taking sides: abstraction vs specificity

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the arab strap thread got me thinking about subject matter in records. do you relate to specific subject/emotion matter in records (in a "yeh, i feel like that/i've been there" way)? or do you prefer music to be more abstract?

i often feel distanced/alienated from music when it's overt and signposted, and seem to relate more to stuff when its vague or ambiguous or abstract, which is why i will always prefer the fall to arab strap, or autechre to radiohead, or blank voices to distinctive ones (tom waits, mark e smith, odb excepted - although those 3 have an unreality about them maybe?)

perhaps this relates to the question i asked about 'soul' in music. if the 'soul' aspect is quite defined i usually don't relate that well, i prefer records to 'lack' this, so i can create my own context.

i find it interesting that, as somebody who is perhaps too 'emotional' about things, i relate more to music that tends to be labelled unemotional, or even dry...

― gareth, Thursday, 31 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Too much abstraction and you're Jim Kerr.

― tarden, Thursday, 31 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Too much specificity and you're English.

― tarden, Thursday, 31 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Arab Strap's music seems a little dull; I thought they were like performance poetry, and liked the anomalous song made from the techno song about the weekend that lasted for ever, probably because it didn't have rather boring music. Could you something like Daniel Johnston, a more perfect version of the confessional? I often wonder what it is about bands like Radiohead that makes their confessions seem 'pathetic'; is it just that we're (I'm) less tolerant about the 'dumb' expression of emotions than about other varieties of stupidity - because we are anxious about expressing our own emotions, and want to dissociate ourselves from those who've tried and (as we see it) failed?

― emily, Thursday, 31 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's the Playboy vs Reader's Wives theory of culture. I'm with specificity generally. Mostly though I like love songs, "love" being the most abstract and the most specific thing pop can rub up against, its own bad indivisible self.

― Tom, Thursday, 31 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, but what would be great would be if they could have great- looking models like in 'Playboy', who do filthy stuff like in 'Reader's Wives'!

― tarden, Thursday, 31 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hm. How delicately you put it.

Gareth, I could do with a bit more specificity on what you mean re. specificity. Are you talking about LYRICS or about something else too? I think I understand it if it's lyrics, not sure I do otherwise.

― the pinefox, Thursday, 31 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't really equate musical abstraction with non-emotion. Conversely, I think abstraction might elicit different, perhaps even more diverse, emotional responses in the listener. Surely one's appreciation of say, Autechre, isn't entirely "unemotional". As Josh said a while back in his blog: We don't give enough credit to how complex our emotional responses to something might be. When you can't find a record that's sympathetic to your emotional state then, as the topic mentioned, abstraction allows the creation of personal context. That said, when the specific emotional matter of a song is what you are feeling or what you want to hear at that time, then it's definitely a satisfying experience. It's probably that satisfaction taken to the nth degree that produces something like "emo". But maybe that's another thread.

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Thursday, 31 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think Autechre is a very specific and detail-oriented band. In fact I think they could stop focusing their microscopes so diligently and maybe come out better for it. Usually I come down firmly on the side of specificity - "generalization is the enemy of all art" as Stanislavsky once told his actors. But when you've got world enough, time, and a bank of ProTools stations, abstracting the main mood or feeling you get from your song can be a fruitful artistic excercise - then one can compare the specifics to this abstraction and see if it fits, if not, does it do it interestingly? etc.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 31 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ah, we're talking about lyrics again, I see. In that case, I like abstract lyrics. They tend, on the whole, to be less depressing. But wait, I like the occasional specific details that throw everything into heart-rending clarity. Lou Reed, for example, on Baton Rouge. I give up. The question is too abstract.

― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 31 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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