My friend Gavin noted to me yesterday that he couldn't easily pin down the kind of music that I enjoy. Of course, I responded with the inevitable, "I like any music that's good music." But I would like to refine that idea a bit within the ghostly space of the online realm.
I tend to despise genres. I think that they are necessary, but still evil, in that people decide to define their own personality and taste with respect to these artificial formal definitions of style. It's useful to label something as "Jazz," "Blues," or "Kraut Rock." But when someone decides definitively that "I only like House Music," or "Nu Metal is the only good music," they are slinking up into a really tall tree without many low branches; it's hard to climb down and open up to new experiences.
To be dichotomous about things, I will offer up an adage:
There are two kinds of artists: Those who define a style, and those
who mimic one.
The perpetuation of creative ideas within the iron walls of genre tends to result in artistic incest, and we all know that inbreeding, while wonderful for exaggerating form, results in serious defects otherwise. Like with natural selection, exogamous pairings will create more robust progeny. Bringing in from the outside is the healthiest thing that can be done with a genre.
I read a nice article about Kieran Hebden, also known as Four Tet. I offer a snippet to support my own thoughts.
The current climate of pop music doesn't sit well with Hebden. For the past two years, one band after another has got huge by rehashing the classic rock sounds of the 1960s and 70s, and the tide doesn't look as though it's going to turn for some time yet. The Australian retro-rock band Jet, in particular, inspire Hebden's wrath.
"I'd rather listen to 15 Emma Bunton albums than a single song by Jet, who I think are the most offensive band in the world right now. They are militantly retro, combined with this ugly arrogance. Jet say that they want to be like the Rolling Stones, who are, they claim, the only good band in the world. But when the Stones made their great albums, that wasn't their attitude at all - their ears were open to so much."
Hebden recounts a Miles Davis story to reflect the difference between the originators and bands that idolise them. "He was at a concert, a few years after doing Kind of Blue, and there was a straight jazz band doing Kind of Blue-era music. They know that he's in the crowd, and they go up to him afterwards and ask him what he thought. He said, 'Didn't we do it right the first time?' Maybe the ultimate respect to show the music you love is never to try to emulate it."
5 comments:
Hi Kyle, I've followed your link here from the pd-list.
Interesting ideas... it becomes a bit confusing when you think of the avant-garde, whose continual thrust is usually to "make it new," but sometimes at the expense of craftsmanship (shrug - it happens). Do they then leave room for others to come and make better sense of the mess? For example, Yasunao Tone's cd skipping pieces are usually just painful to listen to, but when others came along and reached different conclusions with similar methods and aesthetics, the process was furthered in the end. To what extent to artists leave things untouched for others to come pick up?
I've been thinking about being original as I've been working on tracks the last couple of days.
I just finished DJ Spooky's book "Rhythm Science" where he addresses some of these issues. He's coming at it from DJ culture, the sound culture of sampling and recontextualizing as a way of reinventing the past, creating the present, and summoning the future. I liked this idea a lot because it sort of fits with the free software idea that innovation builds on previous work in an open environment.
I probably couldn't make the track I'm making now without ever having heard the sounds of Oval, for example. Experiences collide and combine but that gives me just a hint of something new I hadn't quite heard before. So I guess being derivitive in this sense is probably healthy for a culture, as you point out from the get-go.
I agree completely with the analysis of bands like Jet, that stupid throwback attitude that excludes innovation for formulated "perfection".
Nice blog, I think I remember reading it before. Happy soundmaking in the new year!
This is true. I don't mean to say that reference is unimportant. I'm a pretty firm ecclesiastical believer that "There is nothing new under the sun." However, there are new ways of addressing the same old things.
I guess to me the most interesting (and Postmodern, ugh!) approach is to be sure to make references to more than one specific genre, unless you are trying to refine it to the point of parody or satire.
To be an "anti-derivative" artist, you have to "integrate" a multitude of influences.
Of course, this is all a matter of personal taste, which makes arguing endless and fun, so long as people don't get personal about it.
Thanks for your comment!
hi kyle, i also came here following the pd-list..
first i read your ideas and nodded. then i read km's comment. and
nodded. it is impossible to define, what is creativity, what is an artist. this is what makes this so wonderful. i also think its wonderful to try and define it for yourself. this definition can only be like water. its flowing, sometimes it stays for a while, it can rot and stink and die if there is not any movement etc. of course this metaphor is unsatisfactory, but didnt i say it is impossible to
define creativity in the first place.. thanks for sharing your thoughts. did i say they are wonderful ?
alexandre
Wonderful post Kyle. It is unquestionably hard for me, in writing especially, to not fall into a derivative sing-song approach, but as you say, the importance lies in synthesis. Here's a throwback (pretty trite) science metaphor - energy in a system is conserved. It's the movement of that energy into new, smaller or larger frameworks that give the illusion of creation. Likewise for music or writing, the reliance on influence is unquestionable; But the work should be traduced if what is created relies only on influence. Personal interpretation is what makes art immortal in some sense. Consider another metaphor. Ol' Speare didn't write Othello, but his interpretation through language, dramatic form, what have you makes his work famous. Eliot didn't create alienation, death, etc. with the wasteland; he only found it in filthy amounts in himself and the world entire. On and on. I love that Davis quote by the way.
: )
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