tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2665879619443339580.post8440854430817171692..comments2023-10-19T06:01:04.071-04:00Comments on bass & superstructure: Musical Eugenicsshuja xhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130972096185079472noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2665879619443339580.post-8242845580592792562009-01-17T14:44:00.000-05:002009-01-17T14:44:00.000-05:00But I LIKE "She's Leaving Home," dangit!In serious...But I LIKE "She's Leaving Home," dangit!<BR/><BR/>In seriousness, though, while I'd agree that it's good that the album's "hegemony" is ending and people are looking at different formats for music, I don't see the album as necessarily finished. It's great that I can create my own mix and listen to Beatles tracks in whatever order I want to, but that doesn't mean that I'll never feel like listening to "Abbey Road" from start to finish. (I can only imagine what listening to the second-side montage would be like on shuffle.) What I like about mp3 music and the like is that I get a choice, and that means that rather than losing an option (e.g. the album is dead), I gain one. So I can listen to an album or a custom playlist or a DJ mix without excluding one or the other.<BR/>You're right that the concept of the album is a fairly recent one, but let's not forget that the concept of recorded music is also a new one. We can find forms analogous to the album or EP in the suites and symphonies that classical composers often used, for example (along with preludes, etudes, and the like, which were often intended to be appreciated individually).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2665879619443339580.post-53766111170780930112009-01-08T16:12:00.000-05:002009-01-08T16:12:00.000-05:00shuja can you delete the previous post? it got fo...shuja can you delete the previous post? it got formmated weird because i wrote it in notepad...<BR/><BR/><BR/>here it is again:<BR/>Another great post, Shuja. <BR/><BR/>To comment on a few things:<BR/><BR/>I think we can both agree that the album and the tracklist are outdated vestiges of the vinyl record. And I think we can both agree that as a veritable institution, they have been exploited to the maximum degree by the music industry, and as a culture of consumes we haeat up whatever is dished out, a sort of universal cultural pattern/language.<BR/><BR/>However, it the standard album has two kinds of advantages - firstly, as a DJ I see the supreme value in storytelling, and secondly, I think that the standard album is also a practical and ecological way of producing music. <BR/><BR/>Storytelling/programming, (i know you know this), is the substance of deejaying. The placement of one track next to another in an album is just as much part of the musical art as blowing a horn or opening a filter, in my opinion. <BR/><BR/>As far as pratice goes, musicians and producers work in many ways. Often, however, a musical idea is restricted to one piece of music and developed to a smart extent. As such, a musician tends to end up with several separate individual works that may or may not be related. In creating an album, a musician can make sense of his work through the order, he can tell a story. In some cases, this larger story is the impetus for the whole project. (eg the album I am working on) I would compare this with a painter designing his own exhibition - the installation of the paintings is critical to the artist's intentions. <BR/><BR/>So for this reason, I think shuffle mode has little intrinsic artistic value. It might create interesting juxtapositions, but they are not intelligent. <BR/><BR/>As far as a person creating his own intelligent juxtapositions goes, I think this is valuable - I mean, this is the essence of the mixtape. <BR/><BR/>I don't buy the postmodern bullshit. In architecture, this has resulting in the fragmentation and degradation of powerful pattern languages/archetypes which affect man at his most basic level. The same pattern language is to be found in music, I think - for example, the idea of 'beginning-middle-end' or 'exposition-rising action-climax-falling action-resolution'. These are born out of intrisincally human intuitions of the life cycle. The golden calf of postmodernism, that is 'collage' may result in something interesting, but like its result, the success is fragmentary, and more often than not results in something of much less power and value than the alternative.<BR/><BR/>And onto pandora. First of all, let me declare that I despise pandora for the exact reason you mentioned - it is a placebo syndrome. <BR/><BR/>Like representative democracy in corporate america, pandora creates the illusion of choice, individuality, and freedom. In many ways pandora epitomizes the twisted manipulation of the american people by those who govern/capitalize. One listens to music he thinks he likes, but this is more often than not already a conditioned preference, consciously or unconsciously affected by marketing, the desire to conform/belong, or other ideological positions (eg christian rock). So here we already have one layer of illusion. Now, add pandora to the mix, and we have another layer of illusion. These people who tag pandora tracks also operate under similar conditioning, so they themselves have a bias. Then, they possibly have an additional bias because of corporate policy or marketing agreements with major record labels, etc. (conspiratorial, but likely) <BR/><BR/>In the end, this leads to everyone being stuck in some kind of giant closed, circular simulation (some people call this fashion or circle-jerk). <BR/><BR/>In this age, everyone wants to be told what to do, what to like, how to think, how to act, how to listen, how to dance. I believe any simulation of choice is the worst kind of slavery.<BR/><BR/>And now, I suppose I have to quote Orwell.<BR/>"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2665879619443339580.post-32035532383702676822009-01-08T16:03:00.000-05:002009-01-08T16:03:00.000-05:00to each his own, i suppose, regarding temple of do...to each his own, i suppose, regarding temple of doom; seems clear to me that it is not only poorly produced, but stinks of blatantly colonialist ideology.<BR/><BR/>but to the point. first, you are right to bring up the dj mix as a contextualizing form, one that also subverts album-hegemony. i left it out because i talk about that all the time and i didn't want to seem like i was already beating a dead horse. hey does anyone else think that sounds like a way to say jerking off? i just noticed that.<BR/><BR/>anyway, i quoted that extract from john corbett's book (which, by the way, contains one of the first formulations of musical afrofuturism, in the essay "brothers from another planet") because pandora epitomizes the "worst of postmodernism" he describes. the categorizing fixation of pandora is nothing like the randomness of a the shuffle function on home listening equipment/software, nor is it anything like the contextualized particularity of the dj mix.<BR/><BR/>perhaps you are right though to say it is the "evolution" of radio. i am reluctant to say this only because if you take a look at the top 40 you'll see plenty of different styles and approaches to making music (country, hip-hop, r&b, latin, synth-pop-ish stuff, etc.). the reason i brought up the brian wilson example is because radio still seems like a viable avenue for rewarding listening experiences to me; it must necessarily be pluralistic (even if in a cynical way) rather than homogenize itself to reinforce one person's taste. it still has the capacity to surprise, even if it does so only rarely.<BR/><BR/>but what i've been trying to get at mainly is that the album as a "complete statement" is a relatively new historical form in music, at a fraction of the age of the verse-chorus-verse song form. it was only with the advent of the long-playing record, and with people like frank sinatra and miles davis presenting 45-minute programs of music on it, that the "complete statement" idea could make any sense at all for recorded music. you can't apply the album "flow" criterion to say, charlie parker, and maybe we shouldn't expect to apply it to contemporary music all the time either.shuja xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12130972096185079472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2665879619443339580.post-35265204611230876012009-01-08T14:37:00.000-05:002009-01-08T14:37:00.000-05:00first off, the second indiana jones did not suck. ...first off, the second indiana jones did not suck. <BR/><BR/>secondly, i think Pandora is not nearly so much to blame for the loss of context given to music by its format as is the iPod culture combined with the other methods of breaking up releases that you mentioned. that whole mentality is killing the appreciation for a good album, or even a good EP or a good 12". hell, even a single sided one song 12" SAYS something by presenting that track in that particular format. <BR/><BR/>what pandora is doing is the logical next step in the "evolution" of those radio stations that have a computer generated random playlist. why limit it to random when you can simple enter all new and old music into a database that can then be arranged so you have a "rock" station and a "soul" station? and they take it even further than that obviously, but the idea is not dissimilar. it is radio which has never been about preserving or even recognizing formats. hell, you can probably get way more "album cuts" if you listen to pandora than you would from almost any commercial radio station. based on my expectations for commercial radio, pandora blows them out of the water. <BR/><BR/>for me, context of a song is the most important thing. i was an avid mixtape maker when i was younger, and then i started deejaying when i was 17. at this point, i get paid to recontextualize songs in a way that makes sense to listeners when i deejay. maybe that takes away a lot of the novelty of "random" or "shuffle" functions, or really even of playlists. i want albums and EPs that make sense on their own for my listening purposes, i want them to be complete statements. it takes skill to make a good mix, and mindlessly clicking "shuffle" on your iPod to play tracks that have already been removed from their original context anyway through the methods of acquiring them only creates a complete mess to my ears. <BR/><BR/>creating an album that flows or a mixtape that flows is a seriously difficult thing to do. the problem is that i dont think most people even think that way in 2008. theyre so used to the typical major label album with "filler" alongside the hot singles that theyve never experienced the emotional journey of listening to something like John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme". can you imagine the individual tracks from that popping up randomly on your ipod?!?! it doesnt make sense seperately!pipecockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11092825988675368839noreply@blogger.com