"I like every book to include its own refutation, but hidden. ... I like it to include what denies it, to self-destruct" - Andre Gide, Marshlands, 1895
(via David Ulin)
"I tend to think groupthink is much maligned - and that the strength of scenes and genres is when people “swarm” or “flock” around a currently reigning sound-template and stretch that template in all kinds of ways, without actually abandoning it. "I’m very into this idea of “the sound of the radio changes” - and that’s on the pirate radio level (e.g suddenly the pirates nearly all switch to UK garage in 97) but also on the mass level (suddenly in the early 90s grunge and alt-rock take-over the radio). because it’s exciting - and you feel like the popular culture is going somewhere "It relates to this thing I’ve started calling “positive unoriginality” - when an innovation is copied. So e.g. Timbaland comes up with some new beat structures in the mid/late 90s and he’s widely copied - and the sound of R&B radio changes. The copyists are actually playing a valuable role. Because of them, innovation becomes installed at a culture-wide level. "You see this
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