If you had to choose between listening to all new music/music to be made in the future and NO music made in the past or music from the past but NO new/future music what would you choose?

(and i know the whole "well technically ALL recorded music was made in the past" thing you know what i mean, i mean actual release dates etc)

Future, easy. For me, at least.

do I get to listen to music from the future now, or do I have to wait for it?

it's a gamble though! i only thought of this poll because i want to say the future but then the "what would you play to impress someone from 10 years ago" made me realize that things hadn't really changed that much in 10 years...like things seem to be slowing down....

and thing about all the jazz, classical, world music non-rock type shit that i haven't even really properly checked out yet...that could take a lifetime to get through...like is it worth never getting to hear duke ellington (who i've yet to own anything by) just to take a gamble on some rappers and rock bands and shit?

do I get to listen to music from the future now, or do I have to wait for it?

-- bernard snowy, Thursday, August 7, 2008 4:41 PM (55 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

dude it's hard question to phrase correctly, and i guess didn't do the best job. basically like think of it today. starting right this second you would have to delete all your mp3s, throw away all your old CDs, LPs, tapes whatever and start fresh, only listening to stuff that comes out starting today.

(actually that starting fresh does sound good though)

so yeah you have to wait for the future, we all do.

in the future people will make crazy awesome progressive genreless intricate micro-managed non-cliche-yet-endlessly-listenable thrill-ride music

and it will rule

I would go for the past option because that's pretty much the only way I would ever get around to hearing all the old records I want to hear.

altho my "listenable" tolerance levels are probably different to most

OH SHIT "AVENGING ANGELS " by SPACE just came on random shuffle :o

I kinda can't parse this - does time stop at some point? or like, does this mean I would only get to hear things once and then have to listen to the next new thing?

just erase my memory after listening to something and play me something else I don't care when its from I'll probably find something interesting about it

can i still listen to shit that samples old records?

^^^lolz

are there covers of old songs in the future?

i'm voting 'past' because of how important it feels to have music/memory associations from your youth (of which the value may increase as you age), and because i spend half the time thinking "doooooom there's nothing new goin' on" anyway. as long as i could have until 31/12/09 at least...

if there's no music from the past, who do new bands rip off?

x-post

Music journalists will be up shit creek

YOU don't listen to music from the past, but everybody else does, is the rule.

well fuck that why should I be punished

i dont get this question - do the guys making new music still get to listen to old music and reference it and sample it and stuff? or is it like all old music gets wiped out?

past for sure, for what M@att said, to hear all the old great shit I haven't heard yet, esp. jazz. But I'm a guy who spends half his life reading and thinking about shit from 2,500 years ago.

what about reissues and re-released remastered shit

Haha way to be dicks about this relatively simple question guys.

i dont get this question - do the guys making new music still get to listen to old music and reference it and sample it and stuff? or is it like all old music gets wiped out?

-- and what, Thursday, August 7, 2008 4:54 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah ppl that reference and sample old music but that are putting out new songs and records are still fair game. This is just your own listening and owning/downloading of music...you'd have to throw away/delete everything and start fresh with only stuff that's being released new....

It's not some weird time/space continuum thing, everything exists you just can't listen to it....starting, say, today.

what about reissues and re-released remastered shit

-- and what, Thursday, August 7, 2008 4:56 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

reissues and remasters are not eligible, you have to give them up.

I can't imagine anyone over the age of oh let's say 30 (but maybe even 20) would answer future. Too much invested in music that was already made.

you can listen to new cover songs.

there's way more music in the future than in the past, but the first few years might be especially tedious.

waiting for some douchebag to rerecord all that Haggard and Jones...

"there's way more music in the future than in the past"

Yeah, but you are only going to be alive to hear some of it!

I won't live long enough to hear all the good music of the past, either. Regardless of my choice, I'm spending what little time I have left sorting through a mountain of music I'll never hear, hoping to find a few good tunes.

can't answer

i like variety, and there's more variety accessible via past music than at any one point in the present/future.

You still retain the memories of all the songs you heard before you made this deal right? If so, I'd definitely have to go with Future Music. I want to hear EVERYTHING, and it would suck being left out of conversations about music with friends. With old music, at least I've heard it before even if I can't hear it again.

yeah you have memories. it's not some magic thing, you just couldn't listen to or buy/download any music released in the past.

Yeah. I'd definitely have to go with the future then. Music is very much cultural currency for me. It's something I talk about, etc.

your friends talk exclusively about current music?
xpost

Music journalists will be up shit creek

-- Tom D., Thursday, August 7, 2008 12:53 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

THE FUTURE IS NOW

No, but I can still discuss older music since I've heard lots of it. I wouldn't be able to discuss current music anymore, tho, if I didn't choose the future option. XP

where are you guys getting this "more variety in the past" "gambling on rappers and rock bandsin the future" crap???

line splits along classical/pop for me. if classical's included, it's the past easy. elliott carter won't live much longer I'm afraid (represent, Minnesota) and I don't see many more on the horizon in his mold. if pop/rock/rap/etc etc., future for sure, though I would miss a lot of stuff. can I keep the album covers?

Future all the way, easy, no question. I have my memories, but am much more intrigued by the prospect of what's to come than by where I've been. I realize that this rules out a universe of old/current stuff that I haven't yet heard, but I can accept the sacrifice.

FWIW, I'd go the same way in almost any context in which this question was asked, always taking the future over the past. Would you rather live keep your past but be able to experience anything new (living forever in memory), or would you give up your past in order to experience an ongoing future? Future wins.

Would you rather live keep your past...

This is tough. But I'm pretty tempted to go for the past - for one thing it is almost certainly true that there is more music in the past than will be created in my future. And I don't buy Louis' "thingggggs can only get bettttahhhhh" argument. And if I ever get bored of this rock/pop shit then I could still spend the rest of my life getting into classical music.

Would you rather keep your past but be UNable to...

Jeezis.

in theory I want to say the future, but in practice I listen to way more old stuff than new stuff (and "old stuff" does not necessarily = stuff I've heard before, obviously)

I think I would rather give up music altogether than make this kind of choice.

cover songs & sampling

here are you guys getting this "more variety in the past"

if i listen to music from the past only, at any point i can listed to classical from the 19th century, jazz from early 20th C, reggae from mid-late 20th C, and random electronic shit from late 20th-early 21st C. If I can only listen to current music, well...

for one thing it is almost certainly true that there is more music in the past than will be created in my future

actually i ain't really so sure about this at all.

Yet another very good thread; we're doing well lately, guys and gals.

I'm taking this entirely solipsistically, like it's a sentence on me and only me and the rest of the world does as it always has, and I choose... music from the past, I think. I think there are too many things that I love and couldn't stand not being able to experience again.

There are already myriad philosophical problems with that decision buzzing through my brane.

People are still making all kinds of new classical, jazz, reggae, and random electronic shit.

for one thing it is almost certainly true that there is more music in the past than will be created in my future

this is indisputably true - you are not going to live for another 100 years.

ie, let's say you're 20 now, at most you've got 80 years of recorded music to look forward to. But there is already 100+ years of recorded music behind you.

That's ridiculous.

its math

But... there is so much music already made that I don't know yet, that I can't imagine running out of new things to love. And I'm semi-convinced the world will end in some kind of environmental disaster pretty soon anyway.

Louis, the music you're looking for might already exist, and never be made again; it's a chance either way.

There's probably more music on myspace than was recorded in the first 50 years of recorded music.

Current events vs. history. I guess I've always been more interested in where we are/are going than where we've been.

Remember that no matter how you answer this question, you can always hear something unfamiliar and amazing every day. In choosing the future, all you really lose is the amazement of the familar.

Re; the 'in my lifetime' thing - 80 years at today's rate of proliferation will EASILY eclipse 100 years at previous levels of proliferation of music.

I think the question might be more interesting if framed as "what you already know (of?)" vs "what you don't yet know".

The thing is, my instinct says "future" at first, but then I realize I'm making a political choice there - wanting to condemn nostalgia, which is as far as I'm concerned a healthy & valid impulse. In my listening habits, I like to keep up, and the thrill of a new thing in the world remains incomparable - some years there's a few of those, some years less, but it's always a thrill that a newly-discovered-old-thing can't ever quite match. but throw out all that personal-aesthetics stuff and I'm left with the obvious choice of "keep the past." Beethoven? Mahler? Bach? Schubert? Gregorian chant? Mozart? Motown? Philly soul? early-eighties metal? I'll never fully exhaust all the new-to-me stuff that's in those along; you could really stop the list at "Bach" and I'd still have an infinitely rich banquet in front of me. I hope the future holds stuff that will mean as much to me as all the Beethoven I haven't even heard yet. But that's asking rather a lot of the future, so it's gotta be the past.

People are still making all kinds of new classical, jazz, reggae, and random electronic shit.

yes but it all sounds like it was made by people of this time! i mean yeah, why ever watch a Buster Keaton film when some schmutz in Winnipeg is making silent comdedies.

Re; the 'in my lifetime' thing - 80 years at today's rate of proliferation will EASILY eclipse 100 years at previous levels of proliferation of music.

maybe but I'd be surprised if today's rate of proliferation will actually last for 80 years as you hypothesize. but who knows. its debatable.

Like, I could have Stravinsky, cos I know he exists but have never listened, but I couldn't have some obscure local indie band who only self-released one record and I've never heard of them.

it ain't quantity folks

Mr Darn13lle OTM massively.

There's probably more music on myspace than was recorded in the first 50 years of recorded music.

-- Kerm, Thursday, August 7, 2008 5:44 PM (41 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

this is leaving out quality from the equation though. i mean, surf random bands on myspace for like a day and ask yourself how long you wanna keep doing that.

weirdly i think before i was on the internet i would have definitely said the future....but one thing that sites like ILM and stuff have made me so aware of is how much great stuff i've never even heard before. like in the the past i would have never known about weird old psych bands and african funk from the 70s etc etc...

so now i think i'll probably end up voting for the past.

i've often wondered if that's the *real* way in which the internet killed new music sales -- people now are exploring the past to a greater degree than ever before...like i know tons of 23 year old dudes in bands that only listen to like t-rex and eno and shit...they barely buy anything new.

Yeah but what if all future music SUCKS, Louis?

Willing to bank on that not happening, especially if I make any of it. :D

what about reissues and re-released remastered shit

-- and what, Thursday, August 7, 2008 4:56 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

reissues and remasters are not eligible, you have to give them up.

-- M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, August 7, 2008 12:59 PM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

so i can't listen to "funky president" but if somebody releases a 12" where they rap 4 bars on the intro of funky president i can listen to that?

by the way, to my mind anyway, "there's still new people making classical" while true doesn't take into account the stature of a Beethoven, a Bach, a Mozart - their names don't loom large because they're from the dusty past. They loom large because of their actual stature. I like a lot of the modern-classical being written for sure. But anybody who thinks "somebody these composers will stand alongside Beethoven" - on the shelf, maybe. But the age of giants, when the music was still somewhat new (which is why there could be giants then), is past now. That doesn't mean "the world's gone to hell" or people can't write music as well - only that newer forms tend to have periods of explosive growth, and that that period, in the classical world, in a few certain times and places, produced works of such remarkable depth that I wouldn't gamble on seeing more like them.

Your idealism is heartening, but lunatic.

I think I'd have to say "future" even though I'm almost 100% sure that there's more good music in the past than will come out in the rest of my lifetime. But giving up the future is just too depressing a thought for me.

and what raises the question of questions! will there be any sampling in our no-old-music world?

how do you distinguish between sampling & remastered shit? it has to be under a new artists name? what about "unforgettable" type natalie cole duet-from-beyond-the-grave shit? is that new music? can i listen to biggies verses on biggie duets?

That's to Louis, not John.

genius starting this thread when Geir's asleep btw

ethan I think the answer is "no biggie"

xpost to louis

but you're never going to want to listen to your own albums or songs.

so i can't listen to "funky president" but if somebody releases a 12" where they rap 4 bars on the intro of funky president i can listen to that?

yes exactly. sampling old stuff is fine. once it's sampled it's not the old song, it's the new song that sampled the old song.

what happens to movies, if i pick "the past" will all new movie soundtracks get replaced with hair metal or rinkydink ragtime?

j/k

so wait if you choose "past" can you still MAKE music?

(this is hypothetical since I'm still voting "future" regardless of whether I make music, just curious tho)

Can't you rerecord Bach and Beethoven, then?

this is leaving out quality from the equation though. i mean, surf random bands on myspace for like a day and ask yourself how long you wanna keep doing that.

^^^^consider this question closely, avowed futurists

the natalie cole thing i didn't think about. but i would say no because it's a new album.

it wasn't meant to be some twilight zone marvel "what if" type shit. it's just you couldn't listen to any new releases if you took the past. or you couldn't listen to any old releases if you took the future.

you couldn't listen to the radio because even a classic rock station might play a new greg allman or tom petty solo jam.

so wait if you choose "past" can you still MAKE music?

(this is hypothetical since I'm still voting "future" regardless of whether I make music, just curious tho)

-- Just got offed, Thursday, August 7, 2008 5:54 PM (2 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

i guess you could still make music. srsly dudes you are thinking too hard about the time thing.

you can make music but not hear it. so plenty of opportunity to be the new beethoven.

personally i don't know hardly anyone that makes music who listens to their own shit very often if at all.

Can't you rerecord Bach and Beethoven, then?

if so, the future's a cinch and I rescind my vote for the past, although there are so many great recordings of classical music I still haven't heard that I could still go either way

the mere mention of all the great music on Myspace should be enough to scare anybody into voting for the past

xpost M@tt time paradox doubles the fun! at least!

personally i don't know hardly anyone that makes music who listens to their own shit very often if at all.

yeah really

can i listen to beardo disco re-edits of old 70s joints where they just loop up the intro + outro but dont change the middle part

but i don't want to be the new beethoven, i want to use cutting-edge technology and ahead-of-the-curve techniques to create the most ambitious, exciting music around. how do i know what the curve is if i can't hear it? how do i know what people's expectations are if i don't know what else is gettin folks all rapturous?

I was just thinking - its funny to consider this question being posed at earlier points in time to, say, a music fan in 1956 or a kid in 1980. or to classical Roman scholars (who lolz would no doubt say THE PAST, specifically THE GREEKS)

Kerm has to listen to new classical, jazz, reggae, and electronic while I get to listen to the GOOD shit. (if you say, no, you don't want to listen to all those old styles anyway, then we're right back at my point that the past holds more variety.)(this is probably psychoanalyzing w/little basis, but the "present/future is/will be awesome, fuck the past!" strikes me as being an ego-driven sentiment ie *I* am more important than old and dead people)

re: classical re-recordings: you can only listen to music that was composed in either the past, or present/future.

i would choose the future

the "present/future is/will be awesome, fuck the past!" strikes me as being an ego-driven sentiment ie *I* am more important than old and dead people

yeah this was my interpretation (projection?) too

you probably have a better chance of making ambitious, exciting music if you don't pay attention to what else is gettin folks all rapturous

but i don't want to be the new beethoven, i want to use cutting-edge technology and ahead-of-the-curve techniques to create the most ambitious, exciting music around.

you are more interested in the political/philosophical aspect of the question. of course you do want to be the new Beethoven if you understand that to mean "I want to make music that all in my field agree reaches heights to which others can only dream of aspiring." That's what Beethoven represents, not "old music on old instruments."

i kinda skimmed the thread, but did matt specify when future music becomes the past, or could i listen to everything from today on out for forever, and just not anything released prior to today?

however I would still urge others to choose the future as I am very shortly going to drop some totally dope shit and I would hate for anybody to miss it

xp, today.

future people, will yr appetite for and enjoyment of new music continue through your whole life as you get older and older and older...?

probly been a thread on that.

old age = fixed tastes?

of course you do want to be the new Beethoven if you understand that to mean "I want to make music that all in my field agree reaches heights to which others can only dream of aspiring." That's what Beethoven represents, not "old music on old instruments."

this is actually a very good point, and one that was sorta nagging me as I made my post, before I ignorantly swatted it

my favourite album of this decade incorporates quite a large chunk of bach's toccata and fugue, as played on groovy synthesisers, fwiw!

Alba nailed this one on that linked thread:

Only old old people were this way. In the future, we will all be so desperate to not be like the old people of old that the new 'funny old person' trait will be to be constantly reinventing oneself, ad nauseum. People will blame David Bowie.

Past for sure.

you could really stop the list at "Bach" and I'd still have an infinitely rich banquet in front of me. I hope the future holds stuff that will mean as much to me as all the Beethoven I haven't even heard yet. But that's asking rather a lot of the future, so it's gotta be the past.

Yes, this. I really doubt that my lifetime from here on out will see the creation of as many masterpieces as I have at my disposal currently. But I hope that J0hn D. will prove me wrong.

personally i don't know hardly anyone that makes music who listens to their own shit very often if at all.

I listen to myself when I'm really drunk, it's great fun.

If you choose the past does that mean you could not listen to the music you make yourself </stupid question>

which is why I say it's a political question. Louis believes that the values of his youth are worth saving. So he wants to hang onto those. I like those values of eternal hope and enthusiasm, too, but I know that the circumstances that created some of the best music are hard to replicate - all that 10 year/20 year/30 year cycle talk you sometimes hear, that's nonsense. Occasionally, there are upheavals. One is lucky to see one or two in a lifetime. I'm not banking on one that would give me the pleasure I get from Mahler, so it's gotta be the past, even if that goes against some important aesthetic principles for me.

Out of cynicism/pessimism if nothing else I choose the past. Of course I get as excited as anyone else about discovering "New" new music and most of my listening this year has been of "New" new stuff but there are just no guarantees that the quality of the past will continue into the future.

What if I opt for future and then tomorrow some Cormac McCarthy-esque, armageddon-type scenario occurs, everyone dies and I'm stuck with a 3G ipod with two tracks on it and a steelstring that I don't know how to play?

Hmm, that makes no sense. Anyway, I wouldn't ever choose to put myself in a situation where I couldn't listen to Revolver again.

And although i have the utmost confidence in his future shit being way dope, I think I'd be content with the dopeness of J0hn's past shit.

what is time

I think I'm too solipsistic to choose the future.

however I would still urge others to choose the future as I am very shortly going to drop some totally dope shit and I would hate for anybody to miss it

-- J0hn D., Thursday, August 7, 2008 6:03 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

Expand this comment to include every favorite band and you have my problem.

I'm going to fucking blow everbody's mind and vote for the present

that's like voting for nader

i'd actually be ok either way, as long as i could be assured that i don't have to hear or read ABOUT the music i can't actually hear. if i'm told about it and can't hear it, that would be the most sucky part.

I was considering how the answer "the present" would work; couldn't get it. Your conclusion, John?

In the future I would like every music review to be written by me.

music being heard this instant, in a torrent.

I was considering how the answer "the present" would work; couldn't get it. Your conclusion, John?

the present is the future, I think. same thing. I was just making a joke - if you choose "the present," you really mean "that moment which is permanently becoming"

then you listen to some goa

I have recently scrolled through my entire iTunes collection not wanting to listen to anything, remarkably bored with all the stuff I possess (and love). Recently my purchasing/listening-to of new music has completely stagnated. To cut all that's been out of my life would be both a political decision and a means of completely freshening my approach to hearing records for the first time. Emphasis would shift away from the "salvage operation" aspects of unheard experience to a pre-emptive hunt. In reality, I wouldn't of course do that; far too much is invested in or valuable, but given the choice, I'd rather pursue than reach back.

I was thinking "the present" might only include stuff made in my lifetime... Doesn't work.

One could pursue backwards, Louis.

Eusrup.

"the present" would be only being able to hear live music

must. resist. reach-around. joek.

Good answer!

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

In the future I would like every music review to be written by me.

Alas.

I think people should take this thread even more seriously and from today 'til a week from today follow their stated convictions - no new music for some of us and no old music for others

Good idea.

"Forward...into the past!" for me, for sure, for all the same reasons already given. Plus, all things being equal (debatable), I just plain prefer the sound of the older recording methods and vintage instruments and etc.

Anyways, there's basically an eternity of music already in existence, with so much more being created every second, it's impossible to keep tabs on everything. The most out-there stuff of the last 5-10 years will basically sound futuristic to me anyways. And when I'm really old and my memory starts to really fail, I can effectively listen to old favourites afresh.

I'll even add in the caveat, to make it easier, of not listening to anything from 2008 at all.

Re J0hn: Thing is, you would still have the memories and experiences associated with Bach et al et c. You just wouldn't be able to listen to it any more. So in sacrificing the past, yes, you sacrifice some of the most basic functional qualities of music, for instance "good"/known music as a pleasure-providing device. Maybe "experience-providing" is a better way to phrase it. I dunno. This functional quality is probably the most important component of how we (most people) use music. We want to hear certain, familiar sound arrangements and/or kinds of sound arrangements because we attach value to the experience.

To give that up would be a huge loss. Music would no longer "work" for you in this very basic way. It would no longer give you the experiences you already know you like. In fact, you could no longer count on it or trust it for anything. But for me, the joy of music is endlessly renewable. The pleasure I take in anticipating new music is comparable to that of listening to Gould's Goldberg Variations or Funhouse for the 1,000th time. So, the "good"-experience-providing function of music isn't necessarily its most important. I also look to music as a source of unfamiliar ideas & experiences, and I think I prize this even more highly.

Another way to look at this question would be to ask, "Would you rather give up your relationships with everyone you have ever known in order to be able to form new relationships, or would you choose to keep the relationships you already have, even if it meant never again meeting someone you don't already know?" In that case, I'd take the relationships I already have. I love my friends and family too much to ever give them up. But my love of music doesn't work the same way. It isn't reciprocal and complex in the same way. And while the loss of the known would be troubling, it wouldn't be crippling.

What if in giving up the music of the past you also had to give up all memory of music you've already heard? Would that make the choice easier or harder?

I think people should take this thread even more seriously and from today 'til a week from today follow their stated convictions - no new music for some of us and no old music for others

haha so uh... what's coming out next week

I think the sensible way to parse the "present" option is to mean only being able to hear live music. Live music wouldn't have to mean you'd be in the same physical location where the music was being performed -- you could have some means of being able to hear music that was being created live anywhere. But the key would be that you could only hear it as it was being performed, in that instant, and then it would be gone, as all moments are. It would mean acknowledging the way that recording technology tricks us about the nature of time and mortality and experience. The person singing on a recording that was made a year or a month or a day ago is already gone, even though our senses tell us that he's always right there, always unchanging.

I think the sensible thing would be to say the exact same thing you said in 1/10th as many words, like I did ten minutes ago.

I also look to music as a source of unfamiliar ideas & experiences, and I think I prize this even more highly.

are you saying this is only possible with future music? One of things I think about when listening to old music is that then it was the cutting edge, there was nothing newer to compare it to, imagining what it was like to be around when it was the fresh new thing, which gives me at least a wee bit of insight of what it was like to be on Earth (and in mult different places on Earth. Influence of place on a person was much greater in the past than it is now and almost undoubtedly will be in the futre) at that particular point in time. I'd lose that if I only listened to new.

"the present" would be only being able to hear live music

and if the band repeats a chorus, you would be legally obliged to cover your ears.

Re J0hn: Thing is, you would still have the memories and experiences associated with Bach et al et c. You just wouldn't be able to listen to it any more. So in sacrificing the past, yes, you sacrifice some of the most basic functional qualities of music, for instance "good"/known music as a pleasure-providing device. Maybe "experience-providing" is a better way to phrase it. I dunno. This functional quality is probably the most important component of how we (most people) use music. We want to hear certain, familiar sound arrangements and/or kinds of sound arrangements because we attach value to the experience.

well, but this is the thing with classical music, for me at least. what I know of Bach is slight compared to how much great music he wrote. The same is true of Beethoven and Mozart. Knowing what I know of them (and Schubert, and Schumann, and Debussy, and Liszt, etc., etc.), I know there's enough old music to give me the thrill of discovery - something need not be still-getting-born to give me that thrill, and in fact, I think plenty of newer music often seems better than it turns out to have been owing to that new car smell. You know? If I thought I'd already heard all the great music of the past at least once, my answer would probably be different.

(you can make the argument that by listening to new music you get insight into how people currently alive on Earth are living and processing the same global environment/culture that you are and that that is just as or more fascinating as getting insight into the lives of those in the past. But I personally would rather peep in on a day in the life of a person in the past than on anyone in the present.)

or would you give up your past in order to experience an ongoing future? Future wins.

Yeah this is why amnesia victims are always like "Please do not cure me! On into the bold new future!"

I know there's enough old music to give me the thrill of discovery

otm. I chose past real quick. last few years there have probably been more great reissues than great new records

sampling error

no you can still sample old records : )

and i really do like louis's gusto and enthusiasm.

sampling error

well any of the great new records of the past few years that I missed, I can catch up on during my eternity of listening only to past records

i am confused by the assumption that if you choose the future then you can never listen to music composed by bach or mahler again. there will be new recordings of their work in the future! some will be great, imagine never being able to hear whatever awesome piano prodigy comes along in 10 years time

them's the rules lex.

not being able to listen to music already made would be a loss but as people have said, one has one's memories, and i think it'd be a greater loss to cut yourself off from the social and aesthetic possibilities ahead of us

nothing unsocial about old music

just think, if you went for the future you'd never be able to attend blow up. thank christ.

well it's what mordy said upthread:

Yeah. I'd definitely have to go with the future then. Music is very much cultural currency for me. It's something I talk about, etc.

imagine never being able to hear whatever awesome piano prodigy comes along in 10 years time

no big loss, IMO. there's enough piano prodigy music from the past to listen to, and realistically there's not much that can be done on the instrument that hasn't been done already. all that's left to explore is playing like a zillion harmonically-incompatible notes in two seconds, and yeah, no thanks.

I feel like it would be a greater loss, to me, to not hear all the amazing shit from the 1960s / 1970s / etc that I haven't discovered yet

I know that is a "finite" amount of records compared to a more open-ended set of future stuff but there'd be enough to keep me busy

I'd probably get really into jazz for a while

well that's the great thing about choosing the future, you get whatever awesome innovations which you can't even imagine yet, you get to witness popular culture unfolding before you instead of cutting yourself off from it, and there will still be new people making music which sounds exactly like music of the past if you need that

xxpp

last few years there have probably been more great reissues than great new records

also this is blates nonsense

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.

I seriously cannot wait for when Lex is an old man

I reckon stepping out of the 12-semitone harmonic scale (and increasing emphasis upon irregular or at least non-4/4 or 3/4 time signatures) is one of the next big steps for Western popular/alt music. Along with complete textural open-mindedness.

won't u be dead then?

xp

also this is blates nonsense

whatever, I just mean that in the last few years, digging back in the past has gotten me more good finds, better hit/miss ratio, than new stuff

new stuff is a little bit diminishing returns when everything starts to sound like such-and-such other band you've already heard but with a slight new twist

won't u be dead then?

lolz what do you consider "old"

cuz I meant "I cannot wait for when Lex is 40 years old and the teenagers are all creeped out by his hanging around wanting to talk about [insert anonymous pop drone starlet]"

like...35 is old? and you're 60 or something

I reckon stepping out of the 12-semitone harmonic scale (and increasing emphasis upon irregular or at least non-4/4 or 3/4 time signatures) is one of the next big steps for Western popular/alt music.

I do not see this happening, certainly not in a popular context...? IS this happening, do you have examples?

new stuff is a little bit diminishing returns when everything starts to sound like such-and-such other band you've already heard but with a slight new twist

i think you're listening to the wrong new stuff! there is acres of new music which doesn't sound like such-and-such &c

I'm already pretty much ignoring new music...that's what freelance CD reviewers are for, to listen to new stuff so I don't have to. I could spend the rest of my life just listening to rock and electric-jazz records released between 1969 and 1975.

there is acres of new music which doesn't sound like such-and-such &c

an easy conclusion to draw when you never actually bother to find out what "such & such" actually sounded like

shaky ground to assume there'll be "awesome innovations" in the future when ILM can't even think of one song that would impress someone from 1998 that they're from the future. (Now is the 1st time in modern history where this is a difficult task)

^^^yeah that is an interesting thread

there is acres of new music which doesn't sound like such-and-such &c

meaning current dance / electronic / r'n'b I guess? would be a loss but I think the scale still tips back to the past, for me

interesting thread btw, kudos M@TT

Shakey, I don't really mean "popular"...I mean more the sort of level of stuff that passes for experimental indie nowadays, maybe. Or alt-metal, modern progressive, etc. Stuff that occasionally does well in the indie 'zine consciousness, and has a fairly wide fanship, without troubling the major publications all that much.

louis you're aware you sound like a prog rocker from 1975, right?

The reason so much prog failed wasn't its ambition but its limited scope. There's only so much you can do with a vision as narrow and laughably stunted as ELP's. They overstepped their capabilities. Horrendously.

yeah if only they had pro-tools and tuned to gamelan scales and stuff

if your definition of prog is as limited as ELP, but what about magma? van der graaf? amon duul etc etc etc

if not prog, jazz and its freer exponents certainly seem relevant - there were plenty of dudes exploring non 12-semitone scales and non-4/4 and 3/4 rhythms. Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ra, Ayler, etc

x-post

sorry, don't mean to pick on you just got offed, but 9 minute orchestral suite non-rock is not happening now or ever in the marketplace. i know you like it but it's not the wave of the future young man!!

wait I thought Mars Volta was huge

(I have never heard a note of Mars Volta btw)

WHOA Matt I was just giving an example of the stuff I perceive Goole to be hating on, and a reason I don't equate to certain ad hominem aspects of o.g. prog.

Van Der Graaf are godhead, they had an immense and intricate vision. Magma I haven't heard much of, ditto ADII, but I would dearly like to (provided I don't follow through with my thread promise!)

it doesn't have anything to do with ELP being lame and van der graaf being great! there is no reasonable expected future where pop music becomes more 'complex' 'anthemic' 'intricate of vision' or w/e.

Can I make it clear that if you haven't got the vision to successfully fuck around with cool time-signatures or extra-modular notes, you probably shouldn't, or else it'll be gimmicky and shit. I don't like the term "prog" because it implies outreaching one's grasp in attempting to conform to a "complicated" genre. The very best progressive music laughs in the face of genre and does what it has to do to fulfil its own vision.

Again, I'll emphasise that I don't really mean "pop". I mean whatever's standing in for Mogwai, Sigur Ros, Battles etc in the public consciousness.

Not being able to hear music from the past is a beautiful idea. There's such a vast amount of music from the past available to us and in some ways that's to the detriment of the present. People have tried to answer this question by looking at which would make for the best possible archive of music to listen to, &of course the past will win, that way of living with music is inherently backward-looking. Getting old thinking about a rosy somewhere else, getting more and more detached, no live music, no making music, no dreaming just endless arguments about contexts yr removed from&ilx poll threads. There are is a time and place for that but it is not EVERYWHERE AND ALWAYS.

I'm torn on whether I'd like to forget all the music I've ever heard or just never hear it again. I feel like remembering would only be going half way, you'd still be in the shadow of yr memories, feeling the lack, it sounds like a shitty short story. But to have no inkling of what went before, to approach all instruments fresh, to make up interpretations of scores, that would be delicious. It'd put people firmly in the now, you'd become more creative, all the archivists would have to go out to shows and come up with their own music to age with and be nostalgic for. On the other hand the idea of getting together to recreate the Uncle Dave Macon catalogue from memory is v. appealing, it would have a poignancy to it that it wouldn't if someone just did it now.

romanticising the future is even worse than romanticising the past because no one can ever get there

Great thread. It would be future for me because, in a way, the future contains the past. You may not be able to hear the exact recordings but you'd get your slice of the past from influences, etc.

The question I find even more interesting though (someone has already thought of it upthread) is that of memory: whether or not you'd be able to remember the stuff you've heard. I'm not sure but I think I'd be more excited about the future if I wasn't allowed to remember the past.

jesus louis what is your problem with genre?

not hearing music from the past is pretty much the way people have had it for most of history, I think you'd get over it

Well, I don't have such a problem with bands and musicians who are suited to play certain genres and play them well (especially live). I have a problem when a genre becomes gratuitous. I think when a band has an ambitious, expansive vision, the realisation of this vision shouldn't be limited to a certain range of sounds.

not hearing music from the past is pretty much the way people have had it for most of history, I think you'd get over it

this is true, but then remember that in most of history music was about maintaining a local and often very limited musical tradition and not about some bullshit "innovation/pop music must go FORWARD" construction

I mean it wouldn't be far off the mark to say that through most of history the only music people heard WAS music from the past, because musicians were always working within the confines of a particular tradition - innovation was not as important as making minor, novel adjustments

the idea that current bands would always hold parts of the past that you like is sort of appealing to me...like something like black mountain feels fresh to me but obviously would scratch the itch for early 70s wooly mammoth type rock...i hadn't thought of that.

louis, you need to convince the caribou dude to record an weird metal record ; ) i think that's what yr searching for!

Caribou's latest album was superb, but I felt it only spread its wings and truly flew in the last two tracks (which were among last year's best), when he ditched the whole flower-power genre conceit. Illustrates my point rather nicely! I mean the first 7 tracks are ALL very good, superbly put together aural starbursts, but for all their ornate songcraft, they feel limited in a way the last two tracks aren't.

I mean it wouldn't be far off the mark to say that through most of history the only music people heard WAS music from the past, because musicians were always working within the confines of a particular tradition - innovation was not as important as making minor, novel adjustments

that idea of 'past' where you draw upon it as part of yr identity to make music is very different to listening to old records by people who have almost nothing to do with you.

I mean it wouldn't be far off the mark to say that through most of history the only music people heard WAS music from the past, because musicians were always working within the confines of a particular tradition - innovation was not as important as making minor, novel adjustments

i'm not sure that's changed at ALL. i don't think john lennon's or derrick may's or timbaland's or metallica's adjustments/innovations have been any more or less "minor, novel" than, say, those of haydn or a.p. carter or some dude with a bagpipe in 1862 that i've never heard of. minor, novel adjustments are what it's all about!

you may have a point there

see recent thread about whether a listener from the future would be able to distinguish between various 20th century music genres

some dude with a bagpipe

vs. some stupid with a flare gun

But to have no inkling of what went before, to approach all instruments fresh, to make up interpretations of scores, that would be delicious. It'd put people firmly in the now, you'd become more creative, all the archivists would have to go out to shows and come up with their own music to age with and be nostalgic for.

I'd sign off on some sort of induced mass musical amnesia, definitely.
I'm more conflicted about this than my posts my indicate. I would hate to have that little part of me die that hopes for something NEW new to come along and blow my friggin mind, but as others have mentioned, the past few years I've been way more enthralled with reissued stuff and what not than with anything current, and so it seems more and more unlikely as time goes by.

I would choose the past, but it would have been kind of sad having to choose.

there's enough piano prodigy music from the past to listen to, and realistically there's not much that can be done on the instrument that hasn't been done already. all that's left to explore is playing like a zillion harmonically-incompatible notes in two seconds, and yeah, no thanks.

this isn't at all true by the way - musicianship is dynamic & alive, and new ways of expressing one's relationship to a piece of music will never be exhausted as long as people are playing music. it's not just about pyrotechnics; it's about musical expression, and that changes as a musician's work interacts with history, craft, etc. there will never be an end to what's to be done on the piano (or guitar, or synth, etc) until there's an end of people. As a hateful black metal enthusiast, of course, I hope and pray that the end of people will come soon. But you see my point.

I am so happy at Geir's answer! I expected him to say "the Beatles, case closed" or something.

there will never be an end to what's to be done on the piano (or guitar, or synth, etc) until there's an end of people.

totally agree with this btw

cosign, it's not about speed but about vision

And obviously, despite my "all textural possibilites of the waveform" creed, in reality visions actually have to be realised with some sort of instinctive ease, hence there being a place for all sorts of traditional instrumentations in my utopia. Maybe with the odd effects-pedal here or there just to keep things spicy. :D

that's very true, but my point was that enough has been done technically and emotionally with a piano already that I won't be slitting my throat at the thought of never hearing what Austin Riley Jacobs does with the instrument in 2020.

austin riley jacobs is the truth

people hate on arj because they're jealous of his visionary power

My future is, in purely statistical terms, way shorter than my past. So, you're gonna kill me for that, like the Khmer Rouge would have done for wearing glasses? I have to swap nu-rave for basically anything I've ever loved? Fuck you!

"&of course the past will win, that way of living with music is inherently backward-looking."

says you. when i listen to music of the past it is completely inspiring in a present/future way to me and has nothing to do with going back.

yeah I think its weird to conflate listening to music that was created 30 years ago as "living in the past" - I'm listening to it NOW and it sounds great and is informing how I interact with the present, etc.

it's not really nostalgia if you've never heard it before

I don't get what's so wrong with nostalgia, anyway.

it smells bad

so do my feet, but I love them anyway

like Depends and BenGay
xpost. maybe.

The present often smell worse.

I was waiting for Scott's answer, and he hasn't disappointed. When faced with options A and B, take C! And be OTM, all at once.

"yeah I think its weird to conflate listening to music that was created 30 years ago as "living in the past" - I'm listening to it NOW and it sounds great and is informing how I interact with the present, etc."

Agreed. If you've never heard it before, it's new, even if it's from 1968. I vote past.

music from the past but NO new

dude, that was a long question w too many options. but anyway...

People voting 'future' talk ab out 'the memory of the good stuff being enough' but that's bollocks, to me. I want to hear this stuff again, to feel it again, to soak it in again, to have it take me in new directions. Not having another conversation with anyone you already know vs never talking to anyone new?

Just cos you're talking to someone you already know doens't mean the conversation isn't new.

Peel had this line about wanting to see the team that was playing this Saturday, as opposed to ten years ago. I could see what he meant, but I was still conflicted (particularly as he always played lots of old stuff). In terms of this question, you wouldn't even be able to guess which team might be worth going and seeing this Saturday.

You can't hear music from the past without hearing it in the present and imagining how it might work in the future.

the quantity debate here is a bit misguided. even if there'll be more music released by the time you're 80 than there's been in the past 100 years...you'd have to wait til you're 80 (or slightly sooner) to catch up with me and my fellow Past bretheren.

And by then, who knows, maybe you'll want to listen to your old-timey retirement music!

(deliberately facile phrasing) :D

past.
easily.
no moral dilemma, no concern over missing something, no stress over the space time continuum, nothing.
obviously i'm old as per the implication in that other thread, but as i have spent most of 2008 listening/discovering to music recorded in the 60s and 70s and enjoying it a LOT more than anything released in 2008 then i think have found out where my real passion now lies.

what?! but dude you've got one of the best tastes on ILM, especially for more recent stuff!

"recent" : but thats now in the past .. i'm happy with my choice.

How dare you investigate something that makes you happy, mark e

hey. stop making me feel bad about my choice people. i thought long and hard about this over tonights bolognaise.

nono nothing against yr choice, more that i'm a bit dismayed that you're seemingly turning away from more recent music! ah what do i know, ned otm

basically the words "I have found out where my real passion lies" were the only reason i lost my cool a bit there, it seemed to me to be a bit final, y'know

ta for the concern, its a current groove i think.
i got some annual leave coming up, 2 weeks no music.
i'll be gagging at the bit for a chunk of new noise after that i'm sure.

past for certain, I can pick and choose records that are actually good, versus playing the waiting game and hoping it all stops being blogger trash at some point before I die

also everybody knows the past option is way more bang for the buck
THE NICE PRICE!

we have entered the fogey zone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3SvjSu4R-8

louis is being an amazing twit on this thread, isn't he

in the future people will make crazy awesome progressive genreless intricate micro-managed non-cliche-yet-endlessly-listenable thrill-ride music

and it will rule

fucking laughable, mang

Is it worth reading this thread?

speaking of past and future, i'm SIKED about the subotnick world premiere at the old whaling church monday night!!! 30 bucks, but i HAVE to go. i'd hate myself if i didn't.

http://www.mvtimes.com/images/2008/08/07/calendar/large/chamber-music.jpg

On the evening of August 11, the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown will be the site of the world premiere of the latest work of the renowned electronic composer Morton Subotnick. The locally commissioned piece entitled "Then and Now and Forever," will be performed by selected members of New York's Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in the Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music Society's final concert of the season.

Following the premiere, the ensemble will perform Igor Stravinsky's famous 1918 Faustian folk tale, "L'Histoire du Soldat," a composition consisting of eleven movements and five episodes, featuring clarinet, bassoon, bass, violin, trombone, trumpet, and percussion. Bryan Torfeh of the Royal Shakespeare Company of London will narrate the piece.

When Mr. Subotnick was approached by Delores Stevens, the artistic director of the Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music Society, to write a piece for this year's festival, the composer saw the proposal as the perfect opportunity to continue with his current project, developing it into a series. "I did a series in the late 70s and I stopped doing them in about 1985. They were pieces that I originally thought could be played alone, but then I added electronic modification to them over the years and that's the only way they've been done," says the composer.

Mr. Subotnick spent years establishing a reputation centered around his prowess as a master and pioneer in the world of electronic music, creating music using interactive computer music systems and various forms of media. Now he wants to diverge slightly, continuing to experiment without limiting himself to electronic compositions. "Then and Now and Forever," unlike many of his previous works, will be performed instrumentally, without the addition of electronics. The trio will feature clarinet, piano, and violin.

"In a later incarnation I'll probably add the electronics," explains Mr. Subotnick, "but I don't want people to think that they're getting only part of it. These pieces were always intended to be done with or without electronics. I'd like there to be alternation between the two. It's a whole different experience without electronics. It's very pure and you can really concentrate on the music."

Ms. Stevens, the pianist for Mr. Subotnick's trio, cites the piece as having an "acoustic life and an electronic life." She says, "The piece is very atmospheric, very quiet - a unique sound."

In choosing to let his pieces function as completed works that could potentially be changed in the future, Mr. Subotnick allows the music to take its own course and continue to grow. This way, he can compose an instrumental piece knowing that he has the freedom to return to it later and decide whether or not to add an electronic element. Mr. Subotnick explains, "These pieces evolved over a long period of time. I'm hoping I'll end up four or five years down the line, with three or four more of these pieces - eventually they'll be a whole evening of them."

He describes his work, both electronic and instrumental, as not relying on thematic material, having instead, "textures that weave in and out -never quite the same. They're different qualities of moments that expand and contract and reoccur. It's a state of being."

T/S: some Indie Prog records and the next Kano ablum vs the History of Recorded Music

a mite short-termist but the latest assault leaves me feeling somewhat pwned

scott that looks cool! i might investigate that man.

why bother, he's old

we have entered the fogey zone

Louis you do know this sort of "oh no! opinion I can neatly categorize as old!" doesn't make you look youthful, just dumb, right?

Srsly there are individual bands/artists whose work I'd take over ever hearing anything new again, never mind all the music ever made in the world.

J0hn that was my pitiful attempt to wind up Tom, plz forgive!

noodle drags the "OTM!" out of me on this

I mean Tom's remark hath to it some pith man. I'd guess as much new music crosses my desk as that of anybody else, and there is so much "why would I waste another second of my life hearing this" stuff - when that's been happening to you for ten years, it's a fair question whether the future (in which there will be much garbage to eat in order to get to the food) is as nice as the past (in which much garbage is pre-labeled for your convenience, and dissenting opinions about what's garbage & what's food are easily located and explored)

xposted after I saw Louis's mea culpa but I thought it worth saying anyhow

though I guess if you get a huge thrill from emerging from a trash heap goin' "hot fucking damn! a doughnut!" then fair enough

individual years, too, for me.

mult xposts

lol JD is hungry

People voting 'future' talk ab out 'the memory of the good stuff being enough' but that's bollocks, to me. I want to hear this stuff again, to feel it again, to soak it in again, to have it take me in new directions. Not having another conversation with anyone you already know vs never talking to anyone new?

-- Scik Mouthy, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:01 (33 minutes ago) Link

Just cos you're talking to someone you already know doens't mean the conversation isn't new.

-- Scik Mouthy, Thursday, 7 August 2008 21:01 (32 minutes ago) Link

This is a very good point but it only applies for certains way of listening to music. I, for instance, am the kind of person who can (almost) NEVER experience the same excitement than when I listen to a song for the first few times. I very, very rarely find new ways to listen to something I already love, and when I go back to it, its usually to re-live that same feeling I originally had (The conversation is the same, but a good one).

though I guess if you get a huge thrill from emerging from a trash heap goin' "hot fucking damn! a doughnut!" then fair enough

winner analogy lock thread

Well all of my waffle on this thread has been hypothetical of course; I retain a deep interest in pursuing (as Nick would have it) the great music of the past, and I appreciate I've barely scratched the surface of what's already out there. I know that the music of the past is often signposted, but often the stuff I like best is obscure, often a little derided, and takes more than an element of blind faith to get to know in the first place. I don't see great differences between this and investigating a contemporary piece that has attracted mixed, faltering or confused reviews.

I'm wavering, though. What if it IS all shit and I wanna hear all my favourite records again? Argh must think positive. All those doughnuts, locked in the safe...

If you'd made this decision twenty years ago and voted for the past - and been forced to live with it - would you be regretting it now?

shit, twenty years only goes back to 1988. Thirty years? Um... forty?

I know that the music of the past is often signposted, but often the stuff I like best is obscure, often a little derided, and takes more than an element of blind faith to get to know in the first place.

There is PLENTY obscure, often a little derided OLD music to search through! I mean it's not like us old music lovers listen to strictly Beethoven, Kind of Blue, and the Beatles.

I definitely would!

If you apply this question to books or movies it's even more laughably easy.

If you'd made this decision twenty years ago and voted for the past - and been forced to live with it - would you be regretting it now?

i actually got a genuine chill of horror in my spine imagining this, best argument for FUTURE yet.

Srsly there are individual bands/artists whose work I'd take over ever hearing anything new again, never mind all the music ever made in the world.

How do you know there wouldn't be more of these in the future though?

I don't. Am I gonna gamble Ornette or the Stones or Van der Graaf or Steely Dan or ODB or Eazy or Drexciya or Nurse With Wound or Kate Bush or etc etc etc against the possibility somebody might be as good as them one day? Am I fuck as like.

Books, yes, really easy. Still would choose past w/r/t movies, but actually a more difficult decision than with music. Think that's mainly due to me not loving movies as much as music, with music being a much bigger part of my daily life (listen to ipod 8hours a day. watch a movie or two every month.) so it wouldn't be THAT bad to just cherry-pick a dozen or two creme de la creme movies each year, i'd hope there be enough decent new movies to sustain my desire. still, there's no substitute for a good b&w flick.

Granny Dainger - that's what I was talking about. xposts to yr go at me

Yeah. I'd definitely have to go with the future then. Music is very much cultural currency for me. It's something I talk about, etc.

reposting this still-excellent thought from upthread but expanding on it - music isn't just cultural currency for me, but a huge reason why i love music is for its own inherent cultural currency, how it relates to and what it says about the rest of the world. i mean, the world's gonna be changing anyway, and it'd feel really empty without having the music of its time as a marker on the way

i actually got a genuine chill of horror in my spine imagining this, best argument for FUTURE yet.

actually to me it's a point in favor of the past!

what i'm saying is that music being made now is more relevant to how i live and what i see around me than music made in the past, and this will always be true, and it really is not about whether the future will be as 'good' as the past because there'll always be more than enough excellence to keep me occupied

does your taste totally suck then granny dainger?

If you'd made this decision twenty years ago and voted for the past - and been forced to live with it - would you be regretting it now?

i actually got a genuine chill of horror in my spine imagining this, best argument for FUTURE yet.

-- lex pretend, Thursday, August 7, 2008 10:15 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Absolutely. The best argument for FUTURE is that you don't know how good it's going to be. With the past, you may not be able to discover new stuff anymore but at least you can remember what you loved and play it in your head. Sometimes I get more enjoyment out of playing something in my head than to actually listening to it.

i mean it's not even about specific awesome music from the past 20yrs or whatever, it's that the experience of listening to current music since 1991 or whenever i started has been a fucking thrilling ride and i see no reason to stop and get off, now or ever

yeah good point, lex, i wouldn't have a clue about 2ways and their cultural impact if not for recent pop music. these modern people would be strange and disturbing to me!

I could drop the 00s in a heartbeat.

plus if you want music that sounds like the past there will always, sadly, be artists in the future who will cater to this very need

[best ilm thread in a long long time]

yes my taste sucks but that's neither here nor there. so much music came out in the past 20,30,40 years that I loved (and bonded with)(oh no, nostalgia!), that if I was unable to hear it I would've missed out the last gasps of significant musical innovation. Barring the mindfuck shit that Louis is gonna come out with, of course.

what i'm saying is that music being made now is more relevant to how i live and what i see around me than music made in the past

the weird historical viewpoint espoused here is kinda unfathomable. "the past isn't dead and buried. it isn't even past." The implication that the past has no relevant impact on the world as it is today is just uh whaaaat

but then the lex has always been about trumpeting ignorance as a virtue

Anyway I pretty much agree with everything else lex is saying. The music that's being made now has the intrinsic value of being part of the zeigeist, and that's something old music can NEVER have.

The best argument for FUTURE is that you don't know how good it's going to be

conversely you have no clue as to how FUCKING TOTALLY AWFUL it may very well be

plus if you want music that sounds like the past there will always, sadly, be artists in the future who will cater to this very need

STOP SAYING THIS. it's not the same thing. "if you loved your mom, don't worry, there'll always be women older than you around who you can get to call you 'son'."

^ok sorry worst analogy ever

On the other hand I would hate to miss out on the next Pigeon Detectives album.

you know, i really could give fuck all about a zeitgeist, is what it comes down to.

the argument that the past has nothing to say about the present, that there is nothing to learn from our forebears, that they are best forgotten ... I dunno how anyone can seriously suggest this without feeling an immense sadness at the horrible utter futility of people's lives that it implies.

it just strikes me as deeply deeply misanthropic and solipsistic

well that's good cuz it was neither my argument nor, i believe, anyone else's

On the other hand I would hate to miss out on the next Pigeon Detectives album.

this is like saing "on the other hand, i'd hate to be unable to listen to shitty britpop again"

For me, I've spent most of my time since I was about 25 delving into the past, because I didn't do that hardly at all growing up. And at this point I'm so consistently disappointed with new releases, with a few exceptions, that it seems obvious to go with digging in the crates vs sorting through the junk. John D alluded to this with his "ten years" comment and I think it is a bit age-related - knowing that I would be comfortable choosing the past vs the future at any point in the past five or six years helps.

i think rejecting the idea that the zeitgeist could be important or relevant to you is far far more misanthropic &c

well then please to elaborate on this lex:

what i'm saying is that music being made now is more relevant to how i live and what i see around me than music made in the past

and tell me how that doesn't imply the irrelevancy of the past and by extension everyone who's ever lived

the operative word is ~more~

conversely you have no clue as to how FUCKING TOTALLY AWFUL it may very well be

I mean yeah of course, I got carried away. What I wanted to emphasize is the "you don't know part" just cause I wanted to illustrate how giving up now (and missing out on the stuff that coming on the 40 years could be as bad as giving up 40 years ago.

on the NEXT 40 years. Sorry

whatever zeitgeist is occurring is relevant to me insofar as I'm a social animal. Insofar as I am also cognizant of the past, I can see the similarities (and there are often a LOT) between the current zeitgeist and what has gone before. Zeitgeist usually boils down to "impetuous youth is horny and/or desirous of fame/wealth" anyway... after awhile you stop caring about that idea.

x-post

Nice to see Shakey Mo showing some respect for the dead.

haha..ho?

nice to see noodle vague tediously trying to 'zing' everyone in sight for no reason at all apart from his own endless self-loathing AGAIN instead of actually bothering to have thoughts of consequence on what's otherwise a really good thread OH WAIT

lex you live in london! 'zeitgeist' is a luxury, for most people it's just 'media' from somewhere else. not a dis, btw

at least i think you live in london

no idea how i'd answer this. i'd miss the sense of knowing where things come from with older music if i picked the future, but i'd really miss going out if i picked the old

Reading the newspaper vs. reading books: literature is news that stays news.

it's more like reading a newspaper vs reading history books

like, history is interesting and important and all that, but if i didn't know about current affairs i'd feel completely lost and unmoored

and you just won't find today's news in any history book.

it would be funny if you made this choice and then as you grew older you would hear less and less of the jukebox selections whenever you went out. Louis and I would never be able to have a conversation in a bar because he'd be yelling over the noise and I'd be like STOP YELLING WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING AT ME and then for five tunes in a row he'd be all I MUST HAVE REALLY PISSED OFF TOM AGAIN HE WON'T STOP SCREAMING

Ah lex, I love how your uncanny ability to ignore posts that don't fit in with your argument continues unabated, and I cherish your ongoing vendetta since 70 percent of the time I think you're alright, mistah. For someone who lives for the moment you don't half hold onto a grudge, tho.

wouldn't that happen anyway Tom? :D

no I'd just be doing a lot of eye-rolling

I have been something of a twit here, but this sort of thread is one where I feel it's particularly safe or even advantageous to test-drive my poppycock, because however batshit it might seem it's of a certain enough nature to draw interesting responses such as have occurred. Thus has been the making of an interesting and fruitful debate, and I have much to chew on as I contemplate your many rejoinders. The beauty of this particular thread is that an energetic theoretical conversation has taken place about a completely hypothetical scenario, so there is no need to put one's dogmatic stances into actual effect, although I might take up J0hn's suggestion for a trial period just to see how quickly I run screaming back into the arms of music released before Thursday August 7th 2008.

Also that post was worded like the yearbook entry of a grade-A douchebag and I should probably sleep.

woah big thread

Like anyone's still reading;
I would like to be the guy who only listens to present/future music but I feel that I'm actually more of a music of the past kind of person. Too much fuckin Fratellis

old fogie probably now but the past option is the only way for me, I have associations with music throughout my life that mean too much to me, and year by year find fewer things latching on for me, simply because the time I have keeps vanishing

i think rejecting the idea that the zeitgeist could be important or relevant to you is far far more misanthropic &c

this assumes that social interaction is little more than gabbing about current trends.
and I'm not saying it COULDN'T be important/relevant to me, but that recently it ISN'T. been there, done that, not particularly interested in what people 10 years younger than me are up to. BUT, what people (of any age) were doing at points in time when i wasn't yet around, that's endlessly fascinating to me. shit man i can walk out the door and easily find out about and directly observe what's currently going on. music is one of the few ways to (indirectly) experience the past, and out of all of them, it's the most fun.

fwiw louis i don't think you've been a twit here. liked hearing your point of view.

it's more like reading a newspaper vs reading history books

like, history is interesting and important and all that, but if i didn't know about current affairs i'd feel completely lost and unmoored

see, i feel the total opposite. the zeitgeist is by definition constantly in flux. you drop anchor, and then a few months later you look around and realize you're adrift, just close enough to shore to them mocking your trucker hat. i take solace in history. knowing that for millenia people shared similar thoughts and feelings to my own. everything broken down into tidy little eras. thousands of maps to thousands of treasures catalogued for me to glean information from. there's not one instruction manual, but a multitude. feeling connected to an unbroken line of humanity, rather than feeling like i was plopped onto another planet and now have learn from scratch how live long and prosper.

wow folks, i'm just glad i don't have to choose.

i'd choose past, though, because then i could keep the stuff i already love, and keep exploring forever.

The past is a locked box -- a museum. We can never fully know it, so it retains the capacity to surprise us and we the capacity to learn from it. But it is not alive (i.e. changing, adaptable, unknowable). While our experience of the past is fluid, the past itself cannot be other than what it was. Like a departed relative, it has in a very basic sense gone away.

Therefore, the more we live in the past, the more we surrender to death, to obsolescence and fixity. There’s nothing wrong with this, I suppose. There’s a sort of calm and compassion, a deep-down coherence that exists in our relationship with the past, a coherence that seems somehow irreconcilable with the nearly apocalyptic pace of change in the present moment. But I’m still much more excited by what is right now and might be tomorrow than what was and that I might yet discover while digging through the sock-drawers of yesteryear.

I dunno. Maybe, after the 20th century, we need this backward-looking breather, a time to turn away from the bomb that never stops exploding and to instead make some sort of sense of the rubble it’s left behind. In that sense, I’m with the archivists and record-keepers. But deeper down, I’m a child of the 20th century. I want the unimaginable future to keep detonating into the now. I want to see and hear things I’ve never dreamed. And no, you can’t get that from the past. Not in the same way. I think art is a kind of technology, and that even if we haven’t heard the music of the past, we’ve felt its ripples in the culture at large. It has made its mark on us and on the world. We might not know it, and I’m not to say that the music of the past is totally inert, but in some very crucial sense, its magic has bled out into the world around it and diffused through time.

I want art where the blood is still fresh. Where the world hasn’t yet felt the blow, hasn’t yet transmitted it to me in diluted form. “The dead do not improve.”

The dead do not improve

many thousands of crushed fruits would disagree

Old music does not go away like a dead relative, dude. I can't find a new old dead relative and meet them for the first time every day. I don't care about the zeitgeist. I've not explored classical yet. So many things to look into, to look for.

Are we still allowed to write our own new songs?

As long as you only use old notes and chords, yes.

lol

in some way the past actually is then future. i listen to some of those shows speculator puts up on the DJ mixes download thread and hear at least 4 or 5 thing every time from the 70s or early 80s i never knew but immediately love and because a lot of that stuff sounds relevant (again) now it pretty much feels like 'new music' to me.

This is a very good thread!

I thought about the question, what it comes down to for me is that if I could never listen to Popol Vuh, or the long hello vol.1, or warren/dubin showtunes w/brassy WB extended arrangements or Tim Blake or Cab Calloway or Shirley Collins again, I'd be really, really miserable, so voted past.

the past itself cannot be other than what it was

what was it? you tell it like listening's just passively absorbing what has happened, like all ears are the same, and the only good sound is the unheard sound, so you can put down another piece of the puzzle. you say the music marks us, like there's only one mark it can make and we never get to mark the music.

taking the time to listen recordings from five minutes ago is just as backward looking as listening to those edison recordings. when you listen to old recordings you can hear the ears of everyone else thats ever listened, you can hear everywhere that songs ever been taken before, but you can't listen to the same thing twice. maybe i will be stuck in the future with impatient listeners, maybe we would benefit from singing lessons from pandit pran nath, where for the first year you only get to sing one note. if the only reason yr going to B is cos A bored you to tears then go back to work on A.

the future won't enjoy itself, and i'm enough of an egotist for it to count that my prospects for making music in 2020 are better than 1920. i would miss live music too much to give it up, so i guess i would reset the archive and go to shows while it recouperates. i think through the power of dialectic i've realised i'm not bothered about people recycling their experiences because i don't think they can, no matter how braindead they get, so the past and future are equal in their non existence&i go for now, which is as far as my ears go.

I liked what contenderizer said ("There’s a sort of calm and compassion, a deep-down coherence that exists in our relationship with the past, a coherence that seems somehow irreconcilable with the nearly apocalyptic pace of change in the present moment" definitely rings true. And since the age of about 22, the primary effect I seek from music is to soothe and sedate.). To go back to Scik's analogy of a conversation with an old friend: is it truly a new conversation if only you are saying new things, while they're repeating the same things every time? sort of not really? BUT contenderizer's argument is not enough to convince to permanently say good-bye to Louis Armstrong and Mozart and David Axelrod and Lee Perry and Kool G Rap and King Sunny Ade and Saint Etienne and on and on. And that's just the stuff I'm already familiar with. (okay and just now Stevie Wonder's "Girl Blue" came up on my ipod. There MAY be another artist as great as Stevie to come along in the future, but it's not a gamble I'd be willing to make)

"feeling connected to an unbroken line of humanity"

Edmund Burke to thread!

i haven't read this thread but I'd obviously choose the past option. otherwise i would never listen to my favourite music again. no joni mitchell when she was good, no bach, no chopin, no joy division, no schumann, no satie, probably no talk talk, no way. not quite sure if i'd call present or future music music.

people will record bach, schumann, chopin &c compositions in the future.

but the rule is no compositions from the time frame you've chosen to live without.

weren't cover versions allowed upthread? oh well, minor sadness but doesn't affect my choice one whit

i am confused by the assumption that if you choose the future then you can never listen to music composed by bach or mahler again. there will be new recordings of their work in the future! some will be great, imagine never being able to hear whatever awesome piano prodigy comes along in 10 years time

-- lex pretend, Thursday, August 7, 2008 2:03 PM (Thursday, August 7, 2008 2:03 PM) Bookmark Link

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

them's the rules lex.

-- M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, August 7, 2008 2:03 PM (Thursday, August 7, 2008 2:03 PM) Bookmark Link

from God himself.

I did this, kind of, I think in 2001. I only listened only to music from the 21st century. So my past was a year. I kept it up for maybe three months. It was good.

Anyway, I think both sides are underestimating the horror: Future - you can't sing Happy Birthday, or Rockabye Baby to your child. So much has been lost. You live in a CULTURE WITH NO MEMORY!

Past - IT IS THE END OF CREATIVITY. There is nothing new, NOTHING. Even every TV advert or radio show has to use an old tune. Yes, you personally will hear a thousand things that are new to you, but can you imagine the PAIN you would feel every time you listened to something that had broken new ground, knowing that that would NEVER happen again.

I'm down with the Future, though. Why not? Fuck it. Carpe diem and all that.

I'm kind of assuming that the whole human race does this, though, not just you, which isn't actually in the thread question is it?

no its JUST YOU per M@tt. Which makes both choices kinda horribly depressing.

So shall we do it? For a month, though, not a week. And I can't start till September, as I'll be on holiday, with an ipod full of old music and no access to new music that isn't on the radio in Slovenia.

But seriously, for the whole of September, listen to nothing released August 2008 or before. Louis, the Lex, whoever else voted for the FUTURE. Shall we? We can have a thread, and the PAST dudes can have their own one.

Maybe we should turn this into a reality TV format.

haha i might actually finally catch up on my promos pile then :D

i mean looking at my last.fm it's 90% music released this year anyway so why not

my top 50 tracks of the last 3 months contains precisely ~four~ tracks released prior to 2008! WIN :D

it's supposed to be a challenge tho. you should try not listening to anything new for a month. i would give the opposite a go but am too slack to police myself properly.

I think to be true to the spirit of the question you could only listen to music released starting from the day your decision is made - so throw out all your shit Lex and let's take a look at what releases are coming out next week....

ALL of my top 5 tracks of the last 3 months are still awaiting UK release, ie they are all from the future already :D

top tracks of last 7 days even better: i have listened to just ONE track more than twice which has already been released

(it is the knife remix of jenny wilson's 'let my shoes lead me forward' for...no reason at all really)

I guess the definition of "released" needs to be addressed here - I would think if you acquired it in the past that counts as its being released in the past. But I'm sure this won't bother you

In this discussion, I’m drawing a line between music made by still-active artists, even if it was produced quite some time ago (this is new music), and music from long ago, made by artists who have died or become long silent (this is old music).

In order to exist in the present day, older music requires copyright holders, lawyers, record companies, storage media, etc. It does not, however, require the continued labor of working artists. In that sense, old music is primarily a commodity. The people who made it have done their part and moved on.

New music, on the other hand, does require the labor of active, culturally engaged and (hopefully) inspired artists. It isn’t just an artistic/commercial commodity; it’s an ongoing art practice. And to the extent that we value it, I think we have an obligation to support it.

If you’re a music fan, you’re essentially participating in a patronage system. Technology and the “free market” distribute the financial burden of artist support among the population of people who care. But if the people who care are more concerned with commodities than with artists, where does that leave our musical culture?

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t listen to the music of the past or that it’s of less value than contemporary music, just that I’m a bit bothered by the current tendency on the part of many diehard music fans to spend most of their time, money and think power on old, commodity music. I think this devalues (or at least threatens to devalue) music as a living, breathing art practice in contemporary culture.

it's funny how future rhymes with loser

Realize that this is a different way to define the difference between new and old than that being used by most on this thread. Basically an outgrowth of my thinking on Matt's related thread. Also front-and-centering the "politics" that J0hn mentioned yesterday.

If I opt for new stuff, do I get all the money I've spent on old stuff back?

Index-linked back to the '70's as appropriate?

It's a no brainer for me: at 45 years old there's *far* too much stuff that I'd miss *far* too much - and still no apparent shortage of great current / old stuff that I still haven't heard.

To recontextualise a comment someone made earlier, 20-30 years ago the zeitgeist was something that was happening all around me; now it's something that happens to other (younger!) people.

The bastards.

And how old would I be / how long would I have to wait before the world had created as much *new* music that I could / would love as there is surrently lining my shelves?

How long should I expect to have to wait before we have another Miles Davis and another Charles Mingus and another Ornette Coleman and another Captain Beefheart and another Love and another Small Faces and another Kinks and another Scott Walker and another Tom Waits and another Sex Pistols and another Damned and another Clash and another Slits and another XTC and another Talking Heads and another Joy Division and another Killing Joke and another Smiths and another Pixies (or the equivalent therof)?

I think this devalues (or at least threatens to devalue) music as a living, breathing art practice in contemporary culture.

what if I am a musician who listens predominantly to old music? (this isn't necessarily true of me by your definition - I still listen to a fair amount of new stuff and a ton by artists who are still alive/working, even if I prefer their older material - but yr analysis begs the question)

yeah but you'd get beyoncé's next album instead => win.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t listen to the music of the past or that it’s of less value than contemporary music, just that I’m a bit bothered by the current tendency on the part of many diehard music fans to spend most of their time, money and think power on old, commodity music. I think this devalues (or at least threatens to devalue) music as a living, breathing art practice in contemporary culture.

i totally agree with this!

How long should I expect to have to wait before we have another Miles Davis and another Charles Mingus and another Ornette Coleman and another Captain Beefheart and another Love and another Small Faces and another Kinks and another Scott Walker and another Tom Waits and another Sex Pistols and another Damned and another Clash and another Slits and another XTC and another Talking Heads and another Joy Division and another Killing Joke and another Smiths and another Pixies (or the equivalent therof)?

seriously though - the time you don't spend listening to all those old people, you would be spending hunting down the artists nowadays who are as good as them, who have the same qualities in abundance, who do what they do. they're out there! it'd be really exciting and awesome for you.

the two convincing-ish arguments for THE PAST in this thread are a) would miss the old stuff i already love, b) wouldn't be able to explore the old stuff i don't know anything about.

(my responses: a) you have your memories, b) but you'd be able to explore the NEW stuff you don't know anything about)

anyway c) nothing in the future will be as quality as what's in the past is bollocks, i am 100% sure that the music of the future will live up to the music of the past in every respect, how could it not?

they're out there!

I think this claim is highly debatable

lolz how much of a cynical asshole can I be...

if people now would make shit we liked, there wouldn't be that problem! but really it is just math and economics: I can pick the best of the best from the past, and come away with loads. If I only pick the best of the New, I'd have enough to listen to for one day and then get bored with it and want more. So spending 90% of my $ and time on old stuff and 10% on new is the logical thing to do.

I think having your memories is cheating, if we're using this as a thought experiment, rather than the actual listening strategy that I was suggesting and the Lex does anyway.

But I'm down with Lex's b) and c). Although it would be awful, it would be awful and EXCITING. Whereas chosing the past would just be awful.

I would be totally in favour of anyone making music from being banned from listening to old music, just to see what happens.

If you think about someone like Derek Bailey, this is kind of what he aimed at in his music. Never playing in an idiom, even each note not necessarily having any relation to the one that came before it. I think he said once something about how if you knew you would only ever hear each piece of music that ONE TIME that it would transform the way you listened to it.

Obviously that rules out much of the pleasure of listening, the layers that reveal themselves, especially in more complex pieces of music. But anyway.

i am 100% sure that the music of the future will live up to the music of the past in every respect, how could it not?

music is all about taste. generational tastes change. there's more of a likelihood for future stuff to not appeal to my tastes. that being said, i'd be suspicious of anyone your age NOT picking the future. you ARE part of the zeitgeist, this is your time in the spotlight. no reason to cling to the zeitgeist of those who've gone before.

I think the point of the thread, Granny, is thinking about how you would do without that 10%, FOR EVER. And how that would change how you listened to the music of the past.

right, I was just explaining why one would listen to almost exclusively old music. i don't feel the need to be current up to the minute. i'll let the dust settle, and the pluck out the shiny items.
it's way easier to do without 10% of something, anything, than 90%.

contenderizer OTM!

Lex if music in the future is gonna be so great and endlessly inventive how come ILM is having trouble thinking of any "radically new genres to have been born since the late 80s."

Third wave ska punk

i know the music i like from the past but i don't know it from the future. i would have to listen to 95% of rubbish to find the 5% diamonds in the future. i don't have the time and patience for that anymore. i am 45. additionally i haven't heard any innovative new music i liked for maybe 5 years.

Well most of my favourite new bands aren't easily pinnable in a certain genre.

with alex in main above

it;s all been done and sounding more contrived by the second.

The only advantage these days is recording techniques.

the over use of compression is not good

i'm no expert but it's more affordable to make a guitar sound like a volcano or maybe even a blocked sewer these days.

and you don;t even have to shape a G chord

Lex if music in the future is gonna be so great and endlessly inventive how come ILM is having trouble thinking of any "radically new genres to have been born since the late 80s."

great and endlessly inventive are hugely distinct qualities, most of the time when i love a song it's not because it's endlessly inventive. i mean the reason i put 'no air' by jordin sparks on loop isn't because i am blown away by its forward-thinkingness. innovation is a process of subtle shifts anyway, just because we can't hear it now doesn't mean it's not been there

Having said that gotta keep faith in the kids.
I had the fear of nuclear war.

Global warming, food wars, massive eco/emo meltdown and bland indie bands plus a revival of the aforementioned nukes

Must surely revive the spoilt generation?

Some people's attitudes towards recent music etc. kind of remind me of the guy in the beginning of the 20th century who decided to close the patents office (can't remember where) because "evidently there was nothing left to invent". The fact (if it is indeed the case) that we've entered a period of relative stagnation and constant recontextualization/recycling of old ideas appears to me, if anything,to be indicative of the greater probability that some "radical" new thing is coming up. in the near future.

i dunno about 'ideas', but I think the chances that there will be a western musical movement in the future that could have anything approaching the kind of impact as ones that came before are pretty slim to nil, unless you count fallout boy ringtones as a harbinger of social change. better to hang your hopes on N. Korean dub step or something.

I am not sure what radical/new thing can occur when we already have the technological capability to produce every single sound (and combination of sounds) that the human ear can process. This was not previously possible, its really only a development of the last 15 years or so.

What is lacking (and I have brought this up on other threads but few people seem to care) is a new RHYTHMIC template - all the past musical revolutions (and by extension, genres) are built around this, the development of a new rhythmic format and the potential variations within it. Blues, jazz, rock n roll, hip-hop, reggae, house, etc. are all built around a specific rhythmic language (4/4, swing, etc.) but since hip-hop there has been nothing new, really. Part of this has to do with how we relate to rhythms biologically (faster beats speed up your heartrate, slower rhythms slow it down, etc.) and makes me wonder if there isn't some biological limit to what the human body can process musically, and that we're close to hitting that limit - leaving us with a wide variety of variations within those limits, but limits nonetheless.

or maybe there is some totally crazy rhythm just around the corner (reggaeton! lolz) that will sweep the world and everyone will have some wacky new dance to do.

that just makes me want to go home right now and hump my copy of Ableton

past because I've got another 60 years top of "future" in my life but music from the past would extend further back than 60 years, so a better bargain in terms of amount of music, I think, plus you could still explore all that traditional stuff from other cultures.

There are a lot more releases these days (I'm pretty sure) so I'm not convinced that the past is a better deal based on quantity.

I'll go with past anyway. Unless they invent music that's created by directly stimulating the brain to "hear" things that we don't even understand as sounds these days. That might be neat.

The thing that tips it to the future for me is the live component. I'll never get to see Link Wray or Buddy Holly, but I can see Mark Sultan. I can get a fuller experience from him than I'll ever get from similar music in the past. Also, there's that thrill when an artist you've been following tops themselves. Whereas with a legacy artist, you generally hear all the peaks first.

Then there's the social component to music, the way you can make it a dialog with the current state of the world, the way it's a story that you follow and a perspective that you share. I like how old music can transport you to previous mindsets ("Ronnie Raygun is going to DESTROY THE WORLD") but I wouldn't trade it for the way new music helps define the story we're living right now.

What is lacking (and I have brought this up on other threads but few people seem to care) is a new RHYTHMIC template - all the past musical revolutions (and by extension, genres) are built around this, the development of a new rhythmic format and the potential variations within it. Blues, jazz, rock n roll, hip-hop, reggae, house, etc. are all built around a specific rhythmic language (4/4, swing, etc.) but since hip-hop there has been nothing new, really. Part of this has to do with how we relate to rhythms biologically (faster beats speed up your heartrate, slower rhythms slow it down, etc.) and makes me wonder if there isn't some biological limit to what the human body can process musically, and that we're close to hitting that limit - leaving us with a wide variety of variations within those limits, but limits nonetheless.

or maybe there is some totally crazy rhythm just around the corner (reggaeton! lolz) that will sweep the world and everyone will have some wacky new dance to do.

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, August 8, 2008 3:38 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

MATH ROCK!

god "No Air" is such bland cheese!

I'll never get to see Link Wray or Buddy Holly, but I can see Mark Sultan. I can get a fuller experience from him than I'll ever get from similar music in the past. Also, there's that thrill when an artist you've been following tops themselves. Whereas with a legacy artist, you generally hear all the peaks first.

Then there's the social component to music, the way you can make it a dialog with the current state of the world, the way it's a story that you follow and a perspective that you share. I like how old music can transport you to previous mindsets ... but I wouldn't trade it for the way new music helps define the story we're living right now.

-- bendy

Flashback today.....

Got to be future

The thrill of the chase

I was wrong with my pensioner outburst.

Not much better than falling in love with a new song.

past, because it's better.

not 'better'. i've been doing this for a few years anyway and don't see any reason to change it up. the question is really hard to argue coherently about either way.

great thread. i think we would all benefit from doing exactly our opposite choice for a month.

so hard tho. like, in theory i'm with the future and the idea of slowing losing touch with current culture day by day is really sad (also the movie soundtrack question is a big deal for me). at the same time how could i lose brazilian music from the 60s and 70s? or jamaican? or every other thing everybody listed?

but that'd also kind of mean i couldn't go out dancing most places anymore. TOUGH.

half of music's charm is rooted in nostalgia and recognized patterns, so of course - the past.
but i guess the answer depends in a way in how old you are, and how educated in the history of music - it's impossible to throw in in the trash bin

i think we would all benefit from doing exactly our opposite choice for a month.

^^^^

i switch between choices all the time, depends on the mood

is there an option for both? that would be tailor-made for you.

wish i'd kept up with this thread as it was happening ... at some point i'll try to read it all.

i've just posted on the spin-off thread about the effect of the internet on music-listening habits: basically, i'd go for the future every time, even though the idea of never again hearing -- say -- "being boiled", to pick an example i was just wittering about elsewhere, makes my soul shrivel.

but! onward and upward. i guess that so much of the music i love was made my people who were trying to push the envelope when they made it; that's ultimately what informs my decision.

really, i will have to come back to this thread when i have more time.

just skimmed through, can't be sure if someone's asked this (or a variation of it) yet but if you could only listen strictly to stuff made from 2008 onwards, in 2009 can you go back to listening to things from 2008 or does the cutoff point move forward with you?

There's a way to interpret this thread question as: "What if you couldn't listen to any recorded music - or even cover versions, performed live - at all?" Which means not only do you dispense with stereos, CD players, etc (because ALL music, once it's recorded, is in the past - a frozen photograph that lives forever, which documents something that no longer is alive in precisely that way) - but you also dispense with the entire concept of sharing songs. No cover versions allowed. If you sing someone else's song, you're singing the past. Personally I think that would be
horrible. Cover versions are one of my favorite things in the world. (But just choosing "the past" would mean I wouldn't ever hear any new cover versions argh.)

I think I would miss the music of the past more.

That's it.

Oh, and there's still loads more of it I haven't heard.

just skimmed through, can't be sure if someone's asked this (or a variation of it) yet but if you could only listen strictly to stuff made from 2008 onwards, in 2009 can you go back to listening to things from 2008 or does the cutoff point move forward with you?

-- Roz, Monday, August 11, 2008 10:02 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Link

i assume it just means starting NOW.

ok.

i was sleepy when i typed that actually and was all confused by the question's premise. i'm gonna say bring on future music.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

boo rockist fogeys

boo

hmm. maybe, but recorded music comprises a thousand, even two thousand years + of music. if we stuck to new music we'd only have music music over a what, 50 year period on average? that has to count for something.
and even to the concept that a lot more music is being released now than in the past - maybe that's the case, but a lot more music from the past, whole back catalogues of hundreds of obscure composers, live jazz and country from the vaults, the wealth of 20c pop and folk from recording studios all around the world and little known in the anglo world; there's more in the past than you'd think if you only knew about the famous stuff.

great thread. i think we would all benefit from doing exactly our opposite choice for a month.

but this is otm.

god, old people

you've got about 8 months left.

Old is the new new

old is the new we didn't know we had.

boo rockist fogeys

Well, who knows? Maybe all the music made in the future will be rock while pop, dance and hip-hop will cease to exist from tomorrow? :)

The shock of the old.

why is choosing old rockist?

it isn't

You could say that the past has something in common w/ rockism, in that the past contains that which is known and familiar. So, to prefer the past may be to prefer that which has been established, that which is safe, reliable and externally evaluated.

Yeah, connection here is tenuous at best...

one could argue that choosing new music is rockist insofar as it priveleges ideas about "innovation" and "progress" which are rooted in the concept of rock n roll as a youth-based music which must constantly "move forward"

That too.

A somewhat related and perhaps equally interesting question: If you had to choose between only listening to music you have heard before, or only listening to music you've never before heard (and never again being able to listen to the same album twice), which would you choose?

the latter

A somewhat related and perhaps equally interesting question: If you had to choose between only listening to music you have heard before, or only listening to music you've never before heard (and never again being able to listen to the same album twice), which would you choose?

-- i fuck mathematics, Tuesday, 19 August 2008 03:42 (11 hours ago) Link

that is maybe even a better poll. because - for me - the real reason i chose the past was NOT because I wanted the comfort of all my old favorite records, but honestly because I feel like as much as I've tried to learn and listen to music over the years, there are these HUGE swaths of classic music from all over the world that i haven't had a chance to hear yet...

like shit i own probably 1000+ albums on one format or another and I'm really only getting into jazz in the last year...haven't even really cracked classical yet, and then all the other genres from the world over...it's kinda overwhelming.

A somewhat related and perhaps equally interesting question: If you had to choose between only listening to music you have heard before, or only listening to music you've never before heard (and never again being able to listen to the same album twice), which would you choose?

-- i fuck mathematics

that is maybe even a better poll. because - for me - the real reason i chose the past was NOT because I wanted the comfort of all my old favorite records, but honestly because I feel like as much as I've tried to learn and listen to music over the years, there are these HUGE swaths of classic music from all over the world that i haven't had a chance to hear yet...

totally agree, that's where my vote for old comes from too

If you had to choose between only listening to music you have heard before, or only listening to music you've never before heard, which would you choose?

this is a pretty different question, but I would not hesitate to pick the latter option

I don't know. Sure, at first glance the latter option seems more appealing to the music obsessive, but it also seems sort of superficial to me. I mean, obviously there's a lot to be said for the thrill of musical discovery, but I'm not sure if I could give up the deep emotional connections I've developed over the years with particular albums or artists. There are certain parts of myself, certain emotions, certain memories even, that I can only access with the music that soundtracked a particular period of my life. If I were to choose to never listen to the music of my past ever again, I'd sort of be giving up a part of myself.

remembering old thrills vs experiencing new thrills, basically

Not quite. You can always get something new out of old music, but you can't really get something old out of new music.

are we allowed to retain memories of old music in this scenario? because if so, thats horseshit

so you can hear undiscovered stuff but only listen to it once

ok that is much, much harder to answer

Maybe. I guess what I'm trying to get at is: What's more important, music-as-exploration or music-as-personal-history? (The majority of people (i.e. the 12-cd whatever-was-popular-in-my-adolescence strawman) would no doubt go for the latter, but maybe thats because it's the more natural way to experience music?)

Wow, didn't realise this was such a landslide.

It's kinda ambiguously worded. I'm not sure if "only new music" means I could listen to all the music that was made after August 7th 2008 even in 2059, when I'm 80 (which would still mean 51 years worth of music), or if I can only listen to whatever music is new at the moment and discard everything that's old.

Well, it's old as soon as it's made.

You can't listen to stuff before they made it....

this was an interesting thread. the answer for me is 'future music' more and more btw

When this thread was current I was pro-future and a bit perplexed that the past won so resoundingly, but I'm not sure I agree now. I don't know if it's something to do with aging, or just not having as much time for listening as I used to, or maybe it's the effect of thinking through 70s and 80s music for the recent polls and realising how much of it I love and how much I still have to discover or give a fair hearing to

how much can you age in a year and a half? :P

all that music was great but c'mon the best is yet to come. and even if it isn't, the biggest surprises are. ONWARDS

The question might have been a tiny bit harder for me if it specified only pop music, but since it doesn't I wd still be far far happier looking backwards rather than forwards.

itt: wise ol' folks, irritating youngsters

I'd probably have to go with the future, but I'd hate to die at 50 and only get to enjoy 20odd years worth of stuff.

still an embarrassing result for this board

if you had to choose between reading history books but not being aware of anything happening in the future, or keeping abreast of everything happening but not reading about history, which would you choose

choosing the past = willingly, even enthusiastically, turning your back on the world. do you hate the world that much?

if you had to choose between only eating food made in the past, or only eating food made in the future, which would you choose?

choosing the past = willingly, even enthusiastically, eating disgusting rancid harmful if not fatal gunk!

tinned stuff would probably be ok actually.

choosing the past = willingly, even enthusiastically, turning your back on the world. do you hate the world that much?

the (music) world != the present. there is more to learn from the past than there is from the present, maybe you should try?

we learn far more from the present about, you know, how to exist in everyday society - pretty sure you could live a happy and fulfilled life without knowledge of history, but not without knowledge of the present

the (music) world != the present.

also you say this like it's not, like, really obvious, but it's not a particularly helpful statement in the context of the thread

To me this is like asking whether you'd prefer only medicine from the past versus only medicine from the future! Medicine has gotten so much more advanced over time and will only continue to get even more amazing as technology improves! Why would I want to be stuck with bloodletting and herbs when I can have cancer-destroying lazer beams?

You really think that medicine is the same as art? You are crazy.

if you had to choose between reading history books but not being aware of anything happening in the future, or keeping abreast of everything happening but not reading about history, which would you choose

choosing the past = willingly, even enthusiastically, turning your back on the world. do you hate the world that much?

Actually, choosing only the future is also willingly, even enthusiastically, turning your back on the world. How are you supposed to understand current events without understanding the underlying histories of them? If you chose only the future you would have a very blinkered idea of the world, and probably a much more dangerous one.

Having said that, I still wouldn't be very happy about being unable to listen to new music. Thankfully I doubt M@tt will be taking down the answers and forcing this to become reality.

"choosing the past = willingly, even enthusiastically, turning your back on the world. do you hate the world that much?"

This is nonsense and you should know better. The world ≠ the present, obviously. You must mean something else.

a lot depends on the past being defined by the music you know now vs you are still free to discover new things made in the past. if its limited to "whats known" I'd drop that for the future in a blink. i actually find periodically ditching cds/deleting mp3s very freeing.

the world as we exist in it = the present

i am aware that history is valuable and why, thanks, but i think you lose more by blocking yourself off from the world that you have to actually live in

Every good track from the past will probably get sampled in the next 2 years anyway.

i look forward to the lex not blocking out any genre of music in his future listening habits

err, shoulda been 20
xpost

I hope you guys are stoned, because there's no other excuse for this conversation going on.

i look forward to my robot girlfriend

how could you pick the past? rap has been around for a while, so it's about time for black people to invent the next genre. i will be GOD DAMNED if i never find out what it sounds like.

im assuming hurting was kidding

the world as we exist in it = the present

i am aware that history is valuable and why, thanks, but i think you lose more by blocking yourself off from the world that you have to actually live in

The thing is, your whole comparison is flawed, as you cannot simultaneously exist (and by definition you are existing in a 'now') and not exist in 'the present'. So the closest reconcilation we can get is that you are suggesting two figures - one who reads only history and does not get engaged in current events, and one who knows no history and does get involved in current events. The latter sounds more dangerous to me.

the knowledge that music is done and closed FOREVER would be a bit too grim for me to handle, despite the fact that I'd still only get to hear only a small fraction of the good shit in my lifetime. So regrettable plumping for the future it would be.

Otherwise you're suggesting someone who has killed themselves, basically.
xpost

lol metaphysical clusterfuck

I'm not stoned but I went to a planetarium today so close enough. C'mon, the world that as we exist in it isn't simply the present---for one thing, there are lots of things in "the world" that are outside of time (think of math) and for another thing, thoughts that were thought 2,500 years are still in "the world".

You mean something else. Maybe something like, those aren't in "the world" in an important way, in a way that you can change them and have power over them. But fuck that: there are planets that aren't part of my lived present but they're part of the world should I choose to think about them.

another thing about this srsly ridic argument is that it's not like when you hear a piece of music for the first time you can necessarily tell when it was recorded. obv if you choose 'past' you will know it is not 'new to the world' but it can be as new to you as anything yet to be recorded and have as much relevance to your life now in the process. sheesh.

i know certain people who almost exclusively listen to one genre, and within that genre only music from a ten or maybe thirteen year span in the past. and are picky as to what is good in that. yet the way they listen to music is, they are constantly on the search for "new" (that is, unheard) music. they find dope or at least interesting stuff all the time. and they've been doing this in some cases for ... five years? maybe more ... without being troubled by diminishing returns.

i hope people in a music forum can relate, and not view them as idiots who eat potatoes every day. probably we've all immersed ourselves in a genre to the extent that the slightest variations give us nearly as much as a whole new music.

so even in this tiny vector, it's exactly like following new music, but with probably even more joy of discovery with the increased research needed in following labels, discovering new ones, following sidemen & bit players, producers, associated acts, geographical scenes etc. plus just random cool things.

what they miss is a connection to the zeitgeist and to the wider culture around them, which is strong in popular music and presumably exists too in niche or obscure current music. that's not nothing, but how much is it? does music made in a world with iPhones in it speak to us in a more valuable way than music made in a world with Prussia in it? or is art or great entertainment "news that stays news", like ezra pound said of literature, speaking to us meaningfully about death or love or violence or Prussia.

But, no live gigs. no making music or listening to something your friends made. dud.

I just read this whole thread for the first time and I desperately want someone to make a duo of songs ala Heat Miser/Cold Miser extolling each point of view.

btw I think a lot of people make this decision subconsciously. You know how you'll visit old people's houses and they obv. quit changing the decor once their oldest kid moved out or some other unconscious checkpoint? Plenty, plenty of people just stop listening to new music at some point. I mean you can go through lots of middle-aged people's music collections & they won't have a single new thing from since they were in their 20s, or 30s, or something. I had this idea when I was a kid that people weren't "allowed" to be into music that came out once they got out of college, and that you had to sell your record collection once you got married.

I seriously cannot wait for when Lex is an old man

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, August 7, 2008 3:13 PM (1 year ago)

won't u be dead then?

xp

― lex pretend, Thursday, August 7, 2008 3:14 PM (1 year ago)

:D :D :D

new music easily btw, basically do this already

The thing is, your whole comparison is flawed, as you cannot simultaneously exist (and by definition you are existing in a 'now') and not exist in 'the present'. So the closest reconcilation we can get is that you are suggesting two figures - one who reads only history and does not get engaged in current events, and one who knows no history and does get involved in current events. The latter sounds more dangerous to me.

― emil.y, Sunday, January 10, 2010 2:40 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

so basically, someone who is unable to act is sure to be harmless right? and someone who might act wrong is dangerous? if we're talking about politics this is potentially actually DANGEROUS, repeating past mistakes, but what's the big fucking risk i'm taking by only listening to new music? it's sad that i would never have heard pet sounds or afrika bambaata, but i'd love new music just as much--and how could i know if i did love it less?

i suspect the reason the results ended up as they did is because of the age distribution of those who voted. ilxors have a wonderful ability to continue to keep up with and love a great amount of new music, but it's unlikely they would be as emotionally to it as music they grew up with and lived with their whole lives.

*emotionally attached

Yeah, if you're 80, hard to believe you'd say new music. If so, that is very Zen. Would have been John Cage's answer until the day he died I'm sure.

he would listen to 3.33

I've enjoyed reading this thread. Don't know how I missed it before. I listen to much more newer country music, but other than country it's older music that I listen to most of them time. I love a lot of new music, but every week I discover a new album from the 60's or 70's that seems to hold my attention more than a new artist does.

I don't listen to a ton of contemporary music, but I'd still choose future-music. I feel like music 40 years from now will be pretty cool and I want in.

will you be alive?

and kickin' it

those arguing for the future don't judge music on anything other than its 'vintage'? at what stage does being drip fed great new tunes >= the stock of great music that already exists and can be delved into as a matter of fact (and as blueski pointed out, from this stock there's mountains of stuff that even the most knowledgeable won't have heard)

exactly that.

Listening to music from 'past' is not the same as 'nostalgia'

There's a lot of stuff that really bothers me on this thread, more than it should bother me, certainly. But I'm feeling calmer about the whole thing so I want to add some comments.

Among the arts, music is one of the ones which for me has the longest shelf life. I'd be very surprised if I wouldn't be capable of connecting with music from a few thousand years ago, if some were available to be heard. I think literature ages far worse than music does. All of that content is there to get in the way, all of the beliefs and just generally the cultural background which is no longer shared. Works of literature do grow more remote over time, because of that.

This also somehow relates to my confusion over some people's apparent need for a (generally social, content-related) angle to get a handle on music.

Are they living in a parallel world? Do most people not have the experience of being immediately moved by music, without having to have some sort of a story to go along with it? Much of what appeals to me about music is the way it often is "pure" emotional distillation of experience, where experience is almost simply an excuse for the stronger distillation that results.

Maybe it is a decadent approach to music that puts so much emphasis on one's individual emotional engagement, but I'm comfortable with it.

(I realize another possible explanation is that I am maybe unconsciously whipping up more of a context for things than I realize.)

Do people need a context before they can connect emotionally to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPXwnTlbCn8

or this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8jO_qSoab8

for example?

The social dimension of music just isn't one that I personally value all that much, I don't think.

As far as learning how to live in the contemporary world via contemporary music, nah, I don't see that having been much of a reality in my life anyway. Maybe I just fail as a student of the contemporary world.

The past is not the dead thing some of you would make it out to be. Music of the past isn't just a history lesson, it's potentially a very immediate, emtionally charged experience. I'd have to say I'd have been more impoverished if I had missed out on the places (new-to-me) older music has taken me over the past twenty or twenty-five years than I would if I had missed out on where music made just in that twenty-five year time period has taken me.

Also, I've had time to observe how little of the new is anything other than new in the most crudely chronological terms.

The most conciliatory thing I can say is that I'm glad I don't have to make this decision (and I admit my actual listening habits may lean more to checking out new new music than my arguments here would predict, but old habits die hard).

(I guess I'm more often in the "that content/context is getting in the way for me" camp.)

http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth1602/images/Chauvet_horses4.jpg

http://peaceclog.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/picasso2.jpg

thanks for those posts, my approach is quite similar. music needs to hit me hard first before i get interested in the context. for example i hardly ever listen to lyrics in the beginning but when a piece has gripped me i want to know more and try to listen carefully to the words, have a closer look at the cover, try to find out more about he background etc. may i ask you a personal question, rudipherous? how old are you? that eastern tune does indeed charm me immediately but somehow i assume that it has to do with the exotic nature of the music. i have listened to greek, turkish and middle eastern music for a long time but it still feels very out of the ordinary, almost mystic. that reminds me of the calls of the muezzins in istanbul after the night has broken. it is overwhelmingly mesmerizing.

I'm old: 44. I've gotten to feel at home enough with Greek and middle eastern music that it doesn't feel primarily exotic to me. It feels more less other and more like myself. (Not 100% or all the time, but in general.)

this is such an easy choice for me -- def future music

still the past. the present already sounds like a pale, compressed, unfocussed image of the past, the future will carry even less surprises. but in the past there is still so much new stuff to discover.

i hate to say it but eeyore's kind of got a point

I very often think about this thread, and my answer is still the same

Who knew the lex and I would emphatically align on the biggest of questions lol

People are interpreting "the past" to include music recorded a long time ago but which they haven't heard, but I would actually choose "from this moment on you can never listen to music you haven't already heard" over "all the music you've ever heard in your life is now barred to you forever"

That might be a nice compromise, yeah

I think it's p apparent that anyone that picked "THE FUTURE" in 2008 would have fucked up