(Part 2) Top products from r/LetsTalkMusic

I feel like this argument ^(apologies ^if ^I ^misinterpreted ^it!) is always brought up whenever new technology gets introduced. New technology threatens an old system of music production and while it frees up artistic creativity because of its availability, some people point to the perceived value of loss of musical integrity.

People will say something like "It's just not as good as it was before", that there are too many people diluting what x music should be.


A particular example I'm thinking about is the deejaying aspect of hip-hop in the 1970s; at first, it was just only people who had the resources to purchase turntables and speakers. Who had the double turntable/loudest was king. The rap aspect took the backseat to the dub/deejay aspect. In the early days, it was all about having a good time, getting people to come to your party, and keeping the music playing.

But then when radio discovered what was going on in New York, power dynamics changed. Rapper's Delight by The Sugarhill Gang was recorded and broadcasted in 1979 and the entire hip-hop landscape changed. Hip-hop was no longer viewed as a simple extracurricular activity, but the possibility of a potential profitable career. The live aspect of deejaying yielded to the much more profitable rapping aspect.

And this made some people upset. These rappers were diluting the already "good" deejaying scene. If you were big and didn't adapt to these new changes, you basically lost.

What do I think? I think over-saturation is great! I don't need to depend on filters to find good music; I can be in a small town in Kentucky and still find cool musicians who play in Austin, TX. While I do occasionally use BIRP and some indie youtube channels/tumblr pages, I am able to make value decisions. From my computer. I simply need a library account to access the computer and I have access to a world of music. It is super egalitarian in my mind.

Hipster moment here: I remember when I listened to Zoe Yin's Midnight back when it had a hundred something views. She's incredibly talented imho. I don't know her, probably wouldn't have seen her live even if she was in my town. But because she uploaded her stuff on the internet, I was able to find it in my free time. That's cool!

But I do acknowledge that there are some poorly mastered mixes out there. That's the nature of the beast. With ease of availability comes inexperience.

Another example (not music-related, but very relevant): film photography vs. digital photography. I learned how to take photos with b&w 35 mm film. It was expensive and it demanded a lot of time. Hours and days were put into developing/burning/dodging that I wanted my pictures to count. So, I worked and only took photos that passed a threshold of interest (due to the limitations of materials, expense, and time). Therefore, what I produced had a significant amount of thought and effort into them. And people liked it.

But now we have instagram, mobile phone cameras, and inexpensive point and shoots. More importantly, we have SD cards. Now instead of limited to 24 shots, you can take thousands! And it is reusable!

What does this mean? It means the effort behind the photo is reduced. Just a simple click with minimal thought. A lot of stuff I see on Facebook or Twitter... Well, it isn't that "good". But that doesn't mean it isn't art. And it doesn't mean we get to immediately write it off. We just need to look at it differently with the technical process in mind. Who is taking it? Who is their audience? What is their intention? How did they do it? Just like the internet scene, photography is going through the same debates.

And the best advice I can give is... just go with it! Find stuff. Hate it, love it, be indifferent. As long as you keep questioning the basis of your value system and don't hold on to a traditional viewpoint of what x should be every time/all the time... You'll be good!

^Jesus... ^this ^was ^long, ^thanks ^for ^reading ^if ^you ^made ^it ^this ^far

Citations:

Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation by Jeff Chang

tl;dr: the perception of oversaturation is just a mindset; allow yourself to be open from whatever old nostalgic system of value you hold and you can find some really cool stuff out there

There's plenty of research, data and interviews with current musicians and label owners in these books:

https://www.amazon.com/Freeloading-Insatiable-Content-Starves-Creativity/dp/1935928996
https://www.amazon.com/Free-Ride-Parasites-Destroying-Business/dp/0307739775
https://www.amazon.com/How-Music-Got-Free-Obsession/dp/0143109340

Steely Dan for an example stopped touring in 1974, they broke up in 1980. They were able to sustain themselves and pay studio musicians for 6 years with JUST record sales.

A band like Steely Dan could be viewed as indie imo despite selling millions, they do not have a lot of catchy songs, they never catered to their audience and became less and less catchy as their career progressed.

Bands that are viewed as indie today (St. Vincent, Mac DeMarco, whatever) would have had a lot more money if they had careers in the 70s/80s/90s, they wouldn't have to tour so much. They'd lead more balanced lives and focus on songwriting more and not just endless touring.

In the UK you had a band like 10cc which is similar to Steely Dan, they didn't tour much, just lived in the studio and made records. Not possible anymore.

So, ok, we lost these kind of studio bands. What did we gain exactly? Amateurs being able to upload their bad songs on Soundcloud and get fake likes/comments from bots?

Sure it is cheaper to record today, but since there is little money in music, a musician has to play the role of the songwriter, recording engineer, arranger, mixer, businessman. He can't afford to get help from people who specialize in recording, or writing lyrics, or arranging. People who are amazing at songwriting, lyrics, recording and mixing all at the same time and extremely rare.

Now a guy that just wants to write songs has to waste his time learning how to record cos' there's no music industry to support him anymore. He has to learn about how to connect stuff together, about acoustics, about some electrical stuff related to audio... In the past he could have just focused on his songs, his record label would get him help from audio engineers and producers and pay for the recording of his songs.

I am talking about bands that I personally like the music of, bands that can't exist anymore in today's music climate. How much more indie can you get than that? They were not outliers back when they were in their prime. They often lived from JUST record sales.

I don't know what kind of indie musicians you talk about? Local bands or something? I mean, every artist starts locally and if they have good enough songs and are promoted well, they start making actual money.

I'm saying that even those local bands would have been better off in the past than today, the average payout per gig today is almost the same as it was in the 90s... the money local live musicians earn hasn't even adjusted for inflation. This data is presented in one of these books I think, but there's also data about it on the net.

This is posted as a second reply, because I mean to answer your question directly and to the best of my ability regardless of how you clarify your last line.

The idea that trespassing on intellectual property rights is akin to stealing is not accepted by everyone. I think it's fair to say that you portray opposing perspectives as rationalizations which do not merit extensive debate; not only heterodox positions, but thinly veiled excuses for participating in behavior everyone really knows is bad.

This perspective is not new. I highly recommend reading William Patry's book on the subject; he is without question one of the most well studied and best copyright lawyers in the world today, and he illustrates why a false and manufactured moral viewpoint regarding the subject of intellectual property has been used by minority interests to pass bad law.

(Of course, from your perspective, this consists of protecting the minority's rights, rather than unnecessarily restricting behavior in order to create artificial monopolies which do not favor creation or innovation).

I can understand this, and instead of saying that these are merely rationalizations to appropriate rights you do not deserve so that you may profit from them, I accept them at face value. However, after reading your post and the attitude it takes, I feel that I may be far too charitable.

edit: When I speak of a false and manufactured moral viewpoint, I certainly do not regard all maximalist copyright rhetoric as such, or all its supporters. Instead, I suspect it can be generalized as the main motivation behind the most powerful backers of excessive restriction, while other individuals may well share similar concerns for very different reasons.

From your perspective, it seems obvious that anyone who disagrees with you does so primarily because they want free things - that they should lose the argument by default. While this may or may not be true, I feel that you have not proved it and do not need to use this tactic. You can still illustrate the reasons why major backers of copyright reform have taken their positions (and refute specific arguments you find incorrect) without pidgeonholing your opponents' views.

Try reading this book:

Victor Wooten - The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music

It reflects a lot on what you've written and how to really listen to music. It's narrated in a somewhat spiritual way, but the messages are pretty clear.

Book description:

> From Grammy-winning musical icon and legendary bassist Victor L. Wooten comes The Music Lesson, the story of a struggling young musician who wanted music to be his life, and who wanted his life to be great. Then, from nowhere it seemed, a teacher arrived. Part musical genius, part philosopher, part eccentric wise man, the teacher would guide the young musician on a spiritual journey, and teach him that the gifts we get from music mirror those from life, and every movement, phrase, and chord has its own meaning...All you have to do is find the song inside.

• Life by Keith Richards - I thought this was a pretty interesting take on his own life. Richards certainly didn't gloss over things that happened (and took shots at Mick Jagger!).
  
• Who I Am by Pete Townshend - For the record, I think Townshend is amazing so I'm a bit biased... HOWEVER, I found the book to be a very good read. He's a complex guy and I feel this is the closet I'll ever get to knowing him. (And Roger Daltery is releasing a memoir soon-ish. I'm hoping that'll be a good read as well.)

I have a substantial library of music-related literature and reading about/studying music is my favorite pastime.

Generally I queue up a lengthy session of music intended for passive-listening when I set out to read critical/analytical texts. Any sample from one of the ambient subgenres, or modern classical, or field recordings of study-friendly atmospheres will do.

There is much more to music lit than just texts describing how music sounds. I have a strong affinity for socio-cultural criticism, particularly as it relates to sound art. And there is certainly no shortage of these texts available which explore music and society in various ranges of depth.

But to directly address the scenario you've posed - words about music - I can cite a wonderful example which I am reading at present.

Ethan Hayden is a linguistics expert, composer and performer currently pursuing a Ph.D. in music at the University at Buffalo, US. I had the pleasure of attending one of his performances of his work, "…ce dangereux supplément…" in 2015. The work is a set of phonetic studies for voice, video, and electronics in which Hayden makes a wide range of vocal sounds, none of which are coherent expressions of any known language.

This made Hayden a fitting author to tackle Sigur Ros' ( ) album for an edition of the popular 33 1/3 book series. The parenthetical album is sung entirely in the nonsense Hopelandic language created by the members of Sigur Ros.

So what does one write about an album with no discernible theme or statement? And how would one begin to describe the nonsense sounds of the Hopelandic language? Over the course of 150 pages, Hayden expertly addresses these questions, and presents both a critical analysis of Hopelandic and a philosophical perspective on the recording itself. The book adds a fascinating critical dimension to the album and aims to help listeners approach the recording with a greater sense of understanding.

I hope that this (somewhat extreme) example suffices to justify the task of writing about music. I'll offer a few other exceptional examples of music lit for further exploration:

Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music edited by Christoph Cox

The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross

and for an example of musio-cultural analysis, read

The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds by John Higgs.

There's a really great book edited by Andy Bennett called Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual. Lots of really great info realted to what we're discussing in there. It really pulls away from this idea of music 'subcultures', and zeros in on the importance of individual scenes that are geographically based, and makes up a greater music community that are physically and digitally integrated.

There are feminist cultural critics who suggest that the gendering of rock as male and pop as female is a result of the gendering of space, public is male, domestic is female. This results in the live performance space being one that is a space that favors men, and can become inhospitable to women and lgbtq folks (how many times have I heard some dude yell at a female performer on stage and demand that she show them her tits). Therefore, the creation of music by these groups was not centered on live performance and the studio was the safest space to create music. So this has resulted in rock music generally favoring "authentic" sounds that mimic live performance, while pop sounds "synthetic" and often uses electronic instruments and many effects.

I would argue that Disco, House, Techno, Hip Hop, etc... all were created under similar conditions.

My general understanding and working hypothesis is that rock represents something that was unnecessary to the lgbtq community. There are sociologists who show tends in pop music where in depressed economies tempos shift upwards and keys become major. We could argue that when times are hard people turn to music to give them hope and joy. Disco, in all of it's joy and frivolity, was favored by those who had to navigate oppressive systems that sidelined lgbtq people, ethnic and racial minorities, and women. Perhaps, then, there was a turn towards hopeful and fun music to counter daily struggle. Contrast this with trends in rock music beginning in the 70's that turned toward nihilism and depression as a sign of authenticity.

It should be noted that "rock" is many things and there has ALWAYS been a queerness in rock music. Punk began with a lot of lgbtq folks involved, the glam rock of the 70's definitely had gay trends, the 80's and new wave played with gender, "grunge" and Riot Grrrl definitely had some gayness, and the emo scene of the 2000's was clearly playing with sexuality. So I wouldn't say the lgbtq community dislikes rock.

The anti-disco movement was clearly, if subconsciously, influenced by homophobia and racism, and the need to place the white working class male fan of rock music as the norm and all others as flawed.

One book to look into is Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture

A lot of times the story behind the albums make them better. My personal favorite is Marvin Gaye's 1978 album Here, My Dear. When I first heard this album I thought it was just okay, and just a little too long. Then I read his biography Divided Soul and learned that this album was actually used to pay his ex-wife after their divorce, I had to go listen to it again.


As part of their divorce, the album's profits would go to her. Marvin was just coming off a hit single, Got to Give It Up, his first hit in a few years. So instead of making a disco dance pop record that would most likely be a hit, he makes Here, My Dear. The title just reeks of bitter sarcasm. Mind you, his ex-wife is Berry (the founder of his label, Motown Records) Gordy's sister, who was 17 years older than him. And the album is just chock full of slight jabs and straight uppercuts. After reading the book, knowing their history, and his life up to this point, no album of his is as personal and carries such weight. So going in and listening to the album again, the lyrics resonate much deeper. I also started noticing the production of the album, which Marvin Gaye produced himself, and took notice of all the nuances and subtleties in it. Is That Enough is everything perfect within the album. The personal and biting lyrics, along with the fantastic production where instruments just creep in and out across the whole thing. Not to mention, it's just smooth and syrupy as fuck.


In 1978 the album was critically panned and a commercial flop. Over the years, it's grown to become a classic. And that's due to Marvin's tragic story. In this case, the story+time made people appreciate something that was easily dismissed when originally released. Everybody knows of Marvin Gaye, but not many Here, My Dear and the story behind it. If you're a fan of his, reading Divided Soul is a necessity.

If it were easy, everyone would do it.

I read this book a while ago which offered some pretty interesting insights into the business.

Oh yeah I love music books. Here's a few I've read over the past year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Your_Brain_on_Music

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musicophilia

https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Songs-Modern-Britain-Records/dp/0091933803

The '80s snare drum sound was due to an effect called a "reverb gate". There was a book I read, Perfecting Sound Forever, that spent close to a full chapter discussing why the reverb gate was commonplace in the '80s.

The idea, if I remember, was that reverb gating on the snare drum was a backlash to the '70s recording ideal of dry and close-miked drums and other instruments. The idea was not to record the room, but to record the instrument in as sterile of an environment as possible. That way you supposedly would get the pure essence of the instrument, nothing else. Back in those days, studios would be deadened with all sorts of soundproofing, and the drums would be recorded in a separate room, the drum booth.

So in the '80s, engineers and producers reacted to this not by naturally recording the room (say, like Steve Albini or any of the Albini soundalike producers that littered the 1990s), but by adding the spatial dimension back to the sound artificially. I guess there was still the idea that sound was meant to be recorded "pure" in the studio, and the effects were supposed to be added in later artificially. Maybe, as I've heard many times, it was the cocaine.

Off topic -- I wonder what our generation's equivalent of gated reverb will be -- the effect that everyone had in the day, but sounds dated 30 years forward. Autotune? Quantization? Drum triggering? I guess time will tell.

The book is Rock & Roll: An unruly history by Robert Palmer. It is the only music history book I own that covers 50s rock and I don't know enough about rock history books to know if this is one of the good ones.

i disagree. Coltrane's group was evolving so rapidly that due to the lag time in manufacturing and distributing records its pretty certain many audiences got something very unexpected.

also, electric Miles and late Coltrane are controversial to this day and continue to be dismissed by much of the community.

here is a thread which reinforces my point with respect to jazz at allaboutjazz.com

and here is a whole book about the topic from a classical perspective: Lexicon of Musical Invective

The book Outliers explains instances like this really well.

There's so much out there. I came of age on post-punk and all the bands that that followed, and I'm always discovering another band I missed.

Have you read Simon Reynold's book? It talks about a TON of bands beyond the obvious ones.

Funk: The Music, The People, and the Rhythm of The One by Rickey Vincent

Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae by Michael Veal

Hip Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor