RIP SOPHIE

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blissblogger

Well-known member
entertainment said:
That's why I think it's stupid to make the binary between "concept" appreciation and non. Or mind and body. Something like punk obviously gets its energy from its conceptual charge as well as its body charge because the body effect of it only makes sense in a chronology, or a dialectic, as a reaction to something external to itself, as a message, which is of course then conceptual. But it does that in a way that articulates a real space.

Making this binary also excuses all concept heavy, or post-conceptual, music of having no body effect, because the binary says that it shouldn't work on those terms anyway. Which is stupid. If the concept is good, it should show up in your body in some way. This effect can be enhanced by discourse but the music isn't bound by discourse per se.
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this is a bit like the point that some people made during postpunk when they were accused of doing overly political music, they'd say all music is political, it's just the bulk of is a political argument in favor of the status quo. heavy metal is just as political as Gang of Four.

so you could say all music is conceptual, or at least has concepts underlying it - it's just most of is based on ideas so naturalized and common-sense-seeming, that they are no longer perceived as as conceptual - they are inherited concepts rather than consciously chosen and fashioned ones
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
blissblogger said:
this is a bit like the point that some people made during postpunk when they were accused of doing overly political music, they'd say all music is political, it's just the bulk of is a political argument in favor of the status quo. heavy metal is just as political as Gang of Four.

so you could say all music is conceptual, or at least has concepts underlying it - it's just most of is based on ideas so naturalized and common-sense-seeming, that they are no longer perceived as as conceptual - they are inherited concepts rather than consciously chosen and fashioned ones
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This is true but also not true.
Most music has a beat (not all of course) but out of the ninety percent of pop, folk, rock, dance etc music that has a beat, some is more beat-driven than others - some artists create a beat and build a tune around that, some do it in other ways. Some music is more melody-driven, some foregrounds the concept more than others. Burial is an artist that talks a lot about the ideas that generated the music, he wants people to think about it. That's not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing but, while I do take on board what you're saying, I do think that, for that reason it's not unfair to call his music "conceptual". Or some of those "bands" that Bill Drummond dreamed up and talked about and which never actually existed come to mind.
I actually don't know about Sophie, it does seem she is considered conceptual and that people talk about the concepts, but I haven't read her own viewpoints enough to know if that was what she wanted or simply what people projected on to her sounds.
 
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chava

chava

Well-known member
RIP. Obviously a real talent, although it's too grating for my ears.

To me the authenticity or not debacle is to much part or just in your face in this sort of music. It forces you to think which I find slightly offensive.

If I want cold clinical soul/no-soul music I'd stick to the Nordic variant: Luomo or ABBA even.
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
blissblogger said:
this is a bit like the point that some people made during postpunk when they were accused of doing overly political music, they'd say all music is political, it's just the bulk of is a political argument in favor of the status quo. heavy metal is just as political as Gang of Four.

so you could say all music is conceptual, or at least has concepts underlying it - it's just most of is based on ideas so naturalized and common-sense-seeming, that they are no longer perceived as as conceptual - they are inherited concepts rather than consciously chosen and fashioned ones
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My take is that politics is a trap of class society and hence non-political music is at the moment logistically impossible, tho hardcore's cutnpaste postmodern approach and 80s cut up dj hip hop records hinted at that (remember those?)

Of course before that there was Coltrane etc. But as a whole music that tries to be universal can often more than not sound like an even thin consistency. Just as much as the celestial spheres are universal so are hades and chponic rumblings.
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
and paradoxically because politics is a bourgeois trap, no music is truly political. But it's not non-political either. The quest for politics in music is usually a petty-bourgeois anxiety. Political music by very nature of this antagonism eventually ends up surrendering its political content to aesthetics.
 
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CrowleyHead

Well-known member
The concept of soulfulness being excluded or included in music is so weird to obsess over and I thought we'd had that talk but eh.

Like whose soul? whose sweat? Under what terms and all that stuff idk.

I don't find all of SOPHIE's music interesting outside of a few select tunes that I thought were gems. But also it's weird to say anything that can have irritating qualities is soulless. Hell, blues singers are inherently based on trying to make their voices be 'irritants' but like, we still argue they're inevitably soulful.
 
shiels

shiels

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blissblogger said:
It exists in the tension between the two contradictory longings - to be the theatrical superself and to reveal the real vulnerable pathetic self

in a lot of this kind of music there's a combo of superglistening surface sounds and abject messy sounds, again that seems like the sonic expression of that fraught exterior/interior space

dramatizing is the word, the music often feels like it's staged - you don't immerse yourself in it, you're watching the sound as this kind of ceremony or spectacle
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that last bit is true, i dont get lost in it. there is a detached druggy emotionality that does produce effects cos its so focused. a sculpted and amplified drama, but it doesnt feel related to a real person or scenario

This art school crowd go past this authenticity/superficiality dichotomy with their knowing play at self as a kind of camp brand from the off, very controlled and studied, mocks pop and undermines 'serious' consciously experimental artists at the same time. this is what i meant by 'shorn all of sincerity' baked in marketing thats taking the piss out of the industry as they fully participate

another part of the discomfort here might be that the joke is on you. even within a song like immaterial, there are parts that are beyond awful, and that has to be intentional, trolling but with femininity.... the equivalent of aphex doing his sandpaper noise etc. that mental warbling demented bit 3/4 in makes me squirm, worst thing ive heard in my life.
 
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boxedjoy

Well-known member
I think SOPHIE worked best with Charli XCX because Charli XCX is willing to abandon the lofty, intelligent do-you-see nature of the PC Music project in favour of being a proper popstar - ditching the conceptual baggage and just making the best pop-with-a-capital-P music possible.

My problem with the PC Music stuff isn't that it sounds weird or experimental - it's just that it isn't nearly as good as it thinks it is at being pop music.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
boxedjoy said:
My problem with the PC Music stuff isn't that it sounds weird or experimental - it's just that it isn't nearly as good as it thinks it is at being pop music.
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I definitely think that if you have a spectrum ranging from totally far-out completely experimental stuff at one end and totally unadulterated pure pop at the other end, I would place Sophie nearer to the experimental end than she is normally presented as being. Not a bad thing necessarily but I feel that I often read the description of one of her tunes (particularly recently of course I've read a lot of people eulogising one or another of her songs and explaining why they like it) and then I listen to it and it doesn't tend to give me this fizzy pop hit that I'm expecting. In that sense I think that kind of description does her something of a disservice.
Edit: did I say that exact same thing before? I feel like I meant to say it before but I don't see it. But if I did apologies.
 
shiels

shiels

_
Not very danceable Sophie. Doesn’t make me
Want to dance at all. Loser music for nerd non dancers. I still love it
 
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