Have been down this trail before and not really found anyone interested enough to talk about it. Always end up asking myself if maybe originality is something we could shift the main focus away from. Maybe it's not the be all end all. Maybe it's just the byproduct of capitalism and mass production. People used to be fine listening to the same old shit for centuries before this era. In many parts of the world they still do. We've been over this before, right? Songs older than anyone can remember. Replayed over and over. Still bringing the same joy. Can easily transpose this into the hippy side of my point, which is moving away from a materialist mentality and some form (not sure what exactly) of a return to some prior state of mind. I think my shroom trip confirmed all of this to me. There I was listening to old music and getting as fresh a buzz as I would having heard it for the first time. In fact plenty of the tracks I heard on that trip were new to me, but very much within the confines of the framework. So maybe the problem is us and our externally imposed need for the new. Could this be bypassed? I mean, let's face it, you hear an old classic you haven't heard for years and it catches you. Smile plastered across your face. It's part nostalgia, part just sheer awe at the work. Timeless is timeless.
I was actually going to start a thread called 'beyond innovation' however I'm waiting for barty to come back from his hiatus as he's more clued into contemporary music trends than i am.
Basically what i was going to argue that tracks, albums and mixes can have both revolutionary and conservative aspects simultaneously. I was also going to argue that we should drop the term reactionary and use conservative, because reactionary is ultimately a political term that refers to someone who wants the restoration of the catholic monarchy and feudalism, ultimately. I don't think you can lump a 70s roots reggae purist in there, no matter how hard you try. You could probably lump in some kind of trad classical bod or the types that want to make jazz on a level with mozart (or accord white approval to it in that way.) But otherwise I think conservative is a better term.
For instance I've always argued that techstep was rhythmically far less innovative than 94, but there was initialy innovation tere, in the disembodied murky atmospheres and the basslines. even into 98/99 there were still some interesting things being done in the bass sections. I think this is a better way to holistically conceptualise music. I can thus look at some new jungle and be like, ok is this doing an interesting thing with combination and recombination of old elements?
I mean T.I 's trap music came out in 2003 right. you can't seriously tell me trap is *new* can you?