Anon La Ply
Diamond Member
If hip-hop is the new jazz, is metal the new rock? I don't know..
Course it is! Amp knobs glued to 11, big kit drummers laying down flash, epic guitar solos legs akimbo (presumably to cater for strategically placed gym socks), screaming, long hair, less than diligent shaving, rhythmically challenging and harmonically rudimentary, pride in playing ability (esp speed), loved by teens (esp. boys), rebel outlook ...
On the generational gripe, wasn't ours a generation of apologists? The ones that 'befriended' our offspring for the first time in human history, lol. ( rebels and no cause is a wimpy combo, though... )
Good point - a huge change brought about by the 60s but much less noticed than the sexual revolution. Funny bout dat.
... then tree is the new democracy of self expression now, with all the tech, be it iPhone photos and videos, Garage Band, home studios, social media marketing, crowd funding etc, which has completely changed the parameters of art and our perception of it.
The new drums, guitars and amps. Affordable ways of expressing yourself musically at home without neighbour trouble or spending years learning theory or doing exercises to get up to speed - just mastering interfaces, which is second nature to current generations. It's a skill in itself, as is the usual process of composition.
I read an article recently that said the our ears have now become so accustomed to lo rez mp3s that sound with more bit rate and bandwidth is 'uncomfortable'. ( yes, I can't play my St Pepper LP without my 19 yr old going, nice tunes, but the sound is weird )
That suits me. I never understood the fuss made about recording quality and not enough about the quality of what's being recorded - songwriting, depth, vibe, musicianship, etc.
I can get as much buzz from a cassette recording or MP3 and have always been like that. While I was raised in a wealthy family, Dad didn't like spending (esp on entertainment) so I made do with a cheap old record player and small cassette duck for a long time. I guess it's the emotion, ideas and textures that get me.
Live, I really need a good sound because of the extra volume.
Live, organic music, as we understand it, is in the minuscule minority already. I don't know how many kids these days really go to gigs which don't have incredibly processed sound, triggers, Ableton, sequencers etc. I know your studio and recording chops are solid, Andy, and you would scientifically understand what digital compression does to music, but if you didn't know better, or didn't grow up in the LP age, would you even care.
Its probably just an evolution path that is difficult for our generation to process (no pun intended ). Maybe the huge loss of dynamic range and separation of sound is compensated by innovation in other aspects.
Maybe David Guetta, Skrillex and others are doing something I don't get. Maybe I'm not 18, aye ; )
Very sharp observation! The loss of subtlety has been a process going on since bop. In fact, now that you have me thinking about it, the loss of subtlety may be at the heart of rock and roll and its current state of health.
I mean what is rock n roll if not an attitude that could be summed up as, "Up yours! I'm not following your stupid rules. Your details bore me. If you think this is unsophisticated then how about THIS?!! ... mwu hahaHAHAHAHA!!!".
If each generation strips off another layer of subtle human variation from the music, which seems to be the usual gripe from parents - too loud, too nasty, where's the melody? that's not music, where's the talent? etc ... then the music gets louder, nastier, less melodious and harmonically rich, use of elements intrinsic to music which were previously just effects (this is a big one, rarely discussed), increasing use of automation and effects.
It must be okay because it okay to us when we were growing up, so I'm sure that today's generation feels not miles from how we did ... just that they're listening to crap and unlistenable noise ;-)
Not wild about SHrillex, but Abon Tobin does some cool, eclectic stuff. In earlier albums he was known for some of his cool jazzy things https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvNWkCbCLH0
I'm not sure about that really, there were probably more shuffle-type rhythms in the 80s when the drum machine first properly appeared on the scene. Rocket by Def Leppard is one example of that in a rock track (I think that was a Linn LM-1 on that album). Then when you consider how big hip-hop and RnB were in the early 90s, and related genres like New Jack Swing, and that they used swing patterns most of the time, it's obviously not to do with sequencers. Rhythms have been straightened out across many genres of popular music over the last 20 years or so. Even older dance music with a four-on-the-floor bass drum pattern used to have swung hi-hats quite often.
I'm sure there are exceptions. I was thinking of Underneath the Radar at the time of writing but it's a fine line between creating clarity and writing a 1/2 hour opus
Yes, most of the swung modern music I've heard in recent times has been hip hop which, ironically as you noticed, is the most automated. Could that be the jazz influence?
Most of us don't know one-tenth of all the music that's out there, but It's always going to be true that the music you dislike the most is the music you know the least about. There's an old story about a famous writer who ranted for hours at a party about a film he hated. Somebody thought to ask if the writer had even seen the film. 'Of course I haven't seen the film,' the writer retorted. 'Do you think I would waste my time seeing a film as bad as I have described?'
lol - very true! Though sometimes you have an instinctive repulsion to a song or genre in the same way as you do with people.