Music now adays...

[Tomer=Trance]

i dont consider myself as a proffesional musician,the problem in music buisness is that people who do consider themselvs as pros make crap!

anyone agrees on that?

[jasedee]

Well.....there has always been crap music, and it is up to the individuals to seek out the music that they enjoy and respect.

Also, on one end of that "crap" music is someone who has poured out their creative heart to make that "crap" music.....and people will always have different tastes in music.

[ledge]

Originally Posted by jasedee

Well.....there has always been crap music, and it is up to the individuals to seek out the music that they enjoy and respect.

Also, on one end of that "crap" music is someone who has poured out their creative heart to make that "crap" music.....and people will always have different tastes in music.

I was going to write a big rant saying pretty much this. There has always been crap music and there is still lots of good music.

This thread comes across as really negative. Listen to, and make, music you like, and ignore the stuff you don't.

[Wandering Kid]

i agree more or less with ledge. this thread *is* very negative. almost bitter in places.

anyone who has gotten signed off the back of their tunes is doing something right that im not and they have my respect for that at least.

secondly, there is a big distinction between 'i think thats crap' and 'i dont like that.' a distinction which does not seem to have been made in this thread. im not a particularly big fan of full on psy as a general rule but i acknowledge that the style does have its high points and its good for what it sets out to achieve - getting people fired up on some middle of night stormers.

personally, none of the people here have written any music which ive found especially brilliant or interesting. thats not a failing on your part. thats a failure on my part to connect with the music you make. maybe i have a fixation with hypnotic repetitive dance music. who knows. point is, theres plenty of great music out there that i can connect with. i just had to find it.

when i go shopping on juno records i sift through hundreds of records to find 1 or 2 gems that i just have to have. and that makes them even more of a gem, the fact that they come along so rarely. its not that the other tunes are bad per se. i just dont find them interesting. some other people do. and they are likely to pick out other tunes that they consider gems that i do not. beauty is, moreover, in the eyes of the beholder. the stuff that i like? chances are you think its shit. the stuff you like? chances are i think its boring. or wanky. or whatever. the point is its not shit, boring or wanky. its the outstanding achievement of some dude who writes songs which are of a standard whereby alot of people feel its marketable. and which alot of people are willing to pay money for in order to hear it regularly. or play it others so they can hear it too.

i absolutely do not agree with tomer on this one. i dont like to belittle the achievements of people who are doing things that as of yet, i am not capable of. i find that any music is beautiful and interesting if you approach it form the right angle and on the same wavelength, and it has always been impossible for someone to write a song or paint a picture that is so universal in its appeal that everybody likes it.

i personally think music is better than it has ever been. it is on average, better produced than its ever been. we certainly have more choice than ever before.

the only thing thats changed really is me. my sense of wonder has been dulled with every consecutive 'classic' i hear. and when i started to write this music, i began to understand the illusion which made these songs seem greater than the sum of their parts. in a way i began to see this music in terms of its constituant parts and it lost its magic in a sense. that doesnt make the music any worse than it ever was before.

[Juho L]

Crap has always existed. The increased number of amateur producers and over-eager small record companies has increased the amound of banal music to a totally new level. And like Wandering Kid said, finding gems is really hard and it's really frusturating.

And about getting record contract: I've got deal offers from my FastTracker 2 stuff I've made and it quite well sums up the quality control of the small companies. Getting signed on a bigger company is another story.

[Wandering Kid]

you really misinterpret what i said - those gems i find on juno? those are songs which really strike a chord with me. note: NOT necessarily with anyone else. whats good and what isnt is so subjective i dont bother wasting my time on such definitions.

i absolutely hate elitism. for some reason some people really feel the need to justify their own work and their own taste in music by trampling on other people's. how very very sad.

[Timo]

Music nowadays....

Hmm, anyone here listen to ASOT with AvB? Some of that music is truly mind-blowing.

[Wandering Kid]

i have. and i agree. theres so much music out there that is truly mind blowing. in the right frame of mind. with the right people. in the right place. heck. any music can be good if all those criteria are met.

i love psy not just because of the music (although i love hypnotic droning music as evident in psy either way), the people who i see in psy events are the nicest people you will ever meet. and when its outdoors and the suns coming up and they start playing schpongle and protoculture tunes (oh man - memories of *that* mix of silicon sounds), everyone is smoking pot to slow the comedown and theres just this *electricity* in the air. oh. my. god. and i felt overwhelmed with the coolest people i ever met listening to (in my humble opinion) the coolest tunes ive ever heard. some people think psy is shit. some people make fun of the whole trance thing and i dont really mind that at all - they are entitled to their own opinions i guess. and on KVR its very tongue in cheek so i really dont mind - ill even call it TARNCE! occassionally too for the occassional comedy value. its when, in all seriousness people start to throw their elitist, fat arses around, dictating to me that the music i like is rubbish, that i start to get a little peeved - because i dont think those people have had the experiences i have had with this kind of music. if you had been to an outdoor festival with friends and enjoyed yourself and you have great photos and memories of that event, maybe you too would like trance. maybe that music would connotate or sum up some of those experiences and have a special significance for you as it does for me. maybe thats why some of the kids like hip hop. or drum and bass. or whatever. music that the kids can relate to - they dont even need to try - they *just* *GET IT*. and thats important isnt it? that you can relate to the music you listen to in a way that cannot be summed up in words? or maybe not. who knows.

i wish people wouldnt get up on their soapbox so much and dictate: 'thats shit.' or 'thats not shit.' because really, you are missing a large part of what makes music so amazing - the fact it is sooooo much more than just a bunch of notes in a piano roll, produced by joe engineer. i think some people here have spent a little too much time in the studio and have lost touch with this.

get over yourselves. big record companies? small ones? ive seen both release music i like and dislike. its got nothing to do with smaller record companies having better 'quality control.' it has everything to do with the fact that *YOU* just dont *GET IT* (by which i mean, the particular type of music/scene you dislike so much you need to tell us about it).

and fair enough. you will look elsewhere for music you like and you will find it eventually i guess. just enough with the 'shit music' thing. it really gets on my nerves!

[udenjoe]

I don't think the industry is boring at all. If you are shopping dj records then yes probably. What I have noticed in the last couple years is that djs in my town of 12 million play boring shit.

If you are talking about electronic, you are also talking about most music out there today, there are alot of interesting people there. The taste is up to you. You may or may not like Wolf Eyes ( I don't like them), Pluramon(very guitary but electronic in many ways), Vladislav Delay(one of the best electronic dance producers out there). But these keep me interested enough to find my own way.

I recently got me some Throbbing Gristle. Considering this was made over a decade ago it's still inspiring. Although one must agree there is not much going far beyond the basic 440 based scale systems and etc in most western based 4 square music.

[Wandering Kid]

if you like industrial ala throbbing gristle you should probably check out spk, merzbow and zoviet france. those in particular really show you how far you can push electronic noise. in the case of merzbow there is amazing variety considering he makes all of his 'music' by autonimously cutting up samples and running them through cheap guitar distortion pedals. and even though the movement unofficially died after only 6 years in 1983, industrial has had a lasting effect which has filtered down into the mainstream and influences artists like nine inch nails that incorporate industrial noise into a more commercial kind of sound. most industrial elistists wouldnt consider nin industrial (or even post industrial for that matter, even though it is). genesis would probably agree with that. but hes an asshole. he always was an elitist asshole in throbbing gristle. and he probably still is now. didnt really expect that kind of predictable reaction from someone who vomitted on the floor of the ICA and then ate it in the name of art.

the same thing happens in emo which is just as elitist. if not more so than industrial. several emo bands actually hated being called emo which kind of shows you this kind of resistance to the expectations of their listeners. im tired of the good versus the crap talk. tired of the original. and the imitators kind of logic. its bullshit. people make music the only way they know how. you either connect with it. or you dont. you will never know truly awful music until you listen to noisy industrial crap. or 'badly recorded in a basement using a cheap pc microphone' emo record by julia or indian summer. and even then you cant really think of it as crap because its antithetical to music. its anti music. so thinking of it in terms of being music will always lead to disappointment. thats not what its trying to be. thats what its partly against.

and similarly theres a kind of energy in other types of music but increasingly you have to be in a very specific frame of mind to appreciate the subtleties of the form. elitism is for chumps.