Damon Albarn's cultural and musical tourism...

I don't go along with the idea that only "good" or "cool" or otherwise worthy artists have the right to go and collaborate and experiment with music from other cultures.

I'm also getting concerned by an attitude I'm finding, even some of my friends espousing, that folkloric music "belongs" to their cultures and that musical tourists are "stealing their intellectual property". Yuck!

This simply isn't true, he contributed vocals and guitar parts to some of the tracks, and added English lyrics to one of the tracks I heard, although I doubt he penned the tune (I haven't seen the credits).

I don't like Abarn's public persona at all, but having seen him perform these songs on Jools Holland's show, he did, as pointed out by his host, seem very happy to be a part of making this music. And its pleasant, upbeat music too. So if this is "musical tourism", then bring it on...

let's extend this beyond albarn

Why does lots of 80s Brit Indie guitar playing sound like African stuff - highlife or Shona-y playing? Is it:

a) influence of John Peel
b) influence of Orange Juice - but this still begs a question I suppose
c) something technical to do with kinds of equipment or some shit
d) complete coincidence
e) Vague they sound nothing like each other you deaf wanker?

Good post. I am eager to discuss the implications of so-called "cultural tourism", and compare the deliberately signposted "exercise in alternative cultural methods" with a more subtle and unheralded incorporation of these "external" methods into a "typical" framework. And to what extent does a "method" belong to a culture? To what extent is one's art one's own if one borrows a "method" from one's own culture let alone another one? Where are lines drawn? Does any of it matter as long as the music's good?

Cultural Tourism is often frowned on by gatekeepers and other rockist types cos of the whole "diluting the music" argument, but I think there's a broader section of people who see it as a comically cliched section of a musician of a certain age's career, and a symptom of lol Western decadence. Are there pure musics? God knows, technology and culture has been more or less global for something like four hundred years. Any non-American artist using an electric guitar is using "foreign" technology so yr cultural purity schtick pretty much goes up in the air at that point. I don't want to call down the wrath of the Vampire Weekend thread here but I find it mildly interesting that that band are very much talked of as "omg they do African-sounding music" whereas a lot of that playing sounds very much like 80s Brit Indie, which as far as my aging memory can gather was never explicitly associated with an African influence.

a) influence of John Peel

Also NME at the time.

I've got a feeling it's a combination of coincidence and my cloth ears, can you remember any bands talking about being influenced?

My personal opinion is that all sounds and techniques should be fair game, but if the sound or technique is being used for what it is rather than in order to enhance the piece, then the artist has committed a major flaw.

Although, on the flipside, there may be value in the likes of Albarn attempting, however egotistically, to introduce an otherwise oblivious audience to unexplored techniques. He walks the walk; much of Think Tank incorporated Moroccan instrumentation, which actually worked fairly well in parts, even if the album as a whole was easily Blur's weakest (in this judge's stern opinion).

anyone?

It's better than Leisure or Modern Life Is Rubbish, dude.

Hmm. I kinda like those two. Maybe I need to give TT a reappraisal.

But this is off-topic. I want to discuss the issues outlines above, issues of cultural ownership and tourism.

Those issues are touched on in one of the Sublime Frequencies threads, and on various blogs (wayne and wax is one) discussing Diplo and Brazilian funk carioca (aka baile funk)

i hated think tank

if you haven't really studied & immersed yourself in some other culture's music, it's gonna sound fake. and sounding fake is okay sometimes if that's what you're going for, and don't mind getting called out on it.

It depends whether you're approaching it from the angle of "that's a cool idea; can we use it?", or "I'm going to make an album of authentic Balanese music" - I'd wager the latter is pretty rare in intention and even rarer (or impossible) in accomplishment. The first one is just... Remain In Light. Which is awesome, clearly.

Cultural Tourism is often frowned on by gatekeepers and other rockist types cos of the whole "diluting the music" argument, but I think there's a broader section of people who see it as a comically cliched section of a musician of a certain age's career, and a symptom of lol Western decadence.

There's a third (ahem) way here, which is that it sucks to see someone think of something, and then see someone else appropriate it and get credired/paid for it, so to speak. It seems kind of wrong on some moral level.

I'm going to make an album of authentic Balanese music" - I'd wager the latter is pretty rare in intention and even rarer (or impossible) in accomplishment

not at all, i know so many people who have done this, whether their thing is cuba, brazil, new orleans, west african, etc.