Where do you draw the line between synthesis and rehash?

Sorry Ned - someone keep this thread alive, I have to run now and watch All Night Radio play air guitar and I don't have time to ponder it.

Quickly ... I'd say that synthesis is more broad than rehash. And yes, subjectivity is key.

Thea, I love you for the air guitar comment.

I know that I dont like the Darkness but I do like Interpol and although I can hear the joy division thing, I still am able to enjoy it.

Maybe I was just hoping the darkness was going to sound more like iron maiden

Is synthesis rehashing enough things with enough balance that it's impressive, or rehashing so many elements that it becomes amorphous and too much effort to list the things it's rehashing or what?

With Interpol I sort of thought they tended to be quite generic sounding a lot of the time and pepper it with more obvious references here and there. I like them and I don't hate the Darkness. I'm trying to think of a band I actually would dismiss as rehashers but I'm a bit drunk.

Synthesis = "The chord change/way singer just bent that phrase/song structure remind me of Band X, the (something else about the song) reminds me of Band Y"

Rehash = "Interpol sounds just like Joy Division/Chameleons/whoever without the good stuff" or "The Darkness sound just likeQueen who were largely awful in the first place"

for me it boils down to execution a lot of the time. how good are you at ripping people off? anybody can put an ad in the paper that reads: Bassist wanted for band into Mofungo, Burl Ives, The Lemon Pipers, and Rat At Rat R. Must have own amp. But how good are you at getting the idea off the paper and on to tape. And i mostly don't care if a band even likes the stuff that they are ripping off. I don't care if they show reverence. i really hope this isn't a long way of saying: if it works it works and if it doesn't it doesn't. Why do i like the one Interpol song that sounds like Kitchens Of Distinction but not the one that sounds like The Smiths? Why do I like the one Rapture song that sounds like The Cure, but not the one that sounds like, um, whoever else they sound like? It is tricky. More later. I need more ice cream.

I think rehash vs synthesis comes down to whether you think there is a necessity for a certain area of music to continue to be explored or not. If you think glam should be dead then anyone who tries to explore that area is merely rehashing rather than synthesising (eg. The Darkness are rehashing Queen). Likewise if you like a certain area of music but are exhausted by it due to over-exposure you're more likely to underrate any possible synthesis being achieved by new acts in that area.

A lot of the syntheses happening in an area, like, say, microhouse, are just as minor and incremental as that which Interpol aim for, but because fans of the genre (eg. me) consider it to be a fairly vital area which deserves exploring, we're less likely to accuse practitioners of rehashing other artists' work. With Interpol there are a lot more potential fans who have somewhat exhausted their own interest in claccisist dour post-punk, so the shouts of plagiarism are louder. By comparison, the fact that something like The Rapture's "Olio" sounds like the remixes of "A Forest" and "The Walk" on The Cure's Mixed Up isn't likely to get people so worked up because the thread it's picking up was so abortive that a) exhaustion has yet to set in, and b) there's no real "canon" for post-punk/house hybrids that can be reeled off a la the Joy Division/Chameleons/Kitchens of Distinction.

If you let things lie long enough most exhaustion goes away - hence the enthusiasm surround the garage rock revival.

I'd rather smoke hash.

new garage rock will never be as good as old garage rock

Queen are glam now???

This argument always comes down to a judgement call, which gets especially complicated when you happen to have an emotional investment in the one (or both) of the bands - ie, is XTC really going to a better place with their Beatles-inspired music, or is it just escapist craftmanship? I think if you listen to music with an ear to, "are they telling me something I am better for hearing, or are they merely restating the (now) obvious" you won't feel so bad for liking new bands that sound like old ones. Really, it's not such a big issue, because even Paul McCartney can find a way to appear on SFA albums.

rehash implies a repetition. synthesis does not.

i think anode is correct re: "Reminds me of" -vs- "sounds like"

Ha ha, Alex in NYC's Nirvana-bashing obsession to thread.

Some interesting answers so far! More please -- I had no solution or scheme to this, it was just a pondering I wanted to type out to see if it made more sense, and I like the various ways it's being addressed.

every single band that has ever walked this earth does both. they rehash (because nothing is really ever new) and they synthesize (because nothing is really ever exactly like what came before, not even interpol, not even vanilla ice).

what it comes down to, then, is songs. that is a pop band's most valuable currency, no matter what style of pop they're trolling, and a great song can pretty much excuse any perceived transgression whereas a bad song can pretty much never overcome the coolest ideas and influences.

in the sense that to "rehash" is considered bad and to "synthesize" is considered good, i'd suggest:

rehash = they sound like the new york dolls but with worse songs.

synthesize = yeah, they sound like the new york dolls but their tunes totally rock.

which probably is just another way of stating ned's "i like it because i like it" principle. but it's a pretty great principle.

It's funny this thread should come up...this very thing has been nagging at me.

yeah, I always get super bummed out when people diss on a band I like because "they sound just like ___" Not just because they may be correct, but because I hadn't noticed it before, or my record collection is just too small. I almost feel sorry for people who have heard everything in the world and just shut down to anything new. I have this co-worker whom you could almost set a calendar to the time she stopped trying to find something new in music. Somewhere around 1992. I agree with cuz that the songs are the currency, but many people cannot get past their instant visceral reaction to what something reminds them of. I have another friend that thinks that every other band is "ripping off" the velvet underground...I really feel bad about it. He's missing out on Yo La Tengo. Oh, wait...

When I was a young thrash/hip hop fan in my twenties, I always had this fear that I would eventually stop listening to everything because it has all been "done." And then I would simply tune in to smooth jazz. Like Pat Metheney. One long, overcooked noodle.

Anyone else?

see: Radio(Gang of)4

ok i will try ned.

on the basic level i think rehashing is covering a song, synthesizing is trying to mix two unrelated songs [hopefully from fairly distant genres] and this is the m.o. of the group starting out: is there a basic tension in the group's stylistic confluences?

synthesis comes from the philosophical concept of bringing together opposites in order to get something new and different, and rehashing refers to chopping up into little bits and reconstituting from the original elemental parts. you can leave behind the real meanings if you want but what is key i think is that rehashing is a reheating of leftovers with perhaps some blending of complementary flavors, and synthesis is an attempt to mix things in a test tube with at the very least getting a color change or some bubbling, if not an explosion or poison or vaccine.

there was some sloppy use of the word pastiche a couple days ago in the geir/beatles threads that i can point out now with some pretense of relevance: pastiche is direct quotation of a portion of some other work, and not really just cobbling together something that closely resembles an ancestral artifact. as such pastiche is as often employed in both rehashing [dukes of stratosphear, "get happy"] and synthesis [clinic; stereolab... whose experiments have gotten less spectacular as they have turned the heat down on the test tube].

to expand this two-part distinction in a third direction, it seems to me that as often as not you have artists who don't rehash or synthesize but do reinvent [the wheel]. it struck me as a little absurd when i heard xgau saying the white stripes are [i'm paraphrasing to meld with the terms we're using] making a synthesis record just like the beatles did on the white album. the inclusion of a bacharach song was interesting, but it was performed in white stripes style; very different from composing a bacharach-lite tune and doing it in the bacharach style [which is what mccartney did to dazzling effect] the stripes record continues to interest me partly because it seems like the inverse of rehashing: take the chopped up bits of many things not very garage rocky [the queen-ish vocals on track 3, for another example], and run a garage filter over it all, while keeping your eye on the pop charts. it isn't synthesis because it is not an attempt to make something new; 20 years from now it's going to be remembered the way the undertones or the cars are now.

Here's something potentially interesting. There's a local band in Chicago called the Scotland Yard Gospel Choir. When they first started out, they were basically aping Belle & Sebastian, who Lead Singer #1 was really into -- the word Scotland's in the band name, the vocals sounded mysteriously affected, they used acoustic guitar and Rhodes and harmonica and cello, and had songs with names like "Jennie That Cries." But they were really GOOD at recreating that sound -- it was very well arranged and smart and catchy.

Predictably, however, they got sick of every review of their debut album mentioning Belle & Sebastian. And so their new material pulls much more from Dylan/Springsteen/Clash (which is what Lead Singer #2 is really into), and you would think that they'd be better for this "synthesis" -- except now they just sound more like typical folk/blues-rock, like Billy Bragg or something. And maybe this has to do with my biases, too (I like B&S, I don't like Billy Bragg), but I liked them better when they were "rehashing" -- even though they sounded more like one particular band, in the grand scheme of things, they sounded more unique.

(Unique because there aren't that many bands writing songs as well-arranged and in such a classic pop style as Belle & Sebastian, but there are loads of generic pub bands that want to do Dylan/Springsteen/Clash.)

well, that's a good point. b&s aren't classic yet, they are still current; thus you can't rehash them yet, or do an homage or tribute or anything - you can only steal from them [much like comedy = tragedy + time, homage = theft + time]

Dude what does THIS thread got that these older threads don't??

Retro

"Boring Revivalism," in a retro-Tom style

It's got me asking the question differently in a new and exciting style for the kids, you damned rockist! Oh wait.

yeah, those old threads really knew how to do it. these new threads today, sheesh, a dime a dozen.

I'm going to save the whole "potential enjoyment of perfectly good bands ruined by nagging 'done before' feeling" schtick for when I turn 35. And the latest Clinic/Stereolab albums are my favorites, so there.

(i.e. who cares if it's familiar if it's good?)

(then again, I am bothered by familiarity if it's not that good -- and where does 'good' come from? Lyrics? Riffs? Production?)

i think 'good' comes from a combination of 'hooks,' 'sounds' and 'checks' made out for $50,000 each to several major commercial alternative radio stations.

well where the fuck's my money?

Hey, you're not a radio station!

Then what's with these two middle-aged dudes in Hawaiian shirts who keep following me around making titty jokes and playing novelty parody songs about Iraq?

I can't help it if you're suddenly an extra in The Big Lebowski 2004.

Let me go home and rummage through my book crates of Critical Studies texts, Alain Resnais film scripts and medieval alchemy texts and get back to you on Monday, Ned.

Woo!

Not sure if "woo" signifies enthusiasm or hostility but that's okay.

The former.

Whew!