I often want to complain about a piece of music being too repetitive, but then I remember how repetitive a lot of my favourite music is, and I can't quite figure out what the distinction is. Perhaps when people complain about music being repetitive, they're really complaining about some other more nebulous quality. After all, repetition is one of the basic elements of music.
How much repetition is too much? When is repetition appropriate? What genres lend themselves to repetition? What are some repetitive albums you love? What are some repetitive albums you hate? What are some repetitive albums you hate? What are some repetitive albums you hate?
I think this loop is beautiful, but an hour of it is a bit much, even with the added interest of the loop slowly disintegrating over time. I think I could happily listen to about 10 minutes of this before I'd want it to move on to something else. What's your mileage? 5 minutes? 20 minutes? 30 seconds?
It's 25 minutes of basically the same loop, with a little variation. On its own it's tedious, but it seems to fit really well with the entire album. I think I'd rather it be a little shorter, but still I think it's a beautiful piece as is.
I think I'd care more for long repitition if it either didn't fit well with the album or if I just didn't like it. The last point is obvious, but if I wasn't too keen on something and it was long, I'd probably complain about the repetitiveness (whereas I generally wouldn't with, for example, the Burzum song above).
Dammit Necharsian I was gonna bring up that same song!
But yeah, I don't usually have a problem with repetition of minimalism provided I like what is being repeated. Some things (like the disintegration loops) I have to be in the right mood to sit through though.
Popular music in general is very repetitive and cyclical, both 3 minute of pop songs and long minimalist things, so complaining about it too much could maybe be silly. I guess really really repetitive stuff should have some emotional purpose/effect in relation to the repetition for it to justify itself. Or it should perhaps develop gradually in an interesting way.
There is a hilarious article somewhere on the internet where someone made Stockhausen listen to aphex twin and some other modern music.....he complains about the "post-african repetitions" which sound like someone constantly "stuttering" or something like that. I think a lot of classical only people have this problem with pop music.
It's probably similar to when people say "all their music sounds the same", when what they really mean is "all their music has a sound that I dislike."
I really enjoyed that Burzum track by the way. Happily listened through the whole thing.
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