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TheBig3 · 05-13-2014, 08:30 PM

"There's going to come a day when we wake up, and on the horizon there's going to be this huge wall of white silence, slowly rolling toward us" - Patton Oswalt

So let me being by saying that this "piece", if you can call it that, was inspired by an incredible podcast I'll link below. While I think everything RadioLab does is incredible, nothing they've done before this was made for MusicBanter quite so well. Music, racial questions, gender equality, old school, street cred, the evolution of a genre; this ****ing thing has. it. all. Check it out: Straight Outta Chevy Chase. You don't really have to listen to it to get this, but it might help. Let us begin.

Much hay has been made for centuries now about the generations coming up, and typically how they're absolutely useless. Its humorous for grandparents, once decried for "not getting it" to hear their own progeny complain that their kids don't have taste anymore. Time shambles on, nothing really changes.

But a weird thing struck me today as I listened to this Podcast. Really, a few facts:

1. 2013 was the first year, since 1958 when they started tracking Billboard hits, that a Black Artist didn't have a number 1 hit.

2. This is due in large part to EDM: a faceless, wordless, wall of sound that isn't intended to "be" anything. The wall rolling toward us may not be silence, but its everything else implicit in that quote.

One has to wonder where we'll go; If this might finally be the generation that gave up on the struggles. Has technology, moving so fast and nearly ever present, finally removed the itch of boredom that causes people to be curious about things? We could stay positive and suggest that, like the "de stijl" movement (thanks, White Stripes!), maybe this is just the form reaching an end. Maybe we should conclude that for every 60's hippie rebellion, it all died in a horrible, useless, do-nothing 1980's of an ending with all the revolutionaries giving birth to their own Alex P. Keaton. When I started to wonder about this, I was dismissive thinking "no one wants to read another cranky old man's rant." But something about the lack of a black artist hitting #1 was weird to me. On one hand, it might a homogeneous mix of culture for the future generations. Just as California tends to be America's cultural run-off, so too might EDM be the final port on the drainage line to empty out any and all remaining ****. Maybe its the pile of ashes a brave new world will be born from.

But can we move on without humanity? I'm not talking about EDM here, its soulless and I think 98% of it is complete ****, but all great music heretofore has required some element of human bones, wrapped in flesh, sweating on their instruments. Even if that instrument was a pad of paper. And it required people in rooms coming together to do things. To frame this another way, I read a video game article many years ago about a PAX-like conference where games of various sorts were played in one conference center. Two games were chosen for the article: HALO and Super Smash Brothers. One was an on-line game with a vast, unified player-base and, as it happens, almost a uniformed meta play-style. The other was just for consoles. The end result being that regional players seemed to have different styles, and this coming together created unique and interesting outcomes that both players had never seen. The latter has been music up until now. The former, it would seem, is where we're heading. If that's accurate, I fear for the future.

A smart ass comic once said "you can celebrate how unique everyone is, so long as you don't point out anyone's differences." Its a great idea, but it leads us all to be something like the BK Kids Club Gang. Diverse in appearance, but homogeneous in culture, and we're all shilling out for the same processed crap thats going to kill us one day. (I'd be Lingo, by the way). Mathematically speaking, we're achieving a permanent equilibrium. When all colors are used together, everything just comes out brown. And I don't know if we can live through another decade of EDM's "brownness" I'm hoping to Christ I'm wrong. I'm hoping that music will collapse on itself indefinitely until it explodes again. And not in the hipster, lets play **** people used to play, way. Not diversity for the sake of diversity, but honest to christ, move away from your keyboard, play things out of tune way.

Then again, maybe machines are already the future. Maybe machines are whats left, and whats next...

Spoiler for See how machines are next:

05-13-2014, 08:30 PM	#148 (permalink)
TheBig3 killedmyraindog Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Boston, Massachusetts Posts: 11,172	Rise of the Machines "There's going to come a day when we wake up, and on the horizon there's going to be this huge wall of white silence, slowly rolling toward us" - Patton Oswalt So let me being by saying that this "piece", if you can call it that, was inspired by an incredible podcast I'll link below. While I think everything RadioLab does is incredible, nothing they've done before this was made for MusicBanter quite so well. Music, racial questions, gender equality, old school, street cred, the evolution of a genre; this ***ing thing has. it. all. Check it out: Straight Outta Chevy Chase. You don't really have to listen to it to get this, but it might help. Let us begin. Much hay has been made for centuries now about the generations coming up, and typically how they're absolutely useless. Its humorous for grandparents, once decried for "not getting it" to hear their own progeny complain that their kids don't have taste anymore. Time shambles on, nothing really changes. But a weird thing struck me today as I listened to this Podcast. Really, a few facts: 1. 2013 was the first year, since 1958 when they started tracking Billboard hits, that a Black Artist didn't have a number 1 hit. 2. This is due in large part to EDM: a faceless, wordless, wall of sound that isn't intended to "be" anything. The wall rolling toward us may not be silence, but its everything else implicit in that quote. One has to wonder where we'll go; If this might finally be the generation that gave up on the struggles. Has technology, moving so fast and nearly ever present, finally removed the itch of boredom that causes people to be curious about things? We could stay positive and suggest that, like the "de stijl" movement (thanks, White Stripes!), maybe this is just the form reaching an end. Maybe we should conclude that for every 60's hippie rebellion, it all died in a horrible, useless, do-nothing 1980's of an ending with all the revolutionaries giving birth to their own Alex P. Keaton. When I started to wonder about this, I was dismissive thinking "no one wants to read another cranky old man's rant." But something about the lack of a black artist hitting #1 was weird to me. On one hand, it might a homogeneous mix of culture for the future generations. Just as California tends to be America's cultural run-off, so too might EDM be the final port on the drainage line to empty out any and all remaining *. Maybe its the pile of ashes a brave new world will be born from. But can we move on without humanity? I'm not talking about EDM here, its soulless and I think 98% of it is complete , but all great music heretofore has required some element of human bones, wrapped in flesh, sweating on their instruments. Even if that instrument was a pad of paper. And it required people in rooms coming together to do things. To frame this another way, I read a video game article many years ago about a PAX-like conference where games of various sorts were played in one conference center. Two games were chosen for the article: HALO and Super Smash Brothers. One was an on-line game with a vast, unified player-base and, as it happens, almost a uniformed meta play-style. The other was just for consoles. The end result being that regional players seemed to have different styles, and this coming together created unique and interesting outcomes that both players had never seen. The latter has been music up until now. The former, it would seem, is where we're heading. If that's accurate, I fear for the future. A smart ass comic once said "you can celebrate how unique everyone is, so long as you don't point out anyone's differences." Its a great idea, but it leads us all to be something like the BK Kids Club Gang. Diverse in appearance, but homogeneous in culture, and we're all shilling out for the same processed crap thats going to kill us one day. (I'd be Lingo, by the way). Mathematically speaking, we're achieving a permanent equilibrium. When all colors are used together, everything just comes out brown. And I don't know if we can live through another decade of EDM's "brownness" I'm hoping to Christ I'm wrong. I'm hoping that music will collapse on itself indefinitely until it explodes again. And not in the hipster, lets play people used to play, way. Not diversity for the sake of diversity, but honest to christ, move away from your keyboard, play things out of tune way. Then again, maybe machines are already the future. Maybe machines are whats left, and whats next... Spoiler** for See how machines are next: __________________ I've moved to a new address Last edited by TheBig3; 05-14-2014 at 09:47 AM. Reason: Too much spacing.