IDM Mailing Archive

Funny that you say that. I think that instrumental music turns a lot of people off. If adding lyrics opens IDM up to a wider audience, I think that's great. For myself, I've found that I really like a lot of recent IDM with vocals, cut-up or no. Super_Collider and Ellen Allien come to mind as some good examples. But to outright dismiss "soul vocals", which have a pretty rich heritage outside of American Idol, is pretty close-sighted and elitist. What do you mean about rap? Soul vocals will kill rap or rap vocals will kill IDM? You wanna qualify that one too? -Aaron

quoted 6 lines Soul vocals may work on American Idol, but they will kill IDM.

> > Soul vocals may work on American Idol, but they will kill IDM. > That goes for Rap too. > > Anne :/ >

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Super_Collider, Ellen Allien, Telefon Tel Aviv and others who use vocals are all fine. I was merely stating that the emerging trend of using vocals in IDM could endanger the instrumental producers. Music evolves at a turtle's pace. When techno came along, everyone thought it was strange because there were no vocals. Artists like the Prodigy and Moby slim broke into the mainstream by using loads of vocal samples or actual vocalists in they tracks. This is not pushing the envelope. This is complying to the demands of the corporate machine to gain acceptance and monetary success. Electronic music has been around for a very long time, but until IDM came along, there was no hope of it being heard by mass audiences. IDM made experimental music acceptable. As for my Soul music comment, I do understand that there are great soul artists out there, but the trend in POP MUSIC these days is to borrow heavily from Soul and do a real shitty job with it. Rap has already begun to take over IDM. I like a lot of Rap, but again, I feel if there are too many IDM acts that incorporate Rap into their tracks, it will take over and there will be less and less instrumental IDM. I did not mean to sound elitist in any way. Sorry if I did. Anne :( Aaron D Meyers <adm226@nyu.edu> wrote: Funny that you say that. I think that instrumental music turns a lot of people off. If adding lyrics opens IDM up to a wider audience, I think that's great. For myself, I've found that I really like a lot of recent IDM with vocals, cut-up or no. Super_Collider and Ellen Allien come to mind as some good examples. But to outright dismiss "soul vocals", which have a pretty rich heritage outside of American Idol, is pretty close-sighted and elitist. What do you mean about rap? Soul vocals will kill rap or rap vocals will kill IDM? You wanna qualify that one too? -Aaron

quoted 6 lines Soul vocals may work on American Idol, but they will kill IDM.

> > Soul vocals may work on American Idol, but they will kill IDM. > That goes for Rap too. > > Anne :/ >

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quoted 3 lines Not to say that TTA's music is bad, but I'm starting to worry about vocals takin

> Not to say that TTA's music is bad, but I'm starting to worry about vocals taking over IDM. They are nice when used as > smaller elements that enhance a track, effected or clean, but it seems to me IDM is becoming "poppier" by the minute. > I though Red Hot Car was Squarepusher's worst tune ever.

The tedious threads about the definition of IDM that pop up from time to time have revealed one thing in their persistence: there is no agreement or consensus about what "IDM" is. Another thing that pops up is that certain music fans can be extremely open to blaming artists for making music they don't like. The above quote reads as if there can be no such thing as experimental pop music. This is a danger in experimental music: composers and fans disappearing up their own mp3 collections and dismissing anything that threatens their worldview. "Oh no, someone got American Idol in my Philip Glass!" reflects a conservative stance similar to the concern for property values when undesirables move into the neighborhood. However, the only gated communities in music are those that belong to styles that are no longer evolving. Nobody owns music and anybody can try to kill any part of it if they want to. Without even asking you!

quoted 2 lines Music evolves at a turtle's pace. When techno came along, everyone

> Music evolves at a turtle's pace. When techno came along, everyone > thought it was strange because there were no vocals.

History tells us this is not so. There are vocals on "Shari Vari," most Cybotron songs, the first five Metroplex releases, "Nude Photo", many early KMS tracks, and so on. The first Underground Resistance record was a vocal house track. These examples are only a part of Detroit's role in techno's legacy, and there are many more worldwide examples that refute any interpretation of techno as an instrumental form of music. Techno was innovative for breaking history's lock on House music as mechanized Disco by expanding the range of sounds that could be included in club sounds. This didn't happen at a turtle's pace, Detroit techno came into being as an established style over the course of only four years from the release of "Clear" to the birth of the big three labels of Metroplex, Transmat, and KMS. This doesn't even include the crucial influence of synthpop, industrial, and new beat which reached back into experimental academic and commercial music of the 60s and 70s. All had vocals. -eric --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

In a message dated 11/21/2003 11:47:49 AM Pacific Standard Time, eric@synthesizer.org writes: "Oh no, someone got American Idol in my Philip Glass!" Funniest post of 2003...ha