melle_chantilly

Music

Ok, let's snap out of this D Myer madness. Note so self: when you think everything the guy touches turns to gold, remember he recorded a cover of Dead Can Dance's American Dreaming and go break a plate.

So, cheers to Comaduster, Babyland, Acretongue, Animal Bodies, Kevorkian Death Cycle (witch lulled me to sleep last night, well, that and lormetazepam), Mlada Fronta (Polygon sounds like it would be perfect for my coders friend to listen while working. It also really rocks my socks). Not listening to this right now *cough*

I was ranting yesterday on Twitter about people who seem to think that electronic music is lazy and takes no skill to make. It's a popular misconception, and I just can't. I can understand people not liking electronic music (although rejecting a whole genre just because of a category of instruments that can produce nowadays literally almost all sounds imaginable is a bit odd, but sure, okay) but the pervasive idea that, if anyone can buy a cheap synth and produce electronic tunes out of it, it has to mean all electronic music is made by talentless hacks, just, um. It's like no one can buy a guitar, learn 3 chords and write songs? What's the diff?

Also, skill isn't necessarily relevant to music quality. You don't necessarily need that much skill to convey emotions, for example, as a musician. And technical mastery doesn't necessarily equal better music (I'd say quite the opposite). Again, think Steve Vai vs Nirvana. If you're picking Steve Vai, I'm crossing to the other sidewalk.

I was raised in a family where it was said, constantly, that electronic music as a whole was lazy. It's odd because my parents, especially my father, always considered himself a sort of musical pioneer. He admired Magma, Tangerine Dream, Gong, Eno, and he played in prog rock bands too or so I heard. But I suppose electronics were tolerated when they were part of an experimental ensemble, with the proper support of traditional instrumentation.

I suppose as hippies they could grok punk, but whatever post punk brought was just too much too soon.

It's funny because I don't have that much of a trained ear, although I don't lack references, so sometimes I listen to new things, I just take it in, sometimes more on an emotional level, and I'm not even sure if what I heard was digital or traditional instrumentation.

I think the fact that synths had keyboards bugged my father, because what I heard a lot was that they sounded “fake”. Fake what? Like they were a sub par referent to a higher kind of music, because they looked like plastic pianos. Well, turns out keys are pretty functional when it comes to playing notes, go figure.

The Cure was the most reviled band in my household when I was a kid. The Top and The Head On The Door were probably the incarnation of everything most sonically reviled. I think there is also a good helping of homophobia with my parents hate for electronic music. I mean, look at Robert Smith. All that deviant lipstick. And the new wave beats, so pop and sexual at the same time. Everything, from sound to looks, the whole culture that emerged when they started to disconnect from music altogether, they just didn't get it.

Anyway, this rant doesn't have much rhyme or reason, just thinking out loud. Say hi if you read!

Here's some Coil, because it's always good:

"Coil-Dark River" (Watch on YouTube)