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17
I am the one behind the cup...
I have been a closet electro fan for a while. Whether it be bleeps, bloops, beats and/or saw tooth variety, I eat up nearly all electronically generated sounds. Don’t get me wrong, an acoustic guitar and a well played drum kit are irreplaceable. You can never get rid of those pillars of popular music. But sampling those sounds and manipulating them can sometimes be even more satisfying and interesting. Which gets me to my revitalized fascination with some newer electronic bands. Caribou, Tobacco, Deastro, Justice and M83 just to name a few new faves. There seems to be a surge in good electronic music to me. My interest in the current electronic bands seem to go up and down like the sine wave. Maybe it’s a downturn in other genres of music? Imagination seems to be lacking in most music these days except for the electronic variety. No one seems to be trying to stretch the idea of what a song or music is or can be more than electronic music. I could rant all day about the folk, neo-folk, folk-rock, psych-rock, psych classic rock, neo classic rock, neo punk rock traditions that have been beat into the ground at such a rate that my eyes seem to have rolled back into the back of my head to hide from the sight of such a band. Anyway, the point being, it appears that no one is try to do anything innovative in their respective sects of music. Yes you can say that electronic is as broad as broad can be and can contain the elements of said genres and border on any and all types of music. But that my friend is American. A melting pot of sound, innovation, imagination, and most importantly freedom. That was what this fair country was built upon. The freedom to use a sampled marching band drum on a dance remix of a power synth pop horror movie soundtrack cover. And if that ain’t American, you can kiss my ass.
All I will say
modular synth + compact game style interface = loss of sleep for me
here
Rawness. Raw power. Raw sound. Raw. Raw RAW!!!! I can remember the first time I heard Raw Power by Iggy and the Stooges. I was in high school and distracted by more overly complicated sounds. I was going through a Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine phase. My Bloody Sonic Pumpkin phase if you will. I was into feedback and drone and not quite sure what I was listening too. I had not learned how to fathom the pure genius that was packed into that one album my metal-head friend introduced. My friend was more metal than punk but like my musical tastes, was conflicted. Or at least his hair was saying that. He was in transition. Metallica t-shirts with spiked hair and studded wristbands were his thing. I think everyone was in a state of transition musically in the mid 90s. Grunge was confusing a lot of people. Slacker rock was blurring many music that was once either rock or punk or metal. So my initial listening to Raw Power was not as impactful as I would have thought it should be. It had been watered down for me by all the bands influenced by them. The sea of watered down Rawness (if you will) confused my overstimulated 17 year old mind. It was too Raw and too basic I didn’t take notice. I was lured away by the dreamy drones and more artsy fartsy rock of the time. Now, stepping back, I think I was gravitating more towards weirder bands for weird-sake. What I did not realize is weird was invented by Iggy. Jim Morrison may have invented crowd surfing but Iggy pushed it way beyond what a crowd would think. I know Iggy was influenced by Jim but where did peanut butter and glitter come into the picture? Mosh pits would be nothing were it not for Iggy. I am getting off subject here. At 17, I did not know how to appreciate this album. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I think there were a lot of distractions back then. It is just weird that I am rediscovering an album that was made for 17-18 year-olds 14 years too late (yeah, do the math). Now it has become almost an obsession. Every playlist I make has at least has one song from this album and many time I will skip songs till I hit one of these loud gems. Did I some how miss out on a youth of loud raw pure rock? Nah, those kids annoy the hell out of me and I was probably better off dissecting Thurston Moore’s opuses rather than trying to figure out what Shake Appeal is talking about.
Eno not Emo, the website!
enonotemo.com
Concept albums and bands will have a surge in the year of two double aught nine. Styx will become a relevant band for once in their career.