Geez, all this talk about why people love BoC.
Some people worship them and think they walk on water, others think
they're overrated.
What do I think? Well, I'd definitely have to go the Divinity route
and say that there music is heaven-sent.
And I'll tell you why.
No, Music has the Right to Children wasn't the most technological
innovative of albums by any means. They didn't boast something like
using twelve hundred thousand millions of samples used per track like
some 'other' bands I can think of..
Their music isn't layered with waves and waves of glitched out
textures, odd mechanical swipes and swirls, fizzing bubbling static, and
other forms of pointless tweaked-out DSP fuckery which some think is
required in any record before it can be called 'IDM'.
I have no idea what kind of gear they use. (Although their music
to me has always had a decidedly sort low-tech feel to it, but that
doesn't matter. It's part of their charm.) And that brings me to my
next point.
None of these things matter when you're listening to their music. It
isn't relevent.
And why isn't it relevent? I can sum it up in one word.
Their music has *soul*.
It's as simple as that.
Right from the opening notes of 'Wildlife Analysis' right down the
last drifting chords of 'One Very Important Thought' (and for those of
you who have the domestic release, that actually would be 'Happy
Cycling'), every track is meaningful, and is conceived in such a way
that you couldn't imagine any of the tracks unfolding in any other way
than the way that you just heard them.
And that is a helluva feat to accomplish. It doesn't take
equipment. It takes talent, skill and artistry.
And a lot of these so-called IDM artists would do well to take a
lesson. Because with a lot of IDM, it's the same thing time and time
again.
I hear their equipment . . .but I don't hear *them*.
I think they need to stop, and ask themselves again 'Why am I making
music? What am I trying to say?'
The difference with BoC is they know *exactly* what they're trying
to say. And to all of us that 'get it', it comes across loud and clear.
It isn't about technique, or what gear you're running, or how many
thousands of samples per track you're using.
It's about where you end up in the end.
How you got there is unimportant. Only that you do.
And to all those of you out there who don't know what all the hubbub
about BoC is, and that maybe in the end that 'Hey, maybe I just don't
get it', I say to you this:
No. You *don't* get it.
But I can only hope that some day you will.
And then you come join the rest of us who got it a long time ago,
and then that will be a very, very happy day.
:-)
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