prejudices

[michael]

isn't it annoying when people refuse to recognize the greatness of an artist like Michael Jackson? i mean, all personal preferences aside, and forget about all the shit that's happened since, how can any music lover not see that Thriller is timeless and perfect?

again, personal preferences aside, how can anyone deny that George Michael is an amazing singer? his voice and delivery is so refined and that takes years of hard work.

Sorry if I'm being a dick, but how can personal preferences not come into these assessments? And if they don't come into it, what value do the assessments have? What are these judgements good for?

 

[mistersloane]

Sorry if I'm being a dick, but how can personal preferences not come into these assessments? And if they don't come into it, what value do the assessments have? What are these judgements good for?

Yeah, I can see what you mean, how do you make a value judgement without personal preference?

'Thriler' is a really interesting case - I would argue that it's a total exception to any personal preferences that the listener may have, listening to it I'm still shocked at just what a ridiculous piece of work it is, ridiculous as in super human. If you listen to the interviews with Quincy Jones at the end of the special edition of it, even he still sounds shocked at what they made, and even more shocked at its subsequent acheivement.

 

[MATT MAson]

i s'ppose so... but remember that wire article which talked bout that episode on the radio where Lydon was saying the pistols were influenced by reggae and country music. i would file punk as more of a reaction against rock complacency than really prejudice against other music. well i guess they hated the same shit we hate... the hate thread has not come back to life recently

If you go back further than the Pistols to Television etc, it was about a real dislike for what had happened to rock.

Garage rose as people got pissed off with the way the jungle scene had gone, etc etc. Micheal Jackson only came into his own after ditiching the Jacksons. Hate, complacency and cynicism are really important creative forces that should not be suppressed.

Having said that, George Micheal still needed to work with Ridgely to write musical crack like Careless Whisper (not to mention 'Wham Raps!').

 

[UFO over easy]

i hear that some blackmetal bands are switching to electronic instruments because the guitar is a "black instrument" (um... so is rock'n'roll, sherlock)... anyone heard any of this new synth metal stuff?

Aside from Vikernes, Ulver is the big example of black metal acts going electronic and all dark ambient, although from what I remember, he was about 1000 times more sensible a person... both have made some absolutely phenomenal music though

edit - you got me thinking about this a bit so I started digging through some LPs. I knew I was forgetting something important.. check out Ildjarn if you can. He never abandoned guitars if I remember right but as his music progressed it became more and more textural. It makes sense as his music was always less tonal than most of the first wave BM stuff, but it's still really interesting to see how his music moved in totally opposite directions to most bands around at the time. His stuff became far less clearly structured.. kind of impressionistic

you can still see how all those first wave bands emerged from the same space though (I think ildjarn played bass for emperor at some point..) but if you listen to the real early stuff, the really rough recordings before they started using pro studios, the harshness of the recordings make those visceral, repetative riffs sound like total washes of sound. the early darkthrone stuff is a good example; but then they all discovered studios. most of the bands developed their ideas based on the musical content of the earlier albums, the only difference being their use of more expensive equipment, so it became really clean sounding and sterile... slightly impotent sounding and totally unthreatening. whereas maybe people like ildjarn were more concerned with capturing an atmosphere or something.

sorry for the ramble.

 

[bassbeyondreason]

Never expected to see Ildjarn mentioned on Dissensus, but it's some of the most incredible music I've ever heard.
Good point about production too, I think the main reason I love the Burial LP so much is because it reminds me of BM (as well as early blues, for that matter), with the levels of tape hiss reflecting the emotional distance/coldness combined with the emotive riffs/melodies/vocals etc.
Sorry to derail the thread, but another recommendation:
Paysage D'Hiver: Ultra-atmospheric winter-themed BM. Self-titled demo is well worth a listen, long (i.e. 20 minutes) songs of ambient BM with violin and a production that pretty much sounds like a blizzard, obscuring the music. I'll upload when I can be arsed...

 

[mistersloane]

Aside from Vikernes, Ulver is the big example of black metal acts going electronic and all dar if you listen to the real early stuff, the really rough recordings before they started using pro studios, the harshness of the recordings make those visceral, repetative riffs sound like total washes of sound. the early darkthrone stuff is a good example;
.

Is this the stuff that's released or have yer got some tape swapping stuff that's around?

 

[UFO over easy]

I'm just talking about released records. I'm not too involved with any of that scene stuff anymore.