Bloggification
- Thread starter zhao
- Start date
ok this might be the bloghouse documentary someone told me about, i ain't seen it yet:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/...the-electro-scene-in-the-age-of-the-internet/
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/...the-electro-scene-in-the-age-of-the-internet/
i like this one better
this place is like gorgon's spaceship ...
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
this place is like gorgon's spaceship ...
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
Last edited:
These threads about "authentic" or "indigenous" music are starting to say less and less. I don't think this genre of remix weekenders has anything to do with authenticity per se; it really is just music made by dilletentes. A Mad Decent take on dancehall, for example, is going to sound alien and impassioned to fans of dancehall because it is just that - alien and impassionate to the genre of dancehall. On one hand, taking this approach to making music I think can overthrow genres that may have become formulaic and tired and breathe in a fresh air of life, while on the other hand it can come across as amateur, shallow, opportunistic or, at times, condescending*.
Ultimately it really just comes down to how good the music is. When you start talking about authenticity you run the risk of having a conversation that is far more about you and how you want to feel about yourself than it is about actual music.
* I understand that using the word "condescending" might seem like I'm veering into the kind of personal gripes that I am warning against. I don't mean here condescending in the way that the outside artist is rudely presuming to be on the same level as the "indigenous" ones (a condescension that it would be pretty obviously hypocritical to feel a victim of), but the condescension of the outside artist viewing a scene as a demographic which he might be able to make a quick buck off. This is really a moot point though because these artists rarely ever actually end up selling their tunes to the actual enthusiasts of the genre in question, but rather the mums, sisters, brothers and disinteresed peers of those people.
Ultimately it really just comes down to how good the music is. When you start talking about authenticity you run the risk of having a conversation that is far more about you and how you want to feel about yourself than it is about actual music.
* I understand that using the word "condescending" might seem like I'm veering into the kind of personal gripes that I am warning against. I don't mean here condescending in the way that the outside artist is rudely presuming to be on the same level as the "indigenous" ones (a condescension that it would be pretty obviously hypocritical to feel a victim of), but the condescension of the outside artist viewing a scene as a demographic which he might be able to make a quick buck off. This is really a moot point though because these artists rarely ever actually end up selling their tunes to the actual enthusiasts of the genre in question, but rather the mums, sisters, brothers and disinteresed peers of those people.
Last edited:
well yes but certainly, without any trace of a doubt, this is, has been, and ALWAYS WILL BE the point.
just so happens 99% of the bloggy shit i'm talking about sounds truly, thoroughly horrendous with no redeeming qualities what so ever. funkless hammering and empty mimicry with nothing resembling groove anywhere in sight.
Maybe we can replace notions of authenticity with, say, being culturally ensnared - what always defines this "I know it when I see it" stuff is the sense that it more easily skips between (takes on) genres than it sits within one.
With funky (which seems to get people more upset about the imagined use of notions of authenticity - perhaps of its geographical/social closeness when compared to, say, cumbia) I basically distinguish based on the split-second sense of "does this sound like the kind of thing I'd hear in a funky-only set, or the kind of thing I'd hear mixed up with juke and dubstep and etc?"
I actually like several of the housier Mad Decent releases but the Diplo/Lil Jon collab-o is pretty depressing, Lil Jon reduced to a comic reference to himself and Diplo reduced to... Grrr Dubstep I guess.
Afrojack is something different I think - dude is basically a post-trance DJ, and to the extent that he's bringing these sounds into that context he's doing it to the largest tribe there is - he's not "eclectic" in the sense we mean hear. Stuff like Afrojack and Sidney Samson ("Riverside") is quoting various forms of black dance music in a manner closer to 2 Unlimited or The Real McCoy than Diplo.
With funky (which seems to get people more upset about the imagined use of notions of authenticity - perhaps of its geographical/social closeness when compared to, say, cumbia) I basically distinguish based on the split-second sense of "does this sound like the kind of thing I'd hear in a funky-only set, or the kind of thing I'd hear mixed up with juke and dubstep and etc?"
I actually like several of the housier Mad Decent releases but the Diplo/Lil Jon collab-o is pretty depressing, Lil Jon reduced to a comic reference to himself and Diplo reduced to... Grrr Dubstep I guess.
Afrojack is something different I think - dude is basically a post-trance DJ, and to the extent that he's bringing these sounds into that context he's doing it to the largest tribe there is - he's not "eclectic" in the sense we mean hear. Stuff like Afrojack and Sidney Samson ("Riverside") is quoting various forms of black dance music in a manner closer to 2 Unlimited or The Real McCoy than Diplo.
unknown soulja
Wild Horses
That was the point I was trying to make i spose.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Is it partly about a sense of whether the genre specific memes are being used as tokens in the web of meaning that's produced by the genre and its culture or whether they're just being used as signifiers of the genre and its culture? The sense of 'wrongness' that comes from subtle miscontextualisation?
But on this sort of thing, I often come back to a Robert Wyatt comment about prog / Canterbury sound - to the effect that a lot of people think of that sound as being about posh kids sneering at stupid pop music and looking down their noses at it, but for him it was all about loving RnB / rock and roll / beat pop but also coming from a background of classical and avant-jazz and stuff which inevitably informs what you do as well - you just can't make a motown record if you're a grammar school kid from Canterbury, I think his phrase was that it'd be more disingeneous to "just pretend you've never heard Albert Ayler" than to produce a slightly weirder and more clever-clever take on pop.
So yeah, it's kind of interesting to pin down what the actual complaint is here. It always seems like an ongoing dissensus catch-22 that if middle class kids just listen to indie then it's because race / class fear scares them off listening to 'street' music, but if they listen to (or, *gasp*, produce) anything that's related to 'street' music then they're appropriating or gentrifying it...
It seems to me like the fundamental complaint is less the lack of respect and engagement (which afaict mostly just annoys western / middle class / inauthentic people who are doing the same thing but with slightly more respect and engagement - presumably the 'source' musicians couldn't care less) than about the generally boring and infertile music / scene that gets produced. And there's a link in here to big beat as a superficial / cut and paste magpie music that never really develops into something with its own ideas and gets stuck in 'sample-source-of-the-month' syndrome...
Last edited:
Yeah, that's an important thing to note - I don't have any objection to middle class gentrification and eclecticism vis a vis house / techno / disco etc and it would be inconsistent to object merely on these grounds.
And, you know, some of this stuff was really great! Gold Teeth Thief/Minesweeper Suite, Piracy Funds Terrorism etc.
It's just that it's been codified into a repetitive trudge of farty bass / danger sonix that is actually much more predictable than the source genres it claims to avant-ise.
And, you know, some of this stuff was really great! Gold Teeth Thief/Minesweeper Suite, Piracy Funds Terrorism etc.
It's just that it's been codified into a repetitive trudge of farty bass / danger sonix that is actually much more predictable than the source genres it claims to avant-ise.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Come to that, a lot of the post dubstep avant funky future garage whatever stuff seems to be almost apologetic about nicking bits from juke, funky or whatever - an awareness that you're coopting someone else's good ideas and using them to enrich your stuff, not taking something rubbish and making it good by avantifying it - which was the spin that (some but not all) IDM people put on essentially the same thing with drill and bass and glitch hop...
I don't mind ZZK to be honest, even some of their recent stuff is pretty interesting, vibeful and original..
the hipster/nu rave image is kinda confusing though
at least it sounds like proper music unlike those amateur bloghipstercumbia bootlegs posted on generation bass every week
the hipster/nu rave image is kinda confusing though
at least it sounds like proper music unlike those amateur bloghipstercumbia bootlegs posted on generation bass every week
there are more good things about blog labels that have sprung up in the lat year or so than there are bad things, there will always be bad things so why not celebrate and support good things.
trilogy tapes / tri-angle records / drowned in sound / analog africa spring to mind right away.
trilogy tapes / tri-angle records / drowned in sound / analog africa spring to mind right away.
what, bad music that comes out of blogs?