The Future of Music - A Discussion

[AngryGoldfish]

I'll be in the Doom Room soon, still getting around the ILF forum and I'm totally diggin' this place. *You're in Ireland? I'll be there in August - end up in Sligo for 3-4 days I think....

Yes. studio pressure and/or cheaper production costs...ugh. Rush is another great example. That album from a few years ago - Vapor Trails - some of the best music written AND one of the shittiest-sounding recordings ever. Lots of "saturation" in the levels I guess. I'm not much of a technophile but it just sounds OVER - everything. Over-loud, over-produced, over-compressed, etc.....Give me 2112 please!

That's why you always applaud your children when they manage to shit in the right hole in your house.

Sig-worthy, and a great metaphor for today's music industry me thinks.

Well, ain't that a coincidink. I live in Sligo.

Even veteran bands succumb to this over-producing phenomenon, absolutely.

[gunslinger_burrito]

I purposely steered clear of this one for a while but got sucked into it today.

They might not be as widely like as bands like Zepplin and Floyd, but I'm shocked that no one has mentioned At the Drive In or The Mars Volta. I'm not trying to say that they're the best shit around, but they are some of my favorites. Well, I actually liked the Volta and a lot of Omar's solo stuff a lot better than ATDI, but that's besides the point. My point is this: how many bands have we all heard that do stuff those guys started doing back when they started out? All the atonality of guitar, not to mention Omar's (and Juan Alderete's!) use of effects for song writing. I mean, this is a forum FOR effects. Maybe it's just my perspective, so feel free to educate me if I'm missing some info here, but it seems to me that they've seriously changed the face of "rock music. Like I kind of said, maybe they didn't do it as widely spread as Floyd or the Beatles or Sabbath did, but they did, IMO. How long had it been since someone was shrieking and wailing in some crazy high pitch over some nutso guitar leads and weird drums? A lot of the popular rock music at the same time was about seven string guitars and JNCO jeans, braided, dyed hair, rap-metal nonsense.

As for the future of music, I think we've hit that point where noise is considered a valid art form, but we still see a lot of homogenization in those kinds of specialized genres. I mean, I met a really cool noise musician recently, and he talks about "genres" of noise that I've never heard of. It's a fucking microcosm; the fractal getting smaller! So back to future (of music ) I think we'll see a lot more bands that compose music using noise instead of just making straight noise OR straight up structured songs. Of course all genres won't follow suit, but I think it's something we're witnessing right now.

I like my fair share of doom/stoner, but FUCK does it get homogenized. Thankfully we have groups in there like Bongripper that do exactly what I just said: noise+structured music. I know all the doom-heads around here like to talk about Satan Worshiping Doom, but I like all the previous albums better for the above-stated reason. And I haven't smoked pot in I-don't-know-how-long.

Maybe we need another instrumentalist who has hand injuries to innovate new playing styles. Doom and drop tunings might not have happened, or at least maybe not the way it did, if Iommi hadn't have chopped the tips of his fingers off and tuned his guitar differently to have lower string tension, and the acoustic/jazz world wouldn't have had Django to influence it the way he did.

Gents, just popped in to throw in my 2C.

It's my belief the we are in the beginning of a new golden age as far as music is concerned.
Video killed the radio star right?

Technology has killed the music industry. Well fuck the industry says I!

I've tried to focus on local music lately and it seems like every time I hit a show I find another local band that upsets my perception of what good music is. There is so much good shit out there and so many people getting involved in music at the grassroots level that it blows my mind. House shows and basement shows. AWESOME.

I saw Mos Generator at a house in Olympia Wa for free a few months back and a week later they were touring europe and playing for big packed venues judging from the pics they had on FB.

I think it's a waste of time to worry about genres. Who cares what label gets slapped on your band. do YOU like playing the music? Do people have a good time when you play for them? Who gives a shit what its called?

Yeah sure if you play music so you can buy a ferrari and fuck groupies, that may be gone.

So fuck the future, fuck the past, enjoy the now. Do what you like and enjoy it for what it is.

^^^THIS. We have a pretty cool DIY venue in town, and I agree. I'm pleasantly surprised most of the time I check out shows there. One thing I'm loving is how many bands are doing vocal harmonies. I do kind of hate it how sometimes the easiest way to describe bands to people who don't know them is to use genre labels.

I also think that there's a bell curve to everything. In the middle you have a bunch of blah: homogenized, not-very forward thinking music. At the sides of the bell you have music that gets more specialized in some way. I suppose you could say one side is "better" and the other "worse," with the middle being all of the "okay" stuff, if you wanted. This bell curve WILL NOT go away.

The time might come when all we have are "DIY" venues, and the need for bigger entities to promote music rises again. Who knows?

Edit: Somehow I forgot to mention Secret Chiefs 3. They went backwards with music and came up with something totally genre-defying.

[andtheLiquidmen]

I'd just like to pop back in here and play devil's advocate, if for nothing else than to illustrate a point/opinion:

Many of you complain about digital recording, mixing, plug-ins, and I've yet to see a valid reason why one shouldn't embrace them. It's like arguing that one shouldn't release something in stereo because mono is more "real."


Also, gunslinger nailed it with The Mars Volta. Never in a million years would I have thought a prog band would get to the status that they did.

[dubkitty]

i have no foundational issues with digital technology, which has finally evolved to the point where i can cut out the middlemen and be my own band and distributor. i've been wishing for this since the 1970s.

[D.o.S.]

I dig The Mars Volta, but anyone with a knowledge of Santana's early stuff and Mahavishnu would tell you that they're far from innovative.

And if I had to guess, I'd say that at their peak, they were probably in the middle of popularity between Abraxas-esque Santana and Mahavishnu... but someone who was alive in the 70's might be able to correct me on that one. Also, gauging popularity like that is a difficult proposition.

[gunslinger_burrito]

I dig The Mars Volta, but anyone with a knowledge of Santana's early stuff and Mahavishnu would tell you that they're far from innovative.

And if I had to guess, I'd say that at their peak, they were probably in the middle of popularity between Abraxas-esque Santana and Mahavishnu... but someone who was alive in the 70's might be able to correct me on that one. Also, gauging popularity like that is a difficult proposition.

I think I agree. It just feels to me like the Volta brought that stuff back into the public's eye. Mahavishnu, though, I hadn't thought of them, though. Good call. Damn. It seems like music is going in big circles. Maybe we need to see some more development in instrumentation?

[kbit]

& now I'm listening to De-Loused. Thanks guys

[Gearmond]

stuff

idk, no offense, but all that stuff is kinda already happening/happened, and that appraisal sounds kinda narrowminded and out of touch.

i do agree that using noise to make music rather than as an ends in itself should be what happening (my own stuff right now, and dudes like Prurient as main examples) but on the other hand, that shit has been going on for like... a while. its not new in the same sense that a good deal of post-punk wasn't new because it sounded like Television, The Stooges or Rocket from the Tombs or w/e.

genre homogenization is kinda happening, and yeah a lot of places (noise especially) just get to the point where its a circlejerk of guys wearing the same mask. but then you have a lot of stuff that starts off hella specific then evolves and diversifies based on the trait that made it distinct. case in point (for better or worse) garage/dubstep. started off as garage + reverb and syncopated beats, aka a good number of garage tracks. then it transformed into all this modern dubstep, bro-step, future garage/ambient stuff in a matter of a decade. hell, arguably 5 years.

[gunslinger_burrito]

stuff

idk, no offense, but all that stuff is kinda already happening/happened, and that appraisal sounds kinda narrowminded and out of touch.

i do agree that using noise to make music rather than as an ends in itself should be what happening (my own stuff right now, and dudes like Prurient as main examples) but on the other hand, that shit has been going on for like... a while. its not new in the same sense that a good deal of post-punk wasn't new because it sounded like Television, The Stooges or Rocket from the Tombs or w/e.

genre homogenization is kinda happening, and yeah a lot of places (noise especially) just get to the point where its a circlejerk of guys wearing the same mask. but then you have a lot of stuff that starts off hella specific then evolves and diversifies based on the trait that made it distinct. case in point (for better or worse) garage/dubstep. started off as garage + reverb and syncopated beats, aka a good number of garage tracks. then it transformed into all this modern dubstep, bro-step, future garage/ambient stuff in a matter of a decade. hell, arguably 5 years.

Non taken. I'm actually not the best with musical history. I guess there were a fair amount of weirdo bands from the 70's and whatnot making that kind of music (as in "Mars Volta" kind of music). At least they've always been really up fronj about making what they wanted to make, and not making something for any alternate purpose.

I'll just reiterate that it's important for musicians to be honest about their art, and care enough about it to make it well. Recently I saw a show in my hometown here where a neat touring band opened, and blew the following acts out of the water. They had vocal harmonies, odd times, two-handed tapping, yadda yadda. The one after them was the band that everyone was apparently so excited to see. All throughout their set my friend kept leaning over to say "there's a Minus the Bear riff, " then "oh, there's another one." That's what I mean about caring about your art enough to do it well. Sure there's a formula to doom, or to whatever kind of punk, or whatever kind of metal, but at least put your own spin on it, you know?

As far as the topic at hand, I still say that things won't change drastically unless the foundations are changed at least a little. New instruments, etc. I think Robert Fripp was onto something with the New Standard Tuning. I have two instruments, one in the "standard," and one in the lowered version of it, and I can honestly say that I have a hard time playing the same kind of music I'm used to playing.

ok. two more cents in.

[dubkitty]

its not new in the same sense that a good deal of post-punk wasn't new because it sounded like Television, The Stooges or Rocket from the Tombs or

or Neu!. without Neu!, and particularly without the abrasive proto-punk tracks on Neu! 3, most of British post-punk wouldn't have existed. no Joy Division, no PiL...and no Ubu, either. Neu!'s galloping motorik beat underpins "Heart of Darkness." half of Stereolab's entire output is refried Neu! (not that there's anything wrong with that...i like Stereolab).

one thing i really like about living in the future is the breadth of accessible source material. in the 70s/80s the only people who'd even heard most Krautrock were either folks who'd bought the original vinyls, largely in the EU/UK, or people who heard them on collector's cassettes dubbed from the records. i never even heard a note of Neu! until the reissues came out on CD in 1999. but now everyone who cares can find this stuff, which both democratizes the creative process and makes it harder for people to succeed by merely biting the style of someone too obscure for you to get caught.

[D.o.S.]

makes it harder for people to succeed by merely biting the style of someone too obscure for you to get caught.

I could go fifty-fifty on that one, honestly.

[Gearmond]

makes it harder for people to succeed by merely biting the style of someone too obscure for you to get caught.

lol if anything that just means you can get away with it easier. "oh they're clearly riffing on *insert artist here* how refreshing" which imo leads to the musical equivalent of refried beans.

easier access to old/obscure music is great and all, but most musicians that tread those styles work in a more collage-y way than like... mixing paints. the borders are being broken down a lot, but even big "omg so innovative and broad influences" acts like say Grimes you can easily pick apart and dissect like its nothing.

[gunslinger_burrito]

Everyone sounds at least a bit like their influences. It can't be avoided. The trick is to put new spins on those influences, I guess. Culture in general has really hit a point where it's hard to do anything really fresh. That's why I stick to "do it well, and do it with heart, " and I'll probably like it.

[Blackened Soul]

I'd just like to pop back in here and play devil's advocate, if for nothing else than to illustrate a point/opinion:

Many of you complain about digital recording, mixing, plug-ins, and I've yet to see a valid reason why one shouldn't embrace them. It's like arguing that one shouldn't release something in stereo because mono is more "real."

I think the problem is when people think about them they think of recordings that overuse them. I think it is a little silly to talk about analog recording when you are listening to a mp3 of said recording. Now I DO feel a lot of the problem is the to many options angle, where in the past you were just trying to capture the damn thing or do what you could in the confines of what you had. Now you can do so much, like you can easily layer 100 tracks of autotuned modeled guitar all with a different tuning.... and you can't figure out why a mono recording that is 50 years old crushes you in every way. The old mono recording didn't have as may tricks to hide behind and distract them into sonic masturbation. But really you CAN record a soulful song on digital with plugins that can hold up because in the end you still have to pull off that song.