Re: [ARSCLIST] CD versus Download was "All hail the analogue revolution..."

[Steven Barr <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Cox" <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> On 04/10/06, Steven Barr wrote:
> 
> > Finally, I wonder if "western" music is finally reaching a
> > "point of no return," where virtually everything that can be
> > played (accepting the standard "givens" of such music) has
> > already BEEN played! I'm waiting for some new musical form,
> > as different as rock'n'roll was to bland fifties pop, or
> > swung to the sweet, Lombardo-ish dance sound of the early
> > thirties, or ragtime to the sentimental ballads of the
> > Victorian era...to anything that has gone before. So far,
> > all I have heard are old ideas relentlessly recycled.
> > But...IS there anything left that won't repeat what has
> > already been done?!
> 
> There is a great deal of music around that has no resemblance at all to
> rock or to rock and roll.
> 
> For example, the music compiled entirely on computers, using samples in
> the same way as collage was used by artists. 
> 
> And I don't think you will hear any rock'n'roll in the average club
> today. Look at the outputs from Fruity Loops, Reason, Cubase, etc. Or
> the work of DJs and VJs. Or the Hip-Hop/Rap battle scene.
> http://www.wikihow.com/Survive-a-Freestyle-Rap-Battle
> 
> Or if you prefer acoustic instruments, there is a big range of curent
> African styles.
> 
> Then, there is British Asian music.
> 
Well, to me virtually all North American popular music of today sounds
very much...at least in terms of rhythm...to the "soul music" of the
mid-sixties. Using the turntable as a musical/rhythmic instrument has
created new sounds...but they seem extensively to be used in the same
old way the old sounds were.

Now, both African music (if it was created over there, from folk forms
rather than being based on imported North American "pop" music) and
the British Asian-based (if you meant "South Asian," that music also
has a following in Toronto!) have interesting possibilities of
evolving into sounds dissimilar to any previous forms of pop music...
but only if they attract the genreal audience, as did Black music
throughout the mid-twentieth century in the western world...

Steven C. Barr