On Wed, 5 Feb 1997, Jon Drukman wrote:
quoted 11 lines On 05-Feb-97 Matthew D. Smith wrote:>
> On 05-Feb-97 Matthew D. Smith wrote:
> >Give it 2-3 years the
> >f.king Chem Bro's stride onto the scene with total bullshite and everyones into
> >the "new sound". Gimme a break(beat ;->). Thanks to the commercial scene, I've
> >found that our music is more accessible than it was 3 years ago...
>
> funny how just a year back people were falling over themselves saying how
> wonderful the chems were. now they've got a bit of popularity and it's all
> "they're so commercial, i always hated them."
>
Word to the wise, and amen to that brother. Check out the idm archives
from the summer of 95, and you will find reviews that re 90%positive
towards the chemical brothers.
At the time, they were new and fresh, and had a 'different' sound. Now
they are taking this new sound to the masses, and having a great deal of
success with it, which you can judge by looking at the amount of copycats
around.
As a journalist, (but not a music one), I can personally attest to how
difficult it is to follow your 'beat', as it were. Mine happens to be
science, and this requires me to read about 30 scientific journals each
month, 3 or 4 newspapers each day, 20-40 magazines each month, and maybe
a book or two. I'm not complaining at all, because I chose this for
myself. But following music is just as hard. This is the *ducks*
information era, and there's lots of it out there. I used to be ata radio
station, and when two or three hundred cd's come in every mont, I was
pleased if I could skip and scan through 20 of them. All the magazine and
newspapers read each other, and compete for your dollars, so as soon as
somebody has one, interesting, off-the-beaten path story, you can be sure
the next editorial goes something like this, "Why don't we have an
electronica story?" Do it now, we want for next week. Just try going from
bush, pearl jam, and nirvana to covering all of electronica in a 3 days.
Cut the (general news) journalists some slack. Every post I've seen
clipped so far from a magazine has at least been factual, except for the
occasional mis-categorization of artists.
I've sort of got way off base here, but when I hear a single interesting
thing, (be it a scientific study or an interesting song) a journalist's
first inclination is to wonder what is behind it. I got into idm in this
way, when around 91-92 I first heard didgeridoo on the radio, mixed in
with all the other rave music that was around at that time. After that
came LFO, and Orbital, and I never looked back.
Now that elctronica is coming to popularity, lead by Tricky, the chems
and underworld, it makes me wonder what I've been missing in the last 4
years, as other things have been happening. what am I supposed to do,
ditch this list and start listening to...?
Ah well, long semi-undirected rant. I'm sending it anyways, it's my birthday.
Phil Downey
np: bjork: bjest bjremixes