Sturgeon's Law

[michael]

Musical form and the social context of music are too closely linked to be separated out, I think if you start defining musical genres purely formally, you risk taking them completely out of context.

I have a feeling the formal assessment of a genre is all a bit horse before cart - that to establish whether the formal attributes of a certain style lend themselves to "good" music you would have to work backwards, ie. look at music you reckon works and then break that down into certain formal attributes ... and in that sense you're starting with the answer and trying to find the questions that lead you back to what you've already concluded. Perhaps? Feedback loops...

I do agree with the distinctions being made between ways of thinking about / listening to music, though. The only thing I'm still getting my brain a bit tangled up in is regarding how you would attempt to classify genres and pick some exemplars. Specifically, how you would determine if you've got the right criteria for defining a genre (and what is valued in a genre). It's obviously possible to go "OK, these things define this genre, and this track meets all those criteria" but that just means you've found a track that fits your criteria, not that those criteria are accurate.

Establishing the validity of your little classification scheme would surely fall back to whether it feels right, either to you or to spokespeople of the scene or the majority of punters or whatever... I guess I'm skeptical of this kind of attempted objective analysis because I do believe it ultimately comes back to a series of completely subjective calls. Well, that's OK, perhaps it's just a matter of outlining clearly that calls have been made and what they are...?

Regardless, looking forward to Gabber for Dinner Parties Vol. 1 ... 'Gabber & The City'? 'Sex & The Gabber?

 

[Omaar]

Loose canon

Not sure if you misundertood me, but anyway, just to clarify, I was talking about the description and classification of a genre formally, and wasn't meaning this to be meant as a criteria for saying what music is 'good' and what is 'bad'. But there are archetypyal formal elements, like mentasm stabs or the amen break, and I think there are key moments in genres which are defined by the appearance of these signifiers. I guess these moments are more visible in retrospect. And its probably always interepreted differently. I guess this is basically an argument in defence of a loose canon for genres, but based on a track being important in terms of introducing or mutating certain signifiers, or in terms of it having an important social or political impact. Which is subjective, but so is history. I think there is some consensus for criteria, but there may be disagreement on the specifics.

Ok, I have no idea about the amen break, but is there is a moment when it first appeared in rave?

Genres do possess sets of rules and signifiers which people can use, abuse, take out of context, but there are rules there, whether you feel they need to broken or ignored or whatever. These signifiers exist in a sociopoliticla context.

I guess the canon I'm talking about would map the key moments in a genre's history.

So the filler I'm talking about is not necessarily bad music (it may be better (subjectively?) than the archetypal genre moments), but isn't as historically important.

But anyway describing or listening to music in the context of genre is only one way of listening to music.

 

[Melchior]

Ok, I have no idea about the amen break, but is there is a moment when it first appeared in rave?

My understanding is that the first use was in LTJ Bukem's 'Music', but I think I recently read something which told me this was wrong...

 

[soul_pill]

I think the first use of Amen in rave was a Holy Noise track on Hithouse recs (around 1990). First use in hardcore was in 'We R IE' (91) I think...

 

[michael]

Not sure if you misundertood me,

Yeah, I think I did, to cut this short... Locating key events (wrt signifiers or whatever else) within genres sounds like something much easier than just determining the best tracks through determination of a genre's defining traits... I thought the latter was what you were suggesting could be isolated.

The only muddying involved with the former is that the first use of a certain distinctive sound or gesture within a genre/context is not necessarily the instance that popularises the same... I'm trying to think of examples, but probably doesn't matter... Whoopee doo, eh? As a consumer/reader/whatever of such criticism you'd just agree or disagree with the specifics. In principle it seems like a good approach.

 

[Melchior]

I think the first use of Amen in rave was a Holy Noise track on Hithouse recs (around 1990). First use in hardcore was in 'We R IE' (91) I think...

So was Music the first use in DnB, or am I talking out my ass?