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PurpleHazel

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  • Posted: 06/29/2019 08:57
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Skinny wrote:


Bandana out now

Very Happy

Tap wrote:
I feel like that treats genres as too much of a clearly defined thing that are real and exist and that innovation is centered around. seems like it's more connected to technology. Like this https://technosphere-magazine.hkw.de/p/...RAAd9icEvH

Some older genres are so big, like classical music and jazz, that they're fairly distinct except at the edges. But I agree that a lot of popular music of the last quarter century is less clearly defined.

Quote:
Like this https://technosphere-magazine.hkw.de/p/...RAAd9icEvH

The great free jazz trombonist George Lewis! Dunno how many musicians are following in his footsteps or members here are listening to his recent music, but it does sound like innovation of a type (I've heard some of his earlier experiments with electronics and interactive software in the late 70s, 80s and 90s and wasn't that impressed, but with the advances in technology maybe it's more compelling now).

TimeLion wrote:
Lots of interesting points here. I think comparisons to previous decades get confused by the fact that the music industry has changed dramatically in response to changing patterns of consumption. Album sales used to be a much bigger part of an artist’s income and conversely, album-oriented artists would be better equipped to compete commercially. So I wouldn’t look to the Top 40 for classic albums, but rather to communities like this.

Good point. There are less commercial incentives, and even creative incentives, to make album statements now. So when it comes to comparing albums, the last decade is at a disadvantage, at least on the most visible level, and you have to dig deeper.
mickilennial
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Poland
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  • Posted: 06/29/2019 09:27
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It’s just a byproduct of the age of the internet. As technology expands, so does the “library” of recorded music. It takes a little acumen, experience, and interest to find those special albums. This is not even accounting for the change of taste or the depth of actually caring about finding those records. Few people are keen to not just hug their supposed “classics” and call it a day.
Kool Keith Sweat
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  • Posted: 06/29/2019 18:06
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some slightly non-sequiter contributions

I've really been digging Lemonade, Honey, thank u, next, and Dedicated lately; the latter two are the best non-improvised recordings I've heard this year along with Avey Tare and Gibbs/Madlib (and I've done a decent job of keeping up with the critical darlings). Despite the increasing homogeneity of mainstream music festivals internationally and my perception that radio today is synonymous with trap-influenced beats ( Wink ), I think these four recordings demonstrate a musical complexity on par with mainstream music from any decade. I think it's fair to say that there's not much emphasis on melody, harmony, or rhythm in today's mainstream music and that it's mostly beat music (compared to say, the '60s) but while the music leans more towards a beat with timbral compliments, the vocal cadences from each of these singers (and others) are really interesting, much more than the cadences of Madonna, Prince, MJ, or even Led Zeppelin, Zombies, Beatles, etc. It's as if these pop stars are treating the voice more as an instrument than musicians previously, and creating a rhythm or poly-rhythm with voice and beat rather than creating anything complex in just the music and then just crooning over it. And the vocal emotivity today is almost surgical, if it's not sincere. Additionally, I welcome the increasing personalization of pop output. On a single like "Umbrella," you would not have guessed Rihanna was from Trinidad; on "Work," the accent is there. Likewise, while I think Beyonce and Grande have quite a few production duds but the (perception of?) earnest immediacy on tracks like "Sorry" or "thank you, next" more than make up for it (and they have great production); meanwhile, Robyn and Jepsen appeal to '80s/'90s nostalgia in their production in exchange for a little less memoir (Jepsen also has a weird obsession with eyes). All of them write their own shit. So mainstream/pop music is different, but I personally enjoy it as much as the old for the moment.

And while there hasn't been a jazz figurehead for a few decades, I wouldn't ever expect one. Those people are figureheads because they had other people copy their forms but most importantly all of them were well distributed. It's the same thing as saying "rock is different, you have to dig deeper to find the good stuff" and it's because the people doing new things (and perhaps influencing the mainstream) are underground because the form isn't well funded anymore. The echtzeitmusik collective, wandelweiser collective, and young students of Braxton are the three groupings I see really guiding improvised music today (and of course some other individuals). And why all collectives? Because like those figureheads "progressed" from one to the other, these musicians have progressed in a post"Free Jazz"/"Ascension"/"Machine Gun" world. So, for funding purposes and the cultural movement towards collective improvisation as a legitimate collective effort, there will never be another figurehead (that's actually doing something new, Kamasi). Additionally, I think improvised music today is astonishingly more consistent than it was in the '60s and '70s but, because of that, those transcendental high highs reached then are a bit harder to achieve now. Maybe it's today's postmodern monotone. It's weird to act out. No one's violent anymore.

I think technology provides a juicy chance for paradigm shifts in any artform. The transition from analog to digital was a face transplant in music for pop production, electroacoustic, techno, and everything in between. I still don't think a lot of musicians still grasp or have explored the possibilities (e.g. despite glitching out early on, Ae is just now freeing themselves of the 40-80 min LP/CD-length release). Similar thing happened in music when tape came out. New forms/genres happen more frequently, but it's right time right place for someone or some people with a vision and opportunity to execute; whether those people become famous or the next Miles Davis is more dependent on funding and marketing than the radicality of their contribution.
Skinny
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  • Posted: 06/29/2019 18:51
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Kool Keith Sweat wrote:
some slightly non-sequiter contributions

I've really been digging Lemonade, Honey, thank u, next, and Dedicated lately; the latter two are the best non-improvised recordings I've heard this year along with Avey Tare and Gibbs/Madlib (and I've done a decent job of keeping up with the critical darlings). Despite the increasing homogeneity of mainstream music festivals internationally and my perception that radio today is synonymous with trap-influenced beats ( Wink ), I think these four recordings demonstrate a musical complexity on par with mainstream music from any decade. I think it's fair to say that there's not much emphasis on melody, harmony, or rhythm in today's mainstream music and that it's mostly beat music (compared to say, the '60s) but while the music leans more towards a beat with timbral compliments, the vocal cadences from each of these singers (and others) are really interesting, much more than the cadences of Madonna, Prince, MJ, or even Led Zeppelin, Zombies, Beatles, etc. It's as if these pop stars are treating the voice more as an instrument than musicians previously, and creating a rhythm or poly-rhythm with voice and beat rather than creating anything complex in just the music and then just crooning over it. And the vocal emotivity today is almost surgical, if it's not sincere. Additionally, I welcome the increasing personalization of pop output. On a single like "Umbrella," you would not have guessed Rihanna was from Trinidad; on "Work," the accent is there. Likewise, while I think Beyonce and Grande have quite a few production duds but the (perception of?) earnest immediacy on tracks like "Sorry" or "thank you, next" more than make up for it (and they have great production); meanwhile, Robyn and Jepsen appeal to '80s/'90s nostalgia in their production in exchange for a little less memoir (Jepsen also has a weird obsession with eyes). All of them write their own shit. So mainstream/pop music is different, but I personally enjoy it as much as the old for the moment.

And while there hasn't been a jazz figurehead for a few decades, I wouldn't ever expect one. Those people are figureheads because they had other people copy their forms but most importantly all of them were well distributed. It's the same thing as saying "rock is different, you have to dig deeper to find the good stuff" and it's because the people doing new things (and perhaps influencing the mainstream) are underground because the form isn't well funded anymore. The echtzeitmusik collective, wandelweiser collective, and young students of Braxton are the three groupings I see really guiding improvised music today (and of course some other individuals). And why all collectives? Because like those figureheads "progressed" from one to the other, these musicians have progressed in a post"Free Jazz"/"Ascension"/"Machine Gun" world. So, for funding purposes and the cultural movement towards collective improvisation as a legitimate collective effort, there will never be another figurehead (that's actually doing something new, Kamasi). Additionally, I think improvised music today is astonishingly more consistent than it was in the '60s and '70s but, because of that, those transcendental high highs reached then are a bit harder to achieve now. Maybe it's today's postmodern monotone. It's weird to act out. No one's violent anymore.

I think technology provides a juicy chance for paradigm shifts in any artform. The transition from analog to digital was a face transplant in music for pop production, electroacoustic, techno, and everything in between. I still don't think a lot of musicians still grasp or have explored the possibilities (e.g. despite glitching out early on, Ae is just now freeing themselves of the 40-80 min LP/CD-length release). Similar thing happened in music when tape came out. New forms/genres happen more frequently, but it's right time right place for someone or some people with a vision and opportunity to execute; whether those people become famous or the next Miles Davis is more dependent on funding and marketing than the radicality of their contribution.


wholesome content

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_________________
2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
PurpleHazel

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  • Posted: 06/29/2019 20:36
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Gowi wrote:
Few people are keen to not just hug their supposed “classics” and call it a day.

Or to not just hug the most popular contemporary artists' music.
PurpleHazel

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Hayden wrote:
PurpleHazel wrote:
There have been no giants in jazz since the 70s on the level of Miles, Trane, Mingus, Monk, Bird, Duke etc. ....there's no artist who has reached the heights and consistency of the ones I named above (and other classic artists).

You're not wrong, but partly because people treat jazz like it's done (likewise with reggae). Doesn't mean it is. I actually think the '10's are the best decade for jazz since the '70's (early 70's at that). I've heard plenty of innovative jazz records this decade. I'd love to see a jazz musician get a huge PR campaign in the '20's.

People do treat jazz like it's done, and I don't believe that (my decade charts from the 80s onward are 2/3 jazz on average). When I said there were no giants and no artists reaching the heights and consistency, there's a criteria I was using. One of the most important qualities for a jazz musician (or it at least used to be) is having your own sound on your instrument. Monk, Miles, Trane, Bird, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young are some particularly good examples of artists carving out a sound for themselves so distinct it's as if they owned a big slice of what their instruments were capable of. They also had overwhelming technical skill and knowledge far surpassing what was needed in their subgenres. That's why I call them giants and said what I said. Ornette Coleman, Cecil Tayor, Albert Ayler and Pharoah Sanders also have very individual sounds, but since not all free jazz musicians have the technical foundation to play all the previous styles like be-bop (though Ornette was reportedly a Charlie Parker fanatic), they don't necessarily meet the second criteria I mentioned. They're definitely giants too, but there may not be as much separation between them and later free jazz musicians. I just don't see anyone who's emerged after the seventies who meet both of these criteria to the same degree. Their sound just isn't as completely singular and dominant on their instrument. Practically all of the post-1980 mainstream jazz musicians I've heard borrow their sound from classic jazz artists, and even if they combine different artists' sounds to sound more individual, they're usually isn't much really new they bring to the table.

Regarding post-1980 free/experimental jazz artists, I'll just say I haven't heard any of them doing anything really significantly new conceptually (except maybe John Zorn if he counts) and doing anything significantly new on tenor sax, alto sax, piano and trap drums that wasn't already innovated in the 60s and 70s -- except maybe reed player Ned Rothenberg (his first album came out in 1978, but to be balanced, I'll count him as a post-1980 artist). When it comes to other instruments like trumpet, guitar and the more unconventional jazz ones, there's been more room to innovate. There have been some great jazz composers since 1980, like Henry Threadgill (emerged in the 70s, but didn't come into his own as a composer till the 80s), John Zorn and Muhal Richard Abrams (started in the late 60s, but did some of his best work in the 80s and 90s). Genres blending with electronic music/exploiting technology is where innovation is the most possible.

Hayden, hit me up with some '10s jazz recs -- can always use more. I'll rec you some of my favorite 80s and 90s jazz albums, if you haven't already heard them.

Quote:
Can't agree with this (but I do love 60's cinema). Tarantino's coming to mind. Like, I get he's not everyone's cup of tea, but he's still a giant in cinema. Hayao Miyazaki lands above Hitchcock in my book too. The Coen Brothers, Lars von Trier, Linklater, Paul Thomas Anderson, Guillermo del Toro, Fincher, Nolan, Alfonso Cuarón, Wes Anderson and Mike Leigh will all go down in the history books too. David Lynch was around before the 80's, but I'd put him in the same group. Outside of Hollywood, Michael Haneke, Asghar Farhadi, Hirokazu Koreeda, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the Dardennes, Pedro Almodóvar and Wong Kar-Wai are massive powerhouses. Are any Hitchcock? No. But I prefer the output of most of these directors over him. As someone who found the 80's a little slim for films, cutting off cinema's 'peak' there seems a little odd anyway. There's been plenty of brilliance since.

Tarantino and Mike Leigh are interesting counterpoint examples. My favorite Lynch films are Blue Velvet and Eraserhead, which happen to fall within my cutoff, but he's a good counter-example too. Don't care for del Toro and the von Triers films since Breaking the Waves I've seen, except Melancholia. Most of the Coens' films are too derivative for me to put at the highest level. There are a handful of post-1986 films I consider to be on the same league as the older greats: Werckmeister Harmonies, Satantango, Brighter Summer Day, Spirited Away, A Separation (The Salesman too, except I didn't care for the meta play within a film element), Goodfellas (obviously made by an older director). Rushmore probably belongs on there too. Rosetta? Maybe.

I could go with other years in the 80s as cutoffs -- my reasoning for them is this: 1981 (to include Raging Bull), 1984 (after Truffaut, Fassbinder and Bergman's last films) and 1987 (after Tarkovsky's last film). Think the 80s are as strong as the subsequent decades (they're all better than the 2010s), but it was definitely a decade of transition: some of the old guard were still directing and some of the younger turks were starting to emerge.

Quote:
You're right, but I'll add my opinion that innovation's infinite. There's plenty left to do. It's just a shame nobody knows what it is until someone does it.

I think most art forms and music genres go through stages -- Traditional, Modern and Avant-garde (sometimes Modern and Avant-garde are the same) -- and after the last stage has been amply explored, there's less room for innovation. But it's still possible, and some genres haven't exhausted these stages yet, like rap and electronic music. And a new genre or distinctive new subgenre can always emerge. Not thinking through that there are some more recent movies I consider on par with the best pre-80s films shows that I might benefit tby opening my mind to recent music more (I already listen to a lot of recent jazz).
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