Drusca <andrei@WORLD.STD.COM> wrote:
quoted 15 lines Look ! Pierre Henry, Xenakis, Cage, Derek Bailey, Cecil Taylor, >Gesualdo,
>Look ! Pierre Henry, Xenakis, Cage, Derek Bailey, Cecil Taylor, >Gesualdo,
>Noh Theater, Peking Opera or even Bach are some examples of >stuff that's
>_not_ pop. IDM/dance music/whatever is fucking POP >music. It's not
>challenging music. It doesn't engage you >intellectually. You don't have to
>make any effort to appreciate the
>music. There's nothing challenging about A(/B) song structures or >simple,
>repetitive nursery rhyme melodies or beats that stick to a >regular pulse
>for 5-10 minutes, even if they're highly syncopated. >They still appeal to
>your ass more than any other body part. It >doesn't matter if your mom or
>some frat boy or some 12 year old girl
>doesn't "get it". I'd say when you start getting into Mego type stuff
> >you're starting to leave the pop realm, but is that even IDM ? And
> >personally I don't even find _that_ stuff very challenging. There's >not
>that much going on there beyond the surface.
>But Lexaunculpt and his basic major key chord progressions isn't pop?
I think the distinction you're making here is between intuitive and
theoretical (not to be confused with academic) music, which isn't
necessarily the same thing as pop/non-pop or challenging/for complete simps
and body-rockers. Bach, for example, might not be pop, and might have a good
deal of depth, and definitely turns within a rigid theoretical/structural
framework, but it currently ranks somewhere up there with easy listening on
the challenging scale. Glass and Reich are challenging in a number of
respects, and are definitely theoretically based (i.e. not appealing to
certain intuitive aspects of how music should sound that ultimately must
appeal back to a received tradition of heard music, but rather geared toward
an intellectualized abstraction of structure or affect), but they're SUCH
pop, at least to my ears--or, if they aren't pop, then they form the basis
for much of the IDM-ish pop that comes out these days-- see: lackluster,
diskont 94 era oval, much AFX. Oval, specifically, is an example that pop
can be challenging, as is Slicker (these being, obviously personal examples:
fanboy also wants to nominate the Slicker remixes for this year's beautiful
packaging prize). Both of those are examples of things that SHOULDN'T be as
poppy as they so obviously are-- that does NOT bespeak a lack of depth or
challenge-- forming subtle or not-so-subtle reconceptions of what pop music
CAN BE (at the elvel of the producer or listener) isn't necessarily easy,
and is often much more difficult than being/experiencing sound factories,
which is how my pragmatic self ends up viewing a good portion of
theoretical/ experimental music, especially the academic variety.
As a side note, I don't necessarily view Cecil Taylor or especially Derek
Bailey as all that overwhelmingly challenging, at least in concept-- Bailey
especially falls within a set genre of "experimental" that has been
previously mapped out quite successfully-- i.e. Zorn's slow turnings and
pastiches on conventional forms CAN be more challenging than his fairly
conventional experimentalia. Dissonance vs. assonance does not determine
structural or emotional challenge-- dissonance is just harder to listen to
unless you have a reason. Cage, on the other hand, is quite lovely on a
conceptual level, and probably has done more than anyone else this century
to revise/expand what one is allowed to think about music, but the point in
Cage is never the affect but only the effect.
For me, the interface between intuitive and experimental, i.e. where a good
portion of IDM attempts to fall, is the most interesting and challenging
area, since that's exactly where your deeper (that is, emotional and bodily)
conceptions of music are allowed to turn over into new places-- there is
some definite challenge involved in that, even if some of it might be pop
music. Pop, to me, is just a measure of immediacy. Nothing else.
Babble. Babble. Long wind. Sigh.
quoted 1 line : )
>: )
Well taken.
Cheers,
Matthew
"If there's one thing I can't stand, it's up."
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