I would just listen to what you want to listen to. I can get into some fairly experimental stuff but it's never been something I've actively -tried- to do. The older I got, the more 'out there' my music tastes became. If a few years ago you told me I would be listening to ambient music, I might have been skeptical. I think what really got me into experimental music was experimental pop -- artists like Bjork, Karin Dreijer, synthpop, art pop, trip hop, artists like Goldfrapp, who prided themselves on hyper accessibility but simultaneously have an experimental edge (circa Felt Mountain). Over time it just becomes natural. I've never really had to try to enjoy experimental music. It was a very steady and natural transition. I can intellectualize and conceptualize music as much as I want to but at the end of the day it boils down to what the music makes me innately feel.
I guess if you wanted to make a point to engage in experimental music, I would start with something you are at least somewhat familiar with, like if you are really into Hip Hop, I would suggest CLPNNG by Clipping because they blend elements of experimental, electronic, and noise with very cliche Hip Hop motifs.
It's funny because I am not in any conceivable way a fan of mainstream pop so this strategy didn't really apply to me. I was already heavily interested in experimental music. I think my introduction to anything even remotely alternative pop was Speak for Yourself by Imogen Heap. That album kind of blew my mind in a way I didn't think pop music could because it's such a contradiction.
It's a pretty obvious indie / electronica (lol what even is electronica) pop album. It has all of the pop cliches -- all of the ornaments and the hooks and I remember listening to it and enjoying it and then I heard Hide and Seek and it pretty much changed everything me.
I was watching an interview with Grimes once where she described minimal music as the anti pop, because it's just completely bare. There aren't any tricks. There's nothing to hide behind. It's just bare. Every sound is immediately heard. She went on to explain that she was terrified of minimal music, that it was the hardest music she could imagine making because there is nothing to hide behind.
That's why Hide and Seek is so amazing. It begs one to wonder what really is experimental, and what should be considered experimental? To me, Hide and Seek is one of the most experimental works of art in contemporary music because it completely deconstructed her entire formula. It's a ****ing pop album and then halfway through she turns around and completely forgoes nearly every pop cliche. There weren't any tricks. It was just pure pain, completely unadulterated musical perfection, complete emotion, and it's so unbelievably genius to me because of the contrast. If you're in a room and everyone is screaming as loud as they can, another scream is insignificant, but you know what is completely moving? Someone sitting silently. Contrast, to me, is the ultimate experiment.
If you take a noise album and it's 100% noise, is that really experimental? No, it's expected. It becomes normality. It becomes "pop". For Imogen to forego her entire pop aesthetic to make one of the most ethereal, beautiful things I have ever heard, the only song I can safely say is 100% perfect -- that's experimental to me. That is so brave and so courageous. Maybe I'm over thinking it, but that is easily one of the bravest things I've ever seen in art. And it charted really well because people felt it. That song is so famous because it's so unequivocally heartbreakingly beautiful.
When The Knife made Shaking the Habitual... THAT is experimental. They were so terrified of becoming parodies of themselves, of being predictable, that they dropped every single shred of their aesthetic, of what they perceived music to be. How many times have you seen a synthpop / dance pop duo make a dark ambient / drone album? But it was still undeniably The Knife. Probably the most amazing album I've ever heard.
Wow I rambled. What were we even talking about tbh
|