― Jason, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― mark s, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― tarden, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Look, in learning about anything, whether it be particle physics or early modern drama or Argentine monetary policy, people have to start somewhere. To deny them that is to deny them the opportunity to learn about things at all.
But if you don't believe me, feel free to walk into third grade classrooms during math, and go, "Addition? That's so lame. Oh, and I suppose once you've got that down, you're going to start on subtraction and multiplication, aren't you? What a colossal dud."
― Nitsuh, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Mark, please may I adopt 'This has become urgent and key!!' as my catchphrase to be used in almost all situations?
― Nick, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― X. Y. Zedd, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
So I guess my thought here is that "tomb raiding" isn't the issue with me so much as how the "world" music is being used in various home environments, what it beats down and raises up. What's missing so far from this thread, interestingly, is how you yourselves use the world's music in your lives - I presume in ways that are idiosyncratic and simply don't register in the discourse of music journalism.
― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― tarden, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― mark s, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ed, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Another interesting phenomenon - interesting at least in that no one seems to be commenting on it, and that it's not being played for its signifiers - is the frequent insertion of Hispanic musical elements into pop and r&b. I'm thinking of Debelah Morgan, 'N Sync, Bryan Adams, Toni Braxton (a diverse bunch, no?). Seems to me that Justin Timberlake's singing on "Tearing Up My Heart" and "Bye Bye Bye," and the basic melodic patterns of those songs, is a lot closer to Latin freestyle (TKA, Cover Girls, etc.) than to New Kids or Bell Biv Devoe.
I regret to inform the public that much of the "worldbeat" I play becomes relugated to pleasant but unobtrusive music I listen to while reading or cleaning house. I wonder if this is how American pop music is utilized by kids in Bhutan or middle-aged couples in Tuvalu. But the dudek--now, that can make me cry!
― X. Y. Zedd, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Another trend: East Asian motifs in hip-hop. All over the place in the last couple of years, and not just where you'd expect them (e.g. RZA's Ghost Dog soundtrack), but in Ja Rule's "Between Me and You." I like the motifs, but have nothing to say about why they're there. Maybe they're just an example of hip-hop's never-ending quest to incorporate something new. Like, "I've got Ivan Julian's 'Blank Generation' guitar line." "Yeah, well I've got Chinese flutes, and time is on my side, nyaaah nyaaah."
But Tarden's point about the ongoing Latin tinge makes me think of something else (the converse of this thread's starting idea): people absorbing foreign sounds without knowing that the source is foreign. Well, I suppose that the Troggs, for instance, knew that "Wild Thing" was from a U.S. sound, but they didn't know that the sound got to the U.S. from Mexico and the Caribbean. That is, Dylan self-consciously used the "La Bamba" chords in the chorus of "Like A Rolling Stone"; Richard Berry was self-consciously writing a Caribbean-like number when he did "Louie Louie," which made sense since its quick I-IV-V-IV- I (V-minor for "Louie Louie") was already a basic piano vamp in Cuban and New York Latino music. And so after the Kingsmen hit, boogalooers tried to cross over by building tracks solely around the vamp: Ray Baretto's "El Watusi" and Joe Cuba's "Bang Bang." The Blues Magoos covered Cuba's "I'll Never Go Back To Georgia," but by-and-large I think most garage bands were ignorant of the fact that their music had Latino and Caribbean sources.
― Frank Kogan, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
By the way, I think you and Tarden are too quick to stomp on the word "depth." Not that the word hasn't been put to awful uses, but still I'll usually take depth over shallowness, thank you. I'll say that people who take the time to understand my ideas have done far better commenting on them, pro or con, than those who don't. Not too many inspired mistakes. (I can think of only one, in fact: Michael Freedberg; he'd somehow misremembered one of my Voice pieces as picturing working girls at their sewing machines moving their feet to Company B. If only it had.) When Greil Marcus misread Quine (con) and Kuhn (pro), he didn't do anything interesting with the result, he just reinforced his conventional ideas. Whereas when Dylan got Nietzsche correctly he was able to come up with a heartwrenching retort (the rejection of the eternal recurrence at the end of "Memphis Blues Again").
Another term I'd like to add to this thread. "Content." As in maybe the Stones covered Muddy Waters "I Can't Be Satisfied" so that they could say, "I feel like smashing this pistol in your face." By content I don't just mean lyrics, of course. When I was in San Francisco, a lot of lesbians danced to world music. The content here would be how they danced. (And I don't know the content, since I rarely witnessed it.)
By the way, nothing I've ever read makes me think that either Jamaicans or the Rolling Stones misheard American r&b. It doesn't take mishearing to understand the untapped possibilities in a music.
― Sterling Clover, Saturday, 14 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― tarden, Saturday, 14 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I am going to try something glib and perilous, like, er, the idea of the bisexual in a world only just now clumsily getting used to homo and het as creatively different yet interdependent. If black music/white music = homo/het (or vice versa, same diff, whatever, calm down), then latino = bi. Just when you get yr head round it, it messes with the powerful simple opposition, and you no longer know where you are. (In ref purely the trans-atlantic community, obviously... I have not the slightest will to — or idea HOW to — expand this idea to include the vast and multivalent Asian aspect...)
― mark s, Saturday, 14 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
...I just wanted to give this line it's own post, for us to better appreciate its brilliance.
― Tim, Saturday, 14 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
The Latinos in hip-hop seem to be expressing "Latin" mainly through language and accent while sticking to the same hip-hop beats and melodies as the non-Latins. (Compare to disco and club music in general, which is shot through with the Latino influence - but club vs. hip-hop, of course, is yet another severe tension).
On the other hand, Latin club music seems to be eagerly incorporating hip-hop and a grab-bag of other things - I say this, ignorantly, on the basis of a recent K-Tel compilation More Latin Club Mix 2000, which seems all over the map and extraordinary, Joey Beltram dark- techno murder beats played under salsa piano, this programmed next to Europop and rumbas, raps added to virtually anything. Can anyone tell me more?
(And like Tarden I realize that I'm overlooking different situations in different places, Miami in particular - Miami Bass was the one hip- hop scene that really took in the club influence, took in Baker-Robie and maybe, for all I know, took in Ledesma and Martinee and aspects of the Miami Sound. But I don't know, since Miami was never high- profile anywhere I was picking up hip-hop radio. I think that Miami (more than d'n'b) may have been a big influence on Timbaland, hence the resemblance between his beats and the Baker-Robie speed beats of old. But I don't know.)
― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 15 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― gareth, Sunday, 15 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
In general, the genre (hip-hop) as a whole is so secure in the hip- hopness of its beats and raps and its cut-and-paste identity that it's willing to paste in any old (and new) melodic and tonal anything without stressing over whether that thing has r&b pedigree. Compare to c&w, which is perpetually obsessed with whether it's losing its eternal twang.
In terms of "club," many of the most influential DJs/producers, from the beginning to now, have been Hispanic. Masters at Work are the most obvious example; those guys have recorded everything under the sun, from M/A/R/R/S-style hip-hop cut-ups to pounding vocal house anthems, but DJ Sneak's "You Can't Hide from Your Bud" is one of the most influential house records of the 90s for its filtered disco cut- up. Quite a ways from the K-Tel comp, but it shows how important Latin music continues to be even in the haughtiest underground-dance circles.
― Michaelangelo Matos, Monday, 16 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I think the possible next step in miami bass's incorporation into hip hop will be MCs rapping at half-speed under regular miami bass beats. There's a remix of Mya's "It's All About Me" (R&B, I know) which demonstrates the idea quite nicely: the BPM is much faster, but the vocals are actually slightly slower than the original.
Agreed on "Back That Azz Up" - morose string-swept action, the music could almost be from Aphex Twin's Richard D. James album. My favourite Cash Money track however is The Hot Boys' "Help" - glitzy horn blasts, baroque harpsichord runs and beats tripping over themselves - love it.
― Tim, Monday, 16 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
The situation is different with a lot of indie hip hop, where the MCs cover a much broader range of material but the DJs are trapped in a stultifying worship of some pure hip hop ideal (from Eric B to Prince Paul to The Bomb Squad to RZA), placing much of the music's self-identification within the music. There are of course exceptions to this, but it seems to be the most common approach.
― Sterling Clover, Monday, 16 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 17 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 17 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 20 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Something I was thinking about the other day: assuming hypothetically you're against the practice of stealing from other genres, which is worse: "Addictive", or Oasis's "Hindu Times"? Is stealing direct from the subcontinent more or less justified than worshipping at the alter of those who stole from the sub- continent?
― Tim, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Chupa-Cabras, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
By "practice" do you mean "pop tourism" as practiced on the ILM board of as practiced elsewhere (by musicians, for instance)?
I'm not sure that Truth Hurts and Quik sampling Mangeshkar in 2002 is different in kind from the Real Roxanne and Howie Tee sampling Elmer Fudd in 1986: it's not so much tourism as grab bag/party favors. But we'll see if there are any consequences, followups, imitations. What I struck me about "Addictive" was how much the sample ruled the song.
― Frank Kogan, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― DeRayMi, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link