rarity-obsessed cultists in other genres. They love the Seeds and the 13th Floor Elevators more than the Rolling Stones and the Byrds. Or they champion Junkshop Glam over T-Rex, Slade and the Sweet. And they are just as wrong!
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's about championing one over the other - it's more a question of never having listened to the canonic black music in the first place but listening to something obscure regional or bedroom version of it because Numero Group reissued it.
ReplyDeleteBut say with your examples, I should imagine nearly all garage punk fans or junkshop glam fans are familiar with Stones/Yardbirds or T.Rex/Sweet. I think that syndrome is more like a fanatic's condition of wanting more more more - you are so into something that you have an active appetite for the derivative stuff, the second-division and the third-division.
But as a semi-related example of what you are talking about, I remember reading in a fanzine (Forced Exposure actually) that Pretty Things were a much better, wilder group than the Rolling Stones. The Stones were described as a decent R&B group out of England. Pretty Things were the real deal. They do have one great psych rave-up, "Defecting Grey" but yeah, that is pretty daft stance.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm always amazed at the descriptions of some of the really obscure soul songs that turn up on things like Ace Records compilations (and I admittedly have more than a few of them), 45 rpm singles of which are trading for upwards of $1,000 (and it's always $1,000.) Who exactly are buying these records for such amounts? I'm thinking of a character like the one played by Steve Buscemi in "Ghost World", bemoaning the social corner he's painted himself into by making 78 rpm record collecting his life's work.
ReplyDelete