Behind the Irony

Look, I'm as sick as you are of listening to people talk about irony in the indie community. Lately, the only thing more played out than ironic dance parties is complaining about how played out these ironic dance parties are. And sure, that's deliciously ironic in itself, but I think you'll agree that the whole thing is getting a bit old.

So I'm not going to complain about there being too many 'œirony parties'? in Toronto these days, or about ironic posturing being a cheap substitute for genuine ideas and talent, or even about how half of the people involved in this debate apparently wouldn't know irony if it jumped up and ironically didn't bite them in the ass. I mean, we don't need to get into that again.

But here's the thing. Not long ago, I was down at Fez Batik (it's a long story involving poor cell phone reception and a group of friends who were waiting at Ted's). The music that night was basically what you'd expect to hear on Richmond Street. Lots of Missy Elliot, Maestro Fresh Wes, Sean Paul, and stuff like that.

Because I had nothing to do but drink and wonder where my friends were, it wasn't long before I started thinking about getting out of there and heading off to a better club. A good indie club, where I could hang out with like-minded people and listen to some good music, instead of these shitty club tracks.

It wasn't until then that I realized that there was a good chance that I'd hear a lot of the same songs if I were to head to an indie dance party. The only difference would be that the indie club DJ would probably have chosen these songs for their kitsch value. We've all been to parties where someone has thrown on a little Britney or Christina, and it's obviously not because all of these indie DJs have a genuine love for their music.

You've got two different crowds at two different clubs, listening to a lot of the same music, and the only difference between the two is the context. The DJ at Fez Batik is spinning a hot club track that he genuinely likes, and the people on the dance floor are genuinely digging it. Meanwhile, wherever the indie dance party is happening '“ I know it used to be Club 56, I don't know where the kids go now '“ the DJ might be spinning the same hot club track. But he or she is probably offering it up as a joke, and the crowd will dance along to prove that they get it. And who's that joke on, if not the people on Richmond?

Eventually, I said 'œwho cares?'? and forgot about the whole thing. But a couple of days later, I happened to be reading an article by Bill Drummond of the KLF, in which he talked about artists and their relationship to pop culture. 'œEver since that urinal got signed,'? he said, 'œgenerations of artists have wanted to appropriate and/or mimic the trashy and mass-produced.'? This got me thinking about the ironic DJ again, and it even let me feel a bit smug for a moment: we were all part of some grand artistic tradition! Why hadn't I seen it before?

But as Drummond points out, it's a tradition fraught with failure. 'œThe patronizing stance adopted by these artists towards the mass-produced,'? he says, 'œhas nearly always stopped them from being more than voyeurs and/or critics of the process, unable to produce work that is genuinely consumed by the mass market... More debilitating than this is the artist's insecure need to be applauded by their own peer-group elite.'?

I read that and felt like a bit of a dink. If there's an argument for doing away with these irony parties, in my opinion, it's not that they're played out. It's that they're ultimately about little more than asserting our indie cred, and patting ourselves on the back for being better than those mainstream fools. We can limit ourselves to criticizing the pop culture that they hold dear, but why do that when we can focus on creating something better?

by Matt Blair

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