This is hilarious. Especially that it got published.
SeaPunk / Chillwave / Nu gaze / Glo-Fi / Molly Pop / Witch Trap / Special Characters
- Thread starter zhao
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This is hilarious. Especially that it got published.
sufi
lala
& that it cites us!
Dunno if this is the right thread, but anyone following the whole PC Music thing? Sherburne seems to like it. Any dissenting opinions?
For me, it's very much a guilty pleasure. In the sense that it makes me want to listen to things I usually don't want anything to with. If that makes sense. It works really good in this synth-laden mixes like Paradinas recently did for XL8R.
For me, it's very much a guilty pleasure. In the sense that it makes me want to listen to things I usually don't want anything to with. If that makes sense. It works really good in this synth-laden mixes like Paradinas recently did for XL8R.
I didn't really like it but now I like it a lot. Alex is actually an old friend of mine, I can confirm that there's nothing ironic or cynical about it. He's making the music he genuinely loves, and he has a sense of humour. I would love to see it played at raves with crowds of people off their tits on MDMA, but for the time being I can unfortunately only see it being played in fairly tame environments.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
I like it better than most of the stuff that's affiliated with the genres in this thread title.
Leo
Well-known member
i don't see myself going out and buying it but can enjoy it, even if it's only as a disposable distraction. thought the first sophie single was cool before i even knew about any of this stuff.
the comments on resident advisor are pretty brutal, lots of closed-minded folks out there in dance land.
http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=434
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?2137
the comments on resident advisor are pretty brutal, lots of closed-minded folks out there in dance land.
http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=434
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?2137
firefinga
Well-known member
Well, I can listen to that too and all, but it's really the sonic quivalent of twitter I guess. It definitely has not much substance. this music doesn't take much effort to follow, to contribute to etc. And the result sounds accordingly.
Ok I am a mid 30s guy possibly (and likely) I just doesn't get it at all, too old and whatnot. But then, as a teen I was raised on Gabba, Acid, Metal and Junge. I can't help it but think, this is probably the first generation of youth whos parents have listened to much wilder and more energetic music than their kids.
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CrowleyHead
Well-known member
^ Yeah, you really fucked around and showed your age in the worst way there.
How snide a remark to imply that a generation is willingly less curious? I can tell you personally, I've known people younger than me who've listened to ALL of the music that gets talked about on Dissensus because they get exposed to it via their peers. I've seen teens on the net of all different backgrounds looking at juke, metal, grime, R&B, rap, jungle, whatever.
PC Music isn't my cup of tea per se, but it's valuable because it shows people who know that the major music industry is so desperate to entertain its audience and make money off of them, and how to tease them in both a loving and mean-spirited way. "Hey QT" is such a great skewer of the cliches of pop. Just because someone is inspired by pop doesn't mean they're somehow more basic in thought or experimentation.
How snide a remark to imply that a generation is willingly less curious? I can tell you personally, I've known people younger than me who've listened to ALL of the music that gets talked about on Dissensus because they get exposed to it via their peers. I've seen teens on the net of all different backgrounds looking at juke, metal, grime, R&B, rap, jungle, whatever.
PC Music isn't my cup of tea per se, but it's valuable because it shows people who know that the major music industry is so desperate to entertain its audience and make money off of them, and how to tease them in both a loving and mean-spirited way. "Hey QT" is such a great skewer of the cliches of pop. Just because someone is inspired by pop doesn't mean they're somehow more basic in thought or experimentation.
I really like some of PC music's stuff and don't like some of it at all, but more than personal opinion I just think the idea that this is simple music is objectively false. If anything Cook loves to use really complicated melodies, chord patterns - maybe not so much in the big vocal tunes, but in the synth lines, stuff like his Dux Content stuff. Plus all the mad noises, rhythmic switch ups throughout his songs. Like I can understand people finding it highly irritating, but I can't understand people who find it derivative or uninspired...
firefinga
Well-known member
I am proud of my age, I have 2 decades of experience within the "music industry" on many levels. You are just irritated that I hit the nail on the head there.
And yeah, youngsters, here I am now, entertain me! But that stuff ain't cutting it!
Just because it's coming from youngsters doesnt mean its groundbreaking and innovative and what other buzzwords hype-media uses all the time.
In fact I am highly amused with that internet-hype raging around this stuff.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Reading about vapourwave made a lot more sense when I figured out that DIS Magazine was a separate entity to neo-Lamacquian indie cheerleaders Drowned in Sound (aka DiS)...
Do Yola Fatoush fit into this stuff, or are their reference points a bit too conventionally cool and underground?
All the vapourwave stuff feels a bit like Belbury Poly-esque hauntology, but with a wierded-out spin on nostalgia for the Thatcherite late 80s rather than the utopian 70s.
Do Yola Fatoush fit into this stuff, or are their reference points a bit too conventionally cool and underground?
All the vapourwave stuff feels a bit like Belbury Poly-esque hauntology, but with a wierded-out spin on nostalgia for the Thatcherite late 80s rather than the utopian 70s.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
Yeah, that just sounds shit. "I've witnessed a ton young folk, now you lot better make me happy because I've got myself some high standards, let me tell you!" You're aware that in some cases you're just not going to be the audience anyone wants right?
The hype around these guys is one thing, but how many things get hyped and then recede or whatever? Why should the process of something being hyped which is ALWAYS inadequate, be such an improbability? And I really don't know or care if it's sonically adventurous for anyone else. I just know it shows people have a desire to make these maneuvers, and I want to know why they feel the need or desire.
It sure beats sitting around with arms crossed, waiting for people in another generation to appeal to your sensibilities. Like your generation did anything special.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
^ I mean yeah.
I don't think it's hard to see WHY someone could get really into PC Music. Of course I'm also a bit surprised that people could be downright acidic about it, though I get that too if you're someone who thinks you've gone so far from the 'generic pop sound' and to see it taken serious...
That said, I prefer this skewering of pop that's overtly cynical to the pandering certain other people take (TNGHT for example) in order to try and reach beyond the glass ceiling that might be placed on their more -core leaning efforts, as an attempt to show they're just as good as the mainstream.
I just think it's a bit tiring to think "Well, they're not doing it right." if one doesn't get/care for a new style. My only issues (personally) is when you have acts of disparate genres trying to perform gestures of pop ambition or steal from fields/genres they have nothing to do with in order to be hip, and just look very old man forcing himself to prove he's not a one trick pony (Take Kode9's attempts at trap/footwork, Flying Lotus attempting to sound like DJ Mustard on his most recent single). PC Music are a bit wise for saying "Let's just sell-out immediately" because they can draw from anything parasitically. After all, that's what pop does. But because they're a 'pisstake' (though they're far less revolting to me than say, a Weird Al parodist type figure who can only function by skewering the success of others by insinuating the successful single is always shit) they don't have to strictly deal with what will be ACTUALLY successful. Because PC Music are actually kind of a bit dated, I don't think they accurately reflect pop in 2014 in the US, UK or anywhere. It's their own playground. (Makes sense A.C. brings up Scritti Politti).
So yeah, it's not THE EXCITING WORLD OF _____ or whatever turned anyone here onto wanting to hunt as much music as possible. But its curious because you get to make your own version of pop that isn't conforming to the expectations of society but has all the trappings for your own amusement. I find it closer to the Ghost Box/Ariel Pink realm than say the stuff mentioned in this thread title.
I don't think it's hard to see WHY someone could get really into PC Music. Of course I'm also a bit surprised that people could be downright acidic about it, though I get that too if you're someone who thinks you've gone so far from the 'generic pop sound' and to see it taken serious...
That said, I prefer this skewering of pop that's overtly cynical to the pandering certain other people take (TNGHT for example) in order to try and reach beyond the glass ceiling that might be placed on their more -core leaning efforts, as an attempt to show they're just as good as the mainstream.
I just think it's a bit tiring to think "Well, they're not doing it right." if one doesn't get/care for a new style. My only issues (personally) is when you have acts of disparate genres trying to perform gestures of pop ambition or steal from fields/genres they have nothing to do with in order to be hip, and just look very old man forcing himself to prove he's not a one trick pony (Take Kode9's attempts at trap/footwork, Flying Lotus attempting to sound like DJ Mustard on his most recent single). PC Music are a bit wise for saying "Let's just sell-out immediately" because they can draw from anything parasitically. After all, that's what pop does. But because they're a 'pisstake' (though they're far less revolting to me than say, a Weird Al parodist type figure who can only function by skewering the success of others by insinuating the successful single is always shit) they don't have to strictly deal with what will be ACTUALLY successful. Because PC Music are actually kind of a bit dated, I don't think they accurately reflect pop in 2014 in the US, UK or anywhere. It's their own playground. (Makes sense A.C. brings up Scritti Politti).
So yeah, it's not THE EXCITING WORLD OF _____ or whatever turned anyone here onto wanting to hunt as much music as possible. But its curious because you get to make your own version of pop that isn't conforming to the expectations of society but has all the trappings for your own amusement. I find it closer to the Ghost Box/Ariel Pink realm than say the stuff mentioned in this thread title.
This post makes me suspect you're not from the UK Crowleyhead but apologies if you are and this sounds condescending, or even if you're not and it's condescending anyway: but wrt how dated they are, a significant chunk of the PC Music aesthetic is (to my mind) very obviously derived from a very UK (and provincial UK too) kind of early 00s 'trash' culture: that is to say it works to some degree off the back of the chav - a word you used to hear all the time here, but less so now. Basically a term of covertly massive social snobbery against tracksuited, working-class (though usually implying unemployed when used) anti-social yobs. Proof of PC Music's debt at its most distasteful (and in terms of the music unjustifiably dreadful) is here, complete with art school students wearing burberry tracksuits and hanging around on a council estate as an ironic pose - - but Hannah Diamond's schtick is totally indebted to it too. I grew up in a reasonably small town in the home counties, about an hour's drive from London and it reminds me of the actually fucking weird music I used to hear kids who were much harder than me play on their Nokias at the back of the bus when I was about 13: something that I guess looking back was happy hardcore, but was essentially a helium-vocalled, completely tasteless wacky mirror version of pop music. The simultaneous brutal hyper-intensity and unremitting cheesiness of provincial Northern scenes like bounce, donk and makina (even bassline to an extent too) is analogous. PC Music obviously isn't happy hardcore or donk, but it has weird points of crossover. There's clearly some kind of aesthetic debt, but even the music shares some of that same combination of day-glo sound pallet and demented intensity.
With that in mind I wonder how many of the PC Music crew shared a similar childhood to mine. I must be of a similar age (I'm 23) - and I may be wrong but I have got the impression they're all basically suburban kids who've gone to Central St Martins or something. For me anyway, it's quite frequently a bizarre trip back into my own pre-teenhood. I mean, there's something of the 10 year old girl's made-up lyrics of most of the words - a girl once played me this 'song' she and her friends wrote in a made-up girl band when they were like 10 or something and stuff like Bobby by GFOTY (so far, the crowning glory of PC Music to my mind) really isn't a million miles away from what I remember of what she played me. That weird cartoonish emotion/surrealist juxtaposition of ideas.
All this stuff clouds the issue of whether they're a pisstake in my mind, to the music's definite credit. I think part of why the music's so discomfiting is that the world it exists in is part childhood fantasy land and part dead-eyed satirical-not-satirical partaking in the hypercapitalist pop-land we live in now.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
Never seen that vid before and I'm unnerved to an amazing degree so I see your point. Admittedly I'm not from the UK, so my impressions of UK Pop from the era are at best just not comparable to anybody else's. It's definitely that idea which unnerves me about Yung Lean, which does a similar thing visually but is toying with aspects of US Rap culture in a really toxically distant way.
That said, I meant to say in the present day it doesn't feel like what I'd perceive as being current. The descriptions you gave still implies a datedness that I feel is purposeful and distantly ties it to a hypnogogic vibe. And when I say pisstake on pop, I don't mean to say they're pisstaking youth culture in the same way that I'd apply to that video but rather a more generalized skewer. I can definitely see the Diamond parallels though, so it does have me thinking.
That said, I meant to say in the present day it doesn't feel like what I'd perceive as being current. The descriptions you gave still implies a datedness that I feel is purposeful and distantly ties it to a hypnogogic vibe. And when I say pisstake on pop, I don't mean to say they're pisstaking youth culture in the same way that I'd apply to that video but rather a more generalized skewer. I can definitely see the Diamond parallels though, so it does have me thinking.
I think it's somewhere between the two - there are absolutely purposefully dated references going on, and I agree with you about there being a slightly hypnagogic vibe, at least in principle. But there are points at which it is gunning for a super-2014 too I think. For instance, there's a bit in (I think) the first ever PCMusic x DiS mag mix where Hannah Diamond/GFOTY (can't remember and they do quite similar voices) congratulates the Red Bull Formula 1 team on winning the world championship and says "I guess Red Bull really does give you wings", something that when I first heard it just pulled me up straight away, then made me laugh. the brazenness of it, that they're presenting you with an artistic object that just openly advertises stuff. But that feels a very contemporary 'comment'/feature whatever. In fact this article I read today reminded me of it straight away: http://www.factmag.com/2014/09/29/a...-place-products-in-videos-that-already-exist/
But the mixture of the references makes it much more than pure satire to me, which in some ways makes it harder to listen to, but yeah you say, also miles better than Weird Al. You can't confidently say they're comprehensively deriding anything, which would be more comforting. (And to be clear, because of all that I'm a fan of most stuff linked to it - there are just a few things that I think are absolutely execrable.) They're shifting between a sincere enjoyment of a kind of bizarro, hyperreal, often nostalgically constructed pop landscape and an apparently satirical commentary on its vacuousnesses, but it's hard to be sure when they are being earnest and when they are being ironic. Anyway enough from me I think.
good way to sum it up tho, this kinda evaluation has been missing from the bits i've read on PC music so far. can definitely feel what u were saying about throwbacks to suburban '00s 'trash' culture too.
for me it definitely fits into this theorisation of post-postmodern culture. the whole discomfiting, almost post-ironic movement between irony and sincerity that's somewhere beyond actual criticism of capitalism has really been gaining momentum across art and culture more generally.
bit off the topic of PC music but i really like TCF's stuff and i think he fits into the special characters section of this thread with his track names at least.. also channels that love of cheesy trance
i used to listen to this mix at my old data entry job to intensify my general feelings of being an office drone to dizzying effect, especially from 30 mins onwards
https://soundcloud.com/vitrio/fluxograma-18-routine-system
i used to listen to this mix at my old data entry job to intensify my general feelings of being an office drone to dizzying effect, especially from 30 mins onwards
https://soundcloud.com/vitrio/fluxograma-18-routine-system