From eric hill Sent Tue, Feb 10th 1998, 09:44
From eric hill Sent Tue, Feb 10th 1998, 09:44
>> However, I have a hard time getting fully behind him because of his >> radical politics. > >I must agree with this completely. this is may be a case of closing the barn door too late. in his book "noise," jacques attali makes an argument that musical innovation is tied to the breaking of existing standards of what music is made of. transgressing barriers, while not always consciously aimed for, has propelled new styles of music into being as the old ways fail to adapt to what people require of the sounds they listen to and buy. breaking the rules is a political act whether anyone involved cares or not (as someone once said, the unintentional effects of an act are the ones that most intensely affect its long-term meaning), and attali also argues that the music that reflects this law-breaking constitutes a sonic model of society where those laws are dealt with in a different way or don't exist at all. this creates a situation where in every piece of music, a political stance can be mapped out that corresponds to the degrees and manner to which the composer engages the musical codes of their time. in this way, liking the music but not the musician's politics is playing a little game with yourself, because the music is politics (and religion) in sonic form. now, all of this is abstract and marxist, and the findings tend to be open to interpretation, but it is quite safe for home use. it can also be useful for the fanbois and -gurls out there, and not necessarily as a tool to figure out what _not_ to listen to. take a earful of (e.g.) terre thaemlitz' recent albums, and if the tones don't please you straight off, read the liner notes and maybe you'll be stimulated in a way that encourages you to listen more closely, and attempt to grasp the world that the composer is exposed to and is incorporating into their work. no one lives in a vacuum and a world of sound is what the musician is filtering for you into the grooves or pits (grooves _and_ pits if you're christian marclay :). eric onnow: scratch-pet-land(source)