Reynolds' Pazz & Jopp essay

shudder

Well-known member
Yer sure, but pure-drone stuff is so far outside of the utilitarian remit of populist music as to be useless (ie- no beat, no melody=useless as club music, useless as modern nursery rhyme fodder). Dubstep could cross over easily though, with the right vocalist.

Jamie Woon?
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
I wouldn't reduce all of the appeal of music or its appreciation on the individual level to identification with commodity fetishes, but I would look at all consumption of music in terms of buying music from x or y genre, in terms of participation in a marketplace, as significant culturally in ways that a more far-reaching than the individual's aesthetic appreciation of music itself. In other words: liking music is one thing, buying CDs is another.

What about where consumption is abstracted into downloading illegally? There is zero participation in the marketplace on the level of economics, but still the form of consumption (actually rationalized down to an even more drug-like level).
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
The western tonal system is still pretty deeply embedded in our brainframes. You're not going to get the average person to think Stockhausen is musical. We westerners still love melodies, harmonies, resolution, linear musical narrative.
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
What about where consumption is abstracted into downloading illegally? There is zero participation in the marketplace on the level of economics, but still the form of consumption (actually rationalized down to an even more drug-like level).

That's where it all breaks down and becomes a new economy. I think this is where it starts getting interesting. Still not sure what I think about music outside the bounds of intellectual property.

In my paper I ended up saying that I thought the industry would rebound after making some really stupid mistakes early on w/r/t litigation and the DRMA and eventually open-sourcing and p2p file sharing would be harnessed for the betterment of big industry. I should go back and read what I said, I kinda forgot...
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
The western tonal system is still pretty deeply embedded in our brainframes. You're not going to get the average person to think Stockhausen is musical. We westerners still love melodies, harmonies, resolution, linear musical narrative.

I wonder what it would take to allow hardcore non-tonal electro-acoustic stuff to be read as "pop"? It would certainly have that element (not yet discussed but important to all the genres of noise, dubstep and drone metal) of inculcating generational fear. One of the most notable things about dubstep and drone metal is how annoying they are to people who dislike them, given the bass mass involved they are literally anti-social in that anyone in the same house will have them imposed upon them. They therefore fulfill in a po-mo world where everyone likes everything a continuing transgressive role occupied by rap or rock before perhaps?
 

shudder

Well-known member
That's where it all breaks down and becomes a new economy. I think this is where it starts getting interesting. Still not sure what I think about music outside the bounds of intellectual property.

In my paper I ended up saying that I thought the industry would rebound after making some really stupid mistakes early on w/r/t litigation and the DRMA and eventually open-sourcing and p2p file sharing would be harnessed for the betterment of big industry. I should go back and read what I said, I kinda forgot...

hmm.. I'd like to hear how that'd work.
 

shudder

Well-known member
well (@gek), what has been some of the least western musicky pop already? To be honest, I can't tell. People always cite Japan's "Ghosts". Sometime R+B will lose all harmony and just be singing and rhythm (that Lumidee "uh oh" song from diwalli riddim). But that's still pretty westerny
 
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nomadologist

Guest
I wonder what it would take to allow hardcore non-tonal electro-acoustic stuff to be read as "pop"?

I do, too. I think the silent powers of the cultural elite will keep that from happening anytime too soon. I think there are some things people who would make music like to cling to as elevated, just to keep things interesting. Right?
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Pop doesn't have to abandon harmony, melody or danceability at all to incorporate stylistic tropes from these musics. It's so easy!
 

swears

preppy-kei
Jamie Woon?

Aw no, he's just awful. The production on one track I heard was a straight up ripoff of Burial. Embarrasingly similar. The trick is to incorporate subtle little nods and ideas that work within the pop song format, not desparately try to sound current. His voice is bland and his songs simply aren't much cop.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
The production on one track I heard was a straight up ripoff of Burial. Embarrasingly similar. The trick is to incorporate subtle little nods and ideas that work within the pop song format, not desparately try to sound current. His voice is bland and his songs simply aren't much cop.

You do realise...
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
The problem with the rebel music angle analogy back to rock or rap is that they operate at a level of sex and anger, of rhythm fundamentally, which is subliminally explicable. Abstract music based on texture does not, and therefore, whilst being more alienating (and therefore useful as a method of delineating generational difference and therefore high use factor in determining self-identity) its difficult to imagine the broader appeal.
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
hmmm. flourishes, maybe. but to lack the phallogocentric thrust of the Western "climactic" narrative entirely? maybe the neptunes come close to this sometimes...
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
The problem with the rebel music angle analogy back to rock or rap is that they operate at a level of sex and anger, of rhythm fundamentally, which is subliminally explicable. Abstract music based on texture does not, and therefore, whilst being more alienating (and therefore useful as a method of delineating generational difference and therefore high use factor in determining self-identity) its difficult to imagine the broader appeal.

How broad is the market for those wanting to determine self-identity? That would be a whole generation as usual. So that's the broader appeal, that's enough to make it saleable down the pyramid to the levels of less early adopters.
 
If a hipster is an early adapter setting new trends, it can't be mainstream/pop at this time, it's too early. A new trend has to be sustained for a certain amount of time to reach a critical mass before it breaks into mainstream. Often that doesn't happen, because hipsters aren't just early adapters but also early rejecters. So chances are good that we'll never see SunnO))), Kode 9 or Hototogisu on Top of the Pops.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Dubstep and drone metal, whilst being intensely "male" music in some respects exist mainly on one level, that of massive body destroying sound, a state of self-abjection, almost like Michael Gira's idea of destroying the body through sound... in some respects these lack the thrust of rap and rock, the rush towards climax, its a post-phallic sound, a decentred assault, a raging amniosis...
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
If a hipster is an early adapter setting new trends, it can't be mainstream/pop at this time, it's too early. A new trend has to be sustained for a certain amount of time to reach a critical mass before it breaks into mainstream. Often that doesn't happen, because hipsters aren't just early adapters but also early rejecters. So chances are good that we'll never see SunnO))), Kode 9 or Hototogisu on Top of the Pops.

Ok, but what about sounds that have been held at a constant but low level of appreciation? I think the time thing is irrelevant- its about the mass of support within the underground perhaps? But crucially I think the industry operates in a manner that specifically circumvents this mechanism nowadays.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
That Girls Aloud tune where the backing track kind of sounded a bit like Super Sharp Shooter? It was totally ersatz but the point was that enough of the right demographic would have brushed up against Jungle to give them the recognition / perceived groovyness factor to make them like the record more because it was a bit Jungle.
 
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