Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#161

Post by jasonwatkinspdx » Sun, May 09, 2021, 9:15 AM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #98

tolbish wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Isn't rock the most mainstream, big stage, for-profit genre in existence? Their comment just sounds like they want to criticize black people as a whole for some reason. Like...do they also criticize Indians for not being really into rock and for only being into stereotypically Indian music?

I don't understand why you say that I am criticising black people. I wondered why black kids don't, as a rule (some do) make rock anymore. How is that criticising anyone? I think you and other posters here are jumping the gun and making associations between my comment and other comments you may have heard or read elsewhere and in a different context. If that is the case, please consider again the HN guidelines about…

I'll speak to this bluntly: some of your comments come across as lecturing black musicians on what they should be doing, in particular how they should shape their response to the racism they experience. Your comments also make clear that you do not experience the specific sort of racism black folk experience. This is a very poor combination, one that many people fall into, where they think they're being supportive but come across as patronizing, arrogant, and dismissive if not racist.

Basically the listen more, lecture less, and make space for the voices that really need to be heard argument.

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#162

Post by jasonwatkinspdx » Sun, May 09, 2021, 9:24 AM UTC

l-_l-_l-_lo_ol wrote: post #85

In the age of computation I think the real dichotomy is between rhythm-focused loop-based composition and music made by people playing instruments. It's easy to see why hip-hop and technology is winning: it's easier music to make. Why compose minutes of music when you can compose 20 seconds and loop it? Or sample it altogether? Why spend thousands of ours learning an instrument?

Have... you ever tried to make a track in Ableton from a sample library?

While there's plenty of examples of crap lazy music out there, making good music electronically is in fact exactly the same: you spend years learning how it all works and how you can best adapt it to your own ambitions. Electronic music production is not like copy pasting some paragraphs together and calling it done. In fact, the versatility of digital production methods means that learning how to produce good music electronically is like learning not just a single instrument, but the whole dang orchestra sufficiently well enough you can compose for it.

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#163

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, May 09, 2021, 9:43 AM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #23

The article makes a very strenuous effort to make a point about something something racism in rock that sounds a bit boring and trite to my ears. After all, Bon Scott said it best years ago: In the beginning Back in nineteen fifty five Man didn't know 'bout a rock 'n' roll show And all that jive The white man had the schmaltz The black man had the blues No one knew what they was gonna do But Tchaikovsky had the news…

> So why didn't the black grasroots ever sprout an analogous new rock scene, instead of turning towards the mainstream, big stage, light show, for-profit music that comes from black artists for the last few decades?

When hiphop evolved, rock was the premier mainstream, big stage, light show, for-profit genre. I’d argue that, insofar as rock & roll “died”, a more succinct explanation than the article’s is that: it became popular, controlled by big business, and ossified.

And because of that, it ceased to be the voice of the outsider, which hip hop became. (Of course, as often happens, the energy, diversity, and rawness that comes from being the voice of the outsider led to hiphop becoming broadly popular, so now it is thr mainstream, yadayadayada... But it became that at a time when industry gatekeeping isn’t as powerful, so maybe it won’t ossify under elite control the same way. Time will tell.)

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#164

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, May 09, 2021, 9:45 AM UTC

TimonKnigge wrote: post #154

Digit-Al wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a black English man who enjoys a bit of rock and metal myself I have wondered this myself. I have some theories, which I fully admit are half baked and quite possibly incorrect. However, I think that a lot of the culture around rock and metal is off-putting to a lot of black people. If you look at something like black metal and it's sub-genres, a lot of the culture and imagery revolves around satanism and European…

I feel like the satanism should give it more appeal, not less. The satanism in metal came from an anti-authoritarian place, and now that the west has become less Christian, metal has become noticeably less satanist. In particular I've noticed that bands that do still invoke this imagery tend to come from more religious places (e.g. Behemoth comes from catholic Poland).

> I feel like the satanism should give it more appeal, not less. The satanism in metal came from an anti-authoritarian place

Just because it came from an anti-authoritarian place doesn’t mean the particular symbolism for that feeling translates well to different subcultures.

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#165

Post by tnolet » Sun, May 09, 2021, 9:49 AM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #99

stuart78 wrote: post #41

I think that the narrative of last twenty years has been a re-blending of genre in a way that is not fully appreciated. While you can certainly find plenty of music that fits the mold established in the 60s, 80s or 90s around you also find much more at the top of the charts that challenges those categories. Right now the top 10 Billboard chart includes Lil Nas X and The Weeknd, neither of whom fits comfortably in the…

> And if you look at what is happening on Bandcamp or Soundcloud or YouTube or wherever else young people are trying new things you see a tremendous heterogeneity of inspiration and not a lot of concern for where the sound fits in. One way I have heard to mentally categorize things: What is the stereotypical musical instrument of that generation/genre? For jazz and the silent generation it was the saxophone, maybe ot…

The DAW ushered in by Protools and its plugins.

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#166

Post by vanderZwan » Sun, May 09, 2021, 10:11 AM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #155

vanderZwan wrote: post #83

> Whatever Hendrix was, he was the only performer capable of reconciling the broken, racially-charged, and dichotomized state of rock ’n’ roll. I guess the author forgot for a moment who Prince was when they wrote that sentence

BB King managed to stay somewhat relevant into the aughts as well, however these examples are quite the exception.

For sure, I just found it a bit silly to single out one artist as a lost savior when other musical geniuses came in to fill that gap and didn't manage to "fix" things either.

As much as I agree with the idea that Hendrix' would have given us so much more if he had lived, I doubt he would have been able to single-handedly stop the music industry from pushing their own (segregated) pop music narrative everyone's throat. Systemic problems need to be solved at that systemic level.

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#167

Post by Applejinx » Sun, May 09, 2021, 10:21 AM UTC

vagrantJin wrote: post #148

pmoriarty wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Reich's early tape loops.. they were so ahead of their time. When I first hear them, I was stunned at how modern-sounding parts of them are. But I completely and utterly disagree with his view that "the purpose of music was for humans to play and sing together as a group activity" Music, and any other complex human activity (like visual art, or literature) is just way too rich and varied to have any one or def…

> Music, and any other complex human activity (like visual art, or literature) is just way too rich and varied to have any one or definitive purpose. This statement looks intelligent and interest but upon reading carefully says absolutely nothing. I don't even get what you are trying to say. Music is a group activity. Mozart played with orchestras, beyonce has scores of musicians to bounce off ideas of, Fela Kuti pla…

Bach. Bach ain't jamming (though in a sense he was capable of just that) but it's just as much Bach on the page as it is in the concert hall. It's not the only kind of music, but it's most definitely music, and would still be music even if nobody ever heard it, so long as the patterns and organizations inside it were preserved (I think it's less music if it was viewed as only an abstract pattern of ink marks on paper, but once those marks mean frequencies over time it's turning into music)

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#168

Post by Applejinx » Sun, May 09, 2021, 10:45 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #142

wolverine876 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know metal was so big in Athens, Greece. Thanks. > So why didn't the black grasroots ever sprout an analogous new rock scene, instead of turning towards the mainstream, big stage, light show, for-profit music that comes from black artists for the last few decades? For me, that's like asking, 'why didn't Van Gogh ever develop something innovative, like the abstract artists, instead of painting in his popular…

> techno (yes, created by African-Americans in Detroit) if you define "techno" in a very particular way, that's true. if you define "techno" in the broader sense in which it is typically used, it was created by Germans in Dusseldorf, whose music is acknowledged by the Detroit scene makers as pivotal in their own evolution.

That would be another perspective, and if you took it literally it'd be just as wrong.

As near as I can tell, the earliest electronic stuff such as Kraftwerk was NOT itself techno as we know it, but did indeed spark what was happening in Detroit. The minimalism and atonality of techno caught on simultaneously in Detroit and Germany, and developed in both places. I'm not sure how influential post-Kraftwerk German techno was in Detroit, but the Detroit techno guys toured Europe and were hugely popular, so the reverse is most definitely true.

It would be wrong to say that German techno was CREATED in Detroit what with the earlier precursors coming out of Germany itself, but the use as a heavy beat dance music owes a great deal to black American dance genres.

In the very particular way techno ended up being defined, the Detroit and, can I say Berlin? techno styles ended up very similar but with slightly different flavors, with Berlin going for heightened aggressiveness, abstraction and minimalism.

Sorry, this is something that's long bugged me. Kraftwerk is not techno as we know it. That said, German techno is awesome as hell, even if it couldn't have happened without the cross-pollination of the Detroit folks coming to Europe and being celebrated well before they were accepted in their own country.

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#169

Post by __david__ » Sun, May 09, 2021, 10:50 AM UTC

l-_l-_l-_lo_ol wrote: post #85

In the age of computation I think the real dichotomy is between rhythm-focused loop-based composition and music made by people playing instruments. It's easy to see why hip-hop and technology is winning: it's easier music to make. Why compose minutes of music when you can compose 20 seconds and loop it? Or sample it altogether? Why spend thousands of ours learning an instrument?

I think you are confusing composing with performing. A composer doesn't need to be able to play an instrument to compose music for it. Composing hip-hop tracks doesn't mean that you need to be a skilled performer of a musical instrument—but it still means you need to be a skilled musician. You aren't just going to throw 20 seconds of some nonsense together and then loop it over a whole track and come away with something that stands up to what a skilled producer can make.

Also, criticizing hip-hop for having repetitive background music is kind of like criticizing Bach's Prelude in C Major for having no rhythmic variation—it may be true but it's completely missing the point.

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#170

Post by hellbannedguy » Sun, May 09, 2021, 11:29 AM UTC

wayneftw wrote: post #21

bumbada wrote: post #20

What killed rock n roll is the same thing that "killed" every other music genre before: Demographics. People get older and young people want to differentiate themselves from older people, so they just do different things, including listening to different music. This even happened with what we consider classical music, from Beethoven Eroica to Stravinski Rite of Spring and specially Operas. Old people will consider a…

Why hasn't rap died? It's been popular for multiple generations now.

The Grammy's nixed The Best New Female Raper.

(I don't know why though? I hear Rap everywhere. Well a year ago.)