This relates to austin’s Point about poptimism of you’re having somewhat quaint ideas of what makes music “pop”
And why contra the earlier convo I think of contemporary poptimists of being more Carly Rae / Robyn boosters than Beyoncé or Kanye fans per se
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 17:20 (five years ago) link
(Obviously I think of poptimism first and foremost more as a way of thinking than specific artist advocacy but that way of thinking led to certain aesthetic avenues getting critical traction imo)
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 17:21 (five years ago) link
Have people come up with a term for the belief that all things hip hop (pop rap, trap etc) are the rightful cultural compass and center of all musical dynamism ? Because I hear that a lot, while Poptimism seems to have reduced to a narrow obsession over a few exaggerated / delirious / ecstatic pop qualities (that can only be found on records that explicitly go for them and which seem forced to me).
― Nabozo, Sunday, December 9, 2018 1:24 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
And fwiw to this point I think this idea would be seen as pretty passé ... tho I could see it being confused w the argument that black music in total is the rightful cultural compass and center of all musical dynamism, which there’s a strong case for
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 17:23 (five years ago) link
Xxxp “poptimism of yore” not “poptimism of you’re”... autocrrct
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 17:24 (five years ago) link
tho I could see it being confused w the argument that black music in total is the rightful cultural compass and center of all musical dynamism, which there’s a strong case for
what does this mean?
― Mordy, Thursday, 20 December 2018 17:29 (five years ago) link
I’m saying the argument he applied to “hip hop” has more currency in the discourse when applied to black music as a whole ... the idea that black popular music is the “culture compass and center of all musical dynamism” (his words) is a a popular one w lots of evidence to back it up
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 17:36 (five years ago) link
I mean it’s kind of the underlying logic of “appropriation discourse” no?
i guess i'm not sure what 'musical dynamism' is (i assume he doesn't mean 'music dynamics'?) and we're just talking about particular pop/rock Western vernaculars? bc i assume we're not positing that hip hop or black music is the center of whatever 'musical dynamism' is in say eastern european or middle eastern maqam or western art music?
― Mordy, Thursday, 20 December 2018 17:38 (five years ago) link
maybe i'm just going back to pom's point that there's a lot of music out there and sometimes these discussions seem to take as granted that the musical forms that exist are a) top 40 pop radio formats and b) rock radio formats.
― Mordy, Thursday, 20 December 2018 17:39 (five years ago) link
yeah, BOTH kinds of music!
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 20 December 2018 17:44 (five years ago) link
I mean when I hear what contemporary music people actually listen to in Eastern Europe or the Middle East or especially European “art music” (certainly the avant-garde) popular forms & especially ones influenced by ie house/techno/hip hop etc have a pretty heavy influence on the form and marketing of that music
Obviously there are traditional musical forms that don’t really ever “update” but
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:01 (five years ago) link
ime "traditional" musical forms do update and evolve but you have to be intimate with their discourses to hear the changes
― Mordy, Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:02 (five years ago) link
If you listen to contemporary Eastern European or middle eastern or especially European avant- garden music are you claiming you’re not liable to hear the influence, forms, styles built on house or techno or hip hop or R&b? Incorporated with local and traditional sounds?
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:03 (five years ago) link
Sorry for the similar post I thought my last one had deleted so tried retyping
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:04 (five years ago) link
― Mordy, Thursday, December 20, 2018 12:02 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Sure I can agree with this... I do think regardless if someone is looking for music that is “not traditional” it tends to be incorporating popular black forms of music
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:05 (five years ago) link
well all music permeates border and boundaries by nature so i expect to hear different genres bleed into each other all the time but is it the primary driver of 'musical dynamism' in those genres (still not clear what that means)? i'm not confident about that.
― Mordy, Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:06 (five years ago) link
I mean certainly in the United States the notion that rhythm (& therefore innovations stemming from black music) is a dominant driver of the sound of music’s evolution is even a widely accepted idea... (which classical composer was it that said something along those lines?)
Speaking on a global level it gets infinitely more complex of course but if I pick up a random Bhangra mix cd on Devon there’s a good chance it will have rapping on it
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:17 (five years ago) link
There's plenty of European avant-garde music that doesn't sound especially beholden to house, techno, hip-hop, or R&B to me? You hear those influences in Kurtag or Lachenmann?
(And, obv, even those musics have plenty of European influences; European musics have Indian and Middle Eastern influences, etc.)
― Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream (Sund4r), Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:22 (five years ago) link
the euro avant garde not just in music but in many forms of art has an ongoing relationship w africa via primitivism & going back to african art influence on picasso etc. ...
i didnt say "all european art music sounds like house techno hip hop or R&B" lol
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:31 (five years ago) link
at any rate making this into a global question is mordy's way of muddying the waters imo ... im not claiming to have knowledge on the level of relation between every global genre of music + african roots, and didn't claim that I thought this argument was the capital T Truth, I just said its a dominant argument & there's lots of evidence (undeniably) of the centrality of black music to the evolving sound of contemporary music ... i think you'd have to be a fool though to imply traditional irish music or eastern european music has more of a global footprint than hip hop, techno, R&B, or house
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:34 (five years ago) link
Well, I was responding to
If you listen to contemporary Eastern European or middle eastern or especially European avant- garden music are you claiming you’re not liable to hear the influence, forms, styles built on house or techno or hip hop or R&b?
but the broader claim you're making now definitely makes more sense (although in the same sense that all musics reflect cross-cultural interaction and influence).
xp
― Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream (Sund4r), Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:34 (five years ago) link
i feel like when ppl start to say "all musics reflect cross cultural interaction and influence" and bring up timbaland sampling an egyptian record or something it implies an equality of influence that isn't really reflected by the record ... like if you listen to popular songs in eastern europe & they basically sound like house music filtered through a local sensibility its hard to say 'oh just the usual cross cultural exchange' like this is a house record
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:36 (five years ago) link
Good lord it's just fucking MUSICSo glad we left the High Fidelity mindset in the 00s!
― flappy bird, Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:44 (five years ago) link
Couldn't someone else argue by the same token that anything built on functional chord progressions and the major/minor key system has European roots? I'm really uncomfortable with trying to identify a single cultural source as being globally central.
― Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream (Sund4r), Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:51 (five years ago) link
This is a fool’s errand
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:52 (five years ago) link
Couldn't someone else argue by the same token that anything built on functional chord progressions and the major/minor key system has European roots?
surely yes, and that's a correct argument to make
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 20 December 2018 18:54 (five years ago) link
― Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream (Sund4r), Thursday, December 20, 2018 12:51 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
if you're going back that far you can argue 'all people come from africa.' i'm talking about art forms that were created in the last couple decades....
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 19:14 (five years ago) link
Wait what artforms were created in the last couple decades
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 20 December 2018 19:21 (five years ago) link
Glitchy GIF Tumblr art
― underqualified backing vocalist (morrisp), Thursday, 20 December 2018 19:22 (five years ago) link
Those “ironic” tin signs with a 1950s style drawing of a smiling woman, and a slogan like, “No one cares about your diet... just eat your salad and be sad.”
(I genuinely love those, btw)
― underqualified backing vocalist (morrisp), Thursday, 20 December 2018 19:24 (five years ago) link
― Οὖτις, Thursday, December 20, 2018 1:21 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
house, hip hop, techno?
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 19:24 (five years ago) link
last 'few' decades sorry
“Move over, coffee... this is a job for alcohol!”
― underqualified backing vocalist (morrisp), Thursday, 20 December 2018 19:25 (five years ago) link
Are there food critics out there writing about Burger King and sour patch kids etc these days?
― Evan, Thursday, 20 December 2018 19:29 (five years ago) link
“Few” = 50 years?
Yeah ok lol
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 20 December 2018 19:33 (five years ago) link
I dont think any of those genres are particularly “dynamic” at this point but thats just me
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 20 December 2018 19:34 (five years ago) link
They are def rooted in black community tho, sure
You don't think 19-year-old idiots mumbling about depression on Soundcloud are the future of music? Racist.
― grawlix (unperson), Thursday, 20 December 2018 19:36 (five years ago) link
The Definitely Not Racist has logged on
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 19:41 (five years ago) link
Anyway here’s a timely investigation
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/20/arts/music/new-pop-music.html
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 19:42 (five years ago) link
Few” = 50 years?
― Οὖτις, Thursday, December 20, 2018 1:33 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
We’re comparing it to the scale of Europe inventing the widely adopted notion of tonality so yes this is still relatively recent
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 20 December 2018 19:43 (five years ago) link
Also techno was not invented 50 years ago, lol
yeah talking out of the side of my neck a bit on that one (what's the first "techno" record? Kraftwerk? idk lol) whereas house and hip hop both have conventionally agreed-upon start dates which are closer to the 40 year mark, my bad
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 20 December 2018 19:46 (five years ago) link
Anyway here’s a timely investigation https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/20/arts/music/new-pop-music.html🕸
― breastcrawl, Saturday, 22 December 2018 22:47 (five years ago) link
https://variety.com/2020/music/reviews/selena-gomez-rare-album-review-1203463571/
“Rare” is one of the best pop albums to be released in recent memory, and — as it does for artists ranging from Robyn and Charli XCX to Max Martin’s more adventurous productions — it feels like that term does a discredit to this sophisticated, precisely written and expertly produced music.
― Don’t yell ‘Judas!’ in a crowded theater (morrisp), Saturday, 11 January 2020 04:52 (four years ago) link
lol
― dyl, Saturday, 11 January 2020 06:20 (four years ago) link
Perhaps they should call it something like Sophistipop
― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Saturday, 11 January 2020 14:51 (four years ago) link
In the new movie Trolls World Tour, it is revealed that Trolls representing all different genres (and sub-genres) of music used to live in harmony, but are now separated. Queen Barb of the Hard Rock Trolls (Ozzy plays their senile king) sets out to conquer all the other lands, making Hard Rock the only music. Our heroes, the Pop Trolls, have to save the day and unite all the genres again. Barb hates Pop, says it’s “not real music, too repetitive, the lyrics stink,” etc. I won’t tell you how it ends!
― morrisp, Saturday, 11 April 2020 18:50 (three years ago) link
Stereogum had a whole piece about this on Friday.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Saturday, 11 April 2020 18:54 (three years ago) link
I won’t tell you how it ends!
― force ghost bg (bizarro gazzara), Saturday, 11 April 2020 19:38 (three years ago) link