ADP #4: Wild Why by Wobbly - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

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Gender: Female
Age: 38

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Wild Why by Wobbly

I decided to go with an album here that is a bit under the radar. There's about two professional reviews you can find online, a positive one from a San Francisco weekly (the artist was based there at the time) and a negative one on Pitchfork, written months after release by a curmudgeonly friend of Girl Talk. And then a nice review in The Wire, but that's it. Beyond my own evangelizing for this album in the circles I run in, I don't really see much social incentive for people to have heard of this and have an opinion on it (though of course, I am not the only fan who sings the praises, but there are too few of us!). If you weren't paying attention to this particular corner of music in the moment it was happening, there's not much out there to tell you to listen to this. So I feel like I have to take this opportunity to do some further evangelizing.

The album is available on streaming services and also uploaded in full on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp7GxN39JdY

I strongly recommend for your first listen, to not read what I've written here, and instead just follow along with the lyrics: http://www.detritus.net/wobbly/dnotes/w...yrics.html

What is this?

Wild Why was released in the fall of 2002 on Kid 606's Tigerbeat6 Records. It is by Wobbly, aka Jon Leidecker, an artist who is probably best known for working with Barbara Golden on the series of mixes covering Women making electronic music from 1938-2014 (http://www.openculture.com/2015/06/hear-seven-hours-of-women-making-electronic-music-1938-2014.html), or collaborations with People Like Us and Matmos. Wild Why can be classified as a plunderphonics album, a specific type of sound collage that sources its material from pop music. The term refers to the releases by John Oswald bearing the same name but has been applied to acts as diverse as Girl Talk, The Avalanches, The Books, Oneohtrix Point Never, and DJ Shadow. It doesn't really matter exactly what you do, so long as you're pulling from some pop, and even then, clearly the definition of pop gets stretched a great deal for this term. But Wild Why is absolutely a plunderphonics album.

Quote:

Source material recorded directly from commercial radio broadcasts in the San Francisco Bay Area. Multitracked and developed on an Orban Audicy workstation and finalized in Pro Tools. Composed by Jon Leidecker, January 99 March 02

So there are a few cheats (I guess The Vengaboys, The Whispers, and Queen aired on these stations at some point, because they are in there, though the Queen is pretty subtle in "Hey Yo, We Got It, Got It Yeah. Uh Go"), but the source material here is basically entirely made up of the popular hip hop and r&b music of 99-02 (aka the popular music). But the appeal for this in me is not just a nostalgic look at when I was a teenager (though I imagine it helps a lot to have been there when this music was in the air). This album uses the collage form to get at some of the most hilariously over the top instability, in rhythm and song structure and every measure of how sounds progress, it offers something singular in this field that I think deserves much greater recognition.

What is happening?

So I've been listening to this album for 15 years now, but maybe you're only just hearing it now, and are kind of overwhelmed and can't make sense of all the nonsense. On this point I need to emphasize again, the lyrics sheet is very important. If I had just downloaded this album and didn't have the lyrics sheet, I don't know if I would have been able to build up the connection I have with it. Being able to have something concrete to follow along with is incredibly helpful for being able to follow things in the early going.

But yeah, this can seem like an unrelenting firehose of nonsense, but there's some dynamism to the construction here. There's a sort of spectrum here. After easing in with the granular synthesis intro, you get "Yo Yo Yo Yoyo Yo, Hey...", which never really settles into a rhythm, like there'll be just enough to establish the idea of a rhythm, before the next Yo's break that with a new one. It's the sort of thing someone might call random. I strongly disagree with the use of that term here, though. The rhythm seems to tighten up a bit after the "party handicapped" line, allows more time for their establishment and keeps a greater sonic consistency so that the progressions feel like they're building off each other more clearly. This sounds chaotic but is controlled. But then after this track, you get "Uhh, Hey Eh. Check It Check It". This one does more with keeping a consistent rhythm, although the beginning feels wonky as hell, like there are extra hits all over the place, but then it gets into this bit that doesn't seem to be covered in the lyrics, but there's this looping "Check Yo" (sorta sounds like techno), but it's a steady beat! You could dance to it! It gets interrupted by the "always can't forget, know what I mean", but there is this steadiness to it.

So then what makes this work, in my opinion, is that the album will push into extremes on the disruption of rhythm, but then give you some stability in this sound world for a moment so that you can orient yourself. This is key because if it was constant disorientation, the constancy of that would start to feel safe and boring. But by giving these moments of stability, the moments of disorientation are able to maintain their strength.

Another key thing I want to call out is the way that the album breaks a little with its concept in the middle, starting with "Saxgag". I'm pretty sure the saxophone played here was not from the radio, and performed to accompany the electronic work (and then chopped all to hell to better incorporate it). Or maybe I just don't know the source, But still, rather than focusing on language it focuses on wordless vowel sounds and croaky throat noises, so there's that at least. The second deviation comes with the next track "Yeah, You, Me , You, Kiss Me Drive Me, With You", a reworking of The Whispers - Lady from 1979. It's a great tune, and the song sounds like it's getting into some retro vibes even for the time. There are some sharp edges introduced from the chopping, but they're more restrained than what's come before, allowing for a moment of palette cleansing. And then after this, you get "Uh Waht, Uh Huh. Two", which gives you the surprise left hook of the immortal synthline from The Vengaboys - We Like To Party! (The Vengabus), stuck looping on one part and detuning as it loops, to bring us back into instability in a way that feels outside of the premise, but still absolutely feels like it belongs. This middle "reset" sort of area is a big part of what makes this album works for me and leaves me ready to take on the back half.

The last thing I want to point out about the construction of this album is the use of long-term repetition. There are elements that return long after their first appearance on the album. The track "Damn I Can't Go Uh-Uh, No!" ends with the samples heavily effected and coming thru just as tones, and this returns in the final track. The exaggerated wordless female vocalizing toward the end of "Rather, Uh Uh Uh . What ? What ? Uh" returns in the beginning of "Can't Stop It, Can't Stop It, Can't Stop It, Can't Stop It". The titular line from "All Day Long, Song After Song" pops up in fragments in "Na Na Na. Uh. (True)" and again on "Can't Stop It, Can't Stop It, Can't Stop It, Can't Stop It". And there's plenty more. This sort of self-sampling creates a sort of mythology to the album, creating a greater significance for these moments than if they simply came and went. It allows the album to make its own sense. It may not be the sort of thing that is apparent on the first listens, but I feel like it's a major part of this album.

What is the context?

So it's probably also important to look at a) the historical context this music exists in and b) the specific moment this music was released, and its reception.

There's a long history of appropriation in music, but I don't think it's particularly necessary to get into all that. But we should talk about John Oswald, since Leidecker readily admits the influence (http://www.detritus.net/wobbly/greetings/interview.html). The heavily chopped up collage of Oswald's Plexure (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZQq9ebtEg) is a clear forebear for this music. But Wild Why is not a retread of this material. All of the stuff I mentioned above about the disruption of rhythm/consistency, the disruption of the concept, and the creation of significance from long-term repetition don't really seem present in this work. Not to knock Plexure at all, because it is great at being what it is, but I feel like Wild Why brought something new to this style.

The blatant copyright infringement found on Wild Why was really having a moment in the early 2000's. You had Planet Mu's Criminal EPs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsYb1vaY4Eg), which were much more straightforward presentations of existing pieces of music, sort of like mashup, except instead of being mashed up with another track it was mashed up with annoying DSP effects. And then you had folks like Girl Talk or Jason Forrest (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMrPMLFxcWA), who took the plunderphonic aesthetic and applied it to IDM/Breakcore song structures (Girl Talk would later find greater acclaim by becoming a mashup artist). Kid606 was also getting into this game at the same time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-nP5BPGR_4), sort of finding a middle ground between the two. While there is some connection to the parts of Wild Why where the rhythm is allowed to be a stabilizing element, they seem to be fitting the sampled material into a dance/IDM template. The form Wild Why takes is much more dependent on the plunderphonics techniques, it operates in a completely different sphere.

Oh also Tim Hecker's EP made entirely out of Van Halen sounds should be in the conversation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANSUeYOiVPI), but it's also way different, more about a full on granular synthesis transformation of the material into something more ambient.

But maybe I'm neglecting something here? Am I right to say that this album achieves something singular in this field?

Hmm I could go on but I want to open the floor now. I have some more stuff to get into that I'll post thru the week but if you're not sure how to respond based on what I wrote up there, here's some more questions:

1) Is it ethical?
2) Is it racist?
3) What is your relationship to the music of this time period? Is anyone here actually too young for the sampled music to have any significance to you?
4) Favorite lyrics? Mine are:
i) Everybody should have been grandma
ii) Gus con gots constiplayer (yeah) girl, constipate players
iii) I can't be touched I can't undress me

souplipton

Gender: Male
Location: Toronto

Your questions were written rather broadly, so I answered them based on my interpretation.

1) I believe this recording should be considered ethical, as I believe that any sampling which creates a unique new work rather than more broad-scale, direct mimicry of the original work is ethical. On the side of how this would be viewed from a legal perspective, the individual samples are generally not substantial (with some exceptions), the use of samples is definitely transformative, and would probably be considered to be commenting on the original samples, and the use of samples does not do any harm to the owner of the original copyright, and this use of samples would therefore be considered fair use. So even by the very narrow restrictive definition of fair use sampling outlined in american law, this would be considered ethical sampling. More generally, I believe that plunderphonics is ethical, although I believe that the ethical nature of "mashup" (for example Girl Talk) and other examples of the more direct sampling seen in some plunderphonics is less clear.

2) I don't believe that it is racist. Wobbly has taken the words from the popular hip-hop of the day and shifted the context. Instead of the context of the original songs in which they appeared, the samples are transplanted to the context of hip-hop as a genre, and more specifically, hip-hop radio of the time. If the result seems to show a certain outlook (on sexuality, or violence, or race), then perhaps that was the outlook of hip-hop of the time. You could argue that specifically choosing samples that reflect this outlook rather than ones that don't could be considered racist, but looking at the context of hip-hop music more generally, I don't think it's controversial to say that hip-hop has had some problems with its views on sexuality, violence, and race. Also, the fact that he draws these samples from a wide range of sources shows that this was not limited to the works of a few, but to the works of many. Therefore I do not consider this work to be racist, but rather just reflecting what was there in the hip-hop of the time.

3) 2000-2002 was when I first starting getting interested in hip-hop music, initially through my exposure to Eminem (I'm a white suburban kid, so of course I'd first be exposed to hip-hop through Eminem). So when someone asks me what I think of when I think of hip-hop, those years are very prevalent in my mind.

4) A great feeling you're a puddle, these days a fine line/puddle, I'm a puddle.

Hopefully this gets some conversation started.

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Gender: Female
Age: 38

On the racism question, I was mostly thinking about how this fits into the long-running racist narrative of white people taking and modifying the cultural output of black people which is part of a scene and using it to create a sort of individual greatness, or how that work from black people is viewed as entertainment (unless it's safely removed from the moment and is something that exists in the past) where white people get to be called art right away... I could understand if someone did have an argument for this work being racist, but it's really complicated and I was tired and just wanted to get this posted. I'll try to get my thoughts written out on that sometime soon.

and on the ethics question, I would mostly agree with you. except I do think a sample list would be better, especially for something like the track that reworks The Whispers, since that is just the one track sourced there. But at the same time, it isn't like it's super hidden, I was able to track down the source pretty easily, so it's not a huge ethical issue imo. But yeah as far as this creating a new work out of the existing material, even in the case of The Whispers track, I would say it absolutely does and is much more secure in that position than the mashup sort of stuff, which I agree can be more on the line.

souplipton

Gender: Male
Location: Toronto

The type of racism you're discussing is to me the type that built in the the larger narrative of popular music as a whole, rather than in individual albums. It also bring to mind the era of "covers" by white musicians in the early days of rock & roll. However, I do not believe that this sort of racism tends to apply to sampling. I believe that if a sample is used ethically, then it is not on the level of cultural appropriation that was an issue with the aforementioned "covers". As well, sampling has not been something that has been disproportionately used by white musicians to the detriment of black musician, but rather by mainly black musicans to the detriment of no one (for the most part). In the end, I believe that the ethical use of samples does not factor in to this legacy (as it either gives the appropriate credit or creates a unique new work), but that any unethical use might factor into this historical injustice. Since I consider the use of samples in this instance to be ethical, I do not think it should be considered to be part of that racist legacy.

souplipton

Gender: Male
Location: Toronto

And I agree, a sample list would probably be appropriate to give the deserved credit.

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Gender: Female
Age: 38

I agree with you there that this is not a part of that racist legacy, but I do think it does get into some territory that could at least be considered problematic, with the optics of a white male musician taking samples from primarily black musicians. I guess I bring this up because my way in to this album was thru my love of IDM, a genre which I do think had some racist components in its presentation, by elevating the work of white musicians as intelligent, implying that the foundational work by black musicians that the music draws from as not intelligent. Though that's more an issue with how these genres get constructed than the work of any individual musician, there's still this erasure/dismissal of the work of black musicians. and sampling was a big part of it with the amen break and other popular sampled drums, though the significant thing here is that the practice began with black musicians and was then co-opted by white musicians.

But what I think puts Wild Why apart from this is that it's punching up, drawing from the work of musicians far more popular than Wobbly. Rather than erasure, you get a recognition that this is the mainstream music that is in the air, and this work is coming from the perspective of someone who had been listening to the genre since the 80's and simultaneously amazed and critical of what it had become. And I think that's a positive thing. But yeah I still think it's worth bringing up the topic of racism here because it seems like it's worth exploring further, and there could be ways of looking at this that I am unlikely to come to on my own due to the limitations of my own perspective.

souplipton

Gender: Male
Location: Toronto

As it applies to IDM, as I understand it, the label was not come up with by the musicians, but originated with fans, and that several of the artists involved in the genre, notably Aphex Twin, has rejected the label on the same grounds that you have mentioned. I do think it's troubling that the fans would be so dismissive of earlier work by primarily black musicians. However, I do not think that the genre itself is problematic, rather I think the problem is that too many music fans' understanding of the history of music is one where there is a focus on the achievements of white musicians. This makes the issue much more persistent, and more difficult to fix. However I do not think that the issue is with individual works or musicians, but with more systemic problems and modes of production. I've expressed my views already on the ethics of sampling in the context of race and the music industry. As I said, some uses of sampling may be problematic, but I think they should be evaluated on a case basis. Mashups where substantial parts of the source material is used in largely unaltered form would be an example of this, but other uses would not, in my opinion, be an issue. I think the relationship with race is important in any discussion of music history or of the context in which an album appeared, and discussion of these topics might be helpful is helping to dispel the myth of the primacy of the white musician.

souplipton

Gender: Male
Location: Toronto

Aphex interview when he comments on 'IDM'

"I just think it's really funny to have terms like that. It's bascially saying 'this is intelligent and everything else is STUPID.' It's really nasty to everyone else's music. It makes me laugh, things like that. I don't use names. I just say that I like something or I don't."

http://www.furious.com/perfect/aphextwin.html

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

It saddens me I don't have time to get to this tonight. Soon!

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Wow, thanks for putting so much effort into this. I really learned a lot and have a greater appreciation for an art form I'd quickly dismiss otherwise. To me this project is kind of like: what would it sound like if we got 45 CD players and played them like instruments, except some of the cd players skip, some of them only play at x beats per minute, etc. It's like a symphony of broken CDs. I mean that in the nicest way possible. Kind of a fun project.

I actually started this by reading the lyrics as you suggested and was like WTF. I didn't however read as I listened. Not sure if that would have changed anything.

But seriously - probably best discovery so far in my opinion. The sources, information given and depth of knowledge I gained was really important to me, even if I haven't really grasped the aesthetic.

1) Is it ethical? Sampling is a difficult thing. Part of me thinks a work like this is completely different than the sample give. It isn't remotely close to say Eminem or Puff Daddy gaining "fame" by using a whole song that they then rap ove with possible sub-par rapping. Often it's the already famous sample that makes the song big. In this case I feel the use of samples isn't like that at all, rather a whole new piece of work. In this case, I think that's perfectly ethical. It's a bit like the Apple argument - you can't copyright a fruit. The work, from what I can tell, is almost completely original and rarely has full sentences/recognizable samples.

2) Is it racist? Hard to say as I don't know the intent of the artist. I think from what the rest of your OP said, there wasn't a kick back or anything? Maybe intent was to give respect? I also think it was the consumer who was racist when The Beatles or Elvis would cover something - not so much the artist themselves, but I could be wrong. Take for example the recording "When you're smiling" - I don't know the race of the person who actually wrote it, but Dean Martin, Louis Prima, Louis Armstrong, etc.... all the different version at that time I think were equally famous. I could be wrong - but I think the concept of Elvis got famous because he was white doesn't always equal racism in all music releases (sometimes the logic doesn't always apply is all I'm saying - did racism play a huge role - absolutely, no denying that). In this case I probably heard of the rappers before I would have heard of the sampler... so unless it was a blatant blaxploitation... idk.

3) What is your relationship to the music of this time period? Is anyone here actually too young for the sampled music to have any significance to you? I didn't recognize anything sampled, but was possibly old enough to have heard some of it.
4) Favorite lyrics? None - probably favorite track was Child, Child Child Child. Hoo.