ironyengine wrote:I thought we (as a forum) had gotten over caring what Steve thinks about the things we enjoy?

just got home. will respond to the other comments in due time, but i just wanted to say that, ultimately, i don't honestly care too much about anyone else's opinion -- certainly not the extent that it would hinder my enjoyment of something i already like. i'm just interested in knowing what outspoken people think about subjects they rarely talk about.

Christopher_Dragon wrote:

Eksvplot wrote:i used the experession "drum machine" rather than tb-303 as an example because the latter is inextricably intertwined with a specific style like acid...

It's a good thing you weren't being specific because the TB303 was the bass synth that went along with the TR606 which was the drum machine.

yeah, i know. the tb-303 is interchangable with acid. it's rarely ever been used for it's actual purpose. there's a very informative short documentary about this on the net.

Bartok wrote:We dont give Dr Dre shit because he doesn't mention Pierre Schaeffer in interviews (this is where someone digs up an interview where he discusses musique concrete, aint it?)

good point. but my goal in life isn't to trip people up. i just like knowing where people are comign from, what their opinions are actually based on, etc.

Rick Reuschel wrote:If there is an individual interest in what Steve Albini likes why not pm him?

there was an incredibly interesting thread a while back regarding the differences between classical and rock music, and even the possible "superiority" of one over the other. it was actually a good read... as opposed to more than a few posts i've skimmed through recently. i guess i was hoping to start a contructive debate along those lines.

basically, i kinda think steve's blanket dismissal of dance music, while his own prerogative, is dubious at best: like the guitar solo thread in which he admitted that his general predilection against solos is rooted in his inability to actually play/write them well, i think it's no coincidence that people who pan dance music generally don't know how to dance. (this isn't an attack but an honest observation.) i know "dance-punk"/neo-post-punk revivalism has cheapened a lot of good music, but this isn't the fault of all dance music. anyway, i honestly don't see a big difference between somebody rocking back and forth while banging their head to the shipping news, and someone elaborately dancing to the groove of a mouse on mars track.

Rick Reuschel wrote:If the intent is to start a thread discussing the merits of electronic music why not say so? No animosity intended here.

i hear ya. no animosity intended here either. i'm just interested in the strange (social) void that exists between a lot of rock and electronic music. there's an interesting robert wyatt quote, from the richie unterburger unknown legends book, that i feel is worth citing...

Rock Bottom Robert wrote:in the end, there are notes and intervals and chords and rhtyhms. some i like, some i don't. but actually vey often, in all these different kinds of musics, all these musicians from different styles are actually picking and choosing from the same tiny little bunch of notes, and the same little bunches of possible rhtythms, and so on. underneath the kind of superficial difference in style, the kind of music's hair cut, if you like, or the current clothes the music is wearing, when you're actually working on a piece of music with at least one good idea in it, that good idea is not really fixed or tied to a style or idiom. there's no field of music which doesn't have good ideas..."

i feel the same way. basically, i don't see much difference formally between a band like ESG and a band like shellac.obviously they're not one and the same, but after a while, preference often boils down to sociology and happenstance.

i consider pretty much everything i like an exception to the rule because i'm actually listening to it.

Rick Reuschel wrote:But it definitely, much to my enjoyment, is not a "fan site".

exacty. if there's no challenging discourse here then we may as well be putting together an EA yearbook. obviously the sort of concerns i've raised are way less pressing than drum mic setup on surfer rosa, but they have their place too.

Eksvplot wrote:basically, i kinda think steve's blanket dismissal of dance music, while his own prerogative, is dubious at best: like the guitar solo thread in which he admitted that his general predilection against solos is rooted in his inability to actually play/write them well, i think it's no coincidence that people who pan dance music generally don't know how to dance. (this isn't an attack but an honest observation.)

While I am guilty of being unable to dance, I think this is not the reason I dislike dance music. I can't dance, yet I truly love much of the dance-able soul and R&B music that existed as "dance music" prior to the invention of the modern genre.

I will attempt to articulate my dislike for dance music.

In the form music appeals to me most, it is an attempt to express something. Not necessarily concrete ideas, and not necessarily even discernable content, but it expresses the creative impulse, and within it something unique about the people making it. I think this applies across the broad spectrum of my tastes, from Bill Withers to Converge. From Buddy Holly to Whitehouse. From AC/DC to Nina Nastasia. From Hank Williams to the Stooges. There is something in their music that while expressing their creative impulse captures something unique to them. I get the impression that the music (certainly the form of the music) is subordinate to the impulse to make it, and in many cases is irrellevant. The ideas or their expression are not bounded by the form.

Dance music is denied this sort of possibility, because it is functional music. It must function as a backdrop to a specific activity, dancing, for which there are fairly rigid boundaries. I know much is made of artists who "test" or "ignore" those boundaries within the genre, but that they are there to be tested is evidence I am right.

I find a similarly easy dismissal of jingles, video game music, etc. It is functional, bounded, and so incapable of provoking in me the feeling I get from music made for its own sake.

I guess that's it. You can either make music for its own sake, or you can make music to serve a function. I find myself unmoved by functional music. I noticed this when disco as a genre came into being. Prior to that, people danced to music of many types that could be danced to. After that, an industry supplied music that was music only in the formal, dictionary sense. It was functional above any other consideration.

This music became the background sound for dancing in clubs, and from that developed a narcissistic, vacuous club culture that I found (and still find) repellant. The best thing that can be said about disco and the later club scene is that it gave the gay community a sense of vitality and greater cultural influence than it had been allowed previously. I think that is a great social development with an atrocious soundtrack.

The children and cousins of that scene are the roots of dance-oriented electronic music, and I find the family resemblance too much to bear.

As the idiom developed, the music became more and more about the novelty of certain sounds and treatments, ridiculously trivial aspects like tempo and choice of samples, and the public personae of the makers. It became a race to novelty. I find that kind of evolution beneath triviality. It is a decorative, not substantive, evolution.

Even the name is misleading. Dancing itself is unbounded. There are infinite possibilities for movement, pace, form, gesture, posture, etc. Many cultures exploit this in ceremonial dance music or traditional dance music. I find it ludicrous that, given such an open expanse of possibility, the genre "dance music" is so predictable and so hidebound. If I had an interest in dancing, it would not be limited to music that inspired bouncing in 4/4. The haunting nature of some waltzes, the awkward, tricky beauty of the Tarantella, and even the joviality of the Hava Negila are all evidence that there is more to be had from dancing than this, this fodder.

You may say that dancing is dancing, and it doesn't matter to what. I agree, going that far. But the music danced to, in its own right, can be listened-to, and when I do that to dance music (contemporary electronic dance music and its variants), I find little else in it, and parsing its variants out is an un-stimulating taxonomic exercise for me.

I always thought of Big Black as electronic music...many people do.

steve wrote:Dance music is denied this sort of possibility, because it is functional music. It must function as a backdrop to a specific activity, dancing, for which there are fairly rigid boundaries. I know much is made of artists who "test" or "ignore" those boundaries within the genre, but that they are there to be tested is evidence I am right.

you have articulated what sucks about a lot of house, techno, trance, gabber, breaks, and drum and bass music.

however, there are artists within those genres who are not all about the dancefloor. in fact, they just love the sound of the music and like hearing "thud thud thud thud" or "boom tik, boomtik" as the case may be. they make music for the sake of creating, and that's the sound they like. just like rock bands usually use beats you've heard before, and instruments that were ubiquitous before you were even born. these are the reference points... the rest is up to the artist. available to anyone, and used by some, are meters other than 4/4.......

but there other genres of electronic music which have never been created expressly for dancing: ambient, the huge genre of IDM (yes, it has dance in the name but...), and even rock structure-based electronic songs using entirely unnatural sounds.

so while i think your explanation for why you don't like electronic music works for the most offensive specimens, it doesn't single-handedly explain why you wouldn't like, say, aphex twin.

steve wrote:

Eksvplot wrote:basically, i kinda think steve's blanket dismissal of dance music, while his own prerogative, is dubious at best: like the guitar solo thread in which he admitted that his general predilection against solos is rooted in his inability to actually play/write them well, i think it's no coincidence that people who pan dance music generally don't know how to dance. (this isn't an attack but an honest observation.)

While I am guilty of being unable to dance, I think this is not the reason I dislike dance music. I can't dance, yet I truly love much of the dance-able soul and R&B music that existed as "dance music" prior to the invention of the modern genre.

I will attempt to articulate my dislike for dance music.

In the form music appeals to me most, it is an attempt to express something. Not necessarily concrete ideas, and not necessarily even discernable content, but it expresses the creative impulse, and within it something unique about the people making it. I think this applies across the broad spectrum of my tastes, from Bill Withers to Converge. From Buddy Holly to Whitehouse. From AC/DC to Nina Nastasia. From Hank Williams to the Stooges. There is something in their music that while expressing their creative impulse captures something unique to them. I get the impression that the music (certainly the form of the music) is subordinate to the impulse to make it, and in many cases is irrellevant. The ideas or their expression are not bounded by the form.

Dance music is denied this sort of possibility, because it is functional music. It must function as a backdrop to a specific activity, dancing, for which there are fairly rigid boundaries. I know much is made of artists who "test" or "ignore" those boundaries within the genre, but that they are there to be tested is evidence I am right.

I find a similarly easy dismissal of jingles, video game music, etc. It is functional, bounded, and so incapable of provoking in me the feeling I get from music made for its own sake.

I guess that's it. You can either make music for its own sake, or you can make music to serve a function. I find myself unmoved by functional music. I noticed this when disco as a genre came into being. Prior to that, people danced to music of many types that could be danced to. After that, an industry supplied music that was music only in the formal, dictionary sense. It was functional above any other consideration.

This music became the background sound for dancing in clubs, and from that developed a narcissistic, vacuous club culture that I found (and still find) repellant. The best thing that can be said about disco and the later club scene is that it gave the gay community a sense of vitality and greater cultural influence than it had been allowed previously. I think that is a great social development with an atrocious soundtrack.

The children and cousins of that scene are the roots of dance-oriented electronic music, and I find the family resemblance too much to bear.

As the idiom developed, the music became more and more about the novelty of certain sounds and treatments, ridiculously trivial aspects like tempo and choice of samples, and the public personae of the makers. It became a race to novelty. I find that kind of evolution beneath triviality. It is a decorative, not substantive, evolution.

Even the name is misleading. Dancing itself is unbounded. There are infinite possibilities for movement, pace, form, gesture, posture, etc. Many cultures exploit this in ceremonial dance music or traditional dance music. I find it ludicrous that, given such an open expanse of possibility, the genre "dance music" is so predictable and so hidebound. If I had an interest in dancing, it would not be limited to music that inspired bouncing in 4/4. The haunting nature of some waltzes, the awkward, tricky beauty of the Tarantella, and even the joviality of the Hava Negila are all evidence that there is more to be had from dancing than this, this fodder.

You may say that dancing is dancing, and it doesn't matter to what. I agree, going that far. But the music danced to, in its own right, can be listened-to, and when I do that to dance music (contemporary electronic dance music and its variants), I find little else in it, and parsing its variants out is an un-stimulating taxonomic exercise for me.

Does that mean that you don't like The Faint?

shagboy wrote:so while i think your explanation for why you don't like electronic music works for the most offensive specimens, it doesn't single-handedly explain why you wouldn't like, say, aphex twin.

I think I explained as well as I could why I don't like Aphex Twin. In fact, I was thinking of Aphex Twin when I wrote most of that.

even though you are the one with the hat, i am throwing in my hat. no more to say.