From: awrc@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Al Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.music.industrial
Subject: Re: Who needs TOP 40?
Date: 14 Oct 92 13:51:00 GMT
Reply-To: awrc@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Al Crawford)
Organization: The University Of Edinburgh - Department Of Computer Science

In article <1992Oct12.131713.3734@wvnvms.wvnet.edu> nc313060@wvnvms.wvnet.edu writes:
>
> What is the big deal to have to place music in categories INSIDE of
> categories? Isn't it enough to just say that they are industrial?

I think it really depends on the reason they're categorising. If it's for
elitist purposes, continually trying to subdivide a genre up until "their"
groups are in a nice little clique of their own, well, I'd agree with you
there. If it's for descriptive purposes though...

A: "Hey, there's this great new group, you've *got* to listen to them."
B: "Wow, like cool, what sort of music is it?"
A: "It's *industrial*!!!"

Now B should have been wary at A's use of multiple exclamation marks, but
instead goes out and buys the CD that A recommended.

Here we run into a problem though. B owns every CD ever released on Wax
Trax. His/her idea of industrial is of Front Line Assembly and Front 242,
he/she even owns the exclusive Bill Leeb Step Aerobics bootleg.

A, however, considers NON or The Hafler Trio to be Top 40 mainstream
sellouts and thinks that the only music worthy of the tag "industrial" is
performed using deliberately mistuned tactical thermonuclear weapons and
metal shredding plants. If several people *died* during the recording, all
the better, especially if it's clearly audible.

Both A and B have a clear idea of what they mean by industrial, both A and
B have a *completely different* idea of what they mean by industrial.

So categorisation isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as it's used
positively (to help describe the music) rather than negatively (to split
the genre into elitist cliques). Had A and B realised this, we might well
have heard...

A: "Hey, there's this great new group, you've *got* to listen to them."
B: "Wow, like cool, what sort of music is it?"
A: "It's car-crushing plant, small scale nuclear exchange industrial noise
    with a high body count."
B: "No beat?"
A: "Yeah, they beat this guy to death using pickaxes and recorded it"
B: "No, I mean can I put on my black clothes and dance to it?"
A: "You don't *need* to dance to it, if you play it loud enough the
    building vibrates underneath you and you get the same effect."
B: "How about Bladerunner samples?"
A: "It's got the sound of a guy wearing a very heavy hat running over razor
    blades..."
B: "Umm, no, I think I'll pass on it this time..."
A: "Yeah, actually, several of the group do pass...."
B: "No! No! No!"

> Don't misunderstand - I love industrial, techno, grunge, but I don't
> think it's necessary to create a smaller group.

No, it's not *necessary*, but I find it's sometimes desirable, if only to
take account of the fact that what's perceived as a single "genre" actually
includes several fairly distinct styles.

> The people at the college I attend don't understand what kind of music I
> listen to. Most of the time, they look at me like I just landed here from
> a spaceship! And God forbid that they hear any of it.

Umm, call this a radical idea, but maybe they *just don't like it*.
People's tastes differ. Just because they don't like it doesn't mean they
don't *understand it*, it might just mean (shock! horror!) that they *don't
like it*. Mull the concept around for a while, give it time to soak in.
Fr'example, my fiancee gives me a very strange look whenever I play, say, a
Delerium CD and mutters under her breath about "weird music". I don't think
it's because she doesn't understand the music or is restricted to some Top
40 Total Mind Control straitjacket, it's because she *doesn't like it*. The
idea that if only people would *understand* the music they'd automatically
like it is an erroneous one, I think.

> One of my friends asked me to make him a tape (of techno music), and
> after listening to it, he told me that it was "cool, but they weren't
> enough words.". I couldn't believe that he was so TOP 40 oriented that he
> couldn't make out the feelings swirling around in the noise of techno.I
> was disappointed.

Words -> Top 40, No Words -> "Cool"? *sigh* Since when was "having words"
exclusive to Top 40 music? Different people get different things from
music. Some people, like myself, tend to appreciate the music itself more
than the lyrics. Hell, half the time the lyrics just go straight in one ear
and out the other without me even noticing them - trying to say something
Deep And Meaningful via lyrics tends to raise a smirk in me rather than
profound thoughts. Others aren't too fussy about the music and rely
primarily on the lyrics, or the sound of the voice. Some lucky individuals
appreciate both in equal degree. I'm not one of them though.

Just because he "couldn't make out the feelings swirling around in the
noise" doesn't mean his brain had somehow become terminally decayed by Evil
Top 40 Music. Despite my being largely instrumentally oriented, most techno
bores me so rigid I fall over/asleep. There's just certain sounds that set
the 'ole neuron(s) firing, and certain others that induce boredom or, in
extreme cases, narcolepsy. Does the fact that I don't like techno mean that
my brain has been taken over by subliminal vibes present in that portion of
my listening that doesn't follow the Kosher Of K00L? Or is it just that,
alas, I'm not some sort of musical omnivore and am willing to admit that my
own musical tastes do have bounds.

> Another person told me that "Thieves" by Ministry wasn't fast enough.
> Needless to say, he was a heavy metal knothead with the intelligence
> of a pea.

Maybe he just likes fast music? OK, I have to admit that basing your
musical tastes on how *fast* something is seems a little screwy ("I don't
care *what* it is, as long as it's *fast*") but let me ask another question
- how did you present the song to him? Was it by any chance "hey, you're a
heavy metal knothead (or words to that effect), here, have a listen to
this, you might like it" This, I've discovered, is a sure-fire recipe for
failure when trying to introduce people to new music. If they like song A
and ask you to suggest something else they might like, you might think song
B is very similar. However, what they're looking for/finding in the music
might be completely different from what you look for/find, with the result
that song B turns them off completely while song C (which you have but
consider to be completely different) would have had them drooling and
slobbering all over the CD. This is something I've discovered to my cost
when putting tapes together for my fiancee. So many songs that I thought
"hey, this sounds like <some artist I know she likes>, I'll put this on the
tape" met with lukewarm responses that, after a long chat on the subject,
we concluded that what we both got something completely different out of
music. I've completely given up on putting tapes like that together, since
musically at least we're on completely different wavelengths.

> I have decided to keep my musical taste to myself, and let those
> countless numbers of Debbie Gibson look-alikes drown it the sea of normality
> they have chosen to wade around in.

Ack, elitism. "People who don't like what I like are boring and normal." It
all boils down to belonging, doesn't it, all boils down to belonging,
whether you're following the crowd or trying to be different (along with
several thousand other people all of whom have decided to be different in
exactly the same way). Yech.

Cosmic Concept #1 - people like different types of music. Just because they
don't like *your* favourite type of music, doesn't mean they've got ooze
between their ears.

Cosmic Concept #2 - people are under no obligation to explore the more
weird and wonderful shores of music to prove their worthiness. It's not as
if any minute now green globs from Alpha Centauri are about to land and
evaporate anybody who doesn't listen to, say, Merzbow. If someone's
listening is restricted to popular Top 40 music and they're happy with it,
what's the problem? Sure, there probably *is* a lot of music out there that
they've never heard and they'd like, but who says it's *your* particular
favourite genre that's the one that would appeal to them?

Cosmic Concept #3 - even if someone is willing to experiment a little,
there's nothing that says their life revolves around their musical tastes
so much that they'll even have time to or want to. I think it'd be fair to
say that a fair number of the regular posters to r.m.i. would describe what
they listen to as a "lifestyle choice" and listen to a *lot* of music.
Here's an astonishing thought - there's people out there who *don't* listen
to much music and (gasp!) there's nothing particularly wrong with them.

> I think I'm done bitching now.

Please don't get the impression that my little rant above was directed
specifically at you. It started out that way but kinda...grew into a
general expression of discontent at "If you don't like the music I listen
to you are mentally deficient" elitism.

Al

--
			Al Crawford - awrc@dcs.ed.ac.uk
	  Department Of Computer Science, The University of Edinburgh
   Rm 1410, JCMB, Kings Buildings, Mayfield Rd, EDINBURGH, EH9 3JZ, Scotland
	     Tel: +44 (0) 31 650 5165  Fax: +44 (0) 31 667 7209
Newsgroups: rec.music.industrial