Confucius, whose use of the terms are you critiquing there? Because when I say 'ardkore strikes me as "plus and" it is precisely in the sense that you mean (this music works as "mindless" populist music and as "avant" music) as well as in the sense of the tracks being overstuffed with different, sometimes contradictory-seeming sonic details.
Of course it's occasionally difficult to separate the meanings, because in practice people associate social eclecticism with sonic eclecticism (i.e. they think the way to appeal to two audiences is indeed simply to have sonic elements from two styles jammed together). Conversely, stylistic purism often presents itself in conjunction with a progressive paring back of a sound.
I'm trying to think of an example of a sound that is/was at once busy and self-consciously purist, and it's hard to think of one, perhaps because the moment of maximalism is always a moment of confidence vis a vis other genres: while being dedicated to a vision of what yr genre is, you're not scared of engaging with other genres and taking on what they have to offer if it works.
e.g. 'ardkore and 2-step were both frequently maximalist but not really in a <i>self-consciously</i> purist way: as much as both have a fierce sense of identity, in both cases the sonic/stylistic choices could be characterised as a refusal to just take sides - e.g. 2-step refuses to take sides exclusively with R&B, hip hop, dancehall, rave, jungle or pop, and floats uneasily but productively between all of these.
The Basement Jaxx example Simon raised is kinda interesting because it seems that both structurally <i>and</i> in terms of intention recent Jaxx material often mimics 'ardkore, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they were listening to the original of "Lords of the Null-Lines" a lot. The limitation that is operative on <i>Kish Kash</i> is their desire to be songful, which productively reigns in the excess in the same way that technological/functional restraints perhaps reigned in 'ardkore's hypothetical excesses.
The insane level of detail on the record only becomes captivating (rather than exhausting) when you internalise each song <i>as a song</i>, and not as a succession of details. When people complain that the record is overly busy or overly fussy, I often suspect that the real problem is that they didn't connect with the songs. Their retort might be, "yeah, well, the detail stood in the way", but what they see as an obstacle I see as a productive tension - the partial opposition b/w song and detail actually serves to heighten the effect of each once you can see how they inform one another.
In general I'm surprised that no-one seems to agree with my cod-dialectical approach here - the same approach which informs my position on either/or vs plus/and, but also eclecticism vs purism (in brief: eclecticism is good if it can fashion a compelling singular vision; purism is good if it can sensitize us to a world of previously unperceived differences). It just seems so eminently sensible that music works when it <i>works through</i> a perceived opposition (by producing out of something its opposite), rather than as a demonstration of one side of an opposition declaring victory over the other.
Of course it's occasionally difficult to separate the meanings, because in practice people associate social eclecticism with sonic eclecticism (i.e. they think the way to appeal to two audiences is indeed simply to have sonic elements from two styles jammed together). Conversely, stylistic purism often presents itself in conjunction with a progressive paring back of a sound.
I'm trying to think of an example of a sound that is/was at once busy and self-consciously purist, and it's hard to think of one, perhaps because the moment of maximalism is always a moment of confidence vis a vis other genres: while being dedicated to a vision of what yr genre is, you're not scared of engaging with other genres and taking on what they have to offer if it works.
e.g. 'ardkore and 2-step were both frequently maximalist but not really in a <i>self-consciously</i> purist way: as much as both have a fierce sense of identity, in both cases the sonic/stylistic choices could be characterised as a refusal to just take sides - e.g. 2-step refuses to take sides exclusively with R&B, hip hop, dancehall, rave, jungle or pop, and floats uneasily but productively between all of these.
The Basement Jaxx example Simon raised is kinda interesting because it seems that both structurally <i>and</i> in terms of intention recent Jaxx material often mimics 'ardkore, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they were listening to the original of "Lords of the Null-Lines" a lot. The limitation that is operative on <i>Kish Kash</i> is their desire to be songful, which productively reigns in the excess in the same way that technological/functional restraints perhaps reigned in 'ardkore's hypothetical excesses.
The insane level of detail on the record only becomes captivating (rather than exhausting) when you internalise each song <i>as a song</i>, and not as a succession of details. When people complain that the record is overly busy or overly fussy, I often suspect that the real problem is that they didn't connect with the songs. Their retort might be, "yeah, well, the detail stood in the way", but what they see as an obstacle I see as a productive tension - the partial opposition b/w song and detail actually serves to heighten the effect of each once you can see how they inform one another.
In general I'm surprised that no-one seems to agree with my cod-dialectical approach here - the same approach which informs my position on either/or vs plus/and, but also eclecticism vs purism (in brief: eclecticism is good if it can fashion a compelling singular vision; purism is good if it can sensitize us to a world of previously unperceived differences). It just seems so eminently sensible that music works when it <i>works through</i> a perceived opposition (by producing out of something its opposite), rather than as a demonstration of one side of an opposition declaring victory over the other.
