I LOVE MUSIC LOL

jackjambie said:

following luka's inspiring roll call - i may well be wrong here, but in terms of things slowing down i'm just going to put my foot in it and say that I think certain ppl have maybe got too into being deep tech evangelists recently

(#RupertReadComeHome)

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Lolol, I wonder who that could possibly directed at. Unlike a lot of people on this forum, I'm just not very good at keeping track of lots of different musics at the same time. I tend to listen very very heavily and nearly exclusively to a particular sound, while sometimes having an odd week here or there where I check out some older music I've not explored properly, or some other scene I've been meaning to check out. And yeah, as I've got more into DOING label stuff, I've had less time for talking about music here. I do love dissensus though and Luka's right in that us users should take some responsibility for keeping the place alive.

I also miss Continuum, despite the fact that he owes me $$$ for my MDMA.

Could London dying have anything to do with it? Feels harder to get gassed about even exciting pockets of music in the context of the city being gutted from the inside...

im sure plenty of djs get tips from online posters. why wouldnt they. i doubt headhunter/addison groove heard about footwork by hanging out in chicago. online lurking is (was?) the new digging. though i dont think this is all djs. most still rely on being sent stuff by people they know (which is another kind of easy option maybe but one people seem to like as it implies a certain scene-membership/commiunity/authenticity etc).

but if you dont want people borrowing your tips, or stealing your selection, people should just remove the artist name or song title when they post it. someone would come along and tell everyone else in about 5 mins anyway but if you want to keep things undercover, you need to think of new ways. its not like the 80s/90s when you could scrub the label off the record.

doesn't anything on itunes come up if you shazam it anyway?

Or are y'all talking about stuff so underground it's not even in the beatport 100?

forgot about shazam.

non english songs dont seem to come up on shazam.

that might be the answer if youre trying to keep songs a secret.

its weird thinking about keeping music totally underground though. i mean, people only thought like that when they could afford to, when they knew their stuff had an audience already (albeit small). i dont know if producers still think like that. 'keep it underground' 'keep it local' 'i dont want it getting big' etc. do they? though i get frustrated sometimes listening to rinse cos they dont tell you what the song is so maybe djs still want to be gatekeepers and keep tunes to themselves. but most producers/singers/rappers just want to be heard.

luka said:

Hypothetically speaking, I don't see why what crowley thought was happening, is necessarily so absurd.

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of course, that's not the absurd bit

I actually got Ben confused with Night Slugs because I second guessed my habits of bullying the same 3 people, even if I was right. I'm impressed he still feels sore, and I'm just being catty with the guy. Even if I've never particularly enjoyed his mixes.

And I don't think the artist necessarily thinks its terrible based on who grabs them, because they just want to earn respect, attention and potentially money. That's fine and good, OF COURSE. But long run it can lead to things where the artist doesn't go through the process of the slower build.

Recently though, there are rappers who get internet buzz in non-rap circles that are more eclectic and then attract managers who don't think about promoting them in the traditional rap methods, because they don't know. Instead, they turn to the eclecticism of the blog circles, to content aggregate websites/'publications' focused on newness and 'excitement' rather than courting a genre audience... And then, they get held above the standards of their genre. "YES", these fans cry "they're so experimental, and they are much better than the muck and mire of the genre I don't dedicate myself to!".

So here we have a possible failure in the future. The 'fans' of these artists are now rooting them from the genre audience, they're not going to help these artists become popular within the confines of their genre. Rather, it becomes a muck of 'buzz artists' where you're getting chillwave remixes, or you're remixing some generic indie/dance act on 4AD. And this can last for a 2-3 year period and maybe a couple of albums, until you're spat back out because while the money/fame/attention was good, this isn't a group you can build a core fanbase out of.

"Rap Fans", you can do that out of, and you don't even have to be some Joey Badass style rappity rapper. You can be a antipop consortium type, or a bay area rapper, or a generic street rapper. Yo Gotti is technically a commercial 'failure', but he sustains a lifestyle and a really good career off of his music. These guys who went left for the money can't depend on this audience who have a tendency to go through 'phases' and stick around only for one 'big' record to then vanish.

Is it an exaggerated bit of stress and guilt to feel like "Oh no, I put a link on a blog/forum, now this artist has become FAMOUS and its all my fault, waaaah" ? Yeah, easily. But I am incredibly hesitant to do that reflexively anymore after unintentionally promoting things I feel didn't deserve my effort, or worse, seeing friends and peers hapharzardly promote things that REALLY didn't deserve anyone's effort.

is this the renaissance

Is it an exaggerated bit of stress and guilt to feel like "Oh no, I put a link on a blog/forum, now this artist has become FAMOUS and its all my fault, waaaah" ? Yeah, easily. But I am incredibly hesitant to do that reflexively anymore after unintentionally promoting things I feel didn't deserve my effort, or worse, seeing friends and peers hapharzardly promote things that REALLY didn't deserve anyone's effort.

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I have less and less time for this way of thinking, cba being so precious about your hit rate.

Gombreak said:

I have less and less time for this way of thinking, cba being so precious about your hit rate.

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I'm not talking about hit rate, I'm talking about being aware of the fact that you're cosigning crap. Not in a "Oh, is this good for the kids" way, but rather "... Does anyone really need to hear this song? Is it really good enough?"

But again, a rush to be a part of the buzz than allow an artist to gestate.

Hypothetically speaking, I don't see why what crowley thought was happening, is necessarily so absurd.
If he had mentioned freeze tag booty, on a forum BUFO and other name brand DJs read, why is it delusional to think that one of those people might actually listen to the song, enjoy it and play it out, in actual nitespots?
A thought experiment I have just conducted suggests to me that that is a perfectly plausible scenario

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DJ hears song on forum, likes it, plays it. Totally plausible and totally nothing wrong with it if it did happen I'd have thought. Gotta hear it somehow.

Crowley and Luka both mentioned Freeze Tag Booty, and thanks to them both.

mistersloane said:

Crowley and Luka both mentioned Freeze Tag Booty, and thanks to them both.

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Yesterday when I took time out from the debate, I listened to a Boxed set from December and it played the record. I laughed and threw all my papers in the air.

TBH, the only criticism that stings is people think I'm trying to keep my hit rate alive, b/c that's so far from it. Everything else that sounds neurotic and whiny, that's 100% fair.

I dunno if this has been mentioned, but isn't one of the changes that's taken place over the last 5 or so years is that 'underground' cache just can't really exist anymore. If you want to hear or find out about any kind of music it's only a click away. I can't imagine anyone growing up now really linking their identity to the music they listened to in the way that was obvious in youth culture gone by. Obviously there will always be scenes but, I'd imagine your kids nowadays wouldn't likely see as much conflict liking one particular genre of music compared to another. Or find their identity in the music they are into. I kind of think this is a good thing tbh.

Otoh I feel kind of burnt out on listening to music. Researching finding out about new/old music, different genres and scenes used to be something I found a great deal of satisfaction in. But I kind of feel like there isn't any mystery anymore. There's no secret scene or undiscovered gems anymore, I've literally heard the entire history of recorded sound, and there's a real jadedness that comes along with that (obviously illusory) thought.

I guess it's art in the age of mechanical reproduction isn't it. And in regards to the notion of the 'aura' of the thing, doesn't the computer now take all of the spent aura from individual products and collate them. I kind of feel like computers have their own particular 'aura' or fetish-object quality that goes along with their perceived limitless potentiality.

I kind of feel like the same thing holds true for all forms of media. I wonder why anyone would want to start a blog anymore knowing that literally anything you could say has already been said. Maybe that's just defeatism but it feels true. The endless rush of information produces a sense that any particular instance of it is next to worthless.

griftert said:

I dunno if this has been mentioned, but isn't one of the changes that's taken place over the last 5 or so years is that 'underground' cache just can't really exist anymore. If you want to hear or find out about any kind of music it's only a click away.

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but it doesn't mean that the whole world will listen! i don't believe in this argument that there can't be underground with internet - yes the tune you uploaded is available to the (almost) whole world now, but only few might listen to it.

there's loads of cutting edge music around internet, and it frustrates to hear complains how everything can be heard/is already heard, when at the same time the forward thinking stuff gets ignored...