[BRIEF NOTE] Music and Kitsch and Camp
Nov. 18th, 2005 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldWednesday evening's posting on Madonna and her gay fanbase triggered a couple of interesting exchanges, including ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pompe's linking to Calle Norlén's 1998 article "ABBA, We love you !".
This reference to kitsch may well explain the popularity of ABBA, of similar pop-music artists (say, perhaps Madonna), and of all manner of groups and cultural trends. But why this interest in inauthenticity? Here, I think we have to turn to the notion of camp, of a sophisticated and ironic multi-level appreciation of popular culture against a systemic of hegemonic norms.
Let's accept Wikipedia's definition of as an adjectival terms for an "aesthetically impoverished object of shoddy production, meant more to identify the consumer with a newly acquired class status than to invoke a genuine aesthetic response." This isn't necessarily how I related to ABBA or Madonna. Yes, I acknowledge that this might indeed cement my membership in the category of non-heterosexuals, but this is far from being the only reason I listen to their songs. I like their songs on their own merits. If Elvis Costello, the doyen of British popular music, praises ABBA for their sophisticated melodies, there's something to these songs. Who wants to work with a totalizing definition of what's fun and what's not, what's legitimate and what's not? Play, as always, is critical.
pompe's linking to Calle Norlén's 1998 article "ABBA, We love you !".For some reason the gay world is obsessed with kitsch. We take anything in plastic, sentimental or over the top to our hearts immediately - be it golden boots or angelic choirs. In some cases the attraction to clichés, pomposity and dramatic trembling vibratos seem almost stronger than the attraction to the same sex.
ABBA has all of this - and then some. And most importantly, unlike deliberately constructed kitsch Aqua or Army of Lovers, it's the real thing. Benny truly loved his angelic choirs, and the group never picked their stage outfits to be ironic - they thought they looked brilliant in those horrendous cat dresses and Miss Piggy tights.
This reference to kitsch may well explain the popularity of ABBA, of similar pop-music artists (say, perhaps Madonna), and of all manner of groups and cultural trends. But why this interest in inauthenticity? Here, I think we have to turn to the notion of camp, of a sophisticated and ironic multi-level appreciation of popular culture against a systemic of hegemonic norms.
Let's accept Wikipedia's definition of as an adjectival terms for an "aesthetically impoverished object of shoddy production, meant more to identify the consumer with a newly acquired class status than to invoke a genuine aesthetic response." This isn't necessarily how I related to ABBA or Madonna. Yes, I acknowledge that this might indeed cement my membership in the category of non-heterosexuals, but this is far from being the only reason I listen to their songs. I like their songs on their own merits. If Elvis Costello, the doyen of British popular music, praises ABBA for their sophisticated melodies, there's something to these songs. Who wants to work with a totalizing definition of what's fun and what's not, what's legitimate and what's not? Play, as always, is critical.
