Avant-Garde Pop

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No, not pop that is avant-garde. Avant-garde that is pop. That is, music that comes out of the avant-garde tradition but that is finely crafted formula rather than sonic or structural innovation. When something like minimalism or textural music is pioneered, its principles could conceivably be codified into a formula with built-in reactions. (Add these microtones together - poof! - all sorts of creepy resonant tones! Repeat a phrase with these basic modifications after these standard time periods - presto! - a hypnotic trance!) And of course, there have been artists working in these areas who have exploited and worked with these innovations without adding radically new ideas (though Xenakis and Stockhausen are not among them, what Bob seemed to be hinting in another thread). How should such music be judged? Should it be canonized as well? Is it still avant-garde? And what does that make the pioneers of those styles? Are they that different from pioneers of widely imitated popular music styles? And, for that matter, how many different ideas has Charlemagne Palestine really had?

― sundar subramanian, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It's just another approach, I guess. I mean, who put in writing that you have to make a hardly digestable 78-minute magnum opus or a 24-hour recording of continuous flatulation to be considered avant- garde?! The definition on what is avant-garde should ideally change as often as possible anyway. Isn't it by definition a term used for unclassified new forms rather than an actual genre? How can you be a purist about it then?

Last year I got this record by a Japanese artist named Mondii (Hefty Records) in my mailbox. All of it beautiful subdued chirps and clicks and ALL OF IT actual songs. It should all be possible.

― Alacrán, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

let's see - aavnt garde translates as "ahead of it's time" (i'm led to believe) - ok, so we all know what the term is actually used to refer to (because obviously, time travel, in all probability is impossible) but recently i've been thinking that to qualify as avant garde is to be included by "the circle" into some kinda obscurant snobbism. pop songs are great : phil spector, timbaland, basement jaxx, jeff lynne (seriously), ben folds - should all be held in the same regard - to compartmentalise /ghettoise supposed "forward thinking" (read uncommunicative / autistic in many cases) from other musics is the same kind of behaviour exhibited by goths who only like manic street preachers and slipknot because only they understand their bulimia / the way they don't get on with their parents / whatever. the pop song or the dance number stems from a wellspring predating classical and academic endeavours - it serves the more immediate need - the bawdy minstrel, the drunken singalong, the sex dance - all came before (x+y=z) academic avant gardery and has never precluded creative screwing with scales/ rhythms/ harmonies/ storytelling etc etc. the low vs high music thing only exists if you recognize it. or summat.

― bob snoom, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

taking sides: maths vs sex

HOWEVER: maths is MORE PRIMAL than sex cuz it wuz first qed

― mark s, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

well yes i am quite good at maths whereas... how about bach? is that maths and pop at the same time or is that structural i guess it depends on how you abstract from it. or the silver apples w/ the oscillators etc. i'm quite sure the meters didn't do sums before launching into a number -but you can abstract maths to do with off-beats, rhythms etc. maths is an abstraction. stuff existed before sex. maths is the construct we have invented to make sense of the stuff. what is "the avant garde tradition" this avnt garde pop is sposed to caome from anyhow? is it like a dutch amish settlement??

― bob snoom, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I suppose I associate avant-garde pop with later manifestations of minimalism: Nyman, Mertens, Martland, later works by Glass + maybe even some Adams. Some of it is enjoyable, some of it is bland background music. I can see how other styles such as serialism could be considered traditional but I wouldn't call Boulez or Stockhausen avant-garde pop. Serialism will always be somewhat indigestable to the public. Anyway, difficulty is never a good thing in itself. When it comes to experimental music in general, the problem is that the truly pioneering stuff quickly becomes of "historical interest only". This is especially true of pieces composed on tape (musique concrete, Reich's "It's Gonna Rain" etc.) because technology moves on. I prefer pop that is avant-garde to avant-garde that is pop.

― Mark Dixon, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

maybe simply "having an idea" is avant-garde & it's just luck of the draw as to whether somebody else has had a similar idea previously or whether you're out in the blue. how about the shaggs? does their music count as avant garde as it was arguably "accidental" in its difference from the norm??? are the flying luttenbachers better than the evan parker trio??? (i would say yes)

― bob snoom, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

bjork's "vespertine" maybe? "spankmaster" by kool keith? "money" by the flying lizards?? the dead c. ??? sonic youth??? it's a blinkin blimey minefield of semiotics or something. anyone could mean any thing at any time when they use the phrase "avant garde". if there is an avant garde tradition is their an avant garde traditional dress?? beret & goatee?? oblong specs & shaved head??

― bob snoom, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A lot of Art Bears approaches "pop", at least melodically.

― dleone, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"It's Gonna Rain" not just of 'historical interest' - ie I still like to listen to it now, as 'good' music or whatever. 'Come Out' - even moreso.

How many ideas has Charlemagne Palestine had? Maybe only one - but what an idea!! Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with artists who obsessively revisit/refine the same 'idea' - minute variations/permutations on a single theme, slowww evolution over many years and records, can be VERY interesting in the right hands (see Tony Conrad, Derek Bailey etc etc)

― Andrew L, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

CP's had several ideas anyway (some of them similar to what other ppl have had, yes) - man vs instrument endurance tests, 'golden ratio' drone-floats, use of found street chatter in drone-pieces for inner/outer environment contrast, incorporation of religious background into pieces, pioneering use of soft toys in music.

― Tom, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

have i been addressing the original premise of the argument as if i had read it backwards??? ENNIO MORRICONE!!! perhaps. i think steve reich has been absorbed more readily into the mainstream than pip glass (although how do you tell) and they were never avant garde anyway. do i ever have a point???

― bob snoom, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Reich's early tape pieces are most certainly avant-garde, Bob, almost paradigmatic exemplars of the term.

― Clarke B., Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i'm just being stinky about it all on purpose. why does everyone including me get so prissy about all this kinda stuff?? clambering over each other to have the most reasoned argument (self included). were reich's early tape pieces any more or less avant garde than a richie blackmore guitar solo from the same period? right now (i'm feeling narky) i think there's less musical idea in there than bartok's string quartets , for instance. was the avant gardism in the execution / the publication of the piece? is execution or publication musical in itself? were these tape pieces avant garde to the percussionists stevey boy nicked his phase ideas off? ages old percussion ideas -or were they only avant garde to an effete artsy audience of americans / europeans? i like reich - i really do ENJOY a lot of his work - but there's no reason to canonise it - it hasn't healed the sick, has it?? "sounds like tubular bells" as my daughter says. incidentally - glass' "music in 12 parts" 3cd set - can anyone tell me if it "cuts it" in that "parts 1 & 2" on virgin from the early 70's with the extra farty farfisa organ sound ? or does it suck in that "michael reisman (is that his name?) expensive modern synth & it sounds that characterless too" way?

― bob snoom, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

you know a richie blackmore solo from 1966?!? kewl!!!

― mark stinky, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

no i don't - i'm v.poor on chronology

― bob snoom, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A question of avant garde should just be the strenght of the idea, not the removable from everyday notions of music.

Many avant garde artists start out with frightening collisions of sound as they discover what it is they like/enjoy. Over time you see that zeal transferred to boiling ideas down to their simplest form. I guess it is like painters and trialing techniques or colours or surfaces.

Like I say, avant garde is about the idea, end of story. Some are good ideas and some are bad

― Sonicred, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm with Sonicred on this one.

― Alacrán, Sunday, 4 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ideas are like assholes. Everybody has them.

― Sterling Clover, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

assholes are really good though cos other wise you'd just explode from poo

― bob snoom, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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