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Ian Pace
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« Reply #165 on: 16:18:48, 02-07-2008 » |
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That sort of 'folkist' thinking that you mention in connection with Dylan, martle, seems to have accompanied just about every technological development in any type of music - somehow some people get into their heads that any concessions to technology somehow entail capitulation to commercialism, as if romantic pre-industrial nostalgia (or, to use Lukacs's term, romantic anti-capitalism) offered any viable alternative. I remember a lot of the same types of arguments surfacing during the shift from the guitar/bass/drums era of the late 1970s towards the use of synths in the early 1980s (compare the Jam with the Style Council in this respect - a great many Jam fans felt utterly betrayed when Weller dissolved the former band and started the latter). I've been reading through 1950s reviews of Stockhausen's electronic works - that same type of Luddite argument often appears there.
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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martle
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« Reply #166 on: 16:29:11, 02-07-2008 » |
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So is this snobbery, or the refusal to countenance technological development per se, for reasons that can often be a long distance from our normal notions of snobbery as an expression of assumed superiority? I guess in the case of Dylan, and in those you cite, Ian, the artists concerned may or may not have had their eye on the bank balance, but were also concerned with moving their creative thinking forward by embracing new resources. What's striking is that the die-hard fans were not immediately (and in some cases ever) carried along with those developments. And in Dylan's case that's doubly striking since the social radicalism of his songs remained unchanged, in fact if anything probably became more angry and pronouned (and louder!) with his adoption of electric instruments.
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Green. Always green.
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #167 on: 16:32:54, 02-07-2008 » |
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all rock sounds after 1969 sounds the same to me except a bit of punk
Were you born in 1950/51?  |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #168 on: 16:38:35, 02-07-2008 » |
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So is this snobbery, or the refusal to countenance technological development per se, for reasons that can often be a long distance from our normal notions of snobbery as an expression of assumed superiority?
I think it stems ultimately from a viewpoint which values art of any type primarily to the extent that it provides a refuge from the rest of the world - a quintessentially reactionary breed of romantic ideology, but which I'd guess is much more prevalent amongst classical music lirsteners even than Dylan fans. How many classical listeners do you think wouldn't be horrified if their favoured soloists/ensembles/orchestras/singers started performing with electronics in some form? |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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richard barrett
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« Reply #169 on: 16:39:29, 02-07-2008 » |
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So is this snobbery, or the refusal to countenance technological development per se I don't think it has to have anything to do with embracing technological change: "fans", probably to a greater extent in pop music than in other musics, can often be on the whole "conservative" in that they tend to want their favourite artist to carry on doing what he/she was doing when they first got into his/her work. Is anyone immune to this? I'm certainly not. There are many musicians whose work I've "gone off" when they seem to change direction for the worse, whereas all they're really doing of course is exercising (what should be) every artist's prerogative to take the evolution of their work in whatever direction seems necessary. |
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pim_derks
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« Reply #170 on: 16:57:40, 02-07-2008 » |
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I was a teenager in the 60s and early 70s, and pop and rock are a closed book to me. Rather like Bach preludes and fugues.
Call me a snob. I prefer to say I was a very lonely loner. I was not looking for anyone's approval or admiration in my determined fogeyism. Also very recognisable to me, Don Basilio!  |
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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IgnorantRockFan
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« Reply #171 on: 17:09:46, 02-07-2008 » |
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"fans", probably to a greater extent in pop music than in other musics, can often be on the whole "conservative" in that they tend to want their favourite artist to carry on doing what he/she was doing when they first got into his/her work. To a greater extent in pop music simply because they are witnessing it in "real time", perhaps? One tends to hear a (dead) composer's work in random chronological order and so cannot perceive the point where the change of style occurs. If you were introduced to Beethoven in "the wrong order", would you wish his early quartets were more like his later ones? |
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Allegro, ma non tanto
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richard barrett
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« Reply #172 on: 17:21:12, 02-07-2008 » |
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"fans", probably to a greater extent in pop music than in other musics, can often be on the whole "conservative" in that they tend to want their favourite artist to carry on doing what he/she was doing when they first got into his/her work. To a greater extent in pop music simply because they are witnessing it in "real time", perhaps? One tends to hear a (dead) composer's work in random chronological order and so cannot perceive the point where the change of style occurs. I hadn't considered dead composers actually!  |
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IgnorantRockFan
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« Reply #173 on: 17:23:51, 02-07-2008 » |
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"fans", probably to a greater extent in pop music than in other musics, can often be on the whole "conservative" in that they tend to want their favourite artist to carry on doing what he/she was doing when they first got into his/her work. To a greater extent in pop music simply because they are witnessing it in "real time", perhaps? One tends to hear a (dead) composer's work in random chronological order and so cannot perceive the point where the change of style occurs. I hadn't considered dead composers actually! Contemporary snob   |
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Allegro, ma non tanto
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richard barrett
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« Reply #174 on: 17:29:21, 02-07-2008 » |
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Contemporary snob Guilty as charged.  |
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burning dog
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« Reply #175 on: 18:36:16, 02-07-2008 » |
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Was I born in 1950/51 No*** I was trying to wind up IRF a bit Ian, sorry shouldn't have but a lot of things "sounds all the same" if its not your thing. ***When I was about ten I loved honky tonk women, if that's any help |
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burning dog
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« Reply #176 on: 18:41:45, 02-07-2008 » |
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Was never a Dylan fan though I like a lot of his songs. but I found a video of one of electric bands completley moving. If he was faking passion he fooled me, Like a Rolling Stone was one of the songs he had curly, almost afro hair. The thing about technology, nothing against it but it's horses for courses electric basses are not really the thing for be-bop for example IMO
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« Last Edit: 18:43:24, 02-07-2008 by burning dog »
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Antheil
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« Reply #177 on: 19:08:28, 02-07-2008 » |
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I don't really know Bob Dylan, must have a browse on YouTube, obviously worth investigating but one which instantly springs to mind is Subterranean Homesick Blues ('the pumps don't work cos the vandals got the handles')
I think IRF's posting was brilliant btw, never seen it explained so clearly.
Bit off-topic. However, the artists we have mentioned, Dylan, Dr. Robert (who are starting to tour again - I believe Brighton is one venue Marty - see you there!), Floyd, Led Zep, Morrissy, PSB, Sex Pistols, The Cure (Nigel Slater had them for his soundtrack in his latest series!), David Bowie (Ziggy - Rock'n'Roll suicide/Suffragette City (you're not alone) - Ashes to Ashes, Earth to Funky, We know Major Tom's a Junkie - well they don't write them like that anymore) etc., etc., are still iconic and still being played. I can't think of anyone in the last few years who will still be played 15 years hence except Radiohead perhaps. Everything is so bland and homogenised and false.
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Reality, sa molesworth 2, is so sordid it makes me shudder
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Ted Ryder
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« Reply #178 on: 19:51:50, 02-07-2008 » |
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ichard Barrett writes a three-minute piece of music in his acustomed style, Ian Pace records it, and by some miracle (I mean that in the nicest possible way ) it sells millions and becomes a top 10 single, have either of them "sold out" artistically? No. But if Richard Barrett sits at his desk one day and says, "I'm going to write the most radio-friendly music I can in order to get a top 10 single," gets the Arctic Monkeys to record it, and makes a fortune, he's pretty solidly "sold-out". quote] Has he? Wouldn't an Artic Monkey hit by RB be greeted with ironic amusement in the august circles of Modern Complexity (or whatever the RB "school" is called) because it would be too far removed from the accepted norm to be a threat; whereas if he wrote an opera in the style of Nyman or Turnage he would be seen to be giving two fingers to, and betraying, the very concept of "Our Music" ? We are only envious and fearful of the tribe in the forest next door, the tribe that is very like our own but a possible threat. We do not envy or fear the very different, the very far away. Isn't snobbish just away of defending the faith, defending our own realm? |
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I've got to get down to Sidcup.
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richard barrett
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« Reply #179 on: 19:57:33, 02-07-2008 » |
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if he wrote an opera in the style of Nyman or Turnage That sadly is quite beyond his modest capabilities. Yes, though, I'm sure there's something in what you say. A friend and colleague of mine was not long ago roundly and rather intemperately criticised from some quarters for doing no more than writing a magazine article praising the music of Thomas Adès. |
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