EDM versus Disco

luka

luka

Well-known member
You've come back because you want to join in. Good. Join in. Be a good capitalist. Add value. Show your worth. Play nicely. I don't see why this should be a problem. It's how any attempt to make friends and join in a conversation works isn't it? Listen, pick up contextual cues, work out where the various participants are coming from, what the tone is, what ground has already been covered. where you can usefully make a contribution, what gets a laugh, what causes offence... I dunno.... It's just the basics, no?
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
What interests me about this is that the fact that you think it's debatable is perhaps a reflection of the US's history with disco ("Disco Sucks"). Or a generational thing? In my experience at least disco has canonical status in the UK and outside of EDM fans there'd be absolutely no debate to be had. The fact it was manufactured or substanceless or whatever isn't really a concern. I guess that's what happens over time - time sorts out what survives and what disappears, so that we only hear the cream of disco nowadays and don't see it as a pernicious thing, saturating radio. Maybe in a decade or two the cream of EDM will have survived and people will look at it more nostalgically than you could think possible in 2019?

Saying that, I expected you to be espousing EDMs virtues cos that would be the dissensian move.

Finally, I've not heard much EDM so I actually can't really say which is "better".
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Perhaps this is the obverse of the time barrier effect? When something becomes historically distanced and *safe*, it can be enjoyed without reservation.
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Corpsey said:
What interests me about this is that the fact that you think it's debatable is perhaps a reflection of the US's history with disco ("Disco Sucks"). Or a generational thing? In my experience at least disco has canonical status in the UK and outside of EDM fans there'd be absolutely no debate to be had. The fact it was manufactured or substanceless or whatever isn't really a concern. I guess that's what happens over time - time sorts out what survives and what disappears, so that we only hear the cream of disco nowadays and don't see it as a pernicious thing, saturating radio. Maybe in a decade or two the cream of EDM will have survived and people will look at it more nostalgically than you could think possible in 2019?

Saying that, I expected you to be espousing EDMs virtues cos that would be the dissensian move.

Finally, I've not heard much EDM so I actually can't really say which is "better".
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Disco was no more manufactured than rock music. it's the state of music journalism that it wants to treat everything like a surrogate novel even though that has never been the function of music but even vocals to evoke ritual. disco does that very well. prog rock and later hard rock doesn't.
 
Agent

Agent

dgaf ngaf cgaf
luka said:
I don't really see the point in just ignoring the people in the room, calling them all stupid, and then getting annoyed when they dismiss you. This doesn't seem to me to be a recipe for success.
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No you misunderstand. I just want an argument. A friendly argument if possible. You say there's a general Dissensus point of view, a history, an in-group, and a set of codes you have to abide by to get into the VIP lounge. I don't get most of the Dissensus framework, but I get enough of it to see that it is wrought with inconsistencies (like, how can you be anti-capitalist and enjoy free streaming media, especially electronic music, which is made possible to technological progress driven by capitalism). If I go over the line, don't freak out or try to laugh me off the stage, just ignore it or, hell, try to play along. I was in a psych ward a year ago and I'm trying to recover and the only way to recover is to communicate knotted up ideas/emotions and attempt to communicate. Sometimes that means poking fun at absurdities and inconsistencies. It's in my nature.

I disagree that I ignore everyone. I've responded to every criticism. If anyone's points or ideas are being ignored, it's my own.

Now, can I offer a slight critique? Stop taking this stuff so seriously! I'm not provoking, I'm playing. I'm not angry, I'm laughing. This is a tiny back corner of the web full of brainiacs and freaks and it comes off as a clique of exclusivist hipsters.

And I stand by my statement: club/dance music is club/dance music is club/dance music. Disco, techno, hardcore, dubstep. Trying to read anything deeper into it just evokes eyerolls. To me at least. Disagree? Ignore me, engage in some playful banter, or challenge me to a serious argument. Theory since the 60's has been a critique of consumerism, and everything related to the consumerist lifestyle: the cultic worship of celebrity, the empty surfaces of popular culture, the reduction of the active and thinking subject to a mindless spectator addicted to entertainment. The revolution isn't going to start in a dancehall, or reading Pynchon, Burroughs, or Nabokov (nonces) or watching Kubrick's films (nonce). I just want to point out inconsistencies, and maybe poke some good natured fun at them, but if you lot want a fight, we can fight.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
Of course I disagree. You can read anything deeply. There's a sense in which reality is a text. It's there to be interpreted. These high culture/low culture distinctions are 19th century. This is all fundamental. It's basic. It's in Phillip K Dick for instance. Kipple
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
the only difference is high art music doesn't need to be manufactured in the same sense simply because it is it's own closed off world. but that doesn't mean it doesn't escape the social production that facilitates it. noone just listens to music. it comes with all sorts of cultural expectations, codes and privileges. when i listen to schoenberg I'm listening like a philistine. I take pride in that but of course a connoisseur of classical music would not.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
No one is claiming the music we listen to leads inexorably towards revolution. Why would it? Why sgpuld it? Plus obviously what third said. I'm on the way to work sorry have to leave this for a bit sorry
 
Agent

Agent

dgaf ngaf cgaf
thirdform said:
Sure, but the revolution isn't going to start with schoenberg or Stockhausen is it?
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... or on an obscure message board. Now, in the case of Stockhausen it depends where you look. How deep you are willing to go. And how much abuse your eardrums can withstand.
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
well, if you're interested in that sort of thing you can read cornelius cardew's stockhausen serves imperialism. personally I'm not a maoist so i couldn't care less.
 
Agent

Agent

dgaf ngaf cgaf
thirdform said:
the only difference is high art music doesn't need to be manufactured in the same sense simply because it is it's own closed off world. but that doesn't mean it doesn't escape the social production that facilitates it. noone just listens to music. it comes with all sorts of cultural expectations, codes and privileges. when i listen to schoenberg I'm listening like a philistine. I take pride in that but of course a connoisseur of classical music would not.
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You consume mass produced or popular music as a consumer. You buy the digital download or the vinyl. You listen to Schoenberg or Stock, if you do it the right way, live. It's a different form of consumption. Popular media feeds a machine, classical "high art" or whatever you want to call it, provides a inimitable experience that cannot be replicated.
 
Agent

Agent

dgaf ngaf cgaf
thirdform said:
well, if you're interested in that sort of thing you can read cornelius cardew's stockhausen serves imperialism. personally I'm not a maoist so i couldn't care less.
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Yeah yeah he claimed 9/11 was the greatest work of art of the century. The dude was at the mercy of some sinister forces, what can I say?
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Agent Nucleus said:
You consume mass produced or popular music as a consumer. You buy the digital download or the vinyl. You listen to Schoenberg or Stock, if you do it the right way, live. It's a different form of consumption. Popular media feeds a machine, classical "high art" or whatever you want to call it, provides a inimitable experience that cannot be replicated.
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inimitable my arse. the same labour has to go into keep a machine ticking, it's just shifting the production elsewhere.
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
if you really wanted to make this case you'd make it with folk music. But high art aesthetes and anti-consumerist academic left theorists have always looked down on folk music, not revival folk, I mean actual folk music. and why should they applaud it anyway? folk music is the music of a disappearing class, the peasantry. the proletariat is a class of capital and shaped by it, yeah that's not really news to anyone.
 
Agent

Agent

dgaf ngaf cgaf
luka said:
We've got a few people here at the moment who are in this stage of trying to work out who we are and what's going on. It's an interesting process and worth thinking about. How do we break them? How do we make them conform? How do we teach them what our taboos are? How do we inculcate our values? How do we protect what we have? How do we circle the wagons? How do we chase out saboteurs and raiders? Etc etc etc. Because ultimately we do want to have our conversation and not have to keep refighting the same old battles or explaining things from first principles or etc etc etc.
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That's what I'm getting at. You don't see this as a problem? If you want an interesting, fertile discussion that actually goes somewhere and arrives at some new ideas, then you need to open up, forget about breaking people in, or forcing square pegs into round holes, and allow some inclusion. Hell, allow some stupidity. I mean, jeez, there's a real danger Dissensus could turn into a circle jerk of about 20-25 old British men speaking in code, listening to obsolete music, and never arriving at anything, let alone a theory or even a point worth wring, say, a paper or book about. You might end up with threads on the front page that go back 15 years or something. What a sad nightmare that would be!
 
Agent

Agent

dgaf ngaf cgaf
thirdform said:
inimitable my arse. the same labour has to go into keep a machine ticking, it's just shifting the production elsewhere.
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Fine, Stockhausen isn't a great example since he bridges electronic and classical music. But you cannot compare, say, Mozart on CD to experiencing Mozart in person (impossible, I know, just saying for the sake of argument, let's pretend). An album or CD is experienced the same way by everyone, everywhere. The live performance happens at a specific time and place, it only happens once, and it is a unique experience that cannot be replicated.

Another example: you can reproduce a million Rembrandt prints and everyone experiences the same thing when they look at the print. But there is only one original Rembrandt painting, and experience of viewing it cannot be duplicated, simulated, etc.

Neither can the experience of the Notre-Dame, ever again. Which is way more interesting to me.
 
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