Conceptronica

[muser]

could not more strongly disagree with this however

conceptual art absolutely does require both skill and effort

no offense, but I expect more than this extremely lazy "anyone can do it" thinking from folk around here

no, they can't. if they could've, they would've.

it's exactly the same as music. anyone can conceive of something but execution requires knowledge, skill, technique.

I was referring to the skill of execution in comparison to music which, for example, making a pile of bricks an exhibition piece requires little to none. I also caveat necessarily because sometimes it does require skill of course. My argument is that music always requires some skill in execution and in my opinion the concept is mostly irrelevant. Which is why I think it's redundant to be dismissive of music because of it having some concept added on.

anyone could have composed 4'33", etc

This is a good counter example to what my argument actually was even though it wasn't quite the point you were making. The difference with this and conceptual art is that only someone very well established with an extensive back catalog could've pulled something like this off. it also comes close to being conceptual art and not music as it necessitated going to the 'art space' in order to experience it whereas music is able to be experienced anywhere.

 

[pattycakes_]

Good questions. What do we even mean by co-opted anyway?

In this case just very lazy appropriation with no regard for anything other than making a hit. Maybe it's no big deal? Or maybe it's shallow, disrespectful and shit? Maybe in 2019 all that matters is that the tunes've gotta bang? Maybe that's where we're at? Diplo is Yoda in that case.

But I think I'm making a big deal out of it based on an instant reaction to anything that suggests a certain type of corporate contact. It's like the Mercury music prize. Being declared acceptable by the establishment. RA is the establishment now. Street shit for Guardian readers. Slippery slope. South African House lost some of its pizzazz after all the attention. Go ask any hardcore head over there. Ever since 2009, it gained fame, it got all puffed up and lost its edge. Black coffee is one of the main guys who got boosted at the time and might be one of the few still riding the wave he caught. But he's basically playing ibizan tech house now. And maybe that's OK for him? But I guess part of me still holds onto the ideal of the underground (I know what third has to say about this but I ain't buying it.) I think people still want that. Conceptronica is the polar opposite. I wish there were a way to usher back in that same Levan/Russell type of nudge and wink onto the dancefloor. Somehow when people attempt that shit now, it's too cool. Like a super sophisticated AI putting every documented piece of hipness from the last 60 years through its mathematical blender and producing the slickest piece of code ever. The key to total power and influence over all future generations. The ultimate marketing tool. In a way we're kind of living inside of and cultivating that algorhythm now with our participation in social media and the Internet in general, and the way that bleeds out into the real world and feeds back into itself. I think this feedback loop is worth monitoring when you think of it's effect on art, and all your chillwaves and conceptronicas are kind of the crude hashings of the early stages of what's to come. It will only get slicker.

 

[luka]

Yeah, I think your naive answer is far more useful and accurate than any invocation of the commodity form when recorded music has been a commodity since its inception.

 

[sadmanbarty]

co-option is when you change the incentive structures of a music which in turn changes the direction of the music being produced. for example:

studentification is the triangulation of london's aesthetic values with the rest of the uk’s.

non-londoners will come into contact with london culture at university and will on the one hand be drawn to it due to its cultural cachet, while on the other not possessing the value sey to appreciate it.

having grown up listening to arcade fire there are a number of things they’ll be missing:

1) they won’t be attuned to the rhythmic sophistication of non-american rap

2) they wouldn’t have made their peace with music that is violent, misogynistic and homophobic

3) they would have nme values; music should be political, it should speak to emotional angst, etc.

4) they won’t be up to date with new sounds


so to deal with 1, they turn to very blocky clunky rappers without much rhythmic agility; stormzy, headie one, skepta, jme

to deal with 2, they gravitate towards tongue in cheek stuff. stuff that’s infantile and inoffensive. light entertainment. jme’s rubix cube and songs about business degrees. ‘gun lean’; don’t worry, it’s just a silly dance. etc.

to deal with 3, they gravitate to stormzy calling theresa may a paigon and telling boris to suck his mum. grime 4 corbyn. this truly encapsulates the studentification phenomenon; token, superficial towards the urban while utlimately speaking the language of the suburban.

to deal with 4 they listen to decades old genres; the 2010\s grime revival.


so to capture the student market drill artists are doing a handful of things:

1) not rapping very well

2) being silly and ironic. trying to become tongue in cheek memes.

3) stopping the genre evolving waiting for the students to catch up


it's completely understandable, but it's undignified and humiliating nonetheless.

 

[luka]

Yes, I think that's right. That's my understanding of it. It has an economic component, necessarily, but it's not enough to simply say the magic word 'commodity' and assume that will do all the work for you.

 

[sadmanbarty]

Yes, I think that's right. That's my understanding of it. It has an economic component, necessarily, but it's not enough to simply say the magic word 'commodity' and assume that will do all the work for you.

pretty much all music's commodified (even if the currency isn't money, but rather attention or kudos or academic intrigue). the question is who are you selling to and what do they want you to make.

 

[luka]

Exactly

 

[luka]

Which is a way to open up a conversation whereas the word commodity can only ever close it down. It's reductive by nature as it doesn't discrimate. Everything is exchangeable with everything else.

 

[luka]

Using padraig's model there's no way to privilege Chicago house, Detroit techno, dancehall, jungle, grime, over anything else. There's no explanation possible. They don't mean anything. Just another commodity on the assembly line. It erases all difference and shuts down all discussion.

 

[sadmanbarty]

you're just upset he said you were lazy

 

[luka]

I'm above such pettiness. The communist music criticism thread registers the same frustration.

 

[version]

Isn't there a danger with this talk of genres 'losing their edge' that some pretty grim situations end up being fetishised simply because it makes the music more 'authentic'?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

My argument is that music always requires some skill in execution

it absolutely doesn't, not any more or less than conceptual art

"naive art" is a loaded, slippery term, but it can be applied to music just as well as any other art form

unskilled music is usually terrible, but occasionally it's great or even transcendent. just the same as unskilled painting, film, whatever.

The Shaggs, The Godz, first Stooges LP, Electric Eels, Desperate Bicycles, first Germs 7", Urinals, Disorder + all the Japanese noisecore they inspired, lo-if black metal demos

there are plenty of other examples. some are knowing, some are truly naive (in other words sometimes badness is all or partially deliberate, sometimes it isn't).

just as any art form. you're privileging music in a way that isn't true. music has an aesthetics of badness (taste or quality) just like anything.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

if you're limiting the conversation to what's in the conceptronica piece + related things, then yes by definition those need some level of technical skill

but that's because of their particular form, not just because they're music and not some other medium of art.

you don't need any particular level of skill, or an extensive back catalog, to make excellent high concept music.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

it's not enough to simply say the magic word 'commodity' and assume that will do all the work for you

have never once done this

in fact I've explained it to you point blank in the simplest possible terms, at your request, probably half a dozen times at this point

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Using padraig's model

I don't have a model

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

there's no way to privilege Chicago house, Detroit techno, dancehall, jungle, grime, over anything else. There's no explanation possible. They don't mean anything. Just another commodity on the assembly line. It erases all difference and shuts down all discussion.

no and yes

obviously they're different, every thing has qualitative differences from every other thing. and every thing has its own meaning.

but also, yes. they all have in common that they are commodities.

that doesn't erase their differences. just because things share one property in common doesn't erase all of their other differences.

I didn't bring this up. you asked the question, can dance music exist outside of these cultural-economic structures? ("empires", you called them)

if you want to answer that question, you have to, you know, try to answer the question

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

it's only reductive because you make it reductive, luke. it only shuts down discussion because you shut the discussion down every time it comes up by saying it's reductive.

barty gets it. the question indeed is who is selling to whom, for how much, why.

all the commodity stuff is just a starting point to talk about power relations and dynamics. underneath all the dry numbers etc, economics is always about power relations.

how and why does any artist make particular creative choices? to what extent are those choices aesthetic or "artistic" and to what extent are they economic?

those questions are at the very heart of conceptronica and the surrounding debate.

 

[luka]

Nah.

 

[luka]

They're literally just magical Marxist catchphrases people use to avoid taking the trouble to think