Woebot
Well-known member
Found this great quote in Evan Eisenberg's "The Recording Angel" which I'm (very slowly) coming to the end of. It's quite a dense read and I dont have k-punk or blissbloggers chops.
"In the twenties jazz was called the devil's music. Now Rock has that title, and every six months or so psychologists release a new study showing the unsettling effects of rock music on algebraic problem-solving or the growth of tomatoes. (I am not making this up.) One recent study concluded that mental hygiene was best served by music in three-four time - the the waltz which nineteenth century moralists so detested. Swing, once subversive, is now so acceptable to Platonists that it serves as elevator music. The historical slippage here suggests that catharsis cannot be had from either music that one has not yet begun to understand or from music that one understands too well. The first can only annoy, the second sedate."
I was thinking this could be run against any ossifying music. A quite controversial example might be Grime (though we're yet to see if it has legs left). At it's inception I'll freely admit that, though i could appreciate its agenda, my ears had yet to fall for it (Jan 2003)
http://www.woebot.com/movabletype/archives/000810.html
I fear that now, three years later, I may be entering the phase of understanding it "too well".
"In the twenties jazz was called the devil's music. Now Rock has that title, and every six months or so psychologists release a new study showing the unsettling effects of rock music on algebraic problem-solving or the growth of tomatoes. (I am not making this up.) One recent study concluded that mental hygiene was best served by music in three-four time - the the waltz which nineteenth century moralists so detested. Swing, once subversive, is now so acceptable to Platonists that it serves as elevator music. The historical slippage here suggests that catharsis cannot be had from either music that one has not yet begun to understand or from music that one understands too well. The first can only annoy, the second sedate."
I was thinking this could be run against any ossifying music. A quite controversial example might be Grime (though we're yet to see if it has legs left). At it's inception I'll freely admit that, though i could appreciate its agenda, my ears had yet to fall for it (Jan 2003)
http://www.woebot.com/movabletype/archives/000810.html
I fear that now, three years later, I may be entering the phase of understanding it "too well".