techno 1990

Bleep / Cold Futurism / Quaint Sci-fi

Veda

(People have already compiled tons of this stuff, I probably don't need to go on.)

Lush / Utopian / Dreamy

 Live the Dream

 

Only a Dream

 

The Attic

 Dreamworld

 Industrial / Mechanized Rock Riffs / Proto-Hardcore(???)

 

1200 AD

 Powerhouse

Bring That Beat Back

Revolution

In my ongoing attempt to get a better sense of electronic music history, I've moved on from Chicago / Detroit stuff from the late 80s to UK / European house and techno from the 90s--sort of following the trajectory of Energy Flash. So far I'm only at 1991, but I wanted to note a few of the aesthetic directions I heard in the tracks from 1990 (without writing another longwinded essay-type post). Obviously there's a lot of overlap between these; they're more like currents running through the music than discrete genres.

Edit: entry title reminded me of this video lol

no one creates music to make the world a worse place

This is an idea that's so foundational for my musical outlook that I'm not even sure how to clearly articulate it. But basically, it seems fair to me to say music (and maybe art in general) is created to be enjoyed / appreciated. As such, our goal in listening to it should be figure out how to do so. When we can't, we're missing out and should want to fix that rather than gloat about our superior taste. 

Maybe that assumption about why music is created isn't--or wasn't--always true. But even if you want to say that it can serve other functional roles (e.g. ringtones, tearing down bourgeois assumptions about what music is, keeping teens from loitering outside a 7-eleven), you can surely admit that "music is created to be enjoyed" holds true for most of what we consider "music" in our current society (maaan). If you are interested in music for those other roles it can have, you're certainly reading the wrong blog.

The boring Anthony Fantano-type response, though, is that Music Is Subjective™ and everyone has their own tastes, so you shouldn't force yourself to like things when in fact everyone is going to like some music and dislike some music. And that's obviously all true. But missing out is still missing out, regardless of how inevitable it is. So while you shouldn't worry too much about not "getting" a particular artist or whatever, I just don't see why you wouldn't want to be able to appreciate more things. Why take pride in not appreciating something when it exists solely to be appreciated? (Not that it can't be fun or even beneficial to try and articulate why you don't like certain music, but that's another post.)

Another truism-based response: Everything Is Political™ and so we shouldn't recklessly praise and support music without thinking about its impact in the external world. But I'd note that "enjoy / appreciate" doesn't necessarily mean "praise and support" (and I think it would need to for this objection to work). Also, granted, that is certainly a necessary consideration for everyone, but it's not the focus of this blog. (I mostly leave the more nuanced thinking on this dynamic to the geniuses over at Pitchfork.com.)

One more less fashionable objection might be that in order to determine what is aesthetically good / worthy of appreciation, one must also be able to determine what is bad--meaning some music must not be worthy of appreciation. And while I could just fall back on the old "nothing's objectively aesthetically good, it's just subjective opinion" line, a slightly more satisfying response might be say that there are practically an infinite number of reasons you might think a work of music is good--so even if that does suggest that other works are not as good in a particular respect--it doesn't mean you couldn't find other reasons to appreciate them. That said, I also don't see why my approach should prevent you from deciding that you like one work more than other (although it admittedly makes that harder).

I feel like I still haven't made it totally clear why I think this is so important, but oh well. This is a blog post, not a treatise. Just try to lighten up and enjoy things once in a while, I guess!


Edit: I guess one more important clarification is that I'm not saying you should actively seek to enjoy as wide a variety of music as possible if you aren't interested in doing so (my own listening habits are pretty narrow at the moment). I just find that this is a helpful way of looking at things when you do run into music that you don't immediately like. 

Listening 1

[This is the first of maybe a series of posts where I note what I've been listening to lately, and try to articulate what I liked (or at least what stood out to me) about it. Not sure if it'll be worthwhile but I'll give it a shot...]

vektroid - ocean color road

-extremely evocative, both on the level of sound design (lush magical water/wave sounds, aquatic tropical pads and leads) and the level of composition/pacing (some songs reminiscent of extended periods of oceanic travel, others of stopping at some mysterious island; each song is distinct and memorable in its own right)
-similar "segahaze" sound to Neo Cali and Starcalc but more fully realized: feels like a journey rather than a collection of songs that are just based on the same aesthetic template
-I know a sort of ironic detachment is often attributed to kindred spirits like Lopatin, Ferraro, Internet Club, etc. especially when they make music that seems to reference escapism--but damn if this doesn't sound like a pretty sincere attempt at making something that feels really escapist: a world you could (and would want to) stay in. not saying that's all there is to it--but that's probably why I like it so much more than anything I've heard by any of those artists

future - future

-I don't exactly know what drew me to this rather than any other mainstream trap albums, but I think it has to do with how it exemplifies the 2010s trap sound while offering some subtle freshness production-wise: it mostly eschews with the usual "epic" choir pads and spooky descending motifs in favor of brighter, more lush ambient and melodic sounds; at the same time, it exemplifies the interesting rhythmic feel of recent trap with its complex, contorting hi hat and kick patterns and use of interchanged kicks with varying degrees of loudness/punchiness. 
-future has a similar loose, singsong approach to a lot of other popular rappers--but he does it best imo. a lot of older rappers (even post-80s) sound stiff / lacking in groove sense by comparison

kanye - tlop

-turns out this actually his best album
-I'm assuming some of the critics who (comparatively speaking) panned it offered reasoning along the lines of platitudes like "it's sprawling and unfocused" and "it doesn't have distinct, unified aesthetic that could 'change the game' like his previous albums".
-personally I think such criticisms miss what makes this album so interesting: critics always love a neatly classifiable "new sound" album--but here he does something better: taking the most successful and distinctive elements of previous works to an extreme
-1. his earlier soul/gospel style and later more abrasive style are put in a blender: choir samples, rnb-style vocals, etc. are featured heavily but processed--clipped, distorted, delayed--in weird ways (almost reminding me of "gesange der junglinge" at times tbh)
-2. more generally though, it takes his approach of building songs around unusual sounds and unexpected changes to an extreme while still being basically a pop album. maybe my favorite example of how unorthodox his approach is right now is in "Wolves": right as the carthartic chorus/hook comes in (e.g. at 1:24), a bunch of other sounds also enter the mix, one of which doesn't even seem to be playing at the same speed as the rest of the song. very chaotic and 'wtf' in a fun way.
-also, I guess I've ignored the thing that always seems most important to critics when reviewing kanye west albums: psychoanalyzing the man himself. I don't have much to say there (c.f. megan garvey's review of ye), other than that lyrically there are, as usual, a lot of "groaners" and a few funny lines here and there. as for his broader public persona, it just amazes me that so many liberal music commentators / enthusiasts seemed to think for awhile that an impossibly rich, egotistical celebrity was genuinely "on their side" and would always be a responsible voice for the causes they (we) think are important.

a guy called gerald - "escape"

-basically exemplifies gerald's inimitable early approach: counterintuitive rhythms that are somehow angular yet smoothly flowing, and composition that holds interest by "drifting" in odd ways--favoring intuitive variation of initial elements over the introduction of completely new ideas. plus the "we've got so much power now" sample has a really cool industrial sound included, and i love how the delay used turns it and other samples into 'clouds' of sound rather than rigid grid patterns. overall very badass-sounding. fuck that guy who uploads old house tracks like this on youtube but always uses footage of a """sexy""" second life(?) avatar dancing it to accompany it though.

alright, its 4:00 AM, time to stop writing...