Re: beauty, meaning, and other things out of fashion...

[wagreiner@ucdavis.edu ()]

In article <9402242322.AA25867@dlsun87.us.oracle.com> jdrukman%dlsun87@us.oracle.com writes:
>>drum boxes just make it too easy to produce a sound that makes good
>>dance floor "hits" and it seems to me that too many people take that
>
>i'm sorry but this just smacks of laziness.  i spend a large chunk of
>my life crafting tracks on electronic gear in a studio, and i spend an
>even larger chunk tracking down other records made by similarly minded
>individuals.  there are many of us out there - we are well underground
>and you probably would not have heard of any of us, but we are there,
>we are working, and we get annoyed when people like you tar us with
>the same brush you'd apply to any generic top 40 crew.  the point is
>that instruments are tools - drum machines don't make it any easier to
>make shit records than guitars do.  you just THINK that's the case
>because you have a predisposition to cut someone with a guitar some
>slack.  well i'm sorry to bring the roof down on your prejudice but
>the truth is that making a bad record with a guitar is no easier or
>harder than making a bad record with a drum machine.  but, i hear you
>cry, it takes at least some minimal amount of talent to play a guitar
>- even on a bad 3 chord rock song.  well, i submit that the amount of
>talent required to play a bad 3 chord song is EXACTLY EQUAL to the
>amount of talent required to program a lame dance track.

Okay, never let it be said that I am too rigid to ever accept that I'm
wrong.  I think, indeed, that you are right and that the amount of talent
taken to do both kinds of things is not that different.  It's just that
they are doing very different things and I'm prejudiced against drum 
machines and most synthesizer music because it sounds sterile to me.
But remember that the topic of the discussion initially was *popular*
music.  The poster noted that music that he liked didn't seem to be
able to become popular by word of mouth, as he felt it was during the
70s, in the 80s and 90s and attributed that to MTV.  I was intending to
respond that it all depends on the music that you like and that the music
that *I* like the most hasn't been really popular since the mid-sixties
and I attributed that to the influence of Sgt. Peppers in making
multi-tracking "non-live" recordings the norm so that bands don't learn
the particular art of performing that I enjoy as much as they used to.
I am ready to concede now that I overstated my case and that these non-
live recordings require just as much "sweat of the brow" as performing
music.  Just like making a very complex computer graphic may require
the same amount of effort and talent as painting.  But I am just 
prejudiced and would rather see a painting than a computer graphic and 
would rather hear a more "live" sound than a computerized composition.
They probably do require the same amount of effort and talent, but just
very different efforts and talents that I don't appretiate as much.

>it's so easy to have a live drummer play a boring part as well... what
>is your point?

My only point, upon reflection, is that they do *different things* and
I prefer what live drummers do (their particular art) to the drum machine
music I've heard.

>
>what you are saying is that most of the music you hear through casual
>attention is crap.  that's fine, but you abstract your particular
>observations into universal truths.  they just don't hold.  there is
>SO much good music out there - no matter what your particular
>persuasion may be... you just have to find it.  i guess i'm spoiled in
>that i have the time and money to spend looking for it.  tell you what
>i'll do - send me a blank tape and i'll send you a tape filled with
>creative and innovative sounds - and some of it might even be produced
>by some bloke programming a computer.

Well, as I said the initial discussion was about music that is able
to become *popular*.  There is a lot of music out there being made that
I do enjoy.  It's just that there was a time when such music would sell
and now it doesn't due (I think) to the modern trend towards records 
sounding "slicker" and, to me, more sterile and safe.

I'm willing to believe that there is interesting layered recordings out
there.  As I said before, I think Kate is a good example.  She takes a
lot of time in the studio, but also is enough of a performer to not be
overwhelmed by it all.  Most of the other music of that type that friends
have recommended have been disapointing, by which I just mean that I didn't
find them interesting or stimulating.  But I admit most of them have been
fairly popular people or bands like Enya or the Cocteau Twins and stuff
like that.  That stuff bores me, but I'm sure there is probably much
different stuff out there.  (Before folk go ballistic, I know that this
is all just IMHO and that The Cocteau Twins are not intrinsically boring
they are just boring IMO.)

>Jon Drukman                                         jdrukman%dlsun87@oracle.com

Wade