From Tom Millar Sent Fri, Apr 9th 1999, 00:43
From Tom Millar Sent Fri, Apr 9th 1999, 00:43
I kind of agree with some things that Hulk and Mr. Reynolds have to say... Hulk first, then I'll lead into Reynolds. I've never been the slightest bit impressed by artists taking a political stance of any sort, on anything. How hard is it to embrace a cause celebré when the business you're in really has little or nothing to do with the political realm, outside of the most superficial public realms already occupied by drivel like opinion polls and mass-market "news" outlets? Whenever an artist or artists try to release a single to emphasize some kind of political or social opinion they have, it tends to tick me off, because they are essentially appropriating those people's suffering for their own self-promotion. This may not be their intent, they may really want to help somehow, but they already have wads of dough as it is they can donate themselves and they can express their personal opinions somewhere other than on a hit record. It's a ridiculous practice that really doesn't raise awareness worth a shit (notice how deforestation has slowed since the release of "timber"? ha) and basically trivializes whatever injustice or suffering they're trying to bring attention to. It's not the thing to do. I agree that Thomas Dolby is not really any great shakes. It's truly unfortunate that Coldcut, who have given us a wonderful record label as well as several excellent tunes of their own, have become aligned with the same kind of scene Dolby is part of now. The what-can-we-do-next-to-stay-avant-garde shoegazing poopoo multimedia production crowd has yet to make anything even vaguely interesting to me, and they spend way too much time expounding on the virtue of their own latest projects to really advance the art. Coldcut, and Dolby as well, should go back to making serious music, IMO, and stop fooling around with Internet Multimedia Virtual Video Shared Experience zippy gizmos. The bedroom Cubase-twiddler Reynolds speaks of has this problem, too. You can amass a personal discography of 250 so-called "ground-breaking" single-sided 7" EPs and mini-CDR releases packaged in used toilet paper, but damned if that's anything but self-indulgent. Art, especially art as abstractly expressive as instumental music, should be something everybody is allowed to enjoy, not just the 500 people who manage to track down a copy of your melodic/noisy noodlings. The lo-fi nerd movement, and IDM to a certain extent, both suffer from severely elitist tendencies. Witness the fleeing nerd herd as they try to escape groovy b-lines and any rhythm that's funky enough to do anything more than (maybe) nod your head to... The thing is, making music only for the enjoyment of yourself and hip friends is fine, but don't act like you're hot shit for doing it, because just about everybody does. And true "ground-breaking" hasn't happened for a while. Cristian Vogel's latest, at least, makes a return to the throbbing beats we used to love so much. I'm glad I can still appreciate it. And that Komeda single remixed by the Dot posse is great, too. Tom