Hello . . .
I would be curious to hear opinions on spoken word content in music -
ambient, dub, techno, idm, and so on.
I usually find spoken word content annoying, exasperating, or even
infuriating. I remember studying in my first year at university,
accompanied by the radio in the next room. Under the duress of impending
physics finals, I recall hurling a chemistry textbook (finally - a useful
chemistry text!) through the door during incessant babbling blathering
elephant-talk auto-race ads. Direct hit, and the euphoria of silence.
Now my physics problems could attack my defenseless mind unimpeded. (Not
to worry, the radio was indestructible, and survived endless such
misadventures. My mind is another issue.)
At any rate, I almost never listen to commercial radio, exactly because I
despise the psychological effects of advertising. This is a sort of
aesthetic Puritanism, I suppose. I have this dread that my final thoughts
in this world will be some repeating advertising jingle. This would be the
ultimate post-modern poetic injustice. Music is the soundtrack to one's
life - would you prefer Eno, Tchaikovsky, the Future Sound of London, or
the McDonald's jingle?
Hearing speech - particularly the grating offensive anti-intellectual
lowest-common-denominator speech of most advertising - directly interferes
with the thought process, not to mention the creative process. When
forced to listen to the radio in the car (well, it _is_ impossible to drive
without music, and occasionally all one's cassettes do get stolen), I am an
incessant station-surfer (much to my girlfriend's dismay), hitting the
"seek" button after just milliseconds of advertising or an evil song. In
fact, I've learned to predict whether an advertisement or song, or even a
good song or a malevolent song, will follow, just by the tone of the DJ's
voice.
Anyway, onto ambient / techno music and the spoken-word groove. Sorry,
Josh Wink, I know you're my homeboy, but I just can't get into it.
Especially with ambient music, which I often wish to experience at the
peripheries of consciousness, while the main current of my mind is heavy
into other channels. The sudden intrusion of spoken-word material at such
a moment may as well be a jackhammer, for all its disruptive effects.
There are exceptions, of course: If the voice is particularly aesthetic
(such as the spoken word content on G.O.L. and other cuts in the Ambient
Dub series, or in certain Orb cuts); if the voice speaks in a language in
which I am not fluent (the Japanese spoken word material in Sakamoto and so
on); if the voice is just seamlessly blended in with the music as another
instrument; or if the voice is just a complete riot, like William S.
Burroughs on "Words of Advice":
"If, after talking to someone, you feel as if have just lost a quart of
plasma - avoid that person."
Anyway, I realize that many must disagree with my critical views on
spoken-word content. But let's keep this flame-war civil. I would be
interested to hear reasoned contrasting views, and perhaps the discussion
would be elucidating for others as well.
Perhaps I am more of a classicist than I had even surmised. I do demand
that the truest "music" as an art form be beautiful - though I define this
term in a rather broad sense. That is, a free jazz cut, a hard trance
track, a Rachmaninov concerto, or a noise experiment can all be equally
beautiful. Perhaps my standard is that there exist at least an internal
aesthetic to the music. Actually, the boundaries are beyond just beauty,
because I love the decidedly un-beautiful paintings of Francis Bacon.
Then - perhaps this a demand for non-triviality, of an artful avoidance of
kitsch. A sample of an obnoxious irritating advertising drone becomes
simply an obnoxious irritating droning sample.
Perhaps I have simply not come across the right example, the artful use of
kitsch. But my patience is thin - I listen to and create music to seek /
define a level of consciousness beyond the mundane and trivial. Whether I
succeed or not is another matter, but the intention is as stated. Most
spoken-word content seems to undermine this effort.
Feel free to attempt to convert this heathen - politely, though, please.
It's been one hell of a life.
Zenon M. Feszczak
Ambient Physicist
P.S. Then again, I can't deal with rap anymore either.