Re: [microsound] microsound as pop music

[Beni Borja <beni.borja@xxxxxxxxxx>]

thanks!!!!!your comments  made all this endless discussion suddenly worth
something....

you're right !!!!älthough I don't really know what you're saying!!!!!

um abraço

Beni

----- Original Message -----
From: "<<< audi sensa >>>" <audisensa@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "microsound" <microsound@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, July 19, 2002 4:44 AM
Subject: Re: [microsound] microsound as pop music


>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andrei" <andrei@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "microsound" <microsound@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 6:39 PM
> Subject: Re: [microsound] microsound as pop music
>
>
> > On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Beni Borja wrote:
>
>
> > > 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".
> >
> > Personally I'd say those artists are quite easy to digest, mainly
because
> > there's a lot of visceral appeal to their music, which to me is a
defining
> > quality of pop music.
>
> i'd say that's a pretty clear, non judgmental distiction between *pop* and
> *art*. and andrei seems to be often be misunderstood as the curmudgeon
here.
> i don't know why this is. when he's referring to the visceral quality,
that
> covers an enormous spectrum of sound and says nothing about it's
legitimacy
> or value as *music*. visceral is clearly different than intellectual. but
> nobody said the body is less than, or even in opposition to the brain. it
> just depends on what you're looking for. and they don't necessarily need
to
> be separate either.
>
> but it does raise a question: if you turn webern up loud enough, does he
> become *pop*?
>
> anyhow, the way this discussion at one point got labelled as "pop vs. art"
> is a pretty interesting thing in itself, that somebody felt compelled to
> draw battle lines in the subject header!
>
>
> > > 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".
>
> the first free jazz musician i ever got into was cecil taylor. i was 13
and
> i had no concept of what it *meant*. why was i initially attracted?
>
> 1. because he beat the hell out of his piano. you can't deny that this is
> instantly gratifying.
> 2. because he had cool glasses and a handlebar moustache. you can't deny
he
> has pop appeal.
>
> after a few years of listening and trying to absorb, i admittedly felt
> alienated, gave up, and moved on. now, i'm not passing judgement on cecil
> here, but his supposed anything-but-instant-gratification appeal is
> precisely what lured this average 13 year old boy into buying his records.
> and i was raised on pop music. the fact that he had somehow interesting
> traits as a performer, or a *shtick*, (no matter how far from the
mainstream
> it was), just as xenakis, stockhausen, varese, braxton, etc, all have, is
> noteworthy. *shtick*, no matter how subtle or thinly veiled, is present in
> even the most difficult music circles. and *shtick*, even though the word
is
> crude and conjures up the idea of vacuousness, is not limited to face
paint
> and snake boots. varese had crazy hair! you think the record company
didn't
> fully understand that, from a marketing standpoint, (which was already in
> full force by then) that part of what separated him from the mainstream
was
> his menacing looks, and that was partially what would help to sell his
> records? they needed all the help they could get, and just because a group
> of people are into difficult/challenging music, doesn't mean they're not
> susceptible to the same attention grabbing methods as those below them on
> the intellectual food chain. anybody who has any doubts, just think of The
> Wire. so, varese becomes part of pop history!  and going back even
further,
> the premiere of the rite of spring is pure *pop*. riots are so pop!
>
> i'll even bet a lot of the *hardcores* would be embarassed to admit that
> their initial interest in braxton may have arose from the fact that he's
> seen/portrayed as this math nut who transforms geometric shapes into
music.
> that's panty wetting information for math nuts and those of us with
romantic
> attachments to numbers and knowledge. and if this information about
braxton
> came from a book about jazz, or a magazine, then you were coerced by the
> same methods used by the people who write for rolling stone. it's much
more
> subtle of course, but the same no less. POP! it's in human nature to sell
> every conceivable facet of a performer to an audience, and it's been done
> with anybody and everybody with a shred of *character*. even the
> anti-personality is pure personality. so, this idea of a guy with a laptop
> being boring while at the same time transcending the *pop* performance
> cliches is crap, cause that can still be a very attractive/romantic/pop
> trait for many people. it depends on what excites you and what you relate
> to.
>
> another example, though people might think this is a stretch, but i think
> not : the word *xenakis*, by itself, is a huge selling point. it screams
> arcane, obtuse, angular, difficult. and there are people, perhaps, looking
> to experience this sensation, who are very likely to see this name and,
> having maybe never heard his music before, become enraptured by the
> possibilities that their own imaginations cook up. this is unavoidably
> *pop*. same thing with stockhausen. what a word! it's become synonymous
with
> challenging electronics (even though some of his music is incredibly
> visceral ie: POP! :) and he is now as *pop* as anybody, simply by being a
> public figure. and scale has nothing to do with it. billboard top 40 is
not
> *pop* for any reason other than that there is money and advertising poured
> into it. it's not necessarily "what the people want". as soon as music
> became a commodity, it automatically became *pop*.
>
>
> > > 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.
>
> highly doubtful i think. you can't put any sound onto a hip hop record
that
> will make a hardcore avan-gurdian cringe, unless it fucks with the actual
> form. once it's over a beat, the context is completely different. somebody
> made a good point a while back about this : people exchanging the hi hats
in
> techno with a *glitch* sound. it's still just a hi hat.
>
> pop!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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