The Dragon Reborn wrote:
> I fear for the future. While I hear that more exposure will allow
> some of our favourite musicians to perhpas eat better, I know, KNOW
> that if corporate commandos comes after 'our' music (yes it is our
> music, dammit) that we shall have to sit back and watch with
> increasing horror as everything we (I) hold dear is bastardized,
> commercialized and raped.
<much expounding deleted.>
I couldn't agree more. By being underexposed (what alternative music
used to be called) IDM has kept much of its purity. A recent example
of
this corruption (totally out of the artists' control) is the "grunge"
movement. Subpop's label got hot, pearljam showed up, and POW,
everyone
knows who Eddy Vedder is and the music goes wild. Granted, since our
music isn't guitar based, it would take different ears to cause this
kind of explosion in popularity, but it can very well happen, and MTV
has a lot to do with this sort of thing. Kids are watching TV (and
MTV)
more than they ever have in the past and every part of their life is
influenced by this technology.
I fear what market demand could do to the music as well, although like
many, I would love to see an RDJ video (beside Pirelli commercials),
and
moreso an Ae video, but believe me, I'll trade videos for the music
ANYDAY. Videos have a way of corrupting music, one's vision seems to
take a little preference in the brain over sound.
> Having said all this, I'm not sure I believe that our entire scene
> can be taken commercial. It's too vibrant, too diverse, too smart,
> too good. Maybe it will only be 'us' who sit up and take notice to
> what's happening on MTV - everyone else will change the channel,
> wondering where the hell Presidents of the United States got to.... I
hope.
This is probably what will mostly happen, but there are kids (like I
was) that look for this kind of music. They aren't quite sure what
they
are looking for, but they know it when they hear it. And it would be
nice to introduce these kids to this, but if they become marketshare,
my
god, the ramifications. I remember as a teen ager, I was into 242,
Skinny puppy, etc. always hoping to find my vein. When I first heard
Aphex Twin, I knew this was what I had wanted in my head and here it
was. No lyrics to pollute the tune, and hard beats that aren't overly
repetitive. But this is future sound, and I've been hearing IDM on MTV
for sometime in the background, there are some hepcats in MTVs ranks
somewhere, and one of them squealed <remember hearing RDJ "On" on Real
World?>
quoted 1 line onnow: 444 - Autechre. 'nuff said...
> > onnow: 444 - Autechre. 'nuff said...