Whatcha listening to?

[Steve Barber]

Doug, Steve Evil, is this artistry:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS0rl7IGHwA

It's new music from old.

I'm getting a strong impression you think it is artistry. It isn't, but let's leave that alone for a moment.

All of your arguments seem to stem from a love of DJ music. You -- excuse the expression -- paint all of the arts the same way, but looking back over the years of steadfast refusal to look at this from the artist's standpoint, and offering all of your examples as being from rappers and DJs, I'm seeing a pattern I hadn't seen before.

Is your sole perspective club music remixes? If so, I can see your perspective much more clearly than applying the same arguments to filmmaking, painting, photography, and other forms of creative arts. I still disagree with wholesale stealing, but permitted musical remixes I can understand.

[Steve Evil]

"If musicians are chefs, DJs are waiters. . ."

At its very best it could be called performance art. But music? Please. . .

[Steve Evil]

Sampling, creative? Sure is:

http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Set+Adrift+ ... yaTG?src=5

*yawn* Sounds like a broken record.

[Steve Evil]

Back in the day, Trent Reznor used to release entire albums which were just variations of one song. I thought it was pointless myself, but if he had different interpretations within him, and people wanted to hear them, whatever - knock yourselves out. But remember, those were his songs. Where does Madonna get off ripping off an ABBA riff, and passing it off as her own? The catchiest part of the tune, the very core of the song, was someone else's work. Where's the creativity?

For all their pretentious claims of creativity, DJ's appear reluctant - allergic even - to actually create anything. All they seem willing or able to do is recycle - take bits and pieces of things which already exist.

At best, it might be performance art. At worst? Scavenging.

[FrankChurch]

I have to play the Christgau card:

"PM Dawn, Of the Heart, of the Soul, and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience [Gee Street, 1991]
Not only is their mind excursion less threatening than Hammer, it embraces the Beatles and Spandau Ballet with a nerdy passion that might have been designed to assuage white consciences and fears. I doubt it, though--listen true and its escapism seems not willful but willed, Prince Be's deft, thought-out response to a world that bugs him politically, spiritually, existentially, and because he's fat. This is rap that's totally idiosyncratic, yet so lost in music it's got total outreach--moving effortlessly from speech to song, the quiet storm of sweet hooks and soft beats surprises like prime Big Star or XTC, only it's never brittle or arch. The sharpest synthesis since Prince, who we should probably start calling Prince Fuck just to keep our teen spirits straight. A"

He like it, so do me. It's about the synthesis with the sample and the added on chorus, vocals, sweet added melodies. Even Spandau Ballet approved.

[FrankChurch]

Barber, I will give you a turntable and see if you can do what he did.

[FinderDoug]

Artistry? As in "technically proficient", maybe. As in "art"? Like any other art, it's purely subjective based on audience. You may hear music. I hear rhythm, which I consider a different animal.

All of that effort, put into learning to scratch records in a rhythmic fashion is useless without something to scratch. Even the guy who teaches himself to make music on a bunch of different-sized plastic pails has learned to make music in a fashion that is dependent upon no one else - he can still make music if the power goes out, if the vinyl warps, if people simply stop releasing music to the public.

Both of them - the DJ and the Pail Player - may hear music and rhythms and translate them into sounds for an audience. But the DJ's expression is impossible without someone else making music first for him to use. In the absence of that, he has nothing except great hand/eye/ear coordination.

As for the "Cristgau card" - Yay. More "Frank Church talks down to everyone with his endless parade of name-drops to remind the rabble how ill-informed and stupid their opinions are." Whatever.

[FrankChurch]

Wait a second, I'm the rabble! You're the elite Doug. Class crime.

[Steve Evil]

I have to play the Christgau card:

And we've firmly established his credibility haven't we?

Why a I not surprised that a critic who doesn't appreciate genuine musical skills in prog rock would be all over dumpster-diving djs?

[Steve Evil]

Lemmy tell you a story:

My brother once took me to see a local hip-hop artist. He had a guitarist and a drummer with him. All those little sounds and beats he put behind his rhymes were created by living, breathing human beings who had to know a little bit about their chosen discipline. I listened and thought "this is something I can respect. This is something that's being created right before my eyes, these are sounds created by people rather than machines. I can respect this."

But a dude twiddling knobs? Scratching up records someone else took the time to record? Move along. ..

[FrankChurch]

Anyone could learn the Smoke on the Water riff, but few can dj like that.

[FrankChurch]

So, people in poverty cannot have their own art form?

[AndrewR]

So, people in poverty cannot have their own art form?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Come again?

[Steve Evil]

So, people in poverty cannot have their own art form?

You mean like Blues? Or Gospel? You think those factory workers from Pre-Thatcherite Birmingham were rolling in the dough?

[Steve Evil]

Anyone could learn the Smoke on the Water riff, but few can dj like that.

But could you play the whole song?