Re: [microsound] microsound as pop music

[Beni Borja <beni.borja@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrei,

I'm certanly more partial to the populist view ( the majority is right) than
to the elitist atitude ( "the learned""are right and the populace is always
wrong) . But I don't think that's the case here.

When you're talking of pop music , you're  completely ignoring artists like
Frank Zappa, Pere Ubu, Sonic Youth   and scores of others that were able to
create music that due to "the non-instant gratification musical content
their of work" "did not appeal to your sort of average cd buying Joe". Yet ,
despite their limited sales, they we're able to have some degree of success
and have a deep effect on hundreds of thousands of listeners around the
world that had their ears open to new  harmonies and rhytms.This not
mentioning the realm of jazz/improvised music , where for sure you would
find artists from Cecil Taylor to Anthony Braxton, that are anything but
"instant gratifying".

As for your claim that there's no way in hell that Xenakis or Stockhausen
would have a chance of making the pop charts any time soon. You should
probably take a deeper look at the charts, there's stuff on the rap records
of the  Billboard top 200 that sonically  would make even the hardcore
avan-guardist cringe.

 saudações,

Beni



----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrei" <andrei@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "microsound" <microsound@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 5:29 PM
Subject: Re: [microsound] microsound as pop music


> On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Beni Borja wrote:
>
> > I can't understand someone who sees aesthetic value on being
"difficult"...
> >
> > If Stockhausen, Xenakis, Cascone or anyone whose work did not meet any
sort
> > of public recogniction ,despite a mega-buck marketing campaign, I would
> > seriously doubt the artistic merit of such work.
>
> That seems like a very pop/mainstream/"the majority is right" kind of
> attitude.
>
> I think you misunderstood me.
> I'm not taking pride in being "difficult" and I don't think artists
> considered "difficult" intend to be that way. It's all relative anyway.
>
> What I wanted to point out is that there's no way in hell that Xenakis or
> Stockhausen would have a chance of making the pop charts any time soon
> because due to the non-instant gratification musical content their work
> wouldn't appeal to your sort of average cd buying Joe.
> From my experience people who listen solely to pop music can actually get
> angry if they hear something like Xenakis or Stockhausen. Many people tend
> to think that composers of that type are full of shit and write that kind
> of stuff cuz they lack talent or just to be annoying on purpose (!?).
>
> Maybe decades or centuries from now people will really get used to what's
> now considered extremely dissonant and things like Xenakis will seem
> average.
>
>
> > Art was meant to comunicate something, wasn't it??  Not communicating is
> > failure , not reason to be proud.
>
> On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Philip Sherburne wrote:
>
> > Yes, but to "communicate" something, you need someone prepared to
> > receive or interpret it. Joyce's "Ulysses," for instance, may be
> > communicating something, but only to those open to it. Ditto
> > L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, which to most readers would come across as
> > gibberish.
>
> Right. Well put.
>
>
> Andrei
>
>
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