TL-DR Dept.- Old Man Shouts At Clouds

A recent post at the Hoofman board asking "When did music stop being a social activity?" drew some interesting responses, some predictable, but some thoughtful and considerate, among them the definitive answer, it didn't. Social media, and the brain implants we still call "phones" have shifted the context, but The Young People Of Today still have music at the core of social activity. A linked video supported this:

You can follow the internet trail to similar events, all showing thousands of TYPOTs having a fantastic time being sociable. The Hoofman commenter makes the point that these events started at a much smaller scale, with TYPOTs making discoveries on their phone and sharing links and files with their besties. Then getting together at clubs or raves or whatever to see their discoveries live, and ultimately joining the crowds at EnormoTent gigs like the one above by Hardwell (me neither).

So - all fine and good, right? We-ell ...

This Hardwell performance was from last year. It is contemporary music. Yet "this sort of" music - insert genre subset here - was around in embryonic form in the 'seventies, and fully developed in the 'eighties. It's decades old. A fan could claim to hear a world of difference, saying how the music's evolved out of all recognition, tracing its history through those much-loved genre subsets ("Big Room", anyone?), but that would just be nit-pickery. It's older than the audience, dude! Cooling to my theme; the many clips of similar events I watched on YouTube - d0 ur oWn rESerCh - have characteristics in common other than anonymous unoriginality.

The performers stand behind banks of computers, visible from the waist up. They dress like rando backpack phone-strokers, black tees, short hair or bald, geek glasses. Nothing new or even vaguely interesting here - there's no style like lack of style, right? "Performance" is limited to occasionally raising the arms to get the audience clapping along, like a singalong at an old folks' home. The music magically continues as they lift their hands from the computers. Sometimes they chat to each other on-stage, digging it. You'll see as much animation - and way more personality - from your local barkeep.

2, or B: Zero dynamics. Slight changes in b.p.m. are not dynamics. There's a shift between beat-less intervals, cleverly manipulated to set up the Pavlovian release into beats, but that's it. There's nothing inherently wrong in simple music, but this argues otherwise. It's musical bipolarity - GO CRAZY NOW!! BLISS OUT NOW!! Rinse and repeat.

TYPOT would also reasonably point out that "this sort of" music is just one color in the infinite spectrum of contemporary musical expression, and it's unfair to use it as representative. I'm not. I'm singling it out because an informed TYPOT himself - wupes, theyself - chose it to demonstrate contemporary music as social activity. I am saying the hell with it, though.

At the other end of the scale, our commenter might have chosen this:

Tiny Desk© concerts don't just happen spontaneously, and this clip is a result of artists growing a following through live appearances and recordings - community sharing, social activity. It was chosen at random because this is a very crowded field, and always was. They're competent musicians, part of a contemporary equivalent of the folk club/coffee house scene back in the early 'sixties, which created the singer-songwriter phenom. Which is, you'll be relieved to know, where I reach my point. I'm sure TYPOT is tired of hearing this, but where is your Dylan? Your Joni? Where are the memorable popular songs and vivid personalities that sprung from the back porch? There's no shortage of musicianship, technical ability, but that's all I'm hearing, the same as I heard from local musicians at folk clubs drawing from the trad. arr. pool fifty years ago. I'll give you a break - where's your James Taylor? Fire And Rain is representative of the singer-songwriter's art, a massive career-creating hit song that struck a deep common chord - where's today's equivalent? 

I'm happy that Mama's Broke are making music, even if they do seem goddamn miserable about it, but familiarity isn't making this, or any of the innumerable similar acts of identical ability, stand out as anything special. I'm not looking for anything radically new from an age-old musical context, but I am looking for something special, an individual talent that lifts itself above competence into some kind of cultural significance. Too much to ask? Just one song I want to learn the chords to, fercrissake. How hard can it be?

Okay - here's some diversity, to demonstrate my inclusivity. Sabrina Bellaouel, like, ten minutes ago:

A Bandcamp review limns the new album thusly:

"The album arrives as a culmination of a decade’s worth of hustle and learning that saw [note music crit use of verb "to see" - Ed.] the French-Algerian singer, songwriter, and producer cut her teeth in the Parisian hip-hop scene. Early collaborations with acts like The Hopp and Jazzy Bazz [me neither - Ed.] showed Bellaouel the codes and discipline of self-made artistry, while foundational records by R&B vanguardists Jill Scott, Kelela, and Sevdaliza [me neeza - Ed.] taught her to push her craft beyond genre limits. Extraordinarily candid, Bellaouel ... "

Etcetera. It's a long review. The text accompanying pop releases has become as important as the product it accompanies, following the form of contemporary "fine art", where a gallery show is absolutely nothing without the catalog essays. Apparently, we need to understand the context before we can appreciate the content, and then we can just shut the fuck up. Key signifiers here are French-Algerian, Parisian hip-hop, and, elsewhere in the review, pandemic, echoing qanun harmonies, blasts of dayereh. Gotcha. We're in! She's a Muslim woman of color with a great resumé, so how can this be anything less than significant?

The clip is okay. Perfectly professional, to real R&B what Nescafé is to real coffee. It ticks the boxes, does what it says on the tin. Does it merit the Bandcamp eulogy? Of course it doesn't. It's competent genre product, bland, anodyne, and, without the video, completely anonymous. Artificially intelligent, created from prompts. The question isn't so much will anyone be listening to it in fifty years, than will anyone remember it in fifty weeks. Question mark unnecessary. 

So, to sum up ... nah. Fuck it. Let's dig the Buffies lip-synching For What It's Worth.

There's something happening here - what it is ain't exactly clear. I think it's time we stop, children - what's that sound? Everybody look what's goin' down.