Is popular music less experimental than it used to be?

otherwise, no.

qed.

Granted, Radiohead's sonic experimentations are kinda like cheez whiz compared to some of the stuff people got away with in the 70s, but they serve as pretty good proof that the audience is still willing to follow an artist into riskier territory than glossy pop. Contrast that to Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which Warners thought was career suicide, and you can see the disconnect between fans and the label when it comes to good old rock and roll.

(I don't think there's any such problem in the world of hiphop production, though; some of that shit is FUCKED UP, in a great way...yet more proof that people are willing to go there, but the rock guys at the label don't understand.)

any attempt now by someone with success in the mainstream to expend a bit of effort in i. THAT zone or ii. its present-day successors (the notion of succession is v.probllematic in ref the avant garde anyway) would find itself supplied w.prophylactic quotemarks in no time at all

isn't the more painful question whether ANY music can be "experimental" any more? (viz pick yr favourite instransigent outlier vanguard: from derek bailey to i dunno g.g.allin to ______ to ________: the format you just picked has been around for a long time and the "results" are no longer an experiment, they are KNOWN)

this however sidesteps the fact that "glossy pop" in 2000-2 at any rate was a zillion times more experimental, sonically and structurally, than anything coming out of Good Old Rock And Roll in the same period.

... oh look, here come 10,000 bitch-posts mentioning Maja Ratkje, Meredith Monk etcetera (sigh). I don't care.

Lex, the new Roison has some off the wall-ness on it? I was fairly underwhelmed by the single tbh, but that other thread has me itching to give it (the album) a chance after all.

also... mark s OTM I think.

The situation now is the same as it always has been, I think: experimental music tends to be made by Producers rather than artists. I think there's an inertia about the collaborative process that makes it difficult for bands to be constantly innovating. For those who'd cite the Beatles, I'd argue that they only became experimental once they ceased to function as a band - i.e. locked themselves away in the studio. Brian Wilson likewise. Most of the greats in experimental Pop have been Producers, in control of the sound as much as the performance: Phil Spector, Joe Meek, James Brown, Lee Perry, Eno, Martin Hannett, Trevor Horn, the Bomb Squad, Timbaland.

Maybe the difference is that innovative Producers now can consistently chart experimental music because they work in genres that thrive on the New - new sounds, new beats. If anything, this is the Golden Age of experimental Pop, accelerating to more and more ridiculous speeds. Wooooh.

But as for Radiohead, Kid A is the exception that proves the rule (for rock bands anyway). Much was made of its experimentalism, but actually it was retro-experimentalism (ie marrying up rock, electronica and dance beats with ultra obscure lyrics and instrumentals had been done before in the seventies).

I'd say the mid-seventies was when pop/rock discovered modernism, which was why experimentalism, and a lot of other modernist concerns and styles got injected into music at that time.

Well, 2000-2 certainly was A Golden Age of Experimental Pop; not sure about 2003-5 which so far has turned out too much like 1983-5 - aimless consolidation, context-divorced repetition of tiring old tricks. The Brooke Valentine album is a thing of wonder, but I remember when doing CoM three years ago how records of that quality and adventure seemed to come along on a daily basis...

I'm not sure whether people are specifically looking for chart stuff - if not there's reams of stuff from Ellen Allien to Ruff Sqwad - but as far as mainstream popular music goes, Gwen's 'Hollaback Girl' and Ciara's 'Oh' both blow my mind sonically.

xposts: Marcello I'm so glad you love Brooke Valentine!

Well, contract breakers are contract breakers in any era. As for being "obliged to" release a record, there are very few artists these days with the power to "oblige" a major record company to do anything any more.

I didn't think the single had much of a hook myself, I probably need to hear it more times. I think I wanted more stuff like "Forever More" (huge, insistent & unstoppable hooks) but with added Herbert to really take it to the next level and storm the charts!

i. "experimentalism" is not a "modernist concern", except by back formation (ie arguing that a bunch of stuff that came AFTER modernism - cage et al - was in fact PART OF IT whatever its adherents said) and THEN
ii. arguing that by dipping into aspects of experimentalist PRACTICE, tohugh not ethics particularly, these various pop people can be seen as a further manifestation of what (at the time) insisted it was a RADICAL HISTORICAL BREACH IN ART (1905-25 say)

if something that seems to be a mimicking analogy for "modernism" reappeared in a terrain of music that modernism already HAD a v.complex relationship to in its own time (viz the popular), then we should reall6y make an effort to name it and analyse it on its own terms, not just reduce analogy to original

(dada and to some extent surrealism, insofar as these constitute elements of modernism, deliberately mimicked aspects of popular culture for disruptive and instinctual effects BUT original-intent modernism was also very hostile to and snarky about what it considered the corrupted passivity of the mainstream)

As for experimentalism being a modernist concern, well that was perhaps poorly put. But wouldn't you say a focus on form (and finding new forms) is something that's fairly central to modernism?

As for John Cage, I'll frankly admit to not knowing enough about him. I would have labelled him "late modernist", partly on the grounds of his formal experimentalism, but perhaps I'm wrong.

this is where I admit that I don't know what the single actually is, and have been assuming it's one of 'Ruby Blue', 'Ramalama (Bang Bang)' and 'Sow Into You', which are the three Big Pop Songs on the album - is it?

in music, "a focus on form (and finding new forms)" is central to classicism, romanticism AND modernism; ie it's one of the elements which makes for a continuum w.what went before!!

(in fact a "modernist" music was itself only defined by back-formation, post-WW2, by eg adorno and others: surrealism was anti-music in all forms; dada took an - haha ambiguity alert - instrumentalist line, in that it mebraced whatever music had the desired effect, viz german art students playing "nightclub jazz" by pretending to "savages" from the congo)

*other examples could range from The KLF to Was Not Was 'Shake Your Head'

as in, nothing out of the ordinary musically but still a nice sense of oddness

just as a reminder, what exactly were the experimental pop songs of 00-02?

Yeah, you're right. Music (instrumental music anyway) is sort of subjectless, and therefore is essentially more about form. But in the arts where the subject/form divisions are more obvious, I'd say there's a more particular focus on form and a drive to find new forms in modernism than in romanticism or classicism. So I suppose I was talking more generally about modernism.

"Retro" in this context means referencing modernism rather than being modernist - whether as pastiche or quoting it or reviving it or whatever. Yeah, modernism is period-specific, you can't be modernist any more once Andy Warhol and all the rest has happened, you can only have a stance with regard to modernism.

I wouldn't want to construct an elaborate theory as to mid-seventies art rock being retro-modernist, but following the "retro-romanticism" of the summer of love, it seems to me that there are some echoes of modernism in Eno, Bowie, Kraftwerk, Talking Heads etc. ie alienated modern man, hypersubjectivity, plenty modernist imagery from the 20s and 30s, trying to escape from conventional forms, suspicion of narrative, texture over melody etc etc. Again, I wouldn't want to overstress this argument, I just find some echoes...

video here - http://www.contactmusic.com/new/home.nsf/webpages/roisinmurphyx01x06x05 Will watch this again later, see if it grows on me.

i think part of my allergy to the use of eg modernism as an explanatory tool is that - to date - i don't think generalised Arts Theory has actually come to terms with the effects on their subject of eg jazz, rock, TV as massive non-movement "movements" in "the arts"

ie what they did can't be explained by invoking modernism bcz they were bigger than and did more to modernism thasn vice versa

(obv there are currents and contradictions within all three, and sometimes by analogy these get called "modernist" - which is fine: the cover to the banshees supersition LP is "srt nouveau" in this sense - but i am suspicious of explanations which crams such GIANT BIG FISH alongside the smaller earlier ones as if dynamics of the smaller earlier ones were the only key to the case)

I can think of a lot of 80s almost-novelty records that were decidedly odd compared to what I guess might be considered yr standard yawn-pop. "Birdhouse in Your Soul," "She Blinded Me With Science," "Once in a Lifetime," "I Eat Cannibal," "Mr. Roboto," "Life in a Northern Town," "One Night in Bangkok." Also the extramusical but still relevant odd personae like Boy George, Cyndi Lauper.

None is all that experimental in the studio-wizardry sense or in the finding a new system of organizing sounds. We're not talking Schoenberg here. None is all that odd or shocking in comparison to much of what ILMers might call experimental--I dunno, Half Japanese, Captain Beefheart, Zappa, Foetus, GWAR, Anal Cunt.

But certainly in comparison to Debbie Gibson, New Kids on the Block, Kool & the Gang, Air Supply, Billy Joel, and the Eagles, there was a lot of decidedly weird music existing ON CASEY'S TOP 40, right there alongside the less-weird stuff, and I personally don't see a contemporary analogue.

I don't know about current pop chart music, I'm completely unfamiliar w/what's out at present, really. I'm not listening to the radio much of late.

I've got to be honest and say that I don't really care if anyone is "experimental" or not anyway! It seems a kind of... devalued term in some way.

there are clearly others

i don't think the cycles coincide, necessarily

I think this is a bit of a myth - with regards to the UK anyway. Recently, for some research on a book, I looked up the original 1977 reviews of "Low" in the British Library (in Sounds, NME, Musical Express) and they were very largely positive.

But: "Experimental"? What has been introduced into Pop Music that hadn't been tried earlier by Schoenberg or Coleman or Cage, not to mention non-Western musicians of every possible background? Even within Pop, if we arbitrarily take 1955 as Year Zero, noise, atonality, rhythmic invention are all there from the start. Is Experimentalism only recombinative? That doesn't seem right somehow. "Get Ur Freak On" (2002, Sociah) sounded like nothing else except that if you break down its elements you could cite precedent for all of them. Incidentally I don't think Metal Machine Music or Low were any more groundbreaking in this context.

I'm not sure what I'm driving at here because I still think some musics do innovate, somehow. But I'm not comfortable with "Experimental" as a label because, well, maybe 4'33" and the Merzbox have marked two poles between which everything has to, and already has, taken place.

Like Bowie and Eno rippin' off "Krautrock" p'raps?

Eno: "Some people say Bowie is all surface style and second-hand ideas, but that sounds like a definition of pop to me"

Even then, it still does happen on occasion.. didn't Chumbawamba turn around and release a collab EP with Negativland right after "Tubthumping"? (Not that I think that EP was either band's greatest moment, but it was still an interesting move.)

Isn't pop music just one long series of lucrative experimentation that occurs at a pace of molasses flowing?

Experimental? At the very least weird, really really weird.

Huh?

"Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap.

Sonically, at least, I don't see how anyone can listen to the last 10 years of hip-hop and R&B and not hear a world of experimentation. I know everyone's Timbalanded to death, but I just listened to "Try Again" the other day for the first time in a while, and that song's crazy! And I still think Eminem's first two albums are hands down the weirdest multi-platinum records of all time.

So anyway, I say the answer is no.

I should clarify, I didn't mean (upthread, my original post) that I "don't care" about Meredith Monk & other experimental music that Björk has been influenced by, just that being reminded of it all the time for point-scoring purposes (see: Radiohead = Autechre+Can+Floyd ergo Radiohead are no good... blah blah) as if it entirely negates her quite different musical goals gets tedious... real fast.

Do you like Imogen Heap Marcello?!?

ergh...i can't really think of anything that actually made the top 40. given it's high chart placing into account....'Pyramid Song'?

oops, so you did. sorry, I did a quick search without the umlaut. And sure, it can get annoying if people only cite Bjork's avant-ish influences without also mentioning her love for, say, Beyonce.

Now tear me down, oh ye of little faith!

I think the possibilities of high quality home based digital music productiontechnology are far from being exhausted. I think why there is not the same explosion of interesting music charting as in the late 60s, late 70s/early 80s, or late 80s early 90s is more to do with the distribution and mediation of the music. A lot of music these days I find less interesting because it's trying to BE a
particular kind or music, or even some sub genre. Of course there are still great experimental pop charting hits like "Get Your Freak On" "Milkshake" "Feel Good Time" or "Toxic". "Alternative" or "underground" music has always had a potential problem in that it may try to differentiate itself from the mainstream by reacting against pre-identified mainstream elements. Thereby becoming defined by what it opposes, and often sounding like just a reduced and often boring set of elements from mainstream music. This seems especially true at the present. Another way of trying to be alternative is to make music which is completely unstructured, difficult, noisy, or irritating but to me this is just a dead end. As always I find a happy medium in interesting music that works on the dancefloor.

I'm not sure the reason for the failure of "independent/alternative" music is quite as you describe, though I'd agree that what you say is in there. I think there's some kind of socioaesthetic progression (that's my word, don't you nick it!) which has led to the situation now. It's not just about marketing; there's a sense that all the rebel/difficult/confrontational/bizarre stuff of the 60s and 80s, simply through familiarity and changing social class structures, has led to it becoming normalised, and therefore, streamlined in a
sense. To produce rebel rock, now, means a certain narrow set of guitar gestures and attitudes; to produce dance music now means a certain narrow set of dance structures; and so on. It's not because the music industry has capitalised on this sort of stuff and marketed it as alternative; I don't believe consumers are as blind or as stupid as that. It's because there's been a general trend in society that is reflected in the normalisation of musical styles in that way. There are many contributing reasons to this trend, but to me one of the main ones is the middle classing of society, where the way our society is focused, the way it works, the structures it operates on, have become more similar to the norms of what we might call the middle classes (this is a very simplistic way to describe this). This is partly to do with the institutional educational "upskilling" of the community, so that more people now have access to the kind of intellectual reference points that even 30 years ago were more restricted to a smaller set of people.

I don't buy this at all. If anything, music production has been democatized immensely. Thousands of artists have their own studios and record labels now, from Jay-Z to Madonna to Tiesto. Increasingly, the big record companies are becoming mere distributors/marketeers for the artist-as-entrepreneur.

And the huge mainstream success of records like "Loneliness", "Satisfaction", "Monstertruckdriver", "Geht's Noch", "Rocker", etc shows that today's audience is just as much up for experimental/unusual sounds as ever. I think that presuming that "experimental music" in a art-rock(ist) sense is the only way to bring innovation is a red herring.

not sure about these two in terms of real crossover success but generally i agree.

thats not experimental at all. a million hip hop songs do it, a million R&B songs do it, and frankly, i am utterly bored of that song now. the repetition makes it a complete bore now, theres nothing new to glean from it. its basically a glorified hip hop beat that should have gone to a rapper, instead of a singer. avante garde my arse.

OH no she didnt!

like um, i hate that song now, totally. and im going to hate that amerie song for the same reason in a couple of months too (plus amerie sings like shes a whining cat being attacked). although its not the same type of looparama, that mariah carey single its like that is much better, and even that teedra moses song be your girl which is just a glorified loop is better too. less of a headache. thats the one thing a lot of these new 'bangers' have in common, that pugnacious, noisy attitude that gives people a headache.

Damn, Marcello beat me to it.

anyway, im off to make some milo.

'Destroy Rock n' Roll' = 'Destroy Cliche' or 'Destroy Innovation'?

I agree it's a red herring. I like all those tracks (but don't know what's loneliness??) I love that a mainstream commercial club these days plays music of the kind I like, and that was underground 10 or 20 years ago, but those tracks are floorfillers picked by worldwide DJs, (and at the risk of contradicting myself, having above chosen major label blatantly commercial pop examples that IMO are experimental anyway) doesn't that probably mean that these dance track are not experimental, and are in fact calculatedly commercial?

This depends on whether "experimental" is a property that is unrelated to populism or whether it is merely the inverse of populism. If we decide on the latter then something like "Rocker" would indeed not be experimental, but it also renders the overall thread-question insensible (popular music is by definition not experimental).

Probably the truth is somewhere in the middle - the "experimental" in music is defined in comparison to what we imagine to be the expected, the standard in music, and the latter is partially defined by what is popular. BUT there's room for movement. Timbaland didn't suddenly appear to be status quo the moment his productions were resulting in no. 1 hits: there was a significant space in which his stuff could simultaneously be populist and also challenging to our preconceived ideas of straightforward populism. But that space is closing, or (for many of his more copied tricks) has already closed. And this is partly because it's no longer surprising to discover that "popular music" can be jittery, syncopated and wired in that particular way.

So maybe the specific question to ask is: does pop music continue to challenge our imagined norm? This is a hard one to answer because the more restrictive your norm is, the easier it will be for a piece of pop music to challenge it.

Two ways (non-exhaustive list) in which we might end up with restrictive norms: a) being so close to something, so invested in a particular set of stylistic rules, that even minor and not-really-novel deviations from these rules appears relevatory (this is why pursuing micro-genres in dance music can be very enjoyable); and b) approaching a genre with a set of preconceived and conservative assumptions about what that genre is, only to be bowled over by the fact that (oddly enough) the genre is rather different, or more complex, or more etc.

(B) plays into what Simon R has called the "theory of vibe migration" - the odd tendency for really hot scenes to suddenly emerge out of styles of music that appeared staid, boring, finished etc. There's some objective truth to that - scenes really do go through hot and cold patches - but I reckon there's also a subjective element of the skeptics suddenly realising that all their prior assumptions are increasingly wildly inaccurate, that they're going to have devote special effort into getting their head around this style of music whose ancestors they'd readily dismissed. That's really fun too, because you feel this whole world opening up to you which you had never known was there.

The difficulty w/ popular music is that most listeners who are not totally biased against it will always keep their ear half-cocked to what is going on, without necessarily investing whole-heartedly and cultishly in the music that is charting. So you have neither the reduced standards for an inventive step of the (a) type listener, nor the erroneous assumptions requiring correction of the (b) type listener.

(the exception to this might be the phenomenon of e.g. the Popification of Pitchfork: listeners and writers who'd so divorced themselves from popular music that the realisation a few years ago that some of it might actually be very good came as a bit of a shock)

What's interesting about your theory is that you seem tolocate the experimental not in the artist or even in the music but in the listener. And it seems paradoxical in that implies that to appreciate the experimental you have to be narrow-minded, or perhaps recovering from being narrow-minded.

By this I do not mean that the listener invents the experimental qualities wholesale; BUT the fact that those qualities are considered experimental is a lot to do with the listener's approach to music, as "experimental" is a relational and not absolute category.

One thing that I think gets missed when we try to talk about artists vs listeners in this sense is that artists are listeners too!

i.e. if we care about artistic intention, and we think that the artist is trying to be experimental, then the next question is: how does the artist work out what is going to be an experiment? How do they go about differentiating themselves from everything else out there? And how do they expect that difference to be heard?

"to appreciate the experimental you have to be narrow-minded, or perhaps recovering from being narrow-minded."

Or, rather, to appreciate something as being experimental. This is not that paradoxical really: for something to be groundbreaking one has to feel that ground is being broken. And this ground is necessarily subjective as much as it is objective, because none of us come to the table with a complete understanding of all music ever, so what we see as "the ground" is always a composite of our knowledge of and taste in music.

Another way to look at it is like this: there are two things to conclude when music appears groundbreaking -

1) in one certain sense, all music prior to this was narrow-minded (the objective interpretation)

2)in one certain sense, the sum total of my listening to and thinking about music prior to this was narrow-minded (the subjective interpretation)

Thing is, "all music" pretty much = "the sum total of my listening to and thinking about music" anyway...