Le Epic Choons

[sus]

Somebody post epic music fill this gaping void inside me with a wall of feeling

 

[luka]

My friend just sent me this



Got me thinking about a quality of modern pop music that I don't think there was so much of in the past -

I'll now struggle to describe it but it would include qualities like

"darkness"
atmospherics
filtered chords, hinting at barely suppressed emotions
minimalist drums
big build ups, explosions of hi-hats
"EPIC"-ness (but married to sultriness)

I suppose this is to do with dance music merging with pop music to some extent.

Is this a zeitgeist thing? Do people need heightened, portentuous music?

A tune like "Happy" by Pharrell stuck out a mile, with its faux-innocence.

 

[sus]

That song is not remotely epic, and nor is "Happy" by Pharrell these are completely different concepts and moods, only someone brain-addled by booze would get them confused

 

[luka]

It's all tied in (in my head) with 4k cameras, super slo-mo, the perfection of CGI. (Dangerously close to dematerialisation here but it's more performative than textural.)

 

[luka]

Perhaps it's also about fighting for attention - in the era where everybody can access all media all the time your song has to be EPIC to stick out. What do you think @Corpsey ?

 

[luka]

For all the hysterical grandeur of this music, people who listen to enthusiastically often seem totally unaffected. Overwrought vocals, emotion amplified through the roof against maximalist productions, feverish crescendos and overstated climaxes... all reduced to perfunctory current of muzak exhaled faintly by the anemic car speakers of an annoyingly convenient mini-van stuck in traffic on the motorway, being steadily washed down by the sound of the air conditioning.

Its emotional content is not to be taken (certainly isn't taken) at face value and in that regard, it is like reality tv.

 

[luka]

This prompted me to think of how advertising these days is often anti-dramatic. It's all tongue-in-cheek, ironic, using "epic" music only to deflate it with a blokey eye roll. Obviously you still get pompous adverts with sweeping crane shots but I'd say the norm is now the opposite of that.

Whereas as a general rule music doesn't seem to be cheeky or humorous or even innocent (not that advertising ever is).

Music is fighting for attention and significance, advertising is cloaking itself in mundanity

 

[luka]

Also when thinking about the "dark" "moody" pop and rnb, it's relevant to consider movies and TV that are popular ATM - Christopher Nolan, David Fincher, True Detective, (even Game of Thrones?).

High definition textures, "cold" filters, dark shadows, psychic unease, paranoia. James Bond becomes a therapy case. Some of those BBC dramas are like this too -The Bodyguard, The Night Manager. IdleRich's thread about Lynne Ramsay made me think of this

 

[Murphy]

 

[luka]

Show tunes used to be pop music. Like classical music they're meander melodically and aren't particularly repetitive. A verse might not even have a repeated melodic idea in it. They're narrative in that respect (and of course were written to serve a narrative function).

In the post rock n roll world there's been an increasing trend towards repetition and- to quote big knob blissblog- "the endless succession of NOW". blues three chords vs the harmonic complexity of show tunes/classical music. 1 bar melodic motifs repeating over and over in pop songs. the harmonic stasis or modal jazz/rap/grime etc.

this trend corpse has grasped is a return to the previous narrative, showtune emphasis on structure and narrative (the thread after all is call dramatic).

 

[luka]

this song's about her boyfriend dying from a drug overdose, yet its visual presentation is this pop culturally-referential joke.

Wow, the moment when she sings about him she's doing a sort of faux heartbroken look. Weird.

I love that song, btw, so I had to stop watching the video before it ruined it.

 

[...]

TV documentaries all have to be EPIC "journeys" and "odysseys" now, selling their subject rather than just telling you about it.

 

[sus]

this is close to le epic but not quite, it is soaring but in a sexy lovesick way

 

[Murphy]

“Love Me Harder” = consensual/non-consensual?

 

[Benny Bunter]

Show tunes used to be pop music. Like classical music they're meander melodically and aren't particularly repetitive. A verse might not even have a repeated melodic idea in it. They're narrative in that respect (and of course were written to serve a narrative function).

This is the most compact epic I can think of in this mode post rock n roll, virtually no repetition, builds to its climax in just over two minutes then ends.

 

[sus]

Ariana is interesting because she was like, a block of marble that corporate entities sculpted into product. Have you seen those before and after photos of her?

Which isn't to fixate on looks, but this is like, the obvious physical alteration that metaphorically stands for all the behavioral sculptings that've been done to her.

 

[Corpsey]

Ariana is interesting because she was like, a block of marble that corporate entities sculpted into product. Have you seen those before and after photos of her?

Which isn't to fixate on looks, but this is like, the obvious physical alteration that metaphorically stands for all the behavioral sculptings that've been done to her.

What the goddamn hell

 

[Clinamenic]

Ariana is interesting because she was like, a block of marble that corporate entities sculpted into product. Have you seen those before and after photos of her?

Which isn't to fixate on looks, but this is like, the obvious physical alteration that metaphorically stands for all the behavioral sculptings that've been done to her.

I remember her character in Victorious, and she was basically a supremely aloof character, borderline disabled.

 

[Corpsey]

Plastic surgery must be so good nowadays. You only notice it when it's bad. Apparently Boris Johnson would actually look ten times worse if he hadn't gone to Ariana's surgeon ten years ago 🤯

 

[sus]

What the goddamn hell