quoted 9 lines While the chopped-up, speeded-up formats of shows like Sesame Street have>While the chopped-up, speeded-up formats of shows like Sesame Street have
>been shown to be linked to the short attention span of the "MTV generation,"
>I can't help but wonder if some of this frenetic, insanely paced music, which
>is often constructed of tiny bits of other rhythms, is music for a soundbyte
>oriented culture. Have we been so trained by the media to accept information
>only in speedy, cut-up fragments, that the way in which we construct and
>listen to music is now becoming affected? I am 31 years old and watch no
>television--could this be why I often find it difficult to keep up with the
>pace of the likes of Squarepusher?
I think it's music for a soundbyte oriented culture, but there was a lot of
stuff in the 60's that was constructed like this -- Steve Reich, Phillip
Glass's earlier music, Frank Zappa ("We're Only In It For The Money") and so
on and so forth. I have an extremely LONG attention span, mostly because
I'm a trained pianist, and have been listening to major length classical
works all my life (I also have no use for the tube). My perspective on the
dance music that people consider gimmicky and cheesy (like most of the stuff
coming out of ZYX, to name one label) takes one thing, repeats it to
oblivion, and slightly changes the background around every four repetitions,
with a few breaks thrown in for good measure. The stuff that seems to have
staying power is the really layered stuff, sometimes so densely layered that
it's hard to follow. I know that I'm NOT going to be playing "Sesame's
Treet" in the near future, but "High In The Jungle" (Simply Jeff, Ron D
Core, under the pseudonym The Core, roughly released around the same time --
'90 or so) could play until the year 2010 and I'd STILL get off on it, the
same way that my musical obsession of 15 years ago (the Minutemen) can still
get me going nowadays. For every Squarepusher track, though, there's an Air
track to offset it, and everything in between, so MY stereo's pumping, at least!
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