Now that the list seems to be working again, here's a collage =) of
messages that I tried to send of friday but didn't get thru..
--clip--
> purposeful, i suppose) trash/camp-aspect of the track. and after all, most
> of rap is damn corny and cheesy. though it sounds good mostly, which cannot
Well, dunno about that. Depends of course what you think is
corny and
cheesy. And in which sense. I mean, the usual "big gun, big dick" -style
bad bwoy lyrics might seem kinda corny from Finnish perspective but very
often the rappers are dead serious about their thing. Not nearly always,
of course. Then again, there is a lot of really excellent social
commentary around, too. (Despite whether you like the policies these
guys endorse, one's got to admit that they do make their point clear,
and with style.)
> >Mickey/Aphrodite would have sampled the lyrics off some
> > US R&B track more likely..
> which ain�t corny then?
Not in the same sense, no. Bomfunk lyrics are (despite Raymond's
most
respectable b-boy/graffiti/etc. -history) not very credible, not to
mention intelligent. They really sound like a bunch of wannabes in the
Vanilla Ice street cred category (by the lyrics, their sound is better
tho). I really can't see why people in the US would take them seriously
when they start their campaign there.. It's a different thing over here
(in Europe, that is) - we don't have the same kind of ghetto culture and
"keep it real" attitude, at least to the same extent.
You might despise "MTV" R&B and maybe "MTV hip hop" too, because
it's
not very innovative or interesting, but at the same time I think one has
to admit that it is not (mostly) corny, at least in the (lack of) street
credibility aspect. With numerous exceptions, that is, which I needn't
go into detail with (Puff Daddy and so on). It might be boring but not
corny. (IMO)
--clip--
> >(Shit, I sound like a sociologist. =)
> i'm about to learn what a sociologist sounds like. ;)
Sociologists sound like "you know, the meaning is attracted via
the
discourse of the community, a representation of the collective
experience" etc. (I don't know the terminology very well in English
because I'm not a sociologist, but if you want to impress some wannabe
sociologists in Finnish, just remember to use the words "diskurssi",
"yhteis�llinen" and "representaatio" as often as possible. =)
> right. the more i meant that it seems some people/artists are "afraid"
> of using their ideas, ie. putting out tracks that don't necessarily hit
> a particular genre. which is plain stupid in my opinion.
Well yeah, but then again I think a performer or an artist has a
sort
of responsibility towards their audience too. It shouldn't bind them,
but if you have an established group of fans or whatever, I think you
should try to respect their feelings too. (To reasonable extent, that
is.) Actually, very few creative people do their thing for money, but I
think the public response is an issue to nearly everyone in the biz.
(Not everyone is necessary after a positive reaction, but show me an
artist that doesn't want a reaction from his/her audience! I don't think
such a person exists, despite of what someone might say..)
> curious: where does the term "two step" come from? is there "one step",
> "three step", etc.? (yes, i AM an ingoramus...)
Well, two step (ie. "UK garage" or sometimes even "UK RNB") owes
its
name to the driving beat. It's basically a garage/house beat, but with
heavy syncopation and the weight of the rhythm is on the first two hits
of a bar, like this:
X-X-x-x
(so X means accented beat and x means a "regular" beat)
I have very little knowledge of musical terminology so I might
be using
wrong terms here, but I think the point comes clear when you listen some
good 2 step (say, MJ Cole or Wookie for example).
The other distinctive features are the drum&bass-ish twisted
heavy
bassline and often R&B vocals and/or ragga style toasting.
> up this far, we're about to be quite far away from actual descriptive
> terms. at least "electro" or "breakbeat" etc, in the widest sense, tells
> something to nearly anyone.
Oh well, I think two step is quite as descriptive, when you know
a bit
what to expect. I mean, if I told you that there's this new house sound
called two step, I think (at least if you're into the theoretical side
of music) you would instantly know that "this must be two step" when you
hear it.
> for some reason the term "garage" relates a lot more (imho) to old
> rock'n'roll than soulful house, judging by the descriptive values of the
> term/word. i have no background on rock'n'roll, though (nor house).
The problem is, that genre names pop up either to describe the
music
("electro", "techno", "jazz" ("to jass" means "to fuck", and that was
how the people saw their music back in the days (the previous 00's),
really, really sexy music) etc. etc.) or to describe the place where the
music was played ("disco" (from "discotheque"), "house" (from "The
Warehouse", a club run by Frankie Knuckles, although there's an
alternative story saying the term sprang from "house records" (as in
"house band") made by several Chicago clubs of the music played there),
etc. etc.) or from something very loosely connected to the nature of the
music itself ("dub" (as in "double", a double copy), "hip hop" (from the
clich� rhyme "I say the hip to the hop the hippie to the hop and you
don't stop" chanted my various early MC's) etc. etc.). So the term might
or might not tell something about the music.
--clip--
> from the view of someone who makes music (but who's definitely not a
> musician... another definition ;) i feel great discomfort about all
> pigeonholes. tracks always turn out different compared to each other you
> know. it's the fear of defining oneself. or something.
Yeah, well I hate pigeonholing when it's turned into purism, but
genre
names are useful for conversation. Personally, as I play records on a
gig, I like to be really eclectic and strictly not stick into a given
genre (although, that can be fun too, when it doesn't happen too often).
But when I talk about new rekkids with DJ mates (or something of the
like), I really like that I can put my finger on the thing, say that
this track is "vocal US garage" or that that one is "dancefloor jazz".
It helps to understand what we are talking about. If it doesn't fit into
any box straightforward, one can always say "it's basically Detroit
techno with breakbeats and some Outcaste-style sitar samples" or
something. But if we didn't have genre names, this conversation could be
very painful.. =)
> btw, as if anyone was interested (plugplug), there are some MP3's at
> http://nikoskorpio.net/ -- it'd be interesting in hearing comments, what
> kind of stuff people relate my tracks to. and hey, i don't mean to sound
> like i was consciously trying to avoid being labeled, though.
> + "i never said they were good" ;)
After first impression, I would put them under "illbient",
although I
hate the word (it's a bit like "triphop", which I prefer referring to as
"downtempo" or "headz" or "instrumental hiphop" or something of the
like, which might not be the exact same thing but tells often more
what's this all about). If you don't want to call it ambient, it could
be labelled under IDM (then again, almost everything strange and
electronic can). Some leftfield-ish sound there too ("leftfield" in my
terminology is "downtempo goes intergalactic smoking PCP" -type of music
=), someone might use the word in a different way).
--
"Betwixt decks there can hardlie a man catch his breath by
reason there ariseth such a funke in the night..."
- W. Capps, 1623
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