Jasi and Dahis don’t deliver; there IS such a thing as bad taste in music; Ratatat's Nostrand

I’m pretty big into music, and I was looking forward to seeing some interesting blogs from the Land of the Emu(sic) by Jasi and Dahis. They started out a bit on the weak side, but there was potential. At least the comments were very interesting.

May 31^st, 2008

“Yes, we’re still here. Been pretty busy lately, but an update from myself should be around this evening. Stay tuned.”

-Jasi

It never happened.

Protip for you, Jasi: don’t write a whole blog to make a promise you won’t deliver.

Now, I see a lot of political, economical, social, philosophical, sports, and entertainment blogs (which have nothing to do with gaming) around here that sometimes lead to some interesting debates +flame wars. But the music ones are rare, or void of content (listing your top 5 rap bands is fun and all, but not really what I mean).

There IS such a thing as bad taste in music. And I know what most of you 1700 rated music listeners are thinking: “But Aeol, how can you say that, an opinion is an opinion. If I like it and you don’t, it doesn’t make it bad music.”

Well, let’s start from scratch. We all know how powerful music is, how much it can influence emotion without the need of a single lyric. There are certain modes of music that Plato himself wanted to be taken out of his Ideal State because they evoked sorrowful or ungraceful or indolent feelings. Saint Augustine knew the power of music, and pronounced certain musical modes and melodic intervals dissonant and outlawed them from church. There are tons of large scale examples of how music has influenced human evolution to one extent or another. But here’s the point I’m trying to make with these examples.

Just as music can be manipulated to manipulate, it can also be manipulated to be liked. In itself, it sounds kind of silly; obviously music is meant to be liked, even if it’s only to be liked by the artist himself. But when music ties in with commerciality, with profit making, that’s when it stops being silly. The world has been going down the drain for a long time, and it’s not just environmentally, politically and economically. Musical taste has deteriorated based solely on the intentions of people to make a profit out of it without caring about anything else.

When I tell someone: “Britney Spears is bad music” and they retort with “Oh really, then how come most of the world listens to her?” I counter retort by telling them “That just further proves how little taste most of the world has”.

Let’s make something clear before going any further. Music is an art form. But it is also a form of entertainment. When music is stripped of its artfulness and becomes nothing more than entertainment for the mindless masses and a record label dictates what needs to be done to maximize profit, that’s bad music.

Ever since CD sales started to plummet due to music on the internet, record companies have gotten more desperate than ever, and their goal to engineer trash music that appeals to the masses has become a bigger problem than ever before (for us that enjoy good music). This is the process that your typical #1 radio hit undergoes:

-A band gets pigeon holed to create a song with a million restrictions set by their record label: “Don’t do anything experimental, nothing too fancy or crazy, or original; stay with what’s selling right now.”

- An army of producers, engineers, software programmers and statisticians guide the creation of the song and intrude in the making of it in order to keep it within the guidelines.

-Track is edited with a commercial purpose in mind.

-Track is mixed with a commercial purpose in mind.

-Track is mastered with a commercial purpose in mind.

-Track is sent to the radio, where it takes further butchering: They trim long intros, chop chorus or verse repetitions, edit words out, cut long solos or interludes, and speed up the whole track (On average, most commercial radio stations speed tracks about 3% based on a study that says people enjoy faster music).

-Then there's the loudness wars, which some of you may be familiar with (RHCP's Californication anyone?):

There you have it. A deliciously catchy and over processed mainstream hit that will make the artist and the record label millions of dollars. These people aren’t creating art, they’re creating a product. And they’re good at what they do. Every note and lyric is made with one purpose in mind: making money. Which chord progression appeals the most to the sheep in this world? Should I dare venture into a 9/8 beat and risk people not being able to tap their foot along the music? Of course not! That would be a loss of potential profit.

I won’t lie; I am sometimes a victim of this trash. I personally think the musicians that work for Britney Spears are geniuses. The melodies and harmonies for Toxic are pure gold. But I can’t really stand the song itself. If I could hear it re made by one of the bands I like, while keeping the essence, I would fall in love with it.

The problem with this kind of music is that it’s highly disposable. Not just the poppy sounding ones. Bands like Coldplay, Maroon 5, Linkin Park; you know the kind. It’s engineered to appeal to a very shallow taste. I hear it one time and maybe it’s alright. But the next time I already find myself hating it. Why listen to this trash when I have a wide selection of good bands that actually play from the soul and try new things instead of attempting to engineer money-making commercial hits for the masses? This is the type of music that fades away quickly, whether after a few listens, or after a few months, or maybe a couple years. It has no real artistic value, it’s made specifically for profit, and it usually relies heavily on collateral entertainment help (looking pretty or cool, dancing, etc.).

It’s a delicate subject though. In my opinion there is no such thing as a sellout band and one that’s not. It’s just not black and white like that. It’s more like a scale from one to ten.

10 (worst sellout) – Every Britney Spears album in which she was fully carried by her musicians; trash rap and hip hop.

8 - Maroon 5’s latest album. (Their first album was a 7)

4 – Muse’s latest album

1 – Radiohead

0 (music completely uninfluenced by commerciality) – Beethoven, Mozart, etc.

The list can be quite dynamic, as some artists tend to start alright, and then sell out as time goes. Some artists sell out from the moment they start their careers, and some artists barely sell out at all.

So, according to me, what is it to have bad taste in music? Well, I would put you on the above scale based on the bands you love, and I would measure you based on how many commercial trash bands you like according to the scale. Then I would put you on a scale on it's own to determine how bad your music taste really is. But at least I won't hold it against you; I'm very open minded.

To end this wall of text, I leave you with my bass cover of one of my favorite Ratatat songs: Nostrand (wait until 1:40; it gets awesome then).

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