quote:
Do you see how this works?
Gosh, no. The entire concept eludes me.
Oh, I dunno. I eat a lot of different stuff and I call it all "food" unless I'm asked for a detailed description of my dinner. My best response is still: "Try it. Grab a plate."
I don't suppose that the fact that these regional stylisations of food preperation / variation of principal ingredients therein, have evolved, almost en toto, sans the "assistance" of hordes of marketing executives and have been around - in some cases - for thousands of years before recorded music?
I mean... Nouvelle Cuisine? Please. "New Food?" There is no "New Food." There are no "New Notes." Only the opportunity to use what's there to create something that is a unique expression of the artist. Calling it something that requires 7 hyphens makes it neither magical - nor palatable, for that matter - should it taste like ass on a damp stick.
If there is a need to give some labels to certain things in order warn people away from it, or help them find something in the same style from an artist they might have enjoyed, there is a modicum of validity in that, I suppose. I mean, how many kids who wanted to try curry might have been dissuaded from liking it at all because they were happily munching on some chicken Korma and their wise-assed, older brother - the curry freak - says "Nah.. that stuff's shit. It's for wussies. Eat some of this Phaal."
After the kid's skin grows back on their upper palatte, they have but one thing to say. "Curry sucks."
On the other hand, saying "Naw, see... this is East COAST New Jack Street Gangsta Style!®" - and handing the CD it's own category at the Mtv awards - doesn't alter the fact that it's a bunch of motherfuckers talking about murder, prostitution, misogyny, owning expensive cars and being a criminal as things that are terribly, terribly interesting and desirable. It also doesn't mask the fact that they, often, can't sing and, often, pretty much sound like every other artist who's forte is trying to sound menacing over snippets of other people's work.
In my opinion, it's a tad difficult to create "new music" when the "new style" is nothing more than endlessly referencing what's already been done - from James Brown to whatever sold the most last week - with the aid of samplers and cookie cutter guitar sounds.
Then again, there seems to be a market for that sort of work, but it doesn't necessarily make it music. There's a market for chrome ball lawn ornaments, too. That doesn't necessarily make them art. Fine. So call rap: "rap", and call lawn ornaments: "lawn ornaments". While we're at it, let's agree to call Twinkies: "crap".
I have no beef [HAW!] with certain tags being tossed on to musical styles in order to aide the uninitiated listener in ascertaining the piece's "flava", as it were, but I don't hear a lot of people saying: "I only eat north CENTRAL Pakistani Kashmiri Pandit cuisine, and if you don't, you are SUCH A FUCKING LOSER! You don't KNOW FOOD!"
See how this works?
Sometimes, a cheeseburger is just a cheeseburger and the toppings are just whatever is on top of the cheeseburger that is neither cheese nor meat.
I.E., I remain: Stuffing new music into wildly convoluted sub-genres is like handing out trophies to every kid in school whether it's for Valedictorian or Showing Up A Lot, and does not offer stylistic synopsis - nor assist in broad distribution or acceptance of the work - but simply stuffs music into smaller and smaller boxes that give the kids an opportunity to say: "No, this is MY music! It's DIFFERENT!"
That's neither cuisine nor art. It's marketing. It's running with the tattered and deflated ball that record companies were handed, courtesy of an incredibly large generation of kids who took their music pretty seriosuly, in the sixties. The recording and distribution of music became a marketable commodity with a very large consumer base, for whom the labels pushed more and more money into bankable acts and dilligently tried to sign new ones that sounded like the last band that shifted 10 million units. They simply got on any horse that they could get puchase of, and rode it as far as they could. They did not then, nor do they now, give a rabid goat's ass about art.
As a matter of fact, there was a very overt attempt by labels in the 1980's to pursue the concept of marketing pop music EXACTLY the way professional sports are marketed. And as we all know, one of the principal attractions for a lot of sports fans is allegiance to the home team. We are still dusting the fallout from that huge bomb off of our collective Kid Rock T-Shirts, IMHO.
The proliferation of narrow and multi-hyphenated market channels results, on the street level, in being a bid for allegiance. That, and a lot of pretentious twats who actually think that their work can only adequately be described with the most ostensibly nouvelle and elite genre tags on the shelf.
If you think I'm wholly mistaken, please try and remember that I'm still out in the trenches in Pop Music Land and I hear what's being said about what, and by whom, on an almost first-hand basis. On both the street and industry levels. I am also sent ponderous clumps of industry publications on a monthly basis that are written by, and for, the people who work with this incandescantly brilliant form of music as a business on a daily basis. "Don't let what's easier for them as a business approach affect your limitations of musical appreciation". - is my only message here.
And so, I exhort you:
"Just try it. Grab a CD."
Listen without prejudice.
"Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new sound, funny, but it's still rock and roll to me." - B. Joel
Amen. And don't let them tell you what to call it, either. Don't forget, though: You might LIKE the chicken, and that's OK. Even if all of your friends only like the fish.
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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.
