but yes people in electronic music discussion tend to use soul in a nebulous way where it just becomes floating and unclear — you know when you hear it, man.
In the strict sense as a derivation from blues and soul (and then later disco) it makes total sense, less so when someone calls a gritty acid stomper on Bunker records soulful. By that logic even trance is soulful.
to avoid confusion - we need to be clear about separating soul, the Black American artistic tradition, from soul, the supposed universal artistic quality
of course the former exists, includes James Brown etc - I have and would continue to place disco, house, etc in an "electronic black soul continuum"
but when I do I'm referring to a specific artistic-historical tradition with specific aesthetic signifiers, not some universal authenticity or lack thereof
if you want to say something does or doesn't have soul in that sense, yes, of course
i fail to see how this isn't soulful. sure, it's not soulful in the Blues People lineage of Amiri Baraca, but it is a European soulfulness.
I think it's overwrought and manipulative, but I'm not a teenage European in Poland who has only heard whatever black music is in the charts. I know the stuff its referencing, I know the stuff its a cheap imitation of. If I didn't, it might genuinely appeal to me at the age of 16 or whatever. Like I don't think soul can be either positive or negative, yet it can be both.. For me the problem isn't destroying beyond soul per se, just historically situating soul music as a particular African American form, and looking beyond that. Otherwise much turkish music goes in harder than motown, yet it wouldn't be right to call it soul, in that sense, maybe even racially insensitive, depending on how it was framed.
I'm just trying to say that I'm tired of people trying to elevate music by saying it has "soul" when it's often something that isn't electronic or "electronic sounding" about it that's giving it that "soul" that's making it better to those people.
it could be that you don't have 'a soul' meaning you are oblivious to its value?I'm just trying to say that I'm tired of people trying to elevate music by saying it has "soul" when it's often something that isn't electronic or "electronic sounding" about it that's giving it that "soul" that's making it better to those people.
I'm curious - Does the Unit 1 make you want to dance?
For me, the overwhelming "pad" just takes away the energy for me.
it could be that you don't have 'a soul' meaning you are oblivious to its value?