From Erkki Rautio Sent Mon, Aug 3rd 1998, 14:56
From Erkki Rautio Sent Mon, Aug 3rd 1998, 14:56
> One thing that really pisses me off is musical anti-intellectualism, or > the idea that serious music can't be fun, and fun music can't be > serious, and that one DARE not take fun music seriously. The result, as > anyone can see from looking at the history of Western music since WWII, > is that fun music becomes stupider, while music that seeks to raise > questions and make you think becomes more and more impenetrable. Not a > good situation, and it's a situation *we* as knowledgeable listeners can > change by the ways *we* talk about music. Have you read Kodwo Eshun's "More Brilliant Than The Sun - Adventures In Sonic Fiction" (Quartet Books, London, ISBN 0 7043 8025 0)? It's one attempt to have some serious criticism on electronic dance music, and also might shed some light on the problems you may get into when trying dissect it intellectually and using postmodern terminology (as in Eshun's case)... For me the problem is that Mr. Eshun seems to be so deep in his own complex narrative, but you can't decide if it's all just clever jargon (he likes to coin new words such as "futurhytmachine" and this goes on and on) -- all flash, but in fact full of hot air? Or is it that it's *the only possible way* to write about this music, the way musicians have with their samples and DJs in mixing two records together, to juxtapose unprobable elements and make something new out of it? So either Eshun might be a genius of techno music criticism or it's just a question of Emperor's new clothes... I'm yet to finish the book and I'm still pondering with these questions. Opinions? pHinn * the webmaster of pHinnWeb - the old skool, the nu skool * * and the pHuture skool of Finnish electronic music * * xxxxxx@xxx.xx | http://www.sci.fi/~phinnweb * electric pleasures 150898 -> http://come.to/electric_pleasures