pop music could also be distinguished from non-pop music (historically
academic) by the considerations of ye olde form and function, tho perhaps
photek can be there for both. differences in form and function can often
throw a piece into one category or another, so that a french canso would be
a popular form while (geez, i'm forgetting all these terms) an organum would
be a sacred form (back then essentially the same thing as academic).
differences in function, of course, were also apparent, with popular pieces
being written more for story telling and partying, and academic/sacred music
more for worship and then, as academic and sacred separate, for
"musicianship" and then more recently in 20th century turning more and more
to process. here you get the 12-tone folks, set theorists, and computer
musicians, and such -- webern, schoenberg, babbitt, ussachevsky, luening, et
al.
currently, in most music we casually refer to as "pop music", there are
clear remnants of those old popular forms, where you have ABABCAB, where A
is the verse, B is the chorus, and C is the sax solo (if we can take Hall &
Oates' Maneater as an example, or i guess Duran Duran's Rio). and in western
academic music, of course, we still have plenty of those forms still
kicking. the functions, similarly, have thrived with the bulk of the market
supporting the "popular" and the academic and state institutions supporting
the academic music.
musicianship and process have stayed pretty squarely in the realm of
academics, even though we can occasionally look to people in pop and praise
them for their "classical" training, or just plain wicked chops -- marty
friedman, joe satriani, yngwie malmsteen, steve vai, vernon reid, trey
anastasio, and ted nugent (tho we can disqualify him on the grounds that
he's now a raving loony).
more recently, tho, new forms (and i thought it pretty funny for roni size
to be the champion here), are challenging what can qualify as chops, and are
merging more technically interesting processes with more popular music
elements. idm where hip-hop elements are subject to technical manipulation
and reconfiguration; rap as a new jazz, where vocalists can rival the
musicianship of clarinet players; dj's who make ad hoc compositions out of
others, playing with tension, suspension, and resolution - all of these sort
of blur the line of traditional distinctions. each genre within will its
spectrum from one end to another, so some artists become hard to pin down.
these genres are becoming more popular, and some of this gaining popularity
is due to the use of "familiar" and "popular" sounds in these products. sort
of like when the catholic church decided it didn't have to EVERYTHING in
latin - they wanted to stay relevant. the emergence of these genres is also
partly the result of the decentralization (demonopolization) of the market,
and increased access to technology, and decreased costs of production, so
that the market HAS EVEN THE CHANCE to support the music, rather than the
powers that be deciding that the multitudes would never want it and
therefore not produce it, along the lines of the Commission on Presidential
Debates deciding that Ralph isn't popular enough to warrant his inclusion.
anyway, i'm rambling now, forgot what my point was. and yes, i know much
less about jazz than western academic.
./paul
----------------------------
freight elevator quartet ---
becoming transparent ---
october 02, 2k ---
www.fe4.com ---
----------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Fahey
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 8:02 PM
To: IDM (E-mail)
Subject: RE: [idm] Pop vs IDM
I see pop music as music that is born out of the "pop tradition." The pop
tradition, born out of centuries of folk music, is a product of the late
20th century (and the advent of the selling of recorded music) and it
consists of everything from swing to soul to rock&roll to disco and beyond.
Since IDM is a child of many of these movements, it is pop music. IDM may
not be popular, but it is a product of the popular music tradition.
Pop music has traditionally been simply anything that is not "academic". And
although lots of IDM traces at least some of its artistic lineage to
classical/academic traditions, the majority of the IDM idiom is pure pop and
can trace its roots pretty squarely back into disco, hip hop, r&b, prog
rock, punk rock, etc.
You could say, however, that we have reached a time when the word pop has
almost lost it's meaning, much in the same way that "High" and "Low" art
have lost their distinctions. The term "pop" goes back to a time when the
academies would enforce a distinction between the intellectual musical
activity within their walls and the fun stuff the peasants were playing on
their flutes and drums. We all know today that this is a fallacy, that lots
of academic music is influenced by folk music (and that non-academic
musicians are capable of extraordinary creativity, invention, and genius).
IDM is like comic books - it's an art form born from the lower classes and
co-opted by a new classless coalition of people who don't give a damn about
high or low. It is in large part free of caste stigma (although I'm sure 3/4
of the kids at Julliard would find most IDM pretty hard to bear).
If you're going to use the word pop, then you must apply it to almost all
IDM - but it's nothing to be ashamed of!!! If you're ashamed to be listening
to pop music, then you're a snobby aristocratic twat and fuck you.
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