Re: (idm) RE: reynolds rant (long and rambly) (avant garde)

From Tom Millar
Sent Tue, Apr 13th 1999, 05:49

martin burbridge wrote:

> so what we are left w/ is that neither genre nor effort involved can tell us
> whether a record is good or bad, and skill is just hard to quantify. i mean,
> why does life have to be so chuffin difficult?

I like what the KLF had to say about this in their Timelords book on How to
Get a UK Number One; they said that one day, a great techno musician was going
to release a record that was just a 4/4 808 bass drum sample, and at the same
time, some mediocre schmuck was going to do the same thing using exactly the
same sample, and everybody would immediately be able to tell the difference
because no matter what, the 'soul' would be there on the great musician's
record and noticeably absent from that of the pretender.

While it's a ridiculous concept, I find it rather worthy of consideration. As
we approach the terminal point of postmodernism and irony in art and culture,
we begin having to accept more and more things on faith and "soul" and other
things we previously treated as wishy-washy subjective crap. But that's what
life is: wishy-washy subjective crap. You do your best, and hopefully some
others will agree.

On a related note, right now I'm working on a track using nothing more than
the built-in mic on my PowerBook, a pirated copy of SoundEdit 16 version 2,
and Virtual Drummer 4.0 - and none of this is on purpose. The effort is in
effect, by God. 

Tom