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a feeling : no really new music can be recorded any more.
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zphage
zphage
3378 posts

Re: a feeling : no really new music can be recorded any more.
Aug 28, 2008, 21:08
Kid Calamity wrote:
I agree, too.

But your bit about Jazz and Classical having backed themselves into a corner, or whatever is IMO, a little wide of the mark for me. Maybe it's just me. Perhaps I'd previously missed so much and am now only just discovering and catching up with otherwise unheard aspects of those genres. However, what I am hearing in what I'd call classical/elecronica or avant garde classical... or whatever is to me very new and fresh to me. And in the Jazz arena bands like Polar Bear are giving it a new twist.


These combos are still not getting what i am getting by mixing classical, jazz, rock, etc on top of each other.

They are usually very limited rhythmically and one flavor of atonal/dissonance, no great melodic food/ideas.
Dog 3000
Dog 3000
4611 posts

Re: Shock of the new . . .
Aug 28, 2008, 21:45
It is obnoxious -- everything is mixed to have "maximum impact" when heard in the background during TV advertisements (cuz what else is music good for?)

The "loudness wars" have been discussed around here before . . .

It also seems to me that the "quality" of music has declined tremendously since the 1980's. Remember when popular songs actually had "chords and melodies"?

At some point the basic building blocks of pop tunes were reduced to "hooks" and then finally to just "samples" . . . a beat, some wooshy electronic sounds, a hot blonde writhing in the video* . . . and they wonder why no one buys records anymore!

(* or the rockist equivalent: bunch of young dudes with assorted hairstyles, tattoos and metal things in their faces scream and jump up and down in slow motion to generic stadium metal riffs that sound like Journey only louder. They might as well use samplers. Maybe they already do, who could tell?)

And I know this is not just "because we're getting older" --

These were the top 5 singles from exactly 40 years ago this week (before I was born) -- any tunes here you know how to hum?

1. People Got To Be Free - The Rascals
2. Born To Be Wild - Steppenwolf
3. Light My Fire - Jose Feliciano
4. Hello, I Love You - The Doors
5. Sunshine Of Your Love - The Cream

And here's the top 5 from this week in 2007 -- how many of these songs will still be remembered 40 years from now? (I've already forgotten all of them!!)

1. Timbaland featuring Keri Hilson - The Way I Are
2. Fergie - Big Girls Don't Cry
3. Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah
4. Kanye West - Stronger
5. Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls
Dog 3000
Dog 3000
4611 posts

It's all in the machines
Aug 28, 2008, 21:56
It seems to me the biggest driver of art/cultural trends is technology.

All the music we discuss around here was driven by the invention of "the phonograph record", which changed the way music was experienced, performed and created forever.

Simple recording of sounds led to more advanced research via "the multitrack recording studio." During the mid-20th century, you also had the invention of electric guitars & amplifiers, electric keyboards, fuzz pedals, wah-wahs, analog synthesizers, drum machines, etc.

The music we love was generally created by people playing around with new "toys" to see what they could do.

Obviously, computers are the most relevant recent technological development to impact music and how it's made. But it doesn't seem to have led to a renaissance on the artistic side, almost the opposite . . . there are more records than ever before, and more and more of them have an "assembly line" quality . . .

My best guess is the clearest path out of the woods is a return to "live music" over "recordings". You can't synthesize, simulate or download "an experience" the way you can "a sound."
keith a
9565 posts

Re: Shock of the new . . .
Aug 28, 2008, 23:25
I think saying music is worse than it was and the charts are worse than they were are two different things entirely.

There's loads of good new music out there. You just won't find too much of it in the 'hit parade' (there, that gives my age away!)
shanshee_allures
2563 posts

Re: Shock of the new . . .
Aug 28, 2008, 23:32
Dog 3000 wrote:

These were the top 5 singles from exactly 40 years ago this week (before I was born) -- any tunes here you know how to hum?

1. People Got To Be Free - The Rascals
2. Born To Be Wild - Steppenwolf
3. Light My Fire - Jose Feliciano
4. Hello, I Love You - The Doors
5. Sunshine Of Your Love - The Cream

And here's the top 5 from this week in 2007 -- how many of these songs will still be remembered 40 years from now? (I've already forgotten all of them!!)

1. Timbaland featuring Keri Hilson - The Way I Are
2. Fergie - Big Girls Don't Cry
3. Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah
4. Kanye West - Stronger
5. Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls


Hmmm. Perhaps you've chosen your comparisons well.
By habit, we've got Radio 2's Sound of the 60s on some Saturday mornings as we busy about doing not much, and you wouldn't beleive how much shite was going around then. Purile drivel. In the charts. Worse than all those 2007 shebangs (whatever they are, 'cept the Timbaland tune, he's good he is. Kanye's not too bad either).


x
stray
stray
2057 posts

Edited Aug 29, 2008, 00:11
Re: It's all in the machines
Aug 28, 2008, 23:56
I can see what you're saying but it's horribly wrong imo, I hear new interesting electronic music constantly. Also though, yep, live perfromance contributes greatly to the quality, have you listened to any electro-acoustic music ?

If any music has an assembly line quality it has fuck all to do with the machines and everything to do with the dick sat at the controls. (Edit : Brian Eno, a lot of his classics are assembly line, seriously, he made a system to generate them, pressed record. They're still bloody good, well.. some of them are, I personally find them all lazy) There is a renaissance in electronic music, and live performance and improvisation is leading it, you just need to look harder than you are to find it. You'll also need to lose a lot of preconceptions too I think.

I'm also sick to the back teeth with the ooh, electronic instruments have no soul arguments. Christ. People used to say the same things about the electric guitar, as in that it could never match the soul of a good acoustic. This is more annoyingly crap now, as most electric guitars are going through the same digital effect circuits as any synth or rack. Also, when it comes to sound quality, the tech has reached the point now where it can brute force analog equipment in realtime, so the sound is identical. Sure, thats the top end equipment, but it will be the standard shortly (nebula 3cm is a lovely little brute force plug in I play with).

Technology does not, has not, and will never be responsible for music not being good, not having a soul, nor energy. Also, music is as much about good composition as it is performance right ? So why lean so hard on the 'its done live or it isnt real' argument,. I mean, what is live these days ? Surely we've all grown up enough to appreciate that digital != bad.

Also, a good composition is a good composition yeah ? Personally, I think learning good composition comes from performing live and jamming with others. That doesnt mean you cant take those skills into a room on your own with a keyboard, some kit and turn out something good without an audience or other people. Just means you need to learn those things first.

What you say in another post about us becoming a more visual culture though.. absolutely spot on. This is why all half decent electronica artists are also video artists or animators. Seriously, check it out, most do tbh. In fact its rarer to find an electronic musician/composer who doesnt do visual art as well as bang out tunes. Its also not a new development, I know its film and he's an entirely acoustic guy but Tony Conrad made some important structuralist films. He has also spent most of his life teaching video art. Tony Conrad is cited as an influence by most of us electronica bods.

Oh, and thanks for playing one of my noosign tunes on the radio show, I had no idea you had until today. It wasn't one of my good ones though, sorry for that. ;) But many thanks for playing it.

Edit : I appreciate that a lot of my post is in response to things that you're not actually saying, not what you actually mean, dog3000, I'm sorry for giving that impression. I'm responding in general to a few posts in this thread.

Edit2 : And I'm pissed, and having trouble with the dynamics of animating a creature made out of smoke.

Edit3 : and YES the ipod thing is really, really fucking meoff. Why should I, or anyone else, even make a fucking effort to mix/produce something properly when noone seems to care anymore. Amen there brother.
stray
stray
2057 posts

Edited Aug 29, 2008, 00:19
Re: Shock of the new . . .
Aug 29, 2008, 00:18
zphage wrote:

so you keep searching for your next harmonic/melodic/rhythmic fix you tend to get more arcane with what was satisfied simply.


I like to think of it more as getting to the root/core of yourself, and life in general as you discover more. You'r ejust as likely to find something simple. Hell you're as likely to go through a year long drone music binge , as you are to drown your ears in 5/8 time 180 bpm microtonal polyrhthymic nightmares. You have to try all things and appreciate what works for you, and how it changes you.
Vybik Jon
Vybik Jon
7717 posts

Re: Rock careers and the end of music!
Aug 29, 2008, 10:43
Dog 3000 wrote:
While these days music is often listened to on iPods and similar devices, which have the audiophile quality of a transistor radio! That says a lot about the priority of music in our culture . . .

I think it depends on whether the listener thinks music is art or entertainment.
Moth
Moth
5236 posts

Re: Rock careers and the end of music!
Aug 29, 2008, 11:18
Dog 3000 wrote:
While these days music is often listened to on iPods and similar devices, which have the audiophile quality of a transistor radio! That says a lot about the priority of music in our culture . . .


Hmmm. I'd say that people wanting to carry thousands of songs everywhere they go would suggest music's pretty important to us - possibly more important than being a 'sound-snob'! ;^)

love

Moth
stray
stray
2057 posts

Edited Aug 29, 2008, 13:46
Re: Rock careers and the end of music!
Aug 29, 2008, 13:22
Maybe. But if you were a musician, sound engineer or producer and you realised that for the majority of the time your music was going to be listened to in-ear what would you do ? Serious question, do you know how different music is, and a mix is when listened to like that ? Mixing/producing a track with headphones on is a serious no-no as everything is placed wrong, you'll end up with stupidly overblown bass for a start. I'm simplifying, but you get the idea.

A track that sounds great through a set of speakers can easily be spannered completely when heard through headphones. Or doesn't that matter anymore ? If it doesn't matter anymore, then surely music, or any semblance of craft it may have is gone. Which I think is the point he was making.

Sure you can make your mixes purely to be listened back to on ipods or similar odd soundstage devices, should we ?

Edit : Yes, you can create mixes that sound good in both headphones and through speakers, but you have to accept a serious limitation, spatially, in your overall sound to pull it off.
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