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

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

#191

Post by failwhaleshark »

crucialfelix wrote: post #82
ehnto wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't the implication. I wouldn't even say EDM represents any particular club culture at all, just a shorthand for electronic music in general. If I wanted to refer to a club scene or genre I would use it's actual name and for me at least none of them are called EDM. It's not surprising to me that there are different interpretations of the term and I am not particularly worried about that. It's all muddied up ac…

Well I think names and usage do matter. Not that Wikipedia is an authority, but note that this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_dance_music correctly covers the whole fields of music for dancing that is made electronically. I am perfectly content to be in the wider field of Electronic Dance Music. But this specific initialism of EDM came out of the US music industry, and was never in use prior to that.…

This is what happens when marketing wonks "decide" to intentionally cause confusion and casually "rebrand" words.

Fuck the mainstream music industry, their playola extortion monopoly on attention, underpaying creators, and crowning of lesser artists while thousands better go undiscovered.

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

#192

Post by sideshowb »

glitcher wrote: post #182
sideshowb wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you must be using a different definition of edm to me. according to the definition I accept, then our rave scene is a small corner of edm which literally is an umbrella term for all electronic dance music. ...i'd be interested to know what term you use for the latter?

Not the commenter you posed the question to, but I suspect their dislike for the term EDM is similar to how I felt about the term "electronica" back in the 90's when mainstream artists were appropriating sounds and ideas from electronic artists. When the music was mostly underground or found at illegal parties it felt original and pure, but once the broader music industry took notice and started pillaging it for prof…

I see where you're coming from, but though we might dislike the commercialisation, the fact you can complain that something got commercialised shows it's a continuation of the same genre. Electronica was always a rubbish pretentious ill defined term but at least edm (as I use it) is a good name from the perspective of being exactly what it says on the tin.

Thanks for the perspective though!

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

#193

Post by dang »

skystarman wrote: post #172
dang wrote: post #108

I wouldn't have thought the article was very good, and the title is neither an accurate representation of what Dylan said, nor really what the article is about. But this thread is surprisingly pretty good! As a gloss on what Dylan is saying about race and the music business, this clip where David Bowie turns the tables on an MTV interviewer in 1983 is worth watching, in a high-tension sort of way. He's pretty impress…

Yeah, this is a really great video, thanks for sharing "woke" Bowie. As you say, he ages well, except for his molesting young girls in the '70s. There's at least two 15 year olds that admit having sex with him. I'm a Bowie fan but it's difficult to separate those unacceptable acts from the great things he did.

If that's true, you're right—that has not aged well. I meant that he has aged well as a performer, which is what that interview was. I've added that qualifier to my comment above.

Generally though, I don't think it's that hard to separate. Everyone is a combo of good and bad–that's how humans are. It's childish to expect otherwise. The fashion of denouncing historical figures by anachronistic standards is especially lame. No one who ever lived would pass such a test.

The related internet habit of saving the worst thing one can say about anybody in a big hash table [1] and then looking it up and repeating it every time the name is mentioned, is also a bit silly. What are we doing when we do that? certainly nothing interesting. But I rant. I take your point that "ages well" needs a qualifier!

Edit: I noticed something else that's mildly interesting—calling this "woke" is also an anachronism. The word that Bowie uses in the interview is "integration". That places him ideologically as a civil rights moderate, and of course wokeness (whatever it may mean) didn't exist yet.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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

#194

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #160
wolverine876 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for a reasonable discussion - about racism! on the Internet! I'm not sure the interpretation of one sentence bears more examination (as I imagine you might agree). I think we would agree that there are various reasonable interpretations, which may be more or less apparent to different people, and that of course a comment on HN isn't scripture or a $100 million contract where every nuance is carefully authored…

>> Thanks for a reasonable discussion - about racism! on the Internet! You're welcome. I'm happy you see it this way too. >> Any Athens metal recommendations? The most creative, eccentric, Athens-in-particular-and-ignore-every-other-tradition musician? Unfortunately, it's been ages since the time I was in a band and knew the scene and much of that time was spent abroad. I don't even know what happens back home anymor…

Or, you know, if you wanted to go for something more er traditionally Greek metal there's always Cretan lyrists like Psarandonis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJNoCtcc1bk&list=PLsmrGn_1E1...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heWLnEDzkkE&list=PLsmrGn_1E1...

Though I suspect I'm the only one who would recognise them as metal :)

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

#195

Post by jolux »

mrob wrote: post #181
jolux wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Aphex Twin's label Rephlex called it braindance originally. I've always liked their description: "braindance is the genre that encompasses the best elements of all genres, e.g traditional, classical, electronic music, popular, modern, industrial, ambient, hip hop, electro, house, techno, breakbeat, hardcore, ragga, garage, drum and bass, etc."

IDM first gained mainstream attention with the Warp records compilation album "Artificial Intelligence", which called it "electronic listening music." It's a pity this name never caught on, because it's more accurate than IDM. Wikipedia quotes Warp co-founder Steve Beckett: "You could sit down and listen to it like you would a Kraftwerk or Pink Floyd album. That's why we put those sleeves on the cover of Artificial I…

I find a lot of Aphex danceable though, especially the first album and Classics (Analogue Bubblebath!)

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

#196

Post by blacksqr »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #156
blacksqr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dead as a doornail. Its corpse is sometimes put on display as a curiosity.

Dead as COBOL.

And in exactly the same way: boring, no mainstream mindshare, but still occasionally needed to service legacy market segments.

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

#197

Post by vagrantJin »

pmoriarty wrote: post #158
vagrantJin wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

None of your examples: Mozart, beyonce, Fela Kuti, or Reich proves anything about the purpose of music as a whole, nor about the purpose of music for everyone. Sure, some musicians clearly make music with others. But some do not. And for someone, no matter how learned or studied, even if they're a famous practitioner or a scholar, to dictate what music is for everyone is absurdly arrogant and myopic, to say the least…

> That's an argument from authority and is a logical fallacy.

True. And I should rightly retract and accept that shortcoming but you've provided me with no real argument other than negating mine. No examples of what you're talking about, not data point to chew on, fuck all.

It still an empty statement in and of itself.

> Different people have different goals and different aims. What meaning any particular person finds in an activity varies from person to person, and the wider and richer the activity is, the harder it is to make the case that there's only one right way to do it or that it means only one thing to everyone. Music and other arts are examples of such rich, wide-ranging activities.

Another completely empty statement. If I had a few days to live, I'd learn nothing from it. T'would be a waste of precious time and energy. Blanket statements, without form, without focus, without context are more meaningless than a false truth. Looks intelligent, but ultimately meaningless.

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

#198

Post by vagrantJin »

Applejinx wrote: post #167
vagrantJin wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> and would still be music even if nobody ever heard it

I vehemently disagree. that's like writing when you don't know how to read. Possible, but meaningless.

I can't read sheet music. The condition to understanding Bach's music on your own is to first understand sheet music. So to make his music you must read and understand his language. Is that music? It's subject to whoever interprets it. If we go nearly extinct what would be a more useful piece of evidence of what music is, Bach's Sheets or Madonna's "LIKE A VIRGIN" MTV special?

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

#199

Post by nzeribe »

aerovistae wrote: post #144
dang wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, of course, although surely anyone who isn't ignorant knows that rock n roll was black music, and in any case Elvis (and countless others all the way—I would say down, but that's mean—to Cliff Richard and Pat Boone) were busy at that before the Beatles. By the way, if anyone is interested in this who doesn't know the incredible story of the Detroit proto-punk band Death, it's sort of a glimpse into a par…

To be honest it seems very unlike you (going off your usual comments) to say that someone would have to be 100% ignorant to not know the history of rock and roll. I didn't know this, and I'd like to think I'm not "100% ignorant."

I agree. Most people don't know, which makes me sad. Perhaps it's an opportunity for you to discover the secret history of the music. It's a wonderful and interesting journey.

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

#200

Post by nzeribe »

dang wrote: post #150
aerovistae wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest it seems very unlike you (going off your usual comments) to say that someone would have to be 100% ignorant to not know the history of rock and roll. I didn't know this, and I'd like to think I'm not "100% ignorant."

I'd have thought that everyone who knew anything about rock and roll would know that it started as black music, but ok - the world is a big place with a lot of variance. I've taken "100%" out of my comment above. The nice thing is that you have unbelievable amounts of incredible music to discover. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=764iHBRjAVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_6gptd01mY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-…

Thanks for the links, I appreciate this. I disliked much of the article, even if it was fascinating. Here's why: I can think of no joint venture in contemporary American culture where Black and White people built together as equal partners. As such, I thought it had a whiff of wishful thinking and horseshit about it. This was the era of hardcore Jim Crow. Martin Luther King leads the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, the same year(?) Emmett Till is lynched. For instance, the appropration of Doo Wop by Italian-Americans sounds improbable. It was created by Black kids in the 40s, but Italian-Americans were (are) not exactly known for their multi-cultural spirit. You can see it depicted in Spike Lee's film "Do The Right Thing". And that infamous scene in True Romance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZUJKXs6W-4

So how did this really happen? The mechanisms of cultural collaboration didn't really exist, but I would love to be corrected. I doubt it is different from hip-hop: it's built almost in it's entirety on the Black cultural underground, and some talented white people who skirt around the edges eventually learn enough to make a stab at the "mainstream".

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