My disappointment with the tracks in question is not that they are humorous. I
find a lot of AFX quite humorous, especially when he pulls it off without the
vocals. He has a great sense of black humor. The vocals, as with most 'pop'
just seem too easy, too obvious. AFX can sometimes pull off using vocals as an
integral part of the composition. I can think of several examples where he has
done so beautifully. Sometimes he doesn't. With Bogdan and Horse Opera the
vocals and samples seem to float over the rest of the music, as if they were
added afterwards as an 'embellishment'. I have to disagree that they are an
integral part of the composition in their case, at least that's how my ear sees
it >;->-
Christophe
Chris Fahey wrote:
quoted 20 lines Another way to look at it is that they don't view the vocals as any less>
> Another way to look at it is that they don't view the vocals as any less
> important than any other part of the music -- that in fact the artist
> intended it to be an integral part of the composition. I don't understand
> why one would even think of it any other way. Unless you've got a problem
> with humor.
>
> Methinks that some people think that a sense of humor about art/music
> indicates a lack of seriousness. Just because something doesn't make you
> frown or cry doesn't mean it's just a bullshit joke on the part of the
> artist. Perhaps your perception that it is somewhat inappropriate for art to
> be fun is exactly what is being critiqued by these artists (i.e., they are
> "saying" that we shouldn't be so darn pretentious), and maybe it is what
> makes their musical attitude so refreshingly different from the rest of the
> electronic shit out there. Think of Dada: Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst make
> me giggle, but their intentions are usually pretty serious. I think it's a
> matter of one's temperament mostly, but also to a degree a matter of your
> own self-confidence when confronted with the fact that what you are
> listening to might be construed as "silly".
>
Christophe McKeon wrote:
The beetles were the quintessential whiners of pop, in my humble opinion.
There is some fantastic stuff on Boku, but the talking/singing and sample
happiness just gets in the way. It ruined half the tracks for me. Kind of like
Horse Opera on planet-µ, it could have been a great record, but instead w/
it's misplaced and insistent silly samples, was just mediocre. I have to agree
about AFX. The thing about him is that he's always joking some what, even on
his darker tracks, so that a few vocals don't really change much. Still, I
think I would have preferred the milkman w/ out the vocals in the long run.
'Sucking the milkman's wife's tits', heartfelt? The thing about words is that
they are very loaded and bring into play an entirely different way of
listening to the music. The associations one makes while listening are very
different. I'm sure this would show up quite clearly w/ a brain scan for
instance. We are on more familiar ground with words, especially when we are
talking about music created with computers, where sonic novelty (I know the
word novelty carries both negative and positive connotations. In this case I
mean both.) is constantly making itself heard. I have nothing against words
and vocals in themselves. It's just that very few people have any thing to say
that's worth listening to. AFX and Bogdan do have something to "say"
musically, I think maybe they don't have enough faith in the worth of the
music itself, so that they put on the "fuck you, I'm just fucking around"
facade as a defense. You can't really be criticized if you're joking, because
"it's just a joke man".
Christophe
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