HELL_SD said:
cos I want the garage heads to get their props and cos every man and his dog with some cracked software and a bit of production nowse is gonna start ripping off the "now" sound without ever knowing where it came from and thinking it came from d'n'b...
...all they'll be doing is recreating a formula and cloning someone elses sound making the music somehow impotent and unoriginal. Sound familiar ???
the problem sounds familiar, but I don't think it relates to whether a producer knows their history or not. How does knowing history of a genre make you want to imitate the "now sound" less?
If the now sound is what's doing well, some people want to catch on to that. I see that as a bad thing for creativity, sort of (although imitators can improve on the originals too), but I don't see much of a connection between whether someone thinks dnb or garage or peruvian flute music is the root of the sound, and whether they are trying to cash in on a current trend.
HELL_SD said:
...even now I'm starting to hear mixes and can't distinguish someones sound from someone elses even if one of them was an original pioneer
see that sounds to me like a problem for historians who want an accurate picture of who did what when. And I understand about wanting people to get their props, but that also isn't really about the music itself, it's about history, or about individual credit. I get you on the idea that it's unfair to people who put a lot into a scene, but I still don't get you on how that leads to bad music.
to digress -- in some genres of music what you said about not being able to tell the difference would be considered a compliment to both the original and the imitator - because authorship is not the most important thing, participation in the culture is - I get that you think authorship is the most important thing, but I'm not convinced that's the same thing as 'good music' --
To return to this genre, if a tune is good, it's good. I do think a bit, when I hear a track that sounds like it was made in 1995, of whether I know a better tune from 1995 that I would play instead. But ultimately if it's a better tune than I play that one.
HELL_SD said:
hopefully when you hear one of our trax you can tell it's us cos I'd like to think we're still different enough to be distinctive but not so different as to be off on our own and in that respect it probably has helped us and will continue to, being removed/isolated from the epicentre of the dubstep re-evolution...
If I like your trax, then I like them. If they sound different then they sound different. And I respect everyone's own choices for producing the way they do. If knowing the history informs how you make music, then great. I don't think every producer sets out to make something and has a goal of making sure it sounds different from other things, some producers just have personality that comes through in their music.
HELL_SD said:
...you gotta know your roots to be able to see where the branches lead
I buy that in relation to politics, for sure. And I buy that more knowledge in general is better than less, for music or most things. But I don't see that as a requirement for music at all. People are creative or they are not.
Too much of a concern with the history of a genre to me sounds like a social concern, a concern with managing and controlling the boundaries of a genre, which isn't in itself that interesting to me, and I still think it doesn't necessarily relate to whether the music being made is any good.