Re: [microsound] microsound as pop music

[Andrei <andrei@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, kyle jones wrote:

> A response to "Iamnobojackson"
>
> "Microsound" may not sound like Top 40 radio, but a fair amount of the music
> discussed on this list is packaged and marketed and distributed the same
> way, albeit with less of all mentioned.
>
> Stockhausen was at SONAR last year, Radiohead sampled Paul Lansky, Edgar
> Varese debuted Poem Electronique at the 1958 worlds fair.
>
> Show me the distinction between pop and academic.
>
> Who is purely academic.
>
> How is microsound firmly not pop music.
>
>
> Ultimately this post is less of a vitriolic response, and more of an
> imploration to explain the difference.  However, I don't think "fuckn duh
> already" answers my question, or addresses the issue properly.

Good points.

There are a few reasons for which I said I consider microsound pop music.
Primarily I say that because I think the majority of microsound is
quite easy to digest. Despite the lack of melody or harmony in a lot of
microsound, most of it isn't compositionally/structurally (or
rhythmically) challenging/complex/impenetrable in the way pieces by
Xenakis or Stockhausen can be. A lot of microsound pieces are still
constructed in a "pop" manner. Of course there are some exceptions.
Imo a lot of microsound music is primarily experienced in a visceral,
sensual way (the way pop music is) rather than intellectually.

And I mean if one were to sit down and dissect and analyze an Ikeda piece,
for example, in terms of construction and compositional structure there
wouldn't that be much to say, you could sum up what's going on pretty
quickly, whereas there's a lot to talk about in a Xenakis or Stockhausen
piece.

I definitely didn't mean that microsound is pop as in Top 40, but it
certainly has more connections to "pop" music than say the music of
Xenakis or Stockhausen. I think it's fair to say that a lot of the artists
within the "microsound" scene have connections to the pop music world.
More direct connections than Xenakis or Stocky every had.

Andrei