current trends that will age horribly

[Tentative Andy]

Yeah I dunno, I quite like Justice although I wouldn't say I've been blown away by anything from them.

Actually that isn't quite true, they do have one tune that has given me the blown-away effect, and that tune is Stress. Fuck yeah.

 

[Client Eastwood]

stuff like this needs to get thrown in the bin.

 

[bun-u]

i think in this age of proliferation and sensory overload and too many choices, what people want more than anything else is for something to matter. and these lines of questioning may be an expression of that. personally i would prefer less and better in general...

yeah of course, but the logic is still very much inverted... we value music that matters because we think people in the future will say it matters. The degree to which it matters in the future is tied up with why that was important at the time it was made but if we in the present are at pains to seek out music which we think will matter in the future...I'm dizzy, lol

 

[mms]

Safe for properly responding to this - A lot of what you're saying makes at least some kind of sense to me, although as regards your point about competing for attention in social spaces, an obvious point would be that there are lots of other loud social situations where dance music is played other than pubs/bars, and some of them would be orientated around things other than booze.
I dunno though, don't take this as a personal dig but would you consider this alcohol-frequency kind of music to be inherently 'lesser', or at least see the booze orientation as automatically a point against it? I say this because the dismissive attitude of 'oh, that stuff's all just booze music' (which I hear from other people apart from you) reminds a lot of the way people would right off ardcore and ravey type stuff as 'just noise for people on pills', 'e-monster fodder' and so forth. Now you might say that ecstacy is a more interesting drug culturally than alcohol, has more progressive potential,, and I would be inclined to agree if you did, but still.. I drink, and you drink (right?), so are we really in a position to dismiss the whole culture associated with that as something horribly alien?
That kind of critique can also be a way of avoiding engaging with you the music properly I think, of almost deliberately not wanting to see what you can get out of it on your own terms. And you might miss out this way. For instance, Swears hardly comes across as some lairy, laddish beer-monster, but he clearly gets quite a lot out of this cluster of artists (I still find 'blog house' to silly to use as a name), so there must be something more to their sound/appeal.

FWIW, I do share your propensity to find mid-range electronic sounds annoying, but I think for slightly different reasons. For me, focus on the mid-range alone tends to produce a curiously 'flat', levelled-out kind of sonic experience, esp when combined with stomping mid-tempo beats. Also it's a comparative thing, I just find bass/sub and very high treble more exciting.

personally as a sound its instinctivley a complete turn off for me, but i just find as a dynamic or a way of getting people to dance its bloody lazy, however some people do it nice, also there is a big distance between the hazy fuzz of mbv, so clearly directed textured and perfumed and the kind of miasma of oasis, where the booze cloud of feedback is there to give a sense of energy and cover up their feeble songs, see what i mean?
I'm not saying its for laddish beer monsters or criticising the music i'm just trying to describe the sound and the conditions i guess.

 

[elgato]

i think in this age of proliferation and sensory overload and too many choices, what people want more than anything else is for something to matter. and these lines of questioning may be an expression of that. personally i would prefer less and better in general...

i'm struggling to connect this concern to the thrust of this thread

 

[Tentative Andy]

personally as a sound its instinctivley a complete turn off for me, but i just find as a dynamic or a way of getting people to dance its bloody lazy, however some people do it nice, also there is a big distance between the hazy fuzz of mbv, so clearly directed textured and perfumed and the kind of miasma of oasis, where the booze cloud of feedback is there to give a sense of energy and cover up their feeble songs, see what i mean?
I'm not saying its for laddish beer monsters or criticising the music i'm just trying to describe the sound and the conditions i guess.

Yeah that's fair enough, it can be an easy option, esp with guitars I guess as that's how they tend to sound when just plugged straight in. Though I personally prefer mid-range guitar music to mid-range electronic, perhaps just due to greater exposure. I also agree with you about the way it affects you as a listener, it has this initial, obvious 'grab' on you, yet ultimately doesn't seem to hit as deep as, say, really good bass, doesn't work your body so hard or so directly. So can be quite unsatisying as an experience.
Sorry to bang on about this, I just find these things interesting. Helps pass a boring day .

 

[mixed_biscuits]

> Flight of the Conchords

 

[Tentative Andy]

Oh, and a current trend that could well do with shuffling quietly off the face of the earth imo - the Jo Whiley driven craze for Live Lounge covers done in a lazy, coffeehouse folk/jazz/pop-ballad style.
(Cue everyone pointing out good Live Lounge covers that I've forgotten about....)

 

[zhao]

yeah of course, but the logic is still very much inverted... we value music that matters because we think people in the future will say it matters. The degree to which it matters in the future is tied up with why that was important at the time it was made but if we in the present are at pains to seek out music which we think will matter in the future...I'm dizzy, lol

sure thing. and of course arbitrary (to the experience of the art forms itself) economic political factors determine to a great extent what forms from the past is remembered or deemed important... making the pursuit even more irrelevant.

in the youtube thread i was thinking aloud about why Molam music of southeast Asia is unlikely to enter hipster consciousness the same way that Cumbia did: and the reasons are certainly not because the music is less full of life or richness or funky, but an entirely arbitrary set of historical reasons make the Latin sound more readily accessible to the west.

 

[zhao]

somethings are not even worth mentioning... like a lot of the Nu-jazz and Funk Soul revival BULLSHIT

 

[BareBones]

Oh, and a current trend that could well do with shuffling quietly off the face of the earth imo - the Jo Whiley driven craze for Live Lounge covers done in a lazy, coffeehouse folk/jazz/pop-ballad style.
(Cue everyone pointing out good Live Lounge covers that I've forgotten about....)

i despise those live lounge covers, my sister always listens to them in the car. It always seems to be some terribly mediocre indie band doing some haha-how-quaint cover of a really good pop song, trying to like 'lend their artistry' or something to it, because obviously they're a proper band, proper artists, and not some urgh-horrible manufactured pop singer, and they're so dazzled by their own self-importance that they're painfully unaware that the song they're covering is like 100 times better than anything they've ever done.

and the dizzee/ting tings thing was a proper nadir, obviously.

 

[Tentative Andy]

It always seems to be some terribly mediocre indie band doing some haha-how-quaint cover of a really good pop song, trying to like 'lend their artistry' or something to it, because obviously they're a proper band, proper artists, and not some urgh-horrible manufactured pop singer

Ugh, that's exactly it, isn't it?

 

[owengriffiths]

i despise those live lounge covers, my sister always listens to them in the car. It always seems to be some terribly mediocre indie band doing some haha-how-quaint cover of a really good pop song, trying to like 'lend their artistry' or something to it, because obviously they're a proper band, proper artists, and not some urgh-horrible manufactured pop singer, and they're so dazzled by their own self-importance that they're painfully unaware that the song they're covering is like 100 times better than anything they've ever done.

and the dizzee/ting tings thing was a proper nadir, obviously.

As much as I agree with this, Travis's cover of Genie in a Bottle was okay. The foolish worship of cover versions is the same as the foolish worship of remixes just for the sake of it. The latter has been a big problem for the last 15 years, it probably wont go away anytime soon.

 

[owengriffiths]

Kanye West's naff voice. How someone with a voice like that has had such a successful career is anyones voice. I dont think Ive ever seen his face but judging by his dulcet tones it's a face you could punch all day.

 

[swears]

Kanye West's naff voice. How someone with a voice like that has had such a successful career is anyones voice. I dont think Ive ever seen his face but judging by his dulcet tones it's a face you could punch all day.

I thought he was kinda endearing on the first album... he's an interesting character, anyway.

Whether he is remembered for his music or not, he marks a shift away from every mc having to be a gangsta/thug in the mainstream. Course I love loads of gangsta stuff, but it was probably time to go easy on it a bit.

 

[Slothrop]

I kind of imagine that a lot of the current trend for ponderous Basic Channel inspired space echo navel gazing is going to start sounding pretty dull pretty soon.

 

[mistadubalina]

^ glad I've never heard basic channel then.

 

[michael]

I kind of imagine that a lot of the current trend for ponderous Basic Channel inspired space echo navel gazing got tired at least 5 years ago.

Fixed it for you.

 

[zhao]

^ glad I've never heard basic channel then.

no no if people say the Strokes are unoriginal and boring it don't mean you should write off Velvet Underground. get me?

sure it will almost certainly age as badly as the Pete Namlook Fax label stuff from the 90s, i must admit i enjoy all that endless derivative echospace minimal dub techno... functional furniture music for when working, especially when tired, when i need unobtrusive soundtrack...

 

[mistadubalina]

I hear ya. I just dont want basic channel to ruin my enjoyment of current ponderous echo space navel gazing stuff.