What Is The "What Is The X Of Today" Of Today? Why is this meme so bad and hated?

I wanted to start a thread asking who is today's equivalent of RDJ. It feels like for all electronic music's range, there's no one working today who matches him in terms of innovation, breadth of scope and also humour. Is it worth starting a thread?

― doglato dozzy (dog latin), Friday, February 21, 2014 12:47 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I want to start a thread completely DECONSTRUCTING the idea that "today" has or even needs to have the "equivalent" of previous era's artists. I'm so sick of this meme!

― Combat Bodacious Accruals (Branwell Bell), Friday, February 21, 2014 12:59 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I hate this meme SO MUCH. Why do I hate this meme so much?

Why do people insist that every era has to have an equivalent of an artist who was canonical or groundbreaking in a previous era? Does this meme even serve a purpose? Are you as irritated by it as I am?

Yes

And not as in "Who is the Yes of today?"

the Yes of Today is No Yes of Yesterday

It's happened twice today on two separate threads and I just, y'know... why. Why do people have to do this, to make sense of current music, or to try to get into current music? Is it impossible to appreciate new without comparing it to old? (That is a genuine question, one I'm wondering myself.)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/99/Whatisthewhatbook.jpg/200px-Whatisthewhatbook.jpg

It's a sort of dog latin thing to say (sorry dl), I don't know that many others do it

i'm not a fan of this kind of thing but people do approach music - or their appreciation of music, maybe - in very different ways. i think a lot of it comes down to contextualization again, but obviously context and perspective are two of my hobby horses of today

it irritates me too, i don't ascribe it to much more than laziness tho (both in terms of the person doing the describing and who they're describing for - an audience that needs reference points that are often quite obvious)

The other person who said it was not even Dog Latin.

("not even Dog Latin" is beyond "not even wrong")

((Sorry, Dog Latin, you know I like you anyway, not picking on you. x))

there's a lot of use value for people to say "if you like Artist X then you will probably like Artists Y and Z" but the problem is that even with the same artist different people can get v different things from them

was it me? I had a go at it the other day somewhere online but forget if it was here or fb

there's a lot of use value for people to say "if you like Artist X then you will probably like Artists Y and Z" but the problem is that even with the same artist different people can get v different things from them

― we sold our Solsta for Rock'n'Roll (Noodle Vague), Friday, February 21, 2014 1:11 PM

This is exactly my problem with "rolling Genre X threads" and the like (and I used to have a weekly twitter competition for "My Spotify Hipster Boyfriend app" recommending totally inappropriate and off the wall "related artists" based on one's listening) - it presumes that any two people hear the same thing in a piece of music. Which they obviously and categorically do not.

x-post it was Matt DC IIRC, again, not having a go, it was just... why do otherwise reasonable people use this construction?

all grouping is at best a way to try and describe something semi-subjective i think. labels like genre only become annoying for me when people mistake them for Platonic forms

I cant find what I said but it was along the lines of there wont be a new beatles/led zep/funkadelic/nirvana/smiths etc why cant the press just discover NEW bands than "new xxx"

so basically I am in agreement with you BB (tho I will have said a new xxx at some point in my younger life I guess)

because an element of music journalism involves constructing narratives. i don't know if it's an essential element - personally i hope not, but different people, including journos, obviously think differently

i think most music fans i know have used this type of comparison at times, and a lot of the time it's actually accurate so long as you explain exactly what the lineage in question is - also when it comes to scenes there's often an actual real lineage there to draw on. but it's sooooo often lazy shorthand/positioning - the jessie ware/sade comparison that crops up all the time now, my perpetual bugbear of tori amos/kate bush. idk, as a tool it's how you use it, but something like the dog latin demand for a new equivalent of an old artist is a different, and worse, thing

as a tool it's how you use it

absolutely this. if i'm trying to tell you about a car i've just seen i wouldn't usually start from the assumption that you'd never seen a car before

it's a bad meme because it often carries unexamined assumptions about canonicity and the importance of the Romantic Artist as opposed to all the other ways to think about culture i think

It looks like Dog Latin is spelling out exactly what he is after, though:

Innovation
Breadth of scope
Humour

It's not an intangible RDJ-ness that he's missing, it's an artist who is directly comparable on those particular metrics. That doesn't seem so unreasonable.

The earliest I was aware of it was the NME every year proclaimed a "New Smiths" I dont recall Kerrang doing a similar thing.

It looks like Dog Latin is spelling out exactly what he is after, though:

Innovation
Breadth of scope
Humour

It's not an intangible RDJ-ness that he's missing, it's an artist who is directly comparable on those particular metrics. That doesn't seem so unreasonable.

― Ramnaresh Samhain (ShariVari), Friday, February 21, 2014 1:22 PM

This is *exactly* what I'm objecting to, though.

Like, I don't have a problem with direct comparisons along the line of "X sounds to me like Y" which are sometimes the only way to make sense of a piece of music. (Unless you try to tell me Interpol sound like Joy Division, because, really, fuck right off with that.)

Dog Latin is looking for someone who occupies the same kind of *paradigm* as Aphex Twin or whatever. And partially, it's like... some artists *are* just one-offs. Because they occupy a unique spot in a unique moment in history that no one will be able to occupy again. Not because no one *sound* like them, or be as "innovative" as them (whatever "innovative" means) but because that moment in history can never happen again.

I think it's a myth that what makes people like Aphex Twin (or Madonna or Michael Jackson or whoever) paradigmic is that no one has ever done that thing before. (Even though in some cases, it's true, they were the first, and in others, they really weren't, they were just a populariser of whatever was going on at the time.) But it is true that it's a path that will not function in the same way if someone tries to follow it again.

I dunno. I'm not expressing myself well. You can never step into the same river twice, it's true. But there *is* only one person who gets to climb a mountain for the first time? I think?

I'd assume that any artist meeting Dog Latin's metrics would, by definition, need to be completely different from Aphex Twin. I'm not necessarily supporting the theory but i think the idea of wanting a new full-spectrum-dominance game changer, or whatever, is potentially different to wanting a new version of a favourite act.

But if you want a new full-spectrum-dominance game changer, why would you qualify that by adding "the new RDJ" because that inherently constrains the meaning to, "someone following the RDJ plan" rather than "a completely new and unexpected game-changer (which means not following any archetype, even one as original as RDJ)"

feel like "who is the x of today" can at least have some of the more useful or interesting questions somewhere in the background - eg is x even possible today? what conditions have changed? Where does earlier scene/artist come from, can it be mapped to now?

It seems a better tool than 'x are the new y' , which rubs out those questions, tends towards – lex otm – lazy shorthand & over-focus on the artist.

wrote that before you posted that longer post BB - it seems otm to me - I suppose I just think that kind of discussion will spring more from this question - but I think I'm feeling generous towards the construction because I've been thinking 'is a (model-one) Roxy possible today?'' via both image bands and the roxy poll.

I'm possibly not the best person to ask (an initial scan of the thread left me wondering whether Robert Downey Jr had a sideline as a IDM artist) but i'd assume it's because DL thinks he was the last person (although perhaps not the only person) to meet the criteria in the genre. xp

"Is this model even possible today" is a different question from "Who is the X of today?"

Like, I do think that the former question is perfectly valid, and ripe for debate, but the latter is absurd.

Dislike this also, I don'tlike comparing anything to anything, does disservice to both - just prefer to take each record on its own terms, if I like it. And completely forget about it if I dont

i want all the new acts to be "new versions" of my favorite old acts! bring on "the new"

• duran duran
• joy division
• rem
• the smiths
• the cure
• siouxsie and the banshees
• the cure
• jesus & mary chain
• sisters of mercy
• smithereens
• bauhaus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c_TBpG1Q2M

^^^here, all that and with a fingerbanging guitar solo to boot

interpol was the new joy division, by the way.

CHRIST somebody please suggest ban me if I mention that band again.

*hangs self* wait it's been done *stabs self in neck*

Dear BRANE: STOP. That's enough now.

imo this has the smell of a marketing technique created to keep boomers interested in new music:
i.e. "Springsteen is the Dylan of the 70s. You're not going to miss out on the new Dylan are you?"

But sometimes it's hard not to notice that, for example, Bobby Brown is just amping like Michael and so on.

I kinda get that, but y'know... why are they still doing it even now? (Then again, who has been described lately as the "Springsteen of today"?)

the Hold Steady?

arcade fire, lol

LOL indeed.

Kinda wondering though if this construction is an age-based thing, a way of showing off "I can remember when X was the paradigm" as much as an inability to accept the new.

who is the hold-steady of tomorrow?

I like when Kanye insist people recognize he's the new Steve Jobs even though he's not a tech CEO and clearly fills a different cultural niche. I think this is probably the best way to undermine this meme.

Off the wall comparisons (which point out the inherent stupidity and impossibility of the meme) like that really just make me like Kanye a little bit more.

Where are the Snowdens of Yesteryear?

Kurupt blew up this meme when he called himself "the black Idi Amin"

It sounds just as absurd to say "Mozart was the Aphex Twin of the 18th Century" as it does to say "Aphex Twin was the Mozart of Techno" or whatever.

x-post I have mixed feelings about the constructions "the black X" or indeed "the female X" because they throw up questions about what qualities get weighted in our society. (Though "the black Idi Amin" is a bit... well, LOL.)

Totally. People say Kanye makes himself look stupid by frantically demanding legitimization from our most corporate and least imaginative cultural gatekeepers but he actually just makes our society look even stupider than it did before. Just the whole paradox of worshipping so-called trailblazers in a way that creates an atmosphere hostility toward the actually new.

Sorry xp

"I am the female treezy"

But there are times when this metaphor is completely and utterly brilliant, if well deployed, and only ever as a diss.

This afternoon, I just read a review of an album I was listening to, describing it as something like "The Seven and the Ragged Tiger of today" and nearly fell off my chair laughing at its OTMness because the comparison was so apt, and just focused a very specific and known kind of failure in my mind. So it completely *works* as an insult, but fails to move me as a genuine recommendation. Odd, that.

That I will accept "this is exactly like the past (in a bad way)" but it's much harder to say "this is exactly like the past (in a good way)"?

Oh hello this thread. Maybe I'll think twice about ever discussing music in comparative terms in future ;-)

In my defense, this wasn't really intended as a 'Who are the Nirvana of 2014?' or even a 'I want someone who sounds like an updated version of Aphex Twin' type question, because that would be really quite predictable and pointless.

I hate marketing-speak as in 'X is the new Y' as much as anyone else, and whenever I receive PR sheets insisting that such and such an artist is comparable to Aphex Twin, it's almost guaranteed to be shit. So I'm not interested in that.

I think Sharivari nailed it - I was kind of asking if there had been anyone, or if indeed it could be possible twenty years on, for someone to inhabit a similar kind of roll as RDJ did between 1992 and 2001. It's very possible that there is no equivalent, or that the musical map has changed so much that the shoes-to-fill don't even exist any more.

The question is interesting to me, not so much as a requerst or an assumption, but more as a point of discussion because Aphex strikes me as a true one-off. You can have a 'new' Joy Division or a 'new' Pearl Jam or whatever. You can even do this in electronica and dance music because of the organic nature in which much of it grows upon itself. But RDJ strikes me as a total anomaly, not just within electronic music but in the wider musical world, in how he explored so many different paths and very often pushed the boundaries of those paths while maintaining a 'signature' approach to his compositions through his ambient work, his drill'n'bass work, his techno work etc.

And that's really what prompted the question. In all this time since I first discovered Aphex I've definitely heard music that is "a bit like" Aphex, but it's rare that I've come across an artist in any genre who possesses similar qualities. It's more about attitude and approach as opposed to sound. It feels as though since he stopped releasing things on a regular basis there's been a huge hole in the musical map that can only be filled by 'bits' of other acts, but no one act seems to meet the whole package.

So forgive me for reviving a tired and lazy 'meme'; it's more a jumping off point in terms of discussion as far as I'm concerned; no different from a classic or dud or poll thread or similar..

the Yes of Today is No Yes of Yesterday

And the Yes of Yesterday is Tommorrow

the news today will be the movies for tomorrow

Hey, Arthurly.

Never saw but the big fuss was about RDJ tbh, but that's another thread.

the Yes of Today is No Yes of Yesterday

― we sold our Solsta for Rock'n'Roll (Noodle Vague), Friday, February 21, 2014 8:07 AM (2 hours ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M8hZAW6q3w

Dog Latin, did you even read my posts upthread?

Because that was my exact complaint.

The reason that no one can be "the Aphex Twin of 2014" is because it is no longer 1992-2001. The space left unoccupied in a genre that has been going on for 20 or 30 years is just not the same as the space that is left for exploration in a genre that has existed for only 5 to 10 years.

It's not "Aphex Twin" that was a one-off. It was the openness of a new genre, new technology that existed back then. That openness may still exist in another genre which is still being formed and opened up and invented, but it does not exist in this one. Of course you are not going to find it.

The newness is more in the hearing than in the object. New ears hear things for the first time every day

The newness is more in the hearing than in the object. New ears hear things for the first time every day

― cog, Friday, February 21, 2014 4:40 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

truth bomb

people splitting hairs on the "GNR is different than Poison/Crue/Warrant", please never forget:

http://static.nme.com/images/blog/19911123NMECover220911.jpg

i feel like i make the argument about qualities of "value" being inside the listener not the object on every other thread, i shd probably just give it up. a hell of a lot of (music) criticism is predicated on pretending that the fact of a reviewer at some moment in their own life listening to a piece of music doesn't really exist.

The newness is more in the hearing than in the object. New ears hear things for the first time every day

― cog, Friday, February 21, 2014 4:40 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

truth bomb

― lex pretend, Friday, February 21, 2014 4:42 PM

Too me a minute to fully understand this, but YES.

This is the other half of it - one's age - or at least, one's *openness* to new things.

I kinda want to say that "there will never be another Aphex Twin for Dog Latin because Dog Latin will never be a teenager listening to music for the first time again, either."

(But I think it does go further than the individual, though this individual "new ears" thing is important.)

yeah there is a distinction between the special meaning artists have for yourself and the space they occupy in the world, via media coverage both at the time and after their career zenith

Exactly. Both things do exist, and they can intertwine, but there is a distinction.

and again, with the latter, that place in the world can't be replicated - especially once you start to draw comparisons to an artist who's gone before

i'm guessing almost nobody called the Beatles the new Lonnie Donegan

(And I'm going to commit blasphemy here, but I think that the whole mythos of ~Aphex Twin~ and the space he has come to occupy, in the media and his legend in people's minds is actually way bigger than *he* or his music actually were. I think he gets individual credit for a lot of stuff that was actually just zeigeity, and things that many, many people were exploring at the same time as him.)

Dog Latin's entire approach to music is archetypal, asking this question in the way he does is really just a subset of that.

The question is much less objectionable and potentially more interesting if you're talking about music not as archetypes but artefacts.

Then it becomes e.g. "how does this record function within a particular social context and is there a precedent for that, and what are the differences between them".

xp

somebody mentioned mu-Ziq upthread? yeah, RDJ was a populariser for something in the sense that he gave good interview and good photo and had a wacky mythology build up around him

he also, let me be clear, made 3 or 4 records that are better by orders of magnitude than anybody you could consider his contemporary

That is a v v good point, Tim, and yeah, I find the artefact approach (which takes into account the context) far less objectionable than the archetype approach.

Even though I am totally and completely ~all about archetypes~ - the archetype is always way bigger than any individual band, as repeated ad infinitum on the Image Bands thread.

(But I guess my archetypical approach is shown by: if you tell me that a specific album is a band's "Seven and the Ragged Tiger" then that will, *instantly* become my favourite record of theirs.)

and things that many, many people were exploring at the same time as him

Or before. If that matters at all.

he also, let me be clear, made 3 or 4 records that are better by orders of magnitude than anybody you could consider his contemporary

― we sold our Solsta for Rock'n'Roll (Noodle Vague), Friday, February 21, 2014 5:01 PM

x-post wait, who? RDJ or mu-Ziq?

RDJ!

I am not going to turn this thread into my personal RDJ "he's not all that" backlash given how much I lovelovelove the dude. But I think the "orders of magnitude" may be slightly exaggerated?

Dog Latin, did you even read my posts upthread?

Because that was my exact complaint.

The reason that no one can be "the Aphex Twin of 2014" is because it is no longer 1992-2001. The space left unoccupied in a genre that has been going on for 20 or 30 years is just not the same as the space that is left for exploration in a genre that has existed for only 5 to 10 years.

It's not "Aphex Twin" that was a one-off. It was the openness of a new genre, new technology that existed back then. That openness may still exist in another genre which is still being formed and opened up and invented, but it does not exist in this one. Of course you are not going to find it.

― Combat Bodacious Accruals (Branwell Bell), Friday, February 21, 2014 4:35 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Cool, I get that BB - the landscape of electronic music has changed. It would be fruitless to hope for a new Aphex and I'm not asking for one. In fact I never used the word 'new', I asked whether there was such a thing as an 'equivalent', which is a semantically different question.

To claim that the genre is no longer as open as it once was is one thing, and I'd agree to an extent. Aphex was probably one of the first of a generation of musicians who had the ability to produce electronic music at home in his bedroom, and the possibilities were endless and he explored a huge number of those possibilities. He could be described as an electronic 'punk rocker' in that respect (if you will).

However, if the musical landscape has changed, does this also mean there will never be someone who can make the same kind of leaps as he did? Is that it? Is electronic music exhausted in terms of innovation and if so are we ever going to see a maverick of his kind ever again in any musical field? I find that hard to believe. But at the same time I agree that RDJ, and the time and place he fell into, played a massive part in this.

RDJ is famous for a lot of things, not just technological and musical innovation but also the unique way these were presented - never fussy, never academic but always feeling like each release was something utterly different and new. He wasn't the first ambient artist by any margin, but he often gets credited for bringing that style of music into... what? fashion? I dunno, but there's something undeniably unique about an album like SAWII which makes it very different from Eno, Cluster, the Orb etc, and I think a lot of this is down to how uniquely presented that collection was.

It's something that's always defined his work - putting his distorted face on the front of his albums was largely unheard of for a 'techno' artist of the time. His music was funny, but also confrontational and controversial (even the purely ambient stuff had provocative tendencies - it upset and alarmed as well as enchanted people).

I don't think RDJ was simply a product of his time. I think he was a rare example of a genuine maverick and (fine I'll say it) 'genius'. I also think it's still possible for someone else to come along today with a similar sense of exploration and attitude, who could very likely start pushing paradigms in electronic music (or some other style of music) in a similar but not identical way.

Therefore, I don't see how asking my question is such a terrible thing. It's a jumping-off point for discussion and a valid speculation in my opinion.

Sorry if that reads a bit wonky, it's hard to defend a tossed-off question on another thread when you're at work.

I agree that RDJ is a maverick genius, I just think that it requires the *combination* of "maverick genius" and "right person, right place, right time" to coincide before you get that kind of synergy. And the latter is actually more important in legend-building on his scale.

well that's just my opinion, obv. but i wd say that amongst the factors contributing to his success at its height was a very real talent that put him above being simply a genre representative.

Dog Latin, I'm not picking on you, honest! The question is clearly interesting to you; but also, why I am so *bothered* by the question is interesting to me!

i don't think talent equates to "innovation" btw - i guess in very simple terms i feel like he just produced - with all the contingencies that contains - exceptional music

I agree that RDJ is a maverick genius, I just think that it requires the *combination* of "maverick genius" and "right person, right place, right time" to coincide before you get that kind of synergy. And the latter is actually more important in legend-building on his scale.

― Combat Bodacious Accruals (Branwell Bell), Friday, February 21, 2014 5:10 PM (48 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sure, so I ask - who is the act that is, in people's opinions 'the maverick genius of right here, right now'. Again, I'm not asking for someone to come along and mimic the Aphex template - that would be the opposite of maverick genius - I'm asking, whether there is anyone (in electronic music or otherwise) who approaches their own oeuvre in such a way.

to return to the thread question, i think looking for innovators in art is barking up the wrong tree really, especially in terms of explaining the sociocultural space an artist ends up taking up

"Who is like Aphex Twin in being ~not like Aphex Twin~" is like one of those conundrums that completely bent my brain and shorted out my cognitive circuits while reading Godel Escher Bach. This is a strange loop, a paradox, it's a not-question question and the only thing I can say is MU.

Dog Latin's entire approach to music is archetypal, asking this question in the way he does is really just a subset of that.

The question is much less objectionable and potentially more interesting if you're talking about music not as archetypes but artefacts.

Then it becomes e.g. "how does this record function within a particular social context and is there a precedent for that, and what are the differences between them".

― Tim F, Friday, February 21, 2014 4:59 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

While I'm probably too close to myself to fully understand the meaning of 'archetypal approach to music' I think this is OTM. I'm talking about analogues, people who fit holes, not facsimiles of past masters.

Dog Latin, I'm not picking on you, honest! The question is clearly interesting to you; but also, why I am so *bothered* by the question is interesting to me!

― Combat Bodacious Accruals (Branwell Bell), Friday, February 21, 2014 5:11 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Cool :-)

Oh yeah, I'd like it if Tim F could explain what he means by me having an archetypal approach to music. Genuinely I'm not entirely sure I understand what that means and I'd like to know cos I think that understanding that might well help me out of a few tricky situations in future ILM discussions.

he also, let me be clear, made 3 or 4 records that are better by orders of magnitude than anybody you could consider his contemporary

I maybe need to relisten to those but if I'm in the mood for that kind of music I'll reach for Bytes, Spanners, or Amber before any of RDJ's works. His music is still unique and I know people will still be talking about him in 50 years in a way they won't about say, Squarepusher or u-ziq. But I kinda find the constant is he fucking with us? vibe to his work (especially the post-SAW albums) to be a deterrent now even if that's what drew me to him in the first place.

BB's talked about Aphex's ear for a pop melody in the past and that's the primary difference for me i guess, (much) better chooooooooons

also i think with distance the rococo excrescences of RDJ's music sound much more an integrated part of his work than they always do with other IDMers

I'd like to participate in this conversation but given that I've only ever listened to SAW II once, I'm not sure I should

tbf i forgot this wasn't the Aphex Twin Thread

i think looking for innovators in art is barking up the wrong tree

i think looking for artists to fill any predetermined role besides "making art" is barking up the wrong tree.

Where are the Snowdens of Yesteryear?

this, however, is a different question, and a good tree to be barking up. history and context and knowing what resulted from previous people doing the same kinds of things he did, and why and how they did the things they did, and all other questions that may lead to, is an important function of journalism

the political equivalent of the music question is "who is the roosevelt/reagan/clinton of today?" because, obvi, we don't live in r/r/c's times and situations anymore, and each of those guys, like a song or a band, means many different things to many different people. the question isn't dumb so much as it is meaningless.

1) haha, this is indeed not an AFX thread, or about SAWII (though, really, I'm *never* going to stop anyone from talking at any length about my Cornish Husband) so feel free to add anything you think is relevant, Dan.

2) The "Snowdens of yesteryear" depends on which parts of the Snowden story you're talking about - obviously whistleblowing has a long history and context that you can talk about, regardless of whether large scale computer based data mining was really ~a thing~ in the 17th Century or whatever (though, let's not be too loud about that or the Spymaster from Tudor ILX will appear in this thread). But this is getting back at the paradigm vs the individual again.

let's not be too loud about that or the Spymaster from Tudor ILX will appear in this thread)

trust me, he's already monitoring this thread on his iQuill.

Innovation
Breadth of scope
Humour

So Aphex was the Zappa of the '90s?

i was about to mention Zappa!!

Aphex was probably one of the first of a generation of musicians who had the ability to produce electronic music at home in his bedroom

This is so inaccurate that I think it betrays a lack of understanding of the context and history of electronic music that's probably leading you to overestimate Aphex's contributions.

If SAW 1 is to be believed he started making tracks in 1985 so it's arguable. He wasn't THE first but technology back then was complicated and expensive and making tracks at home in the 80s wasn't exactly easy for everyday folk. Even when saw2 came out I remember a radio interview with either him or someone else saying how geeky you had to be to get your head round a lot of the technology. But yeah I'm not saying he was the first but he paved a path and inspired thousands of people to start doing stuff at home.

too much focus on an ouvre rather than individual pieces for me to really relate to

What Is The "What Is The X Of Today" Of Today? Why is this meme so bad and hated?

What is the "I see what you did there" of today?

If SAW 1 is to be believed he started making tracks in 1985 so it's arguable. He wasn't THE first but technology back then was complicated and expensive and making tracks at home in the 80s wasn't exactly easy for everyday folk. Even when saw2 came out I remember a radio interview with either him or someone else saying how geeky you had to be to get your head round a lot of the technology. But yeah I'm not saying he was the first but he paved a path and inspired thousands of people to start doing stuff at home.

Yeah, I don't mean to nitpick that specific claim, but I think it can be illustrative of the thread question. If you look at a lineage going from Aphex back through Derrick May, Bruce Haack, Raymond Scott, and even Joe Meek, there has been a long history of individuals making electronic music and weird sounds in home studios with meager or even homemade gear. But if you didn't know that when you first encountered Aphex (as I didn't) and you bought into the image of this unique lone genius (as I did) then it's easy to overestimate how unique and innovative he was.

So I think "what is the x of today" is a mistake of perspective. On the one hand it comes from not seeing the historical context that the artist fits in. And then in the other direction, it becomes impossible to get a good perspective on the present because it's too soon. There may well be an Aphex of today but the connection won't be noticeable until 10 or 20 years later.

Zappa and aphex is interesting. They didn't have exactly the same brand of humour but if they did I think this style of humour might not be as well appreciated today for some reason.

forgive me for putting this way (or don't) but to my mind the unique thing about afx was that he was the "indie" version of the thing that was so artistically strong as to be accepted and embraced by the real heads of the genre. right? he was the bedroom weirdo with the mythology that called attn to himself in content (despite its techno-appropriate form of self-effacement). this rock-press-friendly persona ended up putting him in a place of privilege over the rest of his peers -- for a long while if you knew nothing else about electronic music, you'd know who he was.

i say this while being pretty shaky on his early relationship to the rest of techno and house tho.

so, "the one leftfield example of a genre that your parents have heard of from public radio but *is* totally loved and respected by the rest of the genre"

?

Here's why I was gonna mention him:

they were both singular geniuses - I don't think there will ever be "another" Zappa either

at their best, they were both at the pinnacle of whatever it is they were doing - "4", "Alberto Balsalm", "Flim", and "Xtal" by Aphex, and "Oh No", "Dog Breath", "Peaches en Regalia", and "Absolutely Free" by Zappa. all these tracks are widely imitated but never quite matched and they have a very clear touch of genius about them

they both released way too much material - Zappa is of course well-documented, but RDJ put out a number of not-very-interesting side releases under his AFX moniker (and several others) that are a real chore to sit through. to James' credit he kept his "main" releases as Aphex Twin fairly clean in this regard

both release a lot of music with a clear are they fucking with us? vibe - Zappa through all his woman/gay-bashing "humor", spoken word segments, or extended noise experiments, Aphex mostly through all sorts of annoying/bizarre sonic tricks, and detractors of both tend to feel that the joke is on them

Dog Latin, "archetype" really in the Jungian sense: I get the impression you're always trying to subordinate music to the reproduction of patterns which themselves are grounded in a certain type of (music critic level) received wisdom (another word you could use would be "mythological" I suppose, but I think that's more loaded and carries some other implications).

Asking "who is the Aphex Twin of today" is a good example of this approach, but so is doing this with chronological eras (A year is a repeat of B year), or, in particular in your case, the dynamics of music taste: "X style became popular because it was doing Y, which is similar to how A was embraced for doing B; both X and A eventually fell out of fashion as people got bored by Y and B."

In general, it's the riding assumption that music follows certain narratives and that any and all facts can be shoehorned to fit into them.

What annoys me about the question is the implied "where is the X of today." When somebody asks something like this they're usually not genuinely looking for interesting connections, but are trying to make a point about why the present sucks or why that figure from the past was unique.

And this same issue also pops up in questions of race, gender, or geography rather than time. As in "who was the american Pink Floyd" or whatever.

xpost well that too but I think that's just part of a broader problem of starting your critique from the basis of your enjoyment of / desire for something else, rather than starting from what's there in front of you and then working outwards.

On Facebook Alfred linked to a great interview with film critic Mark Harris where he says:

"And we also have the right, and I think this is dangerous ground sometimes, to even say, “Why are you choosing to tell story A instead of story B through Z." Now I think this is a very slippery slope because I think one basic rule is try to focus your critique on what’s there instead of what you wish were there or what you ideologically feel should have been there."

I really like this line because it sums up quite neatly the idea that you can criticise a cultural artefact for doing one thing and not another, but your starting position should be the art you're actually talking about. To my mind measuring the failure of art should always be about measuring the deficit gap between actuality and potentiality (or what it is and its self-imagining), rather than through an implied standard set by past greats.

I agree, but then that comes with it's own set of problems, like the impossibility of really knowing what the artist was trying to do.

By "self-imagining", i mean what is implied by the artefact. For myself, I think the artist's actual intention is secondary to that.

Sure. But I think it's easy and common to misread what's implied by the artifact the first time you encounter it, especially if the ideas in question is particularly new and original.

Sure, not all criticism is correct.

Really interesting set of posts, Tim and wk.

And I've been thinking about the Archetypical approach to music appreciation (whether that's fandom or criticism) and its problems.

Because although thinking about music in Archetypes can be dangerous, if one tries to shoehorn artists into archetypes, in complete disregard of the facts. Because that assumes that the archetype exists in template form, independent of all the artists that conform (or fail to) to it, in some kind of Platonic state. When I don't think this is the way that archetypes work, even in a Jungian sense.

Archetypical approaches to music can be really helpful, in terms of processing and understanding and both approaching and filing-away of artists. My first thought was to say that "Aphex Twin" is *not* an archetype, but "wacky isolated bedroom genius" totally *is* an archetype, but it's something that is both bigger and looser and more transferable than "an Aphex Twin" because it can allow for Joe Meeks and Actresses. And I know that I rely on loads of powerful archetypes to typify music, to understand what sort of script I'm supposed to evaluate them on, be that "Faceless Techno Duo" or "Girl Group" or "Image Band" or whatever. It functions a bit like "Genre" in that regard - a set of guidelines or expectations, rather than strict rules. And there is a give-and-take between whether the examples define the category, or the category defines the examples, a looseness, a possibility for slightly atypical examples of an established archetype to maybe change the shape of the archetype itself, rather than shoehorning the individual to fit the category.

But letting the individual drive the archetype ("Who is the Aphex Twin of today?") reduces the archetype to a box that cannot be enlarged or changed or redrawn. It constrains it, rather than allowing the category to expand or shift. "Who is the current 'wacky avant guarde weirdo' your parents have seen on the telly?" is getting closer to a question that will give you an actual answer?

Like, if you think of Guitar Based Rock Music as "The Beatles" and you start approaching every single band, looking for which member is "John" or "Paul" or "Ringo" or "George" you will run out of options very quickly. Because the Beatles, despite being canonical, were an atypical Canonical Guitar Based Rock Group, in that the bassist was the frontperson. (Bands where the bassist is the most popular one is another thread to be had. I have been struggling to think of bands where the drummer is the most popular one.) Most Guitar Based Rock Groups are singer-guitarist-bassist-drummer, but the very canonical idea of a Rock Group does not follow its own archetype! This was one of my earliest posts on ILX - trying to work out more helpful versions of band archetypes. (And archetypes like "Father-Mother-Wise Child-Foolish Child" and "Creative One-Organised One-Cute One-Drummer" will help you understand the interpersonal dynamics of rock bands way more than trying to shoehorn everyone into being a John, Paul, George or Ringo.)

So I do actually think that archetypes and narratives can be very helpful in understanding music. But I think you have to be quite careful to make sure you are looking at an archetype, and not the individual.

These are cool posts. It kind of makes me think back to a conversation I was having about religion and mysticism. I think even if you're a strict atheist, there's sometimes potential gain to be had from even the cheesiest tabloid astrology column because it can be used as a means of self reflection. So long as you don't take the words verbatim, it could teach you to examine your life and surroundings from a different angle. You can apply this to tarot, I ching, astrology, Christianity, whatever you like so long as you know it's as rational as making your decisions according to dice roll.
I guess looking at music in terms of archetypes (cool, I guess I do this on ilm a bit) is a way of drawing lines and parallels between acts and eras that might well not exist but could be compared for other reasons. It's something I do as an archivist when I'm making mixes for myself -juxtaposing seemingly disparate bits of music that in my mind have a connection and seeing how these rub up against each other. It's a way to analyse music in non linear terms I guess.

Question to dog Latin

Why 'the aphex twin of today' and not eg 'the selected ambient works 2' of today?

(And archetypes like "Father-Mother-Wise Child-Foolish Child" and "Creative One-Organised One-Cute One-Drummer" will help you understand the interpersonal dynamics of rock bands way more than trying to shoehorn everyone into being a John, Paul, George or Ringo.)

reminded me of this thread Is Sex in the City actually just Golden Girls without the withere boobs?

Because what is the archetype of "Selected Ambient Works Volume II"?

x-posts to cog

I've no idea

Exactly.

Good points

the Beatles, despite being canonical, were an atypical Canonical Guitar Based Rock Group, in that the bassist was the frontperson

sorry for the nitpickery and off-topicry, but my name and all. anyway, not really. they were a dual-frontperson combo, and the rhythm guitarist was the fronter of the two frontpeople when they started out and for pretty much the entire time they were touring. it was only in later years, after they were done touring, and therefore after they could be seen as a combo in any visibly obvious way, that the bassist kind of muscled his way into the front frontperson position.

the most atypical huge guitar based rock group in that particular sense, i believe, is motley crue, whose singer and guitarist are the two least popular members, and whose bassist and drummer run the show.

and the hugest group where the drummer was the most popular one may have been the carpenters.

"This atypical yet canonical rock group is slightly more typical than you posited" = my point, you are proving it, really. ;-)

But Motley Crue! Good call on "the drummer is the most popular member". I don't think I can even remember the name of their guitarist. Point taken on the Carpenters, too, but I might argue Karen was known more as singer than as drummer, but still, yes. I was trying to make a case for The Who, but as notorious as Keith Moon was, they're still "Pete Townsend's band."

Aaaah, rockism, you are such fun.

I mean you could say something like Rifts is an example of SAWlike music but it couldn't be given the same amount of impact since SAW has already happened and in reality this is just another kind of analogue-based 'beatless' music. I guess this might be my problem with Oneohtrix in general because if anything he is often given credit for inhabiting a similar artistic space as Aphex, but for all his furrowbrowed experimenting and ambient noodling and YouTube mashing, I don't feel as though he's ever really brought that much interesting music to the table. Actress too, I like his music and his philosophical approach to music is very interesting but he largely sticks to a singular style. But you can't really blame these guys for not being able to compete with Aphex because Aphex got there early and had the chance to explore a number of different avenues while these guys were just children. But the question stands -if Aphex ' s approach has been done, will we ever see this kind of artist again? Or is that like asking for a new Beatles blah blah all over again? Is there anyone out there right now who is getting midbrow credit for trying out a range of ideas and setting a precedent in more than one of these, who is hailed in a similar way to RDJ for their approach to their work? Is electronic music now set on people forging their own singular stylistic pathways rather than having artists who branch out in several directions and push certain concepts into the realms of extreme? If so, does this perhaps spell an end for electronic music as a frontier genre? Has it gone as far as it can go, much as we've seen happen in jazz and rock which both arguably peaked in terms of exploration before settling down into grooves of traditionalism, revivalism, genericism etc?

Impact on...who?

As far as it can go ...in which direction?

Is music from 1998 'further ahead' than music from 1948?

Does it matter if 3 'frontier' records are made by 3 different people. Or is it preferable they are made by same person

What does "further ahead" even mean? Because are we talking about strict linear time, which I think is the only real sense in which "ahead" or "behind" actually works.

What does "further ahead" even mean, in terms of music or art? It's dependent on this weird idea of "progress" which is just... that doesn't *exist*?

Have you seen it all already? Have you walked on every beach, worn every hat and eaten every flavor of ice cream?

Perhaps the days of ice cream are coming to a close?

man i really want some cherrylicious ice cream about now

I've worn hats and eaten ice cream but few are the days when I've been able to do both at the same time while at the beach. Sometimes I wonder if we've seen the last of those days

<3 U, cog

i don't, i'm gonna have to get outside clothes on and trudge over to Tesco and hope they've got ice cream in

Gone are the days of dictionary.com

It used to be you could pick up a dictionary and discover a new word almost every day, nowadays it's starting to feel like all the words have been done, catalogued and even alphabetized. The magic has started to fade

Time to learn a new language.

All the cool kids are getting into Kernewek.

Who is the Aphex Twin of Esperanto?

What does "further ahead" even mean, in terms of music or art? It's dependent on this weird idea of "progress" which is just... that doesn't *exist*?

things do develop - the growth of polyphony and counterpoint, for example. you kind of can't miss it. new ideas come along and get incorporated; music that incorporates these ideas early on can be said to be "ahead" of other music in the sense that it's abreast of current developments. the same in literature etc. idk maybe you're listening to a lot of recent Gregorian chant though

Pretty sure the band where the drummer was the most popular member was Bonham

could say the same with keith moon

trenchmouth

lotta metal bands with drummers who're if not the center of attention a big part of the appeal - Tomas Haake, Pete Sandoval, lots of others

lol lars

could say the same with keith moon

― ۩, Saturday, February 22, 2014 9:45 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not really--i'm talking about the band Bonham, named after a drummer famous for being the son of a famous drummer

haha

i was about to mention Zappa!!

Yeah, he's not all that either

things do develop - the growth of polyphony and counterpoint, for example. you kind of can't miss it. new ideas come along and get incorporated; music that incorporates these ideas early on can be said to be "ahead" of other music in the sense that it's abreast of current developments. the same in literature etc. idk maybe you're listening to a lot of recent Gregorian chant though

― joe perry has been dead for years (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, February 22, 2014 2:23 PM

I don't know that I agree. In fact, with your last sentence, I pretty much know that I disagree.

Technology may develop, and possibly even improve.

But this idea of "progress" in art? Especially when combined with this idea that development and more complexity = progress? No.

Because if Aphex Twin showed us anything, it's that abstraction and moving towards the more simplified and less complex ... can also be a kind of progression? I don't know if it's just an artefact of the order that his things were released in, but from a distance it sure looks like he moved from 8 million notes per minute complexity in things like Digeridoo to doing "5 notes and a filter sweep" in Rhubarb.

I can only speak for myself as an artist, but art is never a linear progression for me. It often goes round in circles, it backtracks, it improves, it atrophies, it follows dead ends and blind alleys and makes odd leaps that make no logical sense in terms of a progression. I think this idea of "progress" in art or music is something that is projected externally the same way people project narratives into things, because we need to do that to make some kind of sense. It doesn't mean it's there.

But we've had this discussion recently, as well, I think.

I would define progress as creating something new rather than falling back on generic tropes. You get plenty of bands who still play "rock n roll" music, but at some point in time that stopped being a progressive style. It plateaud. Bands who play and are heavily inspired by rock n roll today would be seen to be looking back or playing roughly the same music as people did in the mid to late 1950s. But I dunno there might be someone who revives old style rock n roll but ends up doing something with it that no one's really thought of before.

I don't think of that as "progression" I just think of that as exploration. You can have a pleasant walk in a familiar landscape; you can have an exciting walk in a new landscape that becomes familiar to you later. That doesn't mean one landscape is more "advanced" than the other.

dinner is more advanced than breakfast, often using potatoes which early risers would just have been amazed by, but often when supper comes isn't it just a case of its all been done before

politics matter much more than sound.
apologetix don't sound anything like weird al, but it makes sense to call them the "weird al of contemporary christian music" because they share a sensibility (except their songs are about jesus instead of food)

no-one before aphex twin had ever in the history of mankind thought about putting a "let's have a breakdance party" drumbeat over the top of brian eno's "apollo" (1983) while simultaneously milking needlessly hyperbolic reactions and sycophantic journalists and teaming up with BBC's fred harris of "you and your micro" renown to make accompanying short films based around the core premise of "krull" and b-sides with tit jokes.
this with not quite yet digested satie/glass/ riley/ cluster / TD / YMO & plasticky preset "sound" of SAW2 was the only thing that made the hafler trio sound bearable in 1994.
awesome
fwiw i think RDJ has been responsible for some genius moments, i just think none of them are on SAW2.
RDJ=MIKEOLDFIELD3000

re: "who/what is the x] of today?"

these sorts of constructions have never bothered me much. they can become paradigmatic traps if uncritically accepted, but personally speaking, i like to try on different narrative lenses, even if only for purposes of evaluation. afaic, asking about today's aphex twin provides a useful point of entry into a larger interrogation of "aphex twin" as an archetype.

that's to say that i don't see much value in the aggressive rejection of questions that seem suspect or don't fit our immediate needs. more interesting, imo, to redirect such inquiries into themselves, to question the unstated assumptions on which they seem to rest (which is what this thread is doing, imo: responding in a sensible and worthwhile fashion to dl's question).

also, i don't think we have to either accept or reject the idea of artistic "progress". sometimes it's useful and even accurate, while at other times its limiting, even fallacious. techniques and technologies build upon themselves over time, and this includes composition techniques. ideas evolve through dialogue. this isn't necessarily to privilege the more recent, but simply to understand part of what's involved in change.

And in case it isn't obvious, the narrative of musical progress does not imply a straight line from simplicity to complexity. Minimalism and abstraction are a part of that narrative rather than a refutation of it.

Yes. As long as a signficiant amount of new ideas and permutations are taking place, I'd call that progression. It's not a measurable thing of course but there's a difference between, say, Miles Davis and Winton Marsalis; Kurt Cobain and Chad Kroeger; Elvis Presley and Shakin Stevens. So asking who the new RDJ is, is more abstract than all of that. You wouldn't want someone to come back and make a carbon copy of Ventolin; that would be anathema to the whole idea of an RDJ analogue. Of course you might have people who prefer Muse and Coldplay over post-2001 Radiohead but it would be a grand claim to say that these bands were progressing/innovating harder than RHead on Kid A.

But are Aphex Twin records more advanced than Elvis records

and if so which ones?

richard d james, advancing harder since 1971

Aphex Twin and Elvis Presley aren't easily comparaed, and besides it's not really a matter of 'more' or 'less' advanced. It's not a measurable binary. But, for instance, on the St Vincent thread I think it was Matt DC who said 'Prince she is not', saying that she lacked certain traits in whatever department Prince occupies. Since the comparison is being made, it's also reasonable to suggest that St Vincent DOES have the potential to fill a Prince-like hole; not to occupy it exactly, but to tick certain archetypal boxes that could make her comparable.

DC saying that St Vincent was failing to "be the new Prince" was the other RRRRRRRRAGE inducing comment that made me start this thread, TBH.

hah!

But does that mean then, that you shouldn't compare any two artists to each other?

Doesnt that comment imply that St Vincent is trying to be like Prince - therefore a specific aim?

(I have never heard St Vincent so no real idea)

or imply that he thinks St Vincent is trying to follow Prince in some way

But does that mean then, that you shouldn't compare any two artists to each other?

You should do whatever feels right! I might compare a record to another record occasionally if it seems similar in some way, but it doesnt occur to me to do with artists so much though maybe actually if they had a very signature style where the records all sounded interchangeable

I'm not sure I ever think of artists in terms of "the X of today" and I always find it off-putting as a descriptor - examining similarities with what's gone before is certainly worthwhile but trying to identify a modern-day equivalent of anyone seems like a quest that's bound to fail. What is interesting to me is thinking about why there couldn't ever be another X, looking at the differences between the world X existed in and the world of today.

I think I'd need Matt to expand on the St. Vincent/Prince comment - I took it to mean that he thought she wasn't as good a songwriter/arranger but I'm not sure why he made that particular comparison (I've not heard the track in question though).

yeah, I can understand the discomfort with the idea that even specific artists have specific sounds that can be compared to (though, to be fair, I think that DC was trying to compare St Vincent's auteur-like qualities, or lack thereof, to Prince, which is kinda crazy-talk on many levels).

It's odd to me, the way that someone can say e.g. "Band X sound like New Order" and we will both have an idea in our head of "What New Order Sounds Like" - but those ideas may be very different, if they're thinking "Movement era New Order" and I'm thinking "Technique era New Order" - but we probably will still agree that there is a ~quintessential New Order sound~ to which other bands' records may be compared.

I mean, the original Dog Latin comment seemed to be implying not *sound* but more career progression. And bands are often archetypical enough to follow certain career paths, but this won't necessarily reflect in their sound.

Like, I think I said this upthread (I can no longer remember what I've said where, to be honest) but I have been trying and failing for three weeks now to hear *any* Joy Division in Interpol (yeah, them again.) But then I read one of Alfred's quips about Our Love To Admire being their "Seven and the Ragged Tiger" (he implied this as a diss, but this is a pretty guaranteed way to get my to love a record) - and suddenly BOOM! - here is the career trajectory that makes way more sense to me, and "Interpol were the new Duran Duran" was a much, much more valid statement to me than "Interpol were the new Joy Division", right down to their charismatic coke-addict bass-player-who-wanted-to-be-the-frontman quitting halfway through a comeback album.

But that's more about Band X ~occupying the same cultural space~ as Band Y, rather than Band X ~sounding like~ Band Y.

Cultural Space - that's the term I've been grasping at all this time, BB, the words just didn't come to me as succinctly. So if I ask 'Who is the Aphex Twin of 2014' you can imply I mean: 'Who occupies this cultural space?'.

Yes, but for the eight billionth time, some cultural spaces are unique to a particular culture's time and place. Some niches or cultural spaces may never *occur* again, so it's impossible for someone to occupy that space again.

Duran Duran were not innovators; they were popularisers. So it is possible for another band to occupy that position in another time and place.

"Does this cultural space even still exist" is a much better question than "who is currently occupying Band X's cultural space."

Yeah, Aphex Twin's cultural space circa 1992 to 2001 doesn't exist anymore. Nothing even remotely like it, I suspect.

YEah it's an extension of the question I suppose.

I think it can be a fun (though ultimately pointless) parlor game to look for parallels between artists from very different eras and/or genres. You could make the case, for instance, that Hank Williams and Rakim were both figures who came along awhile into a genre's existence and set an artistic and formal standard that many (though not all) subsequent artists in the genres aspired to for decades to come. Or you could argue that that's incorrect. But to say "Rakim was the Hank Williams of the late 80s" or "Rakim is no Hank Williams" obviously would be ridiculous.

Yeah, it's tough because "drawing parallels between unrelated artists" is one of my favourite things. But it's the difference between a stretched metaphor and a straight up correlation, I guess.

got my ice cream at last

Was it cherrylicious ice cream, or was it the Cherrylicious Ice Cream Of Today?

Are we talking about fusion in this thread now?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/71/Brand_X_Morrocan_Roll.jpg

Because it's lazy and ultimately meaningless.