is music weakening/stagnating as much as movies have in the past 20 years
- Thread starter goatschool
- Start date
beyond my opinion, i believe it is fact that the majority of films released in the year 2004 are sequels or complete rehashes of very basic storylines, so they may have well been sequels. well done or not, nothing divergent or new is getting introduced, and to interject opinion at this point, nothing thought-provoking.
this doesn't show any signs of stopping, in fact, it is strengthening as no scripts with original ideas are getting OK'd anywhere due to economic safe-bets, to continue chupe's theme. why is this? i guess it has something to do with the consumer's comfort zone. and this can go off on a very complicated analysis of movie/music/cultural history/trends in time of war and time of quasi-war and etc etc etc.
obviously music is a somewhat different animal (nature of what makes most bands is the "sound") and the mechanics of creativity are therefore kinda different but has anyone noted an overall wash of laziness due to the onslaught of tech factors to emerge in the past few years? even the past 24 months? i think i have, but... but yeah.
this doesn't show any signs of stopping, in fact, it is strengthening as no scripts with original ideas are getting OK'd anywhere due to economic safe-bets, to continue chupe's theme. why is this? i guess it has something to do with the consumer's comfort zone. and this can go off on a very complicated analysis of movie/music/cultural history/trends in time of war and time of quasi-war and etc etc etc.
obviously music is a somewhat different animal (nature of what makes most bands is the "sound") and the mechanics of creativity are therefore kinda different but has anyone noted an overall wash of laziness due to the onslaught of tech factors to emerge in the past few years? even the past 24 months? i think i have, but... but yeah.
avi
W3RK3R
hmm, I can't really argue with that I don't think.
I'm gonna try and remember what stuff I've found to be really inspiring lately.
I'm gonna try and remember what stuff I've found to be really inspiring lately.
my "label" is founded on exploring what i think to be stranger/quality/self-respecting versions of a very basic, mostly stupid genre of music. i think the most unique-sounding release was 4 years ago of a band from Indonesia. the production was low, the name wasn't known at all (amongst a sea of already obscure band names), yet the sound and the structure was, to my ear, a lot more indicative of the culture it was created in. it seemed a lot different to me than anything i was hearing at the time (even though i think to most ears it is non-music). the kid who wrote the music did so as jakarta was in near anarchy and unfortunately he didn't give me lyrics. turns out tha he was kind of afraid to, as all of the songs were about being in love with a girl he could never approach (caste system).
as it stands, it is my weakest seller and no one gives a shit about it. i had a point when i started writing this post, but i have totally lost it.
as it stands, it is my weakest seller and no one gives a shit about it. i had a point when i started writing this post, but i have totally lost it.
TheNewChupe
HTML is not allowed.
i've been noticing this more and more in the past several years as well; there is an enormous number of major films that are rehashes of some sort, be it comics or books brought to CG-bigscreen (ie LOTR, Harry Potter, X-Men/SpiderMan/Daredevil/Elektra, Cat in the Hat, the Grinch, Garfield, etc.) and remakes of older films (Willy Wonka, Oceans 11, Phantom of the Opera, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead, etc), and the paltry number of actual new ideas solely created for film is staggering.
(btw, gschool- this would make an interesting article for IW)
(btw, gschool- this would make an interesting article for IW)
i forget, but isn't there some basic law of storytelling that says there are X number of themes and that's that?
everything is derivative of everything else but if you saw the scope of how many remakes are currently coming down the pike, chupe, it is abominable (to someone who see this as a bad trend)... and that's no exaggeration. in fact i would suggest that any film you see in the theaters that you are unfamiliar with, during the next few years, might as well be assumed as a remake of some sort. i hate to admit it but m.night S is probably one of the only exceptions.
everything is derivative of everything else but if you saw the scope of how many remakes are currently coming down the pike, chupe, it is abominable (to someone who see this as a bad trend)... and that's no exaggeration. in fact i would suggest that any film you see in the theaters that you are unfamiliar with, during the next few years, might as well be assumed as a remake of some sort. i hate to admit it but m.night S is probably one of the only exceptions.
avi
W3RK3R
hmm, upon review it does indeed seem that maybe recent movies are actually a bit weaker than I had myself convinced. but I totally 100% see eye-to-eye with Nick about music like that - that's totally along the same lines of why I do my label/website/etc. culture, yeah. foreign culture.
the more stuff I hear from Finland these days, the more impressed I am.
the more stuff I hear from Finland these days, the more impressed I am.
TheNewChupe
HTML is not allowed.
he's probably kind of lucky simply because of the commercial success of 6th sense. had he not had a blockbuster like that he'd never been given the huge budgets & opportunities and he'd be more of an indie moviemaker himself. not doubting his ability to create things, i actually like a lot of his films; just saying i think there's a lot of luck that goes into having a large-grossing "hit" movie.
which is an interesting valley as far as influence and "stuff" goes... the newness of cultural pockets to the foreigner, and the dynamics of that byproduct within its own borders (it probably isn't the same-old-shit to the native listener due to traditional/sentimental values as opposed to the lack of this in america or other transient nations, but, to the radical/free-thinker within that same culture - is the "sound" pushing boundaries or just rehashing pigeon-holed crap like everything else?)... and then, due to worldwide communication and assimilation, as everything gets a bit more diluted... what then? are we actually in a lull (musically), pursuing little gold veins of colloquial "novelty" but really not pursuing stranger tangents OR...
i'm more than a little worried that i'm not even using terms properly and thus annoying a higher intellect from swooping in and schooling us all on stuff that's really going on.
see chupe i don't like his films but i have to sau that he's throwing some at least mildly off-kilter approaches into the mix.
avi
W3RK3R
well, i guess we can start with trying to track somewhat recent trends or genre innovation...
black metal?
glitch electronica?
grime?
whatever you wanna call the stuff that Rune Grammofon and Smalltown Supersound is putting out?
I read a lot of stuff from various music pundits talking about all sorts of what they say is innovation in the pop world, but I've yet to hear much that's moved me.
I dunno, maybe it's a fool's errand. new doesn't always equal good, I guess.
black metal?
glitch electronica?
grime?
whatever you wanna call the stuff that Rune Grammofon and Smalltown Supersound is putting out?
I read a lot of stuff from various music pundits talking about all sorts of what they say is innovation in the pop world, but I've yet to hear much that's moved me.
I dunno, maybe it's a fool's errand. new doesn't always equal good, I guess.
TheNewChupe
HTML is not allowed.
It's too bad the film industry is so money-driven that companies think in order to be successful they have to give us pretty, regurgitated drivel to get the $9 of horny teenagers at the box office.
i'd like to hear smaller descriptions of what, say, the critics of pop would call an innovation. can you get into that at all, avi? jake? anyone?
also, tell me what grime is.
i do find the mixing up of styles to be interesting, and i think that intersects the same way with film. especially if it's somewhat thought out (maybe that's more valid with film?)
greg, toby, hippy, mia, josh, paul, chupe avi etc - what is the process of mixing multiple genres of music, successfully? in human terms is it too hard to explain?
also, tell me what grime is.
i do find the mixing up of styles to be interesting, and i think that intersects the same way with film. especially if it's somewhat thought out (maybe that's more valid with film?)
greg, toby, hippy, mia, josh, paul, chupe avi etc - what is the process of mixing multiple genres of music, successfully? in human terms is it too hard to explain?
avi
W3RK3R
that's why you should watch foreign films where the govn't actually grants money to filmakers to create ART.
as said before, sometimes good, sometimes not.
as said before, sometimes good, sometimes not.
avi
W3RK3R
nick, I'm not really knowledgable enough to talk about it since I'm so wrapped up in my own little world. but if you're really curious, try lurking at the ilm board: http://ilx.p3r.net/newanswers.php?board=2
it's filled with all sorts of journalists bantering back n forth and can be kind of interesting a lot of the time, even if you don't necessarily agree or want to take sides.
it's filled with all sorts of journalists bantering back n forth and can be kind of interesting a lot of the time, even if you don't necessarily agree or want to take sides.
Helm
Maybe on Luna
I think the movie/music parallel isn't as safe as it might initially seem. Musical scenes and genre groupings are arranged in a much more complex fashion than films. This is partly due to the fact that cinema usually is a communicative artistic medium, and as such, usually the thing that puts a movie in the 'mainstream' or 'indie' category is it's budget and the studio that has put it out, more than anything concerning artistic intention. Most movies have clear points to make, or present situations for discussion etc. The actual meta-grouping is mostly artificial, according to thinly defined genres, language and budgetary issues.
Music on the other hand ranges from the shamelessly commerical, devoid of semiotics pure fun for fun stuff to the unfathomably esoteric. There's music that you can buy, you can put on your stereo and let's say enjoy for what you think it is, but it's artistic intention doesn't include you, or generally communicating a message at all. There's music like Mondrian paintings and it's success cannot be measured in a social context, I think. So my point is, it's impossible to say if music has gotten worse, better, or has stagnated because a large part of modernist music simply doesn't subscribe to this goal-oriented approach where if enjoyable, success, if not, failure.
I know I'm making a pretty convulted point, and that it's not exactly sound since there IS a very small part of the movie industry that is about art films with no real communicative goal but still the amount differs vastly.
To try to answer the question in a way that makes sense (because I do understand what you're asking even if the words leave room for lots of construsion, I think ) I can tell you that I think music hasn't gotten significantly less interesting in the last 10 years that I've been trying to keep up with it. But here lies another problem. Due to the massive amount of music that's out, it's pretty difficult to have a clear picture of say, music in the year 2004 as avi did with movies in the year 2004. There's not just one or ten major studios to watch out for theres a miriad of smaller productions. Personally, I can never tell what I think of a year, as it concerns music since I'm constantly finding out about older bands that I was unaware of. For example, today I listened to Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower for the first time and whereas I have no idea when they were active or when this record was released, in my mind Plot are very much part of my understanding of music in the year of 2004 and if someone asks me what I think about this year musically, I'll subconsciously include Plot in making my generalization.
Anyway, sorry to ramble.
Music on the other hand ranges from the shamelessly commerical, devoid of semiotics pure fun for fun stuff to the unfathomably esoteric. There's music that you can buy, you can put on your stereo and let's say enjoy for what you think it is, but it's artistic intention doesn't include you, or generally communicating a message at all. There's music like Mondrian paintings and it's success cannot be measured in a social context, I think. So my point is, it's impossible to say if music has gotten worse, better, or has stagnated because a large part of modernist music simply doesn't subscribe to this goal-oriented approach where if enjoyable, success, if not, failure.
I know I'm making a pretty convulted point, and that it's not exactly sound since there IS a very small part of the movie industry that is about art films with no real communicative goal but still the amount differs vastly.
To try to answer the question in a way that makes sense (because I do understand what you're asking even if the words leave room for lots of construsion, I think ) I can tell you that I think music hasn't gotten significantly less interesting in the last 10 years that I've been trying to keep up with it. But here lies another problem. Due to the massive amount of music that's out, it's pretty difficult to have a clear picture of say, music in the year 2004 as avi did with movies in the year 2004. There's not just one or ten major studios to watch out for theres a miriad of smaller productions. Personally, I can never tell what I think of a year, as it concerns music since I'm constantly finding out about older bands that I was unaware of. For example, today I listened to Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower for the first time and whereas I have no idea when they were active or when this record was released, in my mind Plot are very much part of my understanding of music in the year of 2004 and if someone asks me what I think about this year musically, I'll subconsciously include Plot in making my generalization.
Anyway, sorry to ramble.
could it be possible to find out what the band is called, and to tell me a bit more about the available means of aquiring the record?
Josh Seipp
Member
I just realized that for some reason it is considered acceptable to remake someone else's film but a band re-recording someone else's album is entirely unnacceptable
why
why
avi
W3RK3R
nick, have you seen the man without a past? it's probably the most unique film I've seen in quite some time besides maybe The Five Obstructions.
Similar threads
