Ventolin was supposed to be an aural representation of what it's like to have an asthma attack, according to an Aphex interview I read a hundred years ago.
― I, (dog latin), Friday, 20 February 2015 09:43 (nine years ago) link
The opening post is a rather confusing unironic mashup of "guilty pleasures" and "do people really enjoy avant-garde music?" which are two of the oldest chestnuts there are on this board.
The question of "does it matter if pleasure is the sole intention of the music?" (answer = no) is and should be separate to "can music have merits that are largely unconnected to listening pleasure?" (answer = yes).
A lot of the 'confrontational' or 'difficult' music in this thread is not really interested in provoking a reaction purely for the sake of provoking a reaction. Later Schoenberg and Webern and earlier Boulez have systemic and compositional intentions and merits that do not really revolve around enjoyment for the listener, but they're not about making a dissonant noise purely for the sake of it either. I know next to nothing about jazz but my guess is that the same is true for Ornette Coleman and Coltrane. At the same time I find the music of Boulez or Berg considerably more moving and emotionally involving than Delius or Walton, I don't doubt that the love people have for the former set of composers is entirely genuine.
This breaks down a bit with newer musics, a lot of what is termed as "art-rock" is spiritually closer to Rihanna than it is to Stockhausen.
― Matt DC, Friday, 20 February 2015 10:43 (nine years ago) link
foghorn fenty is all about making dissonant noises for the sake of it
― lex pretend, Friday, 20 February 2015 10:46 (nine years ago) link
dog latin - can you stop thinking out loud so much man. You are young, a whole lifetime to shape these thoughts into something really substantial that we can all enjoy.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 20 February 2015 10:54 (nine years ago) link
Matt - could you give an example or two?
Do I think I was pretending to like, for example, Borbetomagus all those years? No; I still like them, particularly live. But I don't feel the need to Brillo my ears as often as I once did.
Well well what a lack of commitment to the cause!!
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 20 February 2015 11:00 (nine years ago) link
How do people read the ILM Farrah Abraham love? The music seemed to me transcendentally inept, but people were evidently sincerely enjoying it.
― ancient texts, things that can't be pre-dated (President Keyes), Friday, 20 February 2015 15:25 (nine years ago) link
As one of Farrah Abraham's strongest defenders here (I wrote this, though the sentence "Yes, I'm being sarcastic" was added by my editor out of fear/caution), I will say that my enjoyment of her music was 100% sincere, and that listening to it now, it's every bit as whacked and awesome as I remember.
― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Friday, 20 February 2015 15:33 (nine years ago) link
that's how a lot of fans feel about The Room as well
― ancient texts, things that can't be pre-dated (President Keyes), Friday, 20 February 2015 15:34 (nine years ago) link
i liked the farrah abraham album. sort of a cross between celebrity pop, vocal techno and outsider music. There was def an element of 'whoa, what the hell is this?'
― I, (dog latin), Friday, 20 February 2015 15:37 (nine years ago) link
Without having heard Farrah I thought it was interesting to compare with the love/hate for Laurel Halo's 'Quarantine' around the same time.
― nashwan, Friday, 20 February 2015 15:49 (nine years ago) link
there's a correlation there, but they seem to be coming from opposite sides of a naive/deliberate spectrum. strange that there are sonic similarities though
― I, (dog latin), Friday, 20 February 2015 15:52 (nine years ago) link