David Runnion ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>You know, I know this will sound horrible to some, but I wonder if
>anyone shares my feeling: This new acronym, HIP, makes me slightly
>uncomfortable. It is of course sort of cool, sort of, well, hip, but
>there is something vaguely snobby, elitist, and insulting about it.

Oddly enough, I have the feeling that I was one of the people who first
used this coinage - I can recall employing it in the usenet news group
rec.music.classical at least 5 years ago, if not more, and I don't recall
its being anything like common usage at the time.

I confess that I intended it to be slightly ironic and pointed, but
towards the HIPsters who at that time seemed to be getting a little
above themselves.  One acquaintance (*not* a musician I add, but active
in the early music scene) informed me - and I know this was pre-1995
for circusmtancial reasons - that the HIPsters should be the only people
who played music before Beethoven, that they'd share Beethoven with the
non-HIP and everything after was fair game.

It was that kind of attitude I was intending to poke fun at.

(Please don't thinking I'm claiming sole credit, BTW - or blame)

Anway, if HIP is offensive, then surely "authentic" was more so?

Deryk Barker
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