This year's Pop Conference at the Experience Music Project (EMP) explored the relationship between music and technology. Beginning April 15th, the conference consisted of a series of panel discussions and readings of academic papers. The participants ranged from journalists to academics, with EMP curators, and self-styled critics filling out the weekend's program. This was my first year attending, and I highly enjoyed the arguments and discussions. I would like to share just some of the highlights with you:
1. The player piano may be the first digital technology used in music. It's fascinating history is interwoven with the history of textile manufacturing, the piano rolls having a common ancestor in the punch cards of Jacquard's looms. For more on this, check out the work of David Suisman.
2. Post-punk musicians in the early 1980s Great Britain used reverb to emphasize their themes of isolation and "deep personal alienation." Bands like the Cure and Wire are great examples, as explained by Theo Cateforis in his presentation "Dark Spaces and Empty Places'': Ambient Reverb and the Meanings of British Post-Punk." The Cure's All Cats are Grey uses reverb to create the sensation of listening in a large cave. The sense of distance created by the reverb emphasizes the lyrics:
In the caves
All cats are grey
In the caves
The textures coat my skin
In the death cell
A single note
Rings on and on and on
Cateforis made sure to point out that these bands may not have always been aware of what they were doing, but his work definitely helped deepen my appreciation of the two bands above.
3. Bands like Vampire Weekend and Dirty Projectors are often accused of appropriating African styles of guitar and percussion for their own personal gain. While that never really rang true for me, Banning Eyre, contributor to the radio program Afropop Worldwide, argues that we need to reevaluate these bands with a different perspective. Eyre pointed out that the kids in Vampire weekend grew up listening to African artists like Fela Kuti and Ali Farka Toure in their own homes, making different African musical styles personal in a way it never was for previous generations of Americans. Besides this, it's pretty clear that Vampire Weekend and similar bands are melding multiple styles to create their own unique sound.
4. The phrase “no homo” commonly used in hip hop is meant to assert black masculinity within the context of lyrical and physical expressions that typically signify femininity. In other words, whenever rappers are acting queer or saying queer-related things, they need to make sure they tell us that they are not in fact queer. What is most saddening is that every day I see twelve and thirteen year old kids who learn how to be men from rap videos. The other day I had a student ask me “why you on my dick?” when I told him he needed to get off the computer because he was only using it to look at women dancing at clubs.The abstract for Leah Pogwizd's paper on this topic is here.
5. Music critics should not be moderators.
6. Journalists who write about music are much more interesting than academics.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Adult Contemporary, Part One
What makes a song “adult contemporary?” Is it the cinematic and over-emotional quality, the earnestness? Must there be smooth keyboard sounds? My first instinct is to say that it means a song is so polished all the beauty has been rubbed away, and all that is left is a smooth reflective surface, like a face under plastic surgery. An adult contemporary song might be sung by Celine Dion, Barbara Streisand, or Barry Manilow. Adult contemporary can even cross over into poorly named “world” genre, as exemplified in the collaborative effort by Anoushka Shankar and Karsh Kale, Breathing Under Water. Something happens to Shankar’s sitar on this album that can only be called a travesty. Having just finished listening to her solo album Anourag as part of the alphabet experiment (see previous posts), I knew that Shankar could shred on the sitar. Equally adept at blistering speed and meditative restraint, there is no question she is her father’s daughter. So how does one explain the song “Sea Dreamer” on which Sting croons over easy listening synths, Shankar’s sitar adding “world music” color? There are some songs, some albums, that while their contemporary sounds may induce vomit, something shines through, maybe a voice, or one might hope, a sitar. On “Sea Dreamer” there is no baby to save in the putrid sea bath of this song.
Norah Jones is someone who, for me, blurs the boundary between adult contemporary and good music. I know many would say that she belongs firmly to the former camp, and that the above claim is nothing more than my justification for liking an adult contemporary artist. But Jones comes from jazz. Her debut album Come Away With Me was released by the well-known jazz label Blue Note. Her backing lineup is filled with jazz players like Adam Rogers, Bill Frisell and Brian Blade. Her work to date may be easy on the ears, but that doesn’t automatically make it easy listening or adult contemporary in my mind. That said, her one track on Breathing Under Water is not strong enough to keep me from wanting to throw this album in the trash.
This is going to take me a while to really think through, so I plan on coming back to this one. We’ll call this part one. I’m looking forward to any thoughts on this one. What do you think when you hear the words “adult contemporary?” Does it induce vomiting? Is it all you listen too?
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Vinyl vs cd/mp3
Recent tests include Black Sabbath's Paranoid, and Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, the latter playing this moment. As I switch back and forth between the two formats, I notice a significant difference in the balance of instruments. On vinyl, the upright bass sounds real, and clear. On mp3 played from iTunes it sounds like it could be an electric bass, but it's hard to tell as it's further back in the mix. The mids are pushed way forward on the mp3, which results in a somewhat fuller sound in total, but ultimately this is an undesirable difference. The vinyl version sounds closer to real instruments playing live, whereas the mp3 sounds like a poorly produced recording in comparison.
I write this not because there is a dearth of information on this topic on the internet (google this for yourself and be overwhelmed), but because I intend this blog to be a sort of musical diary, recording my personal experiences listening to, thinking about, and occasionally making music.
PS, in case anyone was wondering, I am NOT breaking the rules of the alphabet experiment. Susie isn't here as I listen to the above mentioned albums.
I write this not because there is a dearth of information on this topic on the internet (google this for yourself and be overwhelmed), but because I intend this blog to be a sort of musical diary, recording my personal experiences listening to, thinking about, and occasionally making music.
PS, in case anyone was wondering, I am NOT breaking the rules of the alphabet experiment. Susie isn't here as I listen to the above mentioned albums.
Monday, April 5, 2010
High Fidelity
New Speakers
Almost a month ago I was at a friend's house for brunch. It was a birthday party event, and we brought with us Joanna Newsom's new album Have One On Me as a gift. After savoring an amazing strawberry shortcake dessert, we put the new album on and I was struck by the quality of the bass notes played on the harp. I had already listened to the same album on my stereo at home, as well as Newsom's two previous albums, so I had a pretty good sense of what the harp sounded like on my system. The sound produced by my friend's system sounded so much closer to a real instrument than my own, that I was pretty much ruined by it. I needed to upgrade my stereo, and quick.
As any savvy 21st century shopper does, I posted a quick note on Facebook: "Time to buy new speakers. Currently considering the Bose acoustimass 3 based on the amazing harp bass I heard on friend's system when playing the new Joanna Newsom. Any other rec's for speakers in the $200 range?" Pretty quickly I had two audiophile friends respond dismissing Bose as "an illusion" and recommending slightly pricier but far superior monitor speakers. I went to two shops to test out some of the recommended models. The first was Definitive Audio on Roosevelt (Seattle). The guy who helped me was extremely helpful, if a bit technical. I learned all about speaker components and speaker companies from him. For instance, Paradigm is a Canadian company that gets R&D funding from the government. This allows them to spend more money on making awesome equipment, whereas Bose spends a much larger portion on marketing. Of the speakers I listened to here (B&W, Paradigm) neither impressed me. They were clearly better than what I already had, but each had something a little off in terms of balance of highs and lows.
The second place I went was Resolution Audio in Ballard. This place has excellent reviews, so I was very excited to check it out, but I also feared everything would be well out of my price range. I don't intend for this to be a review of the shop, so I'll keep this short. I fell in love with a pair of Usher speakers and bought them using a 1/2 price gift certificate from Strangermart, the new discount section of one of Seattle's weekly magazines. I've been listening to several albums a day on these new speakers and it's changed what I hear dramatically.
What I Hear
The idea behind high fidelity is to come as close to possible to producing all the information from the source, whether it is a cd, mp3, or lp. Instruments should sound like real instruments, and the balance should be what was intended by the artist and producers when it was mixed and mastered. The new speakers I have do this much better than the cheap Sony speakers I picked up over a decade ago on clearance at Circuit City. As I've listened to several different albums spanning a wide variety of genres, I've realized that some music is almost not worth listening to at all unless you have a decent stereo.
Just minutes ago I was listening to the new opera by The Knife called Tomorrow, In a Year. This 90 minute piece about the life and ideas of Charles Darwin seems to come from an entirely different planet than it's predecessor, the highly regarded electronic pop album Silent Shout. On Pitchfork, Jayson Greene called this "deeply un-portable music: It either demands your complete attention or invites you to shut it off." Greene goes on to confirm what I had been thinking as I listened to this album on the new speakers: "Taking in the album in different settings gave me a little of both reactions. (At home, in front of massive speakers, following along with the lyrics: absorbing. On an iPod during a morning commute: maddening.)" This leaves me wondering, how much music is unappreciated, or misjudged because it was listened to on an inferior system. Do reviewers typically have a good stereo on which they listen to the music they critique? Does this even matter for certain kinds of music? I have also heard anectdotaly that many people when played music on both a very good stereo and a mediocre one, will claim the latter sounds best. People are not used to listening to music on high quality components, so when they do it sounds weird. (I don't know where I heard this, so if anyone has a link for this, please put it in the comments section. Cheers.) I don't know how true this really is, but my wife and I are thoroughly enjoying what we are hearing these past few weeks.
Almost a month ago I was at a friend's house for brunch. It was a birthday party event, and we brought with us Joanna Newsom's new album Have One On Me as a gift. After savoring an amazing strawberry shortcake dessert, we put the new album on and I was struck by the quality of the bass notes played on the harp. I had already listened to the same album on my stereo at home, as well as Newsom's two previous albums, so I had a pretty good sense of what the harp sounded like on my system. The sound produced by my friend's system sounded so much closer to a real instrument than my own, that I was pretty much ruined by it. I needed to upgrade my stereo, and quick.
As any savvy 21st century shopper does, I posted a quick note on Facebook: "Time to buy new speakers. Currently considering the Bose acoustimass 3 based on the amazing harp bass I heard on friend's system when playing the new Joanna Newsom. Any other rec's for speakers in the $200 range?" Pretty quickly I had two audiophile friends respond dismissing Bose as "an illusion" and recommending slightly pricier but far superior monitor speakers. I went to two shops to test out some of the recommended models. The first was Definitive Audio on Roosevelt (Seattle). The guy who helped me was extremely helpful, if a bit technical. I learned all about speaker components and speaker companies from him. For instance, Paradigm is a Canadian company that gets R&D funding from the government. This allows them to spend more money on making awesome equipment, whereas Bose spends a much larger portion on marketing. Of the speakers I listened to here (B&W, Paradigm) neither impressed me. They were clearly better than what I already had, but each had something a little off in terms of balance of highs and lows.
The second place I went was Resolution Audio in Ballard. This place has excellent reviews, so I was very excited to check it out, but I also feared everything would be well out of my price range. I don't intend for this to be a review of the shop, so I'll keep this short. I fell in love with a pair of Usher speakers and bought them using a 1/2 price gift certificate from Strangermart, the new discount section of one of Seattle's weekly magazines. I've been listening to several albums a day on these new speakers and it's changed what I hear dramatically.
What I Hear
The idea behind high fidelity is to come as close to possible to producing all the information from the source, whether it is a cd, mp3, or lp. Instruments should sound like real instruments, and the balance should be what was intended by the artist and producers when it was mixed and mastered. The new speakers I have do this much better than the cheap Sony speakers I picked up over a decade ago on clearance at Circuit City. As I've listened to several different albums spanning a wide variety of genres, I've realized that some music is almost not worth listening to at all unless you have a decent stereo.
Just minutes ago I was listening to the new opera by The Knife called Tomorrow, In a Year. This 90 minute piece about the life and ideas of Charles Darwin seems to come from an entirely different planet than it's predecessor, the highly regarded electronic pop album Silent Shout. On Pitchfork, Jayson Greene called this "deeply un-portable music: It either demands your complete attention or invites you to shut it off." Greene goes on to confirm what I had been thinking as I listened to this album on the new speakers: "Taking in the album in different settings gave me a little of both reactions. (At home, in front of massive speakers, following along with the lyrics: absorbing. On an iPod during a morning commute: maddening.)" This leaves me wondering, how much music is unappreciated, or misjudged because it was listened to on an inferior system. Do reviewers typically have a good stereo on which they listen to the music they critique? Does this even matter for certain kinds of music? I have also heard anectdotaly that many people when played music on both a very good stereo and a mediocre one, will claim the latter sounds best. People are not used to listening to music on high quality components, so when they do it sounds weird. (I don't know where I heard this, so if anyone has a link for this, please put it in the comments section. Cheers.) I don't know how true this really is, but my wife and I are thoroughly enjoying what we are hearing these past few weeks.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
The alphabetical odyssey
About two months ago, my wife Susie suggested we listen to our entire music collection in alphabetical order. I warned her that this could take years, and involve some excruciating moments. She was undeterred, and I was curious as to how far we might make it. I was also excited for her to hear a lot of the music that I had collected and knew she had yet to hear.
A bit about us: we are both voracious music collectors and listeners. Our collection spans all genres, from stoner doom metal to vocal jazz, old-time bluegrass to korean hip hop. We constantly discuss and argue about music, so much so that we joke about how if we were ever to divorce it would be for "irreconcilable music differences." In addition, we go to live shows regularly and Susie has begun to write reviews of these shows for LPM Voice Magazine.
We decided that iTunes would be our method of organizing this monumental endeavor. Putting aside our vinyl and cassettes, our entire collection is contained on an external hard drive that contains the iTunes Music Folder. If we were to listen to all of this music straight through, it would take us 257.5 days. At our current rate of 1-2 albums per day, well...I'm feeling to lazy to do the math, but it's certainly several years we're facing.
At this point you might be thinking "who would do this to themselves? This is tyranny we're talking about. No longer being able to choose what you want to listen to at any given moment. Insanity!" Well that is certainly what I was thinking as we began seriously discussing the possibility of beginning this undertaking. Even considering the fact that we own all this music and thus should like it, I was unwilling to give up all of my volition in choosing music, so we came up with some ground rules.
The Rules
The alphabet experiment would only take place at home, and only with both of us present. This leaves us time in the car, and time alone, to take a break from the experiment and choose what we want to hear. We would use iTunes, which means that artists names are by first name. And we listen to EVERYTHING. Every song, album, poem, intro, single, and even every version of duplicates.
We must both be actively listening. If one of us decides to take a shower, or go into the bedroom, then the music stops, to be picked up where it was left off when we are both back in the living room.
If we have friends over, we still listen in order. This means that if we are in the middle of Sonic Youth's SYR releases of noise then that is what we listen to, or else we have no music at all.
Now as I write this we are several albums into the experiment. We began with the numbered albums (13th Floor Elevators, 764-Hero), and continued into the 'A's. We are currently about to conclude 24 hours of Ani Difranco, ending with her 2006 album reprieve, after which my metal-head wife will rejoice. Much more to follow on this psychotic peregrination.
A bit about us: we are both voracious music collectors and listeners. Our collection spans all genres, from stoner doom metal to vocal jazz, old-time bluegrass to korean hip hop. We constantly discuss and argue about music, so much so that we joke about how if we were ever to divorce it would be for "irreconcilable music differences." In addition, we go to live shows regularly and Susie has begun to write reviews of these shows for LPM Voice Magazine.
We decided that iTunes would be our method of organizing this monumental endeavor. Putting aside our vinyl and cassettes, our entire collection is contained on an external hard drive that contains the iTunes Music Folder. If we were to listen to all of this music straight through, it would take us 257.5 days. At our current rate of 1-2 albums per day, well...I'm feeling to lazy to do the math, but it's certainly several years we're facing.
At this point you might be thinking "who would do this to themselves? This is tyranny we're talking about. No longer being able to choose what you want to listen to at any given moment. Insanity!" Well that is certainly what I was thinking as we began seriously discussing the possibility of beginning this undertaking. Even considering the fact that we own all this music and thus should like it, I was unwilling to give up all of my volition in choosing music, so we came up with some ground rules.
The Rules
The alphabet experiment would only take place at home, and only with both of us present. This leaves us time in the car, and time alone, to take a break from the experiment and choose what we want to hear. We would use iTunes, which means that artists names are by first name. And we listen to EVERYTHING. Every song, album, poem, intro, single, and even every version of duplicates.
We must both be actively listening. If one of us decides to take a shower, or go into the bedroom, then the music stops, to be picked up where it was left off when we are both back in the living room.
If we have friends over, we still listen in order. This means that if we are in the middle of Sonic Youth's SYR releases of noise then that is what we listen to, or else we have no music at all.
Now as I write this we are several albums into the experiment. We began with the numbered albums (13th Floor Elevators, 764-Hero), and continued into the 'A's. We are currently about to conclude 24 hours of Ani Difranco, ending with her 2006 album reprieve, after which my metal-head wife will rejoice. Much more to follow on this psychotic peregrination.
What is this blog about?
Greetings friends and music lovers,
This blog will feature weekly postings on my personal musical musings. Music is a daily part of my life, and I would like to share some of my thoughts and experiences with the world. Welcome!
This blog will feature weekly postings on my personal musical musings. Music is a daily part of my life, and I would like to share some of my thoughts and experiences with the world. Welcome!
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