Pop music relies on several different factors in order to survive. Namely, it has to be catchy. The song has to seize your ears and ask the question, “What is this?” After hearing the answer uttered by a record store clerk or radio announcer you’ll say to yourself, “Of course! I should have known.” Now, it’s time to be honest with yourself. Should you really have known who did that track? Do you benefit? Does the song benefit? Is the artist important to your decision to like or dislike a song?

In his essay, “Death of the Author” Roland Barthes states, “To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified to close the writing.” Taking these ideas into account when looking at pop music allows for the over-the-top lives of most of America’s pop stars to be removed from the listener’s perception of a song. Acceptability is important to the success of pop music; the genre’s significance comes from its overarching appeal. By removing the artist the listener enables him or herself to truly understand the implications of a song. The signified is no longer implied by authorship, it is handled by the listener.

Pop music isn’t well known for its originality, but is often lauded for its ability to create a representation of society. “We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single theological meaning,” says Barthes, “but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writing, none of them original, blend and clash.” In this respect, pop music functions as a combination of influences the world over. All of which, without the star, can be heard and understood by a large nation and reflected upon differently. The listener can accept a star and their persona of the moment, hearing a song in various ways– even if a song remains consistent to the one moment of creation. Removing the artist it increases the longevity of a song and enhances the listening experience.

One of the most interesting aspects of pop music is its universal appeal to listeners. It operates in each and every moment differently, and can often transcend time. This is an important fact to consider when removing the pop star. If a song can be looked at individually, without the spectacle that surrounds a star, it can be deciphered and decoded much more accurately. This is helpful when considering that pop music often functions as a reflection of society’s ideals. Consider that after the September 11 attacks, John Lennon’s “Imagine” was one of the most widely requested songs at radio stations. At the time of its original release in 1971, the song’s meaning was drastically different than it was after September 11.  The lyrics, “Imagine there’s no heaven / it’s easy if you try… imagine there’s no country/ it isn’t hard to do / nothing to kill or die for / and no religion too” once symbolized a singers ideals and have more recently become an anthem for a nation in mourning. This was a case in which the listener was able to relinquish the star in order to apply their own feelings to a text, and exemplifies why the removal of pop-stardom is essential for a listener’s understanding both of their society as well a song.

Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” is another example of the death of authorship allowing for a new way to experience and understand a song. Regardless of his intentions, the song has become an Independence Day tradition. According to several interviews, the effect was unintentional on Springsteen’s part, but the fact remains that the collective listening public has decided that Springsteen’s intentions aren’t important. What is important is what the listener takes away from the listening experience, and in the case of “Born in the U.S.A.” it’s a sense of pride.

The two above examples came years after the songs were originally released. It may be difficult to imagine “Womanizer,” Britney Spears newest single being anything more than a sugar-coated pop footnote, but by removing Spears’ the performer and accepting the songs steady beat and simple message one may find oneself more open to the song down the road. By removing the stigma that is Spears, the song’s already universal appeal can be broadened even further, effectively selling more records and garnering a better following. There are pop icons who will argue that they are just as important as their creations, that these two things are inseparable. It is that egoism that keeps pop culture from being transcendent and from being truly universally appealing.

When a listener can remove a star’s identity, it allows for the music to speak for itself. With pop music it creates an experience that is shared with a large collective of people. The song is given the capacity to change meaning according to a societies need and the collective listeners are allowed to have their own signified.

In the end, the birth of the listener must be at the cost of the death of the star.

So, it’s finals week here in Thoronia, so we’ve been busy dotting our I’s and crossing our T’s in hopes of getting good scores on Presidential Fitness Exams. Since most of our creativity has been spent on these projects, I figured I’d point you around internet-town instead, and maybe you’ll see something you like:

Steve Gaynor, in his blog Fullbright, applies some of Roland Barthes’ (read the essay I’m thinking of here) idea’s to video games in his essay “Being There”. Oddly, he doesn’t actually mention Barthes, but it does bring some interesting arguments about authorship to the table. Worth reading if you want to picture new world with new video game design. It also brings up an interesting point in reference to Barthes’ idea’s, namely that his thoughts can be applied to any medium. I’ve heard of Barthes being taught in design classes, English, math, philosophy, history and so forth. “The Death of The Author” is one of the most applicable and easy to manipulate pieces of modern criticism, and Gaynor proves it (even if he doesn’t know it).

While we’re on the topic of video games, Brainy Gamer takes on immersion in regards to Fallout 3. He talks about this a few times in several other parts of his blog, all of them worth reading. I’m still waiting for more about his students’ take on Fallout 3 though, as I’m really curious as to how they’ll take it after playing through 1 and 2 His students played through FO 1 and 2, and their reactions to 3 can be found here (and yeah, you read that all right, as far as I can tell he teaches a Game class at a college level, but I’m still not too sure of the title of the course… either way, awesome, and something that I look forward to doing myself someday).

Oh screw it, here’s another video game story from the Escapist. Les Chappell’s article, “The Vintage Game Preservation Society” talks a bit about abandonware and copyright issues. But, more importantly has links to website’s that show how to get Syndicate and System Shock 2 running on OSX (or Windows XP for that matter).

Miles of tunnels beneath London are currently for sale. In what sounds like the beginning of a James Bond movie, London has set the price for its historic tunnels at $7.4 billion. Now, I realize that whoever purchases this will probably use it for good, what with its historical importance and all, but at the same time can’t help but wondering what type of evil, world-taking over plan might be able to be hatched from these tunnels. That being said, the Republic of Thoronia is currently in negotiations to take hold of the tunnels. If all goes well we will be moving in on the 1st of January.

Wall-E was released this last week on DVD, ha-za!

Black Friday has come and gone with “only” a trampling and a shooting. Pundits are pointing to the economy for blame on this, saying that this might not have ever happened if we weren’t in such rough economic times. I would argue that this might not have ever happened if we weren’t so driven by money, consumerism and “deals.” It doesn’t matter that we have no money, it matters that this thing I’ve never heard of until just now is HALF OFF (MSRP that is, it’s actually only $15 cheaper than the normal Wal-Mart Price, just FYI). The worst part is that many of these “deals” that happened on Black Friday were available on the internet, and many of them weren’t actually deals at all. Truth be told, American’s really want to risk their lives and karmic well-being in order to fight over Xbox’s and HDTV’s, which is amazingly sad. It’s always a bit disheartening this time of year when you get to actually see what drives people. I realize it’s the same old thing, the same thing said a million times before, and the same thing I’ll say next year… but every year I’m just blown away by how ludicrous our holiday ideal’s have become. Besides, everyone knows the best HDTV deals come after Christmas and before the Super Bowl. Duh.

Throughout any given week I have a highlight reel of amazing ideas. Many of these idea’s are, in fact, not amazing, or if nothing else, I have no idea why I might have written them down. Here are some things are wrote down this week:

• Why is it that in movies and TV when a bus or car almost hits somebody in the middle of the road (i.e. said person was transported there by a time machine, or perhaps was being chased by something and decided to catch their breathe in the middle of the road) the car NEVER stops? I mean, if I almost hit somebody going 45 MPH on a small county road, I would damn well make sure they were okay. I guess I’m just a better person than people on TV.
• All of this advertising is making me actually want to go see Iron Man. Like I owe it to my childhood self or something.
• The United States Air Force’s new commercials which advertise that they are now keeping cycberspace safe by blowing up satellite’s is remarkably confusing and a little bit too Philip K. Dick for my liking. Also, I thought there were no explosions in space. C’mon Air Force!
• Jethro Tull’s Aqualung is really great.
• My most recent job interview provided some more insight into words that you don’t want to hear from a (once) potential employer:
  • “You interviewed really well.”
  • “You were one of two people that we called into for the second interview.”
  • “But we decided to go with the other person.”
  • “And you suck.”
• The Flash game based on the freaking amazing Portal is actually kind of fun.
• I can now claim that I’ve applied for 75 jobs. Go team!
• I’ve started reading Duncan Barlowe’s Super Cell Anemia and have enjoyed it. I just finished reading Dave Eggers Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (for the second time) and have to say that I will no longer be recommending it to people. I mean, it was cool when I was 20, but now I feel like his prose has the sort of “been there done that” feel that means that the book is only good on the first go. He became a much better author with his later, non-memoir-ish books.
• Three video games have been keeping me busy lately: Call of Duty 4 (Which I, like the rest of the world, will mention that it is one of the most addictive games to be released recently. It’s also got one of the best multiplayer setups around, combining a sort of RPG-ness to the FPS genre which is usually dry and boring), CrossworDS (Another Nintendo DS Crosswords game, but its totally great. I promise), and Okami (It is just so pretty to look at. Oh and it’s classic Zelda style action-adventure. My favorite). 
• For some reason I though it might be a good idea to make a list of records I used to be really into, but don’t really like anymore. I can’t tell if its funny or not though.

Okay, so there are a lot of gimmicky things in the world, gimmick games, gimmick books, gimmick records. But sometimes the gimmicks work – which is why we all keep on trying (and for those that need the self-referential comment because you’re too fucking stupid ot get it: The Republic of Thoronia is totally legit and real). Anyway, some of my favorite gimmick’s (even the word “gimmick” seems a little off, I mean, why wouldn’t it be spelled “gimic” because you say it just like “mimic”)  are included below: 

 Books

An Ordinary Spy by Joseph Weisberg – An Ordinary Spy features tons of blacked out words to reflect what a CIA memo might look like to one of us normals. It’s a little silly, but the story works and the gimmick of blacked out words actually helps keep the story going and the reader guessing. Not suprisingly its a little annoying, but it makes the reader actually work at their job of reading, and sometimes, especially in genre fiction, that’s something to applaud the writer for.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski – To those who haven’t read House of Leaves and have just seen it – it looks and feels all gimmick. A muscle curdling 709 pages the novel follows several plotlines, from an annoying tattoo shop apprentice to the Navidson Record-a story written by a blind man named Zampano about a documentary film that chronicles the adventures of a few men as they travel deep into a house that doesn’t seem to end. Yeah, so now that the whole plot thing is out of the way and you totally understand what the book is about, we can move on the real gimmicky part of it all. Fake records, photos, typographical errors, mistakes, design, an appendix, a reference… the list goes on. Pick up a copy of House of Leaves and just sift through it. But the book, as a whole and as a vision for a budding author is remarkable. Danielewski’s scope and understanding of his own bizarre maze makes House of Leaves respectable in and of itself. 

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov – Calling anything by Nabokov a gimmick might get me shot-but if this novel had come out by anyone else at another period of time it would be termed gimmicky. So shut up. Anyway, the framing of the novel is simple enough: A fictional friend gives an introduction to a fictional poem by a fictional author. Simple enough right? Pale Fire is by far one of the best examples of metafiction that really works – others would include: 

• William Gass’s – Willie Master’s Lonely Wife 
  • In which Gass himself makes several appearences and the real hero of the novel is indeed not the author’s character but the reader him/herself. Essentially Gass gives the reader the very unusual feeling that we are indeed making love with the book, to put it nicely where Gass likely wouldn’t of.
• Robert Coover’s – “The Magic Poker” 
  • Oye. Coover’s “The Magic Poker” has been studied and studied again — and to really no end. What we know for sure is that the narrator is some sort of magical wizard pumping his ideas into the reader’s head as we all just do what he tells us to. Probably wouldn’t work as well in another country, I’d have to say. No, certainly they just wouldn’t stand for it.
• Kurt Vonnegut’s – Slaughterhouse 5 
  • “That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book.”
• Cervantes’ – Don Quixote
  • Crazed country gentleman occasionely confuses reality with fiction — just as perhaps the reader might do with this particular work. What’s real then?
• Italo Calvino’s – If On A Winter’s Night a Traveler
  • It’s a book about a reader that is reading the stories in the book. What is so hard to understand about that?
• John Barth’s – Lost in the Funhouse
  • A sort of literature 101 as Barth hops, skips and jumps through genre, title, plot and all the other conventions that we still see in modern literature.
• Paul Auster’s – New York Trilogy
  • Holy smokes. I don’t even fucking know anymore. Perhaps a mystery novel in which the character and author interact in ways that haven’t really been seen before? Or just a mystery novel? 
• Alasdair Gray’s – Lanark   
  • In which towards the end of the novel not only do we get a chance to meet the author with Lanark we are also treated to a massive list of supposed plagiarisms performed by the author. Aw, thanks Mr. Gray, not I remember where I thought I’d heard that before!

Movies 

Adaptation by Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman — Really, this is just a story about Kaufman writing the adaptation of a book that can’t be adapted into a film and struggling with it. So, maybe a little autobiographical eh? Whatever, the gimmick is really the absurdity of it all — and I’m okay with that. See also Being John Malkovich. 

“Duck Amuck” — By far my favorite cartoon of all time. If this isn’t some metacartoon gimmick I don’t know what is. 

Schizopolis by Steven Soderbergh — One of my favorite movies of all time, this bizarre romp through movie making showcases how a gimmick can quickly become movie making magic. 

F For Fake by Orson Welles — As Orson Welles tries to get to the bottom of an art mystery it turns out that perhaps we’ve all been had. Fucking Orson Welles. 

Music

Night Ripper by Girl Talk – Don’t fucking argue with me about this. Yeah, its a great, super-fun album that mashes together so many freaking songs that you’re never entirely sure what you’re hearing at any given moment, but its a solid, complete, gimmick. Tell me you’re going to look back in 50 years and say this is one of the greatest albums of all time, TELL ME THAT. 

 Yeah, this was probably worth the time and effort, I mean it takes every annoying sound from Windows and turns it into a “song.” Way to go bra’. 

Matmos A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure – All sounds from this record were taken from the operating table. And it sounds so pretty, and gross.   

Smurfs All Star Show  – What? This album is remarkable. Eat your heart out Devendra Banhart! This is real folk/disco/dance-punk.

Video Games 

Wii Sports Wii – Yeah, its gimmicky, stupid, silly, but a blast. I’m sorry, but bowling with a remote, playing tennis, awesome.  

Lobster Petting Mac OSX, iPhone – Yep. You pet a lobster with a mouse. Why do I enjoy this? Maybe I need an iPhone so I can actually pet a lobster. Anyone want to buy me an iPhone?  

Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS — You control Link with a stylus on a touch screen. Questions? The whole friggin’ system is a gimmick. 

 Technologies

iPhone by Apple – As of right now, Apple’s “Smartphone” is still one massive touchy feely gimmick. Yeah, its neat, its fun to touch, you can search the internet real neat like a absolutely horrendously slow speeds.  But soon enough, come June the iPhone is going to become a badass little miniature powerhouse. Think of the possibilities: A little recording studio, recording software, lobster petting, Word, Excel, Delicious Library — the possibilities are nearly endless provided Apple doesn’t lock it down too hard. Oh, and its a phone. 

Nintendo Wii/DS – Both systems are complete gimmicks and both are fun. One gives you motion sensors and IR and the other gives you two screens, once of which is handily waiting to be touched with a stylus. Yep, in other countries they get to learn to languages, study for exams, take tests — all on the DS, here we get Ninja Gaiden and Cooking Games. 

Korg Kaoss Pad  – This handy little device also features a touch screen… hmm… theme? Touch the music, make it do stuff. Yep.   

 Articles and Features

“Host” by David Foster Wallace 

 David Foster Wallace’s article about radio hosts gets the typical DFW treatment, it’s available with the above link in its internet form (not as neat) or available in “The Atlantic” or Consider the Lobster orThe New Kings of Nonfiction. 

Yahtzee hates everything. He makes a cute video every week where he makes fun of every video game that he hates — sometimes he likes them. Fun animation ensues!   

Yes, it’s really really available. Download now! However, keen observers will note that this is not a printable version… unless you want to cut and paste and paste and cut again to get it in order-no, if you’d like a print version then you can order one for $3 PPD, each copy has a hand-crayoned cover and is a hearty 23 pages long. Or, for you resourceful types, you’ll find them lying around Thoronia at various hotspots. Let the Easter Egg hunt begin! 

Hear how the critics’ are raving: 
“The best gol’ darn read I’d ever’a had.” – Thomas Pynchon, author of Against the Day 
“Yowza!” – Weird ‘Al’ Yankovic
“Reverb soaked” – Pitchfork Media reviewer #3