I think the 2010's will be dominated musically by...

Pop-wise I can already see a mainstream assimilation of dubstep and grime aesthetics into pop and rock

Hope this is true, so long as it's not of the horrid screamo "rap/metal" variety.

There was a Dizzee Rascal song in 90210 a couple weeks ago, so, uh, is the grime crossover under way?

MIA, who will reach global superstar status.

Is Dizzee Rascal still a "grime artist"? I haven't kept up since the first album, but I thought he moved into other sounds/genres.

I was being mostly sarcastic, as the song they used was one of his very recent big "pop" hits over in the UK.

First big worldwide Asian superstar pop stars.

― Samuel (a hoy hoy), Wednesday, 21 October 2009 12:48 (2 hours ago) Bookmark

that will be the day

Didn't Pink Lady already accomplish the "Asian superstar pop stars" thing in the 70s?

first time I ever heard of them

They were popular enough to become co-hosts of a short lived variety show "Pink Lady with Jeff" on NBC in 1980. According to Wikipedia, they were big enough to chart a single ("Kiss in the Dark"), although admittedly it might be a bit of stretch to call them "superstar pop stars" seeing as they were merely "star pop stars" in the States.

critical canon continues to be dominated by white, college-educated males

One reason the critical canon seems dominated by white, college-educated males is because what you feel like considering a "critical canon" is precisely the one shaped by white, college-educated males (a group most of you are part of)

Well quite. It's the idea of the Canon that's doing most of the work.

I'm guessing there will be some kind of real crossover success of "noise rock" (for want of a better term) - I think what started happening in this decade is that cult, "difficult", or non-melodic bands found larger/more significant audiences than they would have done at any other time (Stars of the Lid, Sunn 0))) for example... [wow Sunn 0))) are a difficult band to pathenthesise]). I mean in the 90s bands like that would have been seen as cultish and "obscure" but in this decade the word "obscure" isn't really applicable to music any more - every song is only a click away after all. So 2015 will see the world's first drone number one. Probably. Sort of.

Dopesmoker (Armand Van Helden remix)

^^^^ first genuine LOL of the thread

Nabisco OTM about teh canon. It should come as no surprise that when describing what is good and worthwhile in the world, any given cultural group will paint a collective portrait that, by and large, resembles itself. This is neither good nor bad, it is instead simply natural -- though it can, of course, have negative consequences if a single cultural voice consistently dominates the discourse.

IMO, the wrong approach to dealing with these negative consequences is to suggest that the canon-forging group should actively subvert this subconscious tendency, that they should intentionally paint a portrait that does not resemble themselves. This merely introduces guilt and self-awareness/doubt into the system, factors which distort the image generated without addressing the underlying problem: the cultural narrowness of the canon-defining body.

This is what I was getting at in the Pfork thread. If you want a canon that seems less to celebrate the middle-class white male and his culture/values, then you have to pay more attention to other voices. Simply pestering the middle-class white males into paying lip service to other cultures & groups seems like a lousy, lazy solution.

or other voices have to start making more dumb-ass long lists.

Then we can poll the competing dumb-ass long lists.

I think the 2010's will be dominated musically by...

cartoon bands from video games and television shows with high-profile competitions to "play" the cartoon characters live on stage

no one seems interested in actually doing anything about it

I was interested in talking about how Pitchfork could have acted differently to create a better list (e.g., taken a more active editorial hand, or polled a different set of people.) We could pick up that discussion on the P4k thread?

MIA, who will reach global superstar status.

this is my single greatest wish for the future of (pop) music <3

whatever replaces YouTube.

I was interested in talking about how Pitchfork could have acted differently to create a better list (e.g., taken a more active editorial hand, or polled a different set of people.)

surely the only satisfying answer you are looking for with this question is "they could have asked me to do it, and then the list would have been perfect"

lol @ "better list"

critical Canon continues to be dominated by white, college-educated males

That is, unless more black college-educated males with the same background start to make the same kind of music. Which, you know, may well happen before or since.

One reason the critical canon seems dominated by white, college-educated males is because what you feel like considering a "critical canon" is precisely the one shaped by white, college-educated males (a group most of you are part of)

Actually, critical canons in all other (non-pop) musical forms and art forms are mostly dominated by white, college-educated males too. Well, except for jazz, maybe. Which is instead dominated by black people with largely the same college-based background.

musicology scholar

at least he's helped expose a possible misunderstanding here between "critical canon dominated by" meaning the music in the canon dominated by or the actual canon-shapers themselves being dominated by etc.

in 2010 people will still talk about canons.

contenderizer u always seem super defensive about the idea of anyone criticizing taste, like its some sacrosanct thing instead of something mediated thru social channels. its pretty corny & paranoid imho

i think encouraging ppl to be self-critical about why they like things is perfectly reasonable

i think he's pretty aware that taste is mediated through social channels, influenced by education, class, etc. maybe he thinks it's somewhat pre-determined and not malleable?

...the writing of sasha frere-jones

...the writing of dom passantino

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0674212770/ref=dp_otherviews_0?ie=UTF8&s=books&img=0

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41ZP6GKY6RL.jpg

"In matters of taste, more than anywhere else, all determination is negation; and tastes are perhaps first and foremost distastes, disgust provoked by horror or visceral intolerance of the tastes of others ... which amounts to rejecting others as unnatural and therefore vicious. Aesthetic intolerance can be terribly violent. Aversion to different life-styles is perhaps one of the strongest barriers between the classes" (p.56).

...guitar heavy classic rock. (honest answer)

call it the generational fallout of the success of guitar hero/rock band.

i've been thinking there could be a real metal breakthrough of some kind. i could see a band like torche or somebody popping up with a commercially-viable million-seller.

Not unless they get signed to a major.

Dopesmoker (Armand Van Helden remix)

this would be so awesome

Not unless they get signed to a major.

i dunno. wouldn't be surprised to see someone ride an indie release to a big distribution deal etc. who knows anymore, really?

Also New York does what punk did to The South's prog and brings back 'the proper way' with like 5 great albums, a bunch of great singles and then it fragments into weird shit as the NY stars don't really know what to do after ripping off Mobb Deep or Tribe.

― Samuel (a hoy hoy), Wednesday, October 21, 2009 11:50 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

is everyone ignoring this because they understand it cause i have no idea what any of this means

btw i figure dino jr::10s as joy div::00s

The Avalanches.

Ugh

muse

Hoos I would imagine it is either claiming that (a) New York City hip-hop will steal attention away from Southern hip-hop with a burst of "back to basics" / "golden age" simplicity and vigor, then fragment in different directions after those basics are exhausted, or (b) VH1 reality-television star Tiffany Pollard will spend $75 on iTunes, decide she doesn't care for Lynyrd Skynyrd's use of guitar solos, steal money from various aging rappers, and then get confused.

If I know New York, it'd probably be Molly Hatchet, but otherwise nabisco OTM.

Seriously, by the end of the 2010s, things are probably so fragmented that you can hardly talk of any kind of trends at all. All kinds of musical genres will exist, all of them enjoying an underground audience that uses the net to find whatever they want to listen to. And hardly anything will be able to surface and cross over to anyone but the cult already into that genre.

This means the hitlists will be owned by the underground cult which at any time contains the largest number of fans. In the 00s this was hip-hop in the US, pop electro in Europe. In the 10s it may be something else. But it will never ever be able to capture the entire masses the same way the most popular music in the 60s did.

Kate are you describing the stuff you make/like now as "hard dance" btw? Or was that just a randomly chosen genre term?

i think she meant limbo music. that's the hardest dance i can think of.

Guys, there's no way Geir's not kidding. Seriously. That post is definitive proof.

I know, I know, "it's just Geir." But seriously, this—"But no hope for female voices, sorry"—is more than o_O.

It is you guys who are trying to make music into something else than just music. Music is all about how it sounds and nothing else. There is no quota for certain genders or skin colours, just sound and nothing but sound. Music is strictly music, and shouldn't be judged from any other criteria than strictly (head) musical ones. The world neeeds to get back to the values of German classical music in the 18th and 19th century.

And, yes, that criteria works perfectly on pop music too. As long as you judge it from chord changes, modulation and clever musical moves, not from sound or groove or whatever.

ffs surely you should be close to 51 now geir

Geir, so you would claim that "female voices" are somehow inherently less, what, melodic than male voices?

Yes, another attempt to reason with Geir is surely the way to make this thread more scintillating.

They just don't fit as well into the entire sound, but really, that's not the most important part. There is good music with female voices, but "rock" music has been male dominated from the start, and probably always will.
Whenever there are females, there is more reason to respect female singer/songwriters like Suzanne Vega or Joni Mitchell than female hot "babes" who are only around for 15 year-old fans to get a boner though.

I'm definitely not trying to reason with Geir, because the dude's not going to change his mind, but I am curious why he made that statement.

Well, I still think male sounds better, and it seems the entire rock history agrees with me.

However, I think also part of the problem for girls is that they aren't taken seriously by the music biz, they are just being seen as poster girls to sell records rather than creative musicians who create music in their own right. Since the late 80s, there have been a lot of female vocals in pop music, but most of the most popular ones have always been just borrowing their voices - and looks. Why aren't record companies more on the lookout for female songwriters? I mean, sure there are some, but there are much fewer than male songwriters.

Obviously, the entire indie/rock tradition will always respect singer/songwriters much more than just singers, and females would probably have been more represented had they been writing their songs to a larger extent rather than just performing songs written by males.

There is no quota for certain genders or skin colours, just sound and nothing but sound.

http://trekmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/charliex/spock_leer.jpg

contenderizer its kind of annoying how u say something no one agrees with, they disagree w/ you, you say you agree with what they just said & then move back a level to restate basically the same argument

― deej

Not sure what yr referring to, deej. I try to clear things up when I've been misunderstood or misrepresented, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

for the rest of us

I think the 2010's will be musically dominated by...

http://www.allkings.org/images/agame.jpg

1) NV, your screen name is freaking me the fuck out. I keep thinking he's discovered this forum and thinking I'm gonna have to run away.

2) "hard dance" meaning, esentially that "post-Justice highly aggressive more than slightly rock oriented distorto bass rapey nanorobot crap" that Erol (not bomber) Alkan etc. seem to play. Not just indie friendly electrowibble but that super-aggressive boys noize stuff. Which has almost 0% female content these days. I'm still taking baby-steps into dance music that I don't know the proper terms for certain things, so I'm making them up.

3) In thinking about this and what to *do* about it, I did actually wonder if a Can-con style approach would be something worth considering. I mean, as ridiculous as a quota type system might seem, the Can-con thing has had a positive effect on Canadian music. That it actually puts the onus on promoters, radio programmers, journalists etc. to go and FIND that content rather than just be lazy and take whatever comes down the promotional pipe. You can do that and still keep your god-given right to have "taste" - no matter what genre your taste is confined to, I'm sure you can go out and find some womens making it. Except brass band music, clearly. :-P

Now I'm gonna put the leech-block back on coz I need to work this morning.

I was mostly away from ILX for the last week so I missed this conversation, but i wanted to ask about something nabisco wrote:

part of what makes certain things the "critical canon" is about who talks about stuff in a way we consider sufficiently "critical." right? i.e., there is a discourse about music that is considered sophisticated and discerning and critical and there are other discourses about music that aren't, generally. so sure, on one hand it makes sense to look at certain publications and ask that they expand their discerning critical discourse to encompass as much stuff as possible. but that's also a pretty narrow and strange reaction, isn't it? especially if the stuff you don't like about their focus correlates pretty directly with the traits that make their discourse seem sophisticated and discerning. (e.g. obviously your canon will seem collegiate if the discourse you deem important is exactly the kind that's all educated and collegiate in the first place.) I mean, I don't disagree with you about a certain discourse having a bigger pull, but I think it's important to look at why that is and what it serves -- and whether the answer to it is that a given music publication should talk differently, or whether it's that the people reading and passing those tastes on should be less beholden to it. I dunno.

Is there a causal relation between favoring "collegiate" critical discourse and favoring indie rock? Like, being into hyper-literate songwriters is "natural" for people into hyper-literate critical discourse?

This seems wrong to me because the terms "collegiate" or "hyper-literate" are pretty loaded.

But still: I wish there was more hyper-literate or collegiate discourse about country music or r&b. We do ok on ILM about this. I gather the problem is that there's not a perceived market for such criticism about those genres. But I think it matters, in terms of pushing people who want to have "college" talk about music into fandom of indie rock, where they can have that talk.

1. Indie rock has depended on rock crit much more closely for survival than have genres such as pop, dance music, R&B, country etc. all of which have alternate means of finding their market (the radio, the club/dj endorsement etc.).

2. And insofar as the above is true, it's also true to say that the status of the rock critic is elevated w/r/t indie rock. Britney, Beyonce et. al. were going to be big no matter what was written about the quality of their music, whereas there is strong evidence to suggest that, say, Pitchfork "broke" The Arcade Fire to the public by pushing them so hard.

3. To the extent that indie is, by and large, not experienced socially (except at live concerts and perhaps increasingly through film and tv soundtracks...) the crit (and crit-like-discussions) becomes perhaps the primary means by which people can seek to share their experience of the music.

4. The above are all mutually reinforcing, in that (1) people look for new indie via music criticism; (2) they therefore pay attention to what the criticism is doing and saying, (3) the language and forms of music criticism seep into their own discussions until they are essentially engaging in amateur rock crit (but is there any other kind); and (4) they start to take seriously the debates and crusades of music criticism, such that they feel obliged to e.g. "have an opinion" on the new Animal Collective.

That all seems correct, Tim. Especially 3; and on 3 I'd add that I have no "easy" way to experience r&b or country socially, because my profession doesn't include people into those areas---most are into classical/opera exclusively, and the ones who listen to "pop" music are the indiest of the indie. And, sad or not, most of my friends are people I'm professionally related to. And it's not just my profession (academia)---my closest friends outside the academy report similar experiences.

Yeah the other thing to note here, which is basically your point above, is that in many cases probably the strongest calls for rock crit style treatment of non-indie is from people who experience that non-indie music in an "indie" fashion.

On the UK funky thread Lex wanted to know why I get so worked up over what people say or don't say in articles about uk funky or related to it - and the answer is, being on the other side of the world, I'm unable to experience the easy communality I might get from going to a rave or club.