17.4.08

NPIP Event - 16 May 2008

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posted by Tobias at 13:25 0 Comments

7.4.08

"MUSIC IS NOT ART"



Take this and invert it completely. There, you now have the reasons why I love music. Thanks Ali Turner from Newcastle! When you think in the mirror you think me!

Read On...

"The premise here (or at least where I am coming from), is that MUSIC IS NOT ART … that there is such a thing as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ music with the defining criterion ranging from song structure, timbre quality, symbiosis between music and lyrics, timing etc, whereas with art, it seems that it is completely viable to say, smear a canvas with shite and argue that it is a masterpiece – a form of expression beyond the reach of criteria that may (and in my opinion, should) deem it to be crap (pun intended). Or is it simply about opinion … people might argue that ‘good music’ is exactly that, if you deem it to be so – or simply dig it, even though it may easily fail to meet the aforementioned criteria.

I guess as I musician and music teacher, I have a major chip on my shoulder! The main focus of my frustration is so-called ‘Indie’ music! I can accept (put up with the fact) that there are trends and ‘fads’ that people feel obliged to follow, the ‘cool’ and ‘un-cool’, the ‘today’ and ‘yesterday’ etc … I can accept that the music industry panders to this demand and what we have is a bunch of ‘artists’ (much sarcasm) who invariably sound the same – a cycle of mediocrity that is in rotation as long as the fad or trend in question. So what am I getting at? Quite simple really – all that is good and well, however I refuse unequivocally to accept that the utter dross, the sheer arse-gravy that we have to put up with in the charts, particularly Indie music, qualifies as ‘good music’ (and in most cases, ‘music’ at all)! I’m sorry, but just because you learn three chords on a guitar, grow your hair over your ears, don your drainpipe jeans, cultivate the old bum-fluff for a few weeks and insisting on wearing a fucking white tie to round off this nauseating, bull-crap, generic look … just because you stand on a stage and shout “Ruby, Ruby, Ruby” or “shoot, shoot the runner” in some contrived/overly emphasised bull-crap Northern drawl (I’m from Durham by the way so I know a pseudo-northerner when I see one) – all this does NOT give you the right to call yourself a musician!!!"

Maybe he does have a point somewhere toward the end, but by then I'm disagreeing with him on principle.

Read this instead. Now.

And watch this. "I don't know Johnny Rotten, but I'm sure he puts as much blood and sweat into what he does as Sigmund Freud did. What sounds to you like a big load of trashy old noise is in fact the brilliant music of a genuis."

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posted by No Pain In Pop at 05:30 0 Comments