Pop-M-S @ 2013.

I don't like dance music.

I'm sorry, whatever form it is - techno, rave, trance, house or the new-fangled sub-genres I heard today in lecture like psy-trance - I don't like them. Much. At all.

Nope.

As a student of music, I really ought to be more open, tolerant of new forms of music. Mind you, I do see the beauty in dance, electronica, and this... type of music. There's an extension of the Kyber, cyberculture in electronica. Its very genesis from the cusp of technology is exciting for observers of history, music, culture and also, for us nerds who believe in the long encompassing reach of the Net.

As an observer, I find dance (I use "dance" as the encompassing term for all genres like techno, electronica, trance, house and like-sounds) and its culture exciting and new. A bubblepot of possibilities is this genre; and the behaviour of its fans at rave parties and events is to say the least intriguing.

The latter is like a postmodern tribal community. The idea of a postmodern tribal community flashed into my mind when lecturer Brian Morris talked - and perhaps waxed some lyrical - about the ritual of this community, driving out to the Victorian countryside, pausing to see if they can hear the sound of music carried over the still night air, and also when he flashed the quote from an online forum when a fan expressed why he/she prefers the bush doof to an indoor party.

I would even say that dance music itself has a postmodern edge to it, with its nature of sampling and appropriating various songs to create a new hybrid.

So yes, dance music possesses a certain amount of intrigue and perhaps even mystic for me who live in an age where Moby and Fatboy Slim can sel millions of records without being actually musicians and in my opinion, half-baked singers/ rappers/ whatever you would call their intonations over their electronically engineered music.

In part, I attribute my disdain for dance music to my musical pride. I play the keyboards, guitar and drums. Subconsciously and then consciously, I realise dance music turns me off so because most times, dance music is music that doesn't require a musician, music that doesn't need a lifetime of practice to be a virtuoso, sound that could make the musician obsolete.

What an insult.

While the computer nerd and cultural observer in me watches the evolution of dance music with interest, the musician and purist protests. The strong beat of dance music offends me, offends me in its repetitive nature, loops which I know how to generate on my computer keyboard with a music programme.

I also stand by the usual format of a song, with verses, a bridge and chorus, moments where your emotions ebb and then rise as the music manipulates. Dance music, though not devoid of highs and lows, brings its listeners into a trance with repetition. I scoff this method, which I fancy okay if used with restraint but scoff otherwise.

When I listen to a song, when I buy a record, I want to be listening to skills, musical and vocal excellence and skills, not just production and technical skills of people who used ProTools, a synthesizer and a computer to stitch a song together.

Cheers.
- posted by sg girl @ 8:00 pm
 

Comments: Post a Comment

All works on www.popms.blogspot.com copyrighted by Skye Tan.