Will youth be fooled again?

[infinite thought]

As excellent as The Horrorist was, gothic rave never took off.

You better tell all the dreadlocked goth-rave folk at Slimelight then! and as for 'all this music originated in the eighties', I'd say 'poetry goth' probably turned up at some point a couple of hundred years ago, and as for 'old person goth', I dunno when it originated as I made it up yesterday.

Whilst there is no doubt a slight dearth of contemporary goth sounds, there is at least some new goth/industrial/EBM music being made, and young pups to listen to it....and surely saying things originated at a certain point is not synonymous with saying they don't exist now. Electric guitars 'originated' in the early-20th-c, but it's not like they only stuck around for a couple of years before vanishing....

 

[henrymiller]

The fact that you know you'll be able to get the DVD with full production details in a short while means that, for instance, there is no real need to watch the broadcast the first time round - and therefore no possibility of it becoming an Event.

this is true, but at the same time i don't see why we need Events. i think i used to have Events with movies and music, and don't now, but i don't see any big problem there. after all historical 'events' are often illusory, so why privilege cultural Events? that said, there are still Events, but you take them at your own convenience, not the whims of programmers. i just cannot see a problem there.

i imagine dvds are an amazing liberation for anyone in the provinces, and i'm psyched to have burroughs' films on dvd, because otherwise i might never see them. simple as. and seeing films in the cinema, or more realistically a gallery, can be very depressing, surrounded by souls equally desperate for some kind of HIT. they're not really social or genuinely communal gatherings.

if you'd asked the underground filmmakers of the 60s if they'd like easy access at home to, say, warhol's films, i think they would have said yes; after all, they had to put up with 8mm prints in the 'cinemas'.

 

[Backjob]

its boring and stupid fashion, its boring and stupid macho posturing, its boring and stupid glorification of violence, its boring and stupid worship of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ are entirely negative. Time for some honesty. There is nothing interesting about any of this shit.

For this comment to have any validity you would have to justify a) how this is different from any other time in hip hop's history and b) how this is different from any other popular music ever.

Otherwise it just looks ignorant. People have been parroting the above for my entire life, and I don't see it as having any more relevance now than it did when "Straight outta compton" came out.

 

[hamarplazt]

You better tell all the dreadlocked goth-rave folk at Slimelight then!

I'm not saying there isn't a scene for this music, but are these people really goths? Are they seen as or considering themselves as a part of goth culture? If so, I stand corrected.

Anyway, The Horrorist's plan was to turn the huge american teen goth culture, all those into NIN and Marylin Manson, to rave music, and I still don't think that happened.

and as for 'all this music originated in the eighties', I'd say 'poetry goth' probably turned up at some point a couple of hundred years ago, and as for 'old person goth', I dunno when it originated as I made it up yesterday.

I thought you meant something like Paul Roland.

Whilst there is no doubt a slight dearth of contemporary goth sounds, there is at least some new goth/industrial/EBM music being made, and young pups to listen to it....and surely saying things originated at a certain point is not synonymous with saying they don't exist now. Electric guitars 'originated' in the early-20th-c, but it's not like they only stuck around for a couple of years before vanishing....

There's actually truckloads of new EBM/goth/industrial around, just like there's still people playing New Orleans jazz. The point is that most of it is meant to sound more or less like it could have been made back in the good old days.

 

[dominic]

People have been parroting the above for my entire life, and I don't see it as having any more relevance now than it did when "Straight outta compton" came out.

for starters, "straight outta compton" was new and, given the crack cocaine epidemic at the time, relevant

that was 18 years ago

18 years is the same amount of time as b/w 1965 and 1983

same amount of time as b/w 1977 and 1995

 

[henrymiller]

dominic, i don't see your point there? do you think hip-hop hasn't moved on in 16 years (1989 wannit?)? cos, you know, it has...

 

[k-punk]

For this comment to have any validity you would have to justify a) how this is different from any other time in hip hop's history and b) how this is different from any other popular music ever.

(a) Right, where are the Wu Tang, BDP, Mantronix, Eric B, Jeru the Damaja, Timbaland of 2005? I notice that you offer no positive case whatsoever for hip hop, just the idea that condemning it is self-evidently wrong.

(b) Easily done. Funk was not about men boasting about how much money they had. Soul was not about men boasting about how much money they had. Shoegazing was not about men boasting about how much money they had. Folk was not about men men boasting about how much money they had.

I could go on.

Otherwise it just looks ignorant. People have been parroting the above for my entire life, and I don't see it as having any more relevance now than it did when "Straight outta compton" came out.

Well, there's a bit of a problem there, because when 'Straight outta compton' came out, 'Straight outta compton' was just out. Unlike now, when NOTHING EVEN REMOTELY comparable exists. Plus, this idea that styles of music can be relevant for whole lifetimes is so complacent that it could almost be the view of a rock fan. Hip hop is as conservative as rock, and even more ethically bankrupt. Time for something new.

 

[k-punk]

There's actually truckloads of new EBM/goth/industrial around, just like there's still people playing New Orleans jazz.

Or hip hop.

The point is that most of it is meant to sound more or less like it could have been made back in the good old days.

Yeh, but there's nothing inevitable about that; indeed, the whole point is that there's no intrinsic reason why there can't be a modern goth sound. Plus, much of the goth scene revolves around Industrial and NiN, which were more 90s than 80s.

 

[k-punk]

dominic, i don't see your point there? do you think hip-hop hasn't moved on in 16 years (1989 wannit?)? cos, you know, it has...

Yeh, but not much, and certainly hardly at all in the last five years.

 

[Turns out HMG was right!]

Maybe OT, but then I haven't really followed this T.

Hi k-punk, just want to say that I found today's "October 6, 1979: Capitalism and Bipolar disorder" essay one of the most enjoyable, cogent and persuasive yet. Any clues regarding what the Redefining Event will be?

 

[henrymiller]

got the rolly on my arm and I'm pouring Chandon

it's true that the *lyrical* content of hip-hop is impossible to defend, and perhaps things've slowed down a bit, but it's in better nick than what we're all calling 'dahnce' music...

 

[dominic]

hip hop does evolve sonically, but it's slow evolution

and the politics and the take on "reality" remain forever the same -- and it's a very oppressive take

as for dance music, i suppose i count myself a partisan of dance music b/c i like the politics and culture

but yeah, the music is for the most part very stagnant

 

[henrymiller]

this is a post about ketamine

the music is for the most part very stagnant

i'm not even a very assiduous listener these days, but that shit's crazy. this isn't a thread for the problems of hip-hop's lyrical preoccupations (tho let's not forget that a year ago everybody would have been complaining about kanye being hip-hop for white rock critics: you can't win), but obviously TECHNIQUE has evolved there as much as it has in the music. i think hip-hop has moved more in the last decade than dance music. too.

also wtf, WHAT 'politics' do you like in dance? the politics of getting fucked up? i'm really a lapsed fan of both but even as a casual, hip-hop (not such a discrete genre as it was in 1989...) has clearly produced more amazing pop moments than dance this decade. and getting on-topic, i think a commitment to hip-hop is more conducive to thought than a commitment to dance culture.

 

[mr epicurus]

WHAT 'politics' do you like in dance? the politics of getting fucked up? i'm really a lapsed fan of both but even as a casual, hip-hop (not such a discrete genre as it was in 1989...) has clearly produced more amazing pop moments than dance this decade. and getting on-topic, i think a commitment to hip-hop is more conducive to thought than a commitment to dance culture.

I reckon you could have argued that dance had it's own politics 10 years ago (free parties, P.L.U.R., etc.) but I don't know about now. I still go, occasionally, out clubbing (and admittely I was too young to fully appreciate rave culture when it could be said to be a distinct culture). I wouldn't say dance and clubs have politics per se, but there is still a definite feeling of community - especially in the supposedly 'undergoround' clubs.

And there I would draw a direct parallel between dance and rap. Both genres have a majority of artists producing the same-old, tired, manufactured rubbish ('Bling-bling' gangsta and about 95% of dance. Happy harcore...*shudders*). And both have a committed underground of mostly d.i.y artists and labels producing truly new and progressive music: peeps like Doseone, Why?, Two Lone Swordsmen, The Bays, Plastikman, etc.

 

[Grievous Angel]

Yeh, it's about time some pressure was put on hip hop now. It's THE most complacent music ever.

Yeah, it's about time trendy white boys stopped being prejiudiced against smart, interesting and groovy hiphop like Blackalicious...

(but the alternatives, the dull and worthy likes of Black Eyed Peas, is usually infinitely worse).

Not much hope of that then!

 

[Grievous Angel]

Grumpy old men and other stereotypes

Anyway, back to the point before Mark totally derails the thread with his fulminations against stagnant hiphop (I would remind Mark's detractors that he has come to praise hiphop, not to bury it -- it's just that, let's face it, most hiphop isn't worth the candle, though Eminem is still too smart to ignore and his Mockingbird tune makes me cry every time I hear it...).

So we’ve gone from “when I was your age we listened to proper music” to “when I was your age people CARED about music, people wanted a REVOLUTION in music!”.

Kinda the same thing, no?

I think one comment illuminates this whole debate: 1984 to 1988 wasn’t a “dearth” period, it was fantastic, it was one of the greatest periods of music ever! I was aged between 17 to 21 then and I had Swans, Tackhead, Foetus, the Fall, Coil, Psychic TV… I had electro, early house, I had Loop and Spacemen Three… never mind the way that period revived and re-envisioned a lot of old music, especially stuff like Led Zep and Parliament… and let’s not even get started with the volcano of brilliance that was reggae!

So I don't think "dearths" exist. Show me a time that's supposed to be rubbish, I'll show you classics. (Though I'm a bit too busy with kids right now to be able to track what's going on now properly -- and so is Simon AFAICT!)

However, there is one big difference between then and now, and it’s one I perceive with my marketing hat on, and I've banged on about this before: demographic changes mean there is a smaller market for music among young people, and vastly increased competition for (an admittedly somewhat larger) youth leisure budget means that music is no longer the touchstone for youth culture. I think that’s why music is no longer “an event”: nothing is. (I don’t think it has anything to do with compression techniques though Egg!)

Of course this simply reinforces the degree to which artists must be entrepreneurs to survive – especially given the increasing need to DIY. Musicians are small business owners to an even greater degree.

(PS: Young Gods don’t still sound fresh, apart from perhaps Nous De La Lune. They’re alright though.

(PPS: we went to Whitby last Samhain not realising -- stupidly -- that it would be over-run with Goths, and looked to me not only as if granddad goth is alive and well, but that the scene is still mutating happily. Eurgh!)

 

[Tactics]

as much as I agree with some of these

I agree. Watching those live grime DVDS, I feel simultaneously ultra-tense AND bored... all that aggression, but with no finesse, no means of transforming it into anything fascinating, sublime... just an oi-like assertion of the brute fact of existence... Much of it doesn't strike me as that different from reality TV ... people who just want to make a mark on the world for being them... with minimal effort... cheap MTV cribs fantasies imported from hip hop... What interests me in grime is the 'music', the atonal electronics... just wish that the MCs would shut up most of the time....

points....thinking along these lines could run into very tricky areas considering the majority of MC's are african/black and your using words such as 'sublime' and 'no finesse'....im jus saying it as I see it....to go back to the original point though....

Will young people always play it safe?

- to be boring it depends on what safe means. If it is as someone alreday stated in this thread the current capitalist based 'me first' lifestyle then I guess so. When you are young, you are still defining yourself so self leadership isn't really there ie 'gangs' of youth. If you would like youth to not do this then as an adult, a lead has to be taken up. By combining that with being able to relate to the dynamic voice of youth....well if you want to young people will not play it safe for much longer....

Did I miss the point?

 

[stelfox]

generally though i think the tone across the whole music-discourse scape is cooler -- the most you get is a sort of quiet enthusiasm, very localised (genre-specific) enthusiasm leavened with expertise and knowledgeableness.

this is exactly why i'm finding myself looking outside of ragga at the moment - not because i've in any way fallen out of love with it, but because there is so much more music out there that all needs shouting about. i think music is great at the moment, but it is safe to say that it's not going through any major paradigm shifts - and they're the things that evidently make us all all and scream and stomp our feet, so things are bound to be a little quieter, but this isn't necessarily indicative of a culture gone sterile at all.
i'd like to add that there has been plenty of crazed enthusiasm lately, but it's just been directed toward people that *we* don't happen to like.
MIA has been hailed as the greatest album in a decade and even on one forum (by a very prominent critic, no less) as having totally clowned everything jamaica has produced since the sleng teng riddim (which is, of course, grounds to cu sounds of locks turning, keys being thrown), but if that aint hyperbole, what is?
my point? the world isn't being changed right now (maybe it won't again, maybe it never really was), but is that really all there is to aspire to - constant reinvention, continual change etc?
even in a fairly settled musical environment such as we are enjoying now (well, i'm enjoying it anyway, dunno about the rest of yers), there's still plenty to get excited about - subtle shifts, virtuoso performances, new artists slowly breaking into established areas, small scenes maturing and really getting ready to blow up huge. there are also plenty of writers prone to fits of unabashed optimism and love to talk about it.
i say "impress me" as much as the next man, and, you know what, i am impressed by a lot of stuff i'm hearing. so, maybe we should be looking at the ways we're thinking about music and discourse as much as what's "wrong" with the contemporary landscape.

 

[dominic]

i'm not even a very assiduous listener these days, but that shit's crazy.

my remark that "yeah, the music is for the most part stagnant" was about dance music, not hip hop

i think hip-hop has moved more in the last decade than dance music. too.

agreed

however, i don't think sonic innovation is the end all be all -- i.e., i'm not nearly so modernist in my worldview as others here -- although you need serious innovation in order to have a full-on music movement

WHAT 'politics' do you like in dance?

the religion is the dark voodoo celebration aspect

the politics is come one, come all so long as you're down with religion

i think a commitment to hip-hop is more conducive to thought than a commitment to dance culture.

how so?

 

[dominic]

though Eminem is still too smart to ignore

what, in your opinion, makes Eminem so smart?