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 (nobody)...and 128 guests Last 5 registered Oplandisks nothingstar N_loop yipe foxtrotromeo Browse members... |
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Mc conditioner You can never say these boys is amateur |
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hard to find the wheat from the chaff, but yeah does seem to be an awful lot of dross nowadays, usually from art school types |
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I reckon a lot of the artists we love would consider themselves amateur as far as any training goes. We could argue the same about approach. It’s really terrible for an “artist” to hold such views. Sickening. Little man thinks he’s part of an elite. A club for members. Diarrhoea satchel. |
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the idea that it's wealthy dilettantes who pursue DJ careers ruining things - that's not because there are too many amateurs and the talent pool is diluted, it's because of structural changes in media distribution and concentration of wealth I guess because this guy is a writer he has fantasies about "pro" music journalists earning a good living writing "legitimate" articles, but that's also bullshit. If you're Paris Hilton you can afford to buy a time slot at Ibiza, or perhaps write as an unpaid intern at a historic and dying magazine |
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i feel like im dying a little while i was reading so i stopped, anyway i feel like the concept of amaterurism ruining dance music has come out of nowhere, is there even something to ruin? whats left of dance music, burial and who else? |
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Don’t die! Yeah, Burial came from amateurism. In fact some amateurs lose what was wonderful about their music once they become “pro”. |
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burial hasnt lost anything along the way, first actually of our generation who makes a bridge with the 90s as dance music |
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amateurs are those who like squarepusher but bash burial |
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they can stick their 'knowledge' up their ass and never reveal any mistery. |
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"Do you want to assist people trying to make a quick buck, or do you want to help committed artists pay their bills?" Neither, I want to listen to music. Wildly wrong question. |
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I don’t see things that way. I just want to listen to music, and watch films, read books and comics too. But if that was all I cared about, I would steal everything. I don’t have much money, and I do download music and movies/series, and will read some comics online. But when it comes to those who really touch me, who are really important to me, or when I read an amazing comic online: I want to participate. Because I know that otherwise if we all just steal, eventually the only people left with enough time to make their art without worrying about money and having to work will be the people with a lot of money ; and we both know having money doesn’t make you a good artist. |
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I like bandcamp, most of the money goes to the artist, they have lossless formats, and the albums are usually five to ten bucks, very reasonable. |
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I disagree with so much of this article, it's a total mess imo. Even the initial quote is stupid, amateurism is not only an inherent part of dance music but off all modern musical genres and has been essential in shaping them. This goes for all areas of the musical chain, no amateurism in promotion and show production and you have no scuzzy rock clubs, no warehouse raves. No amateurism in the music itself and you have entire genres that cease to exist, including large swathes of electronic music. As the article progresses he starts to argue that it's populism that's ruining dance music, in fact he seems to lack an understanding of what constitutes the underground at all and his article veers from it's initial point in to personal issues. His problem is with the democratisation of music production and distribution and his perceived 'cheapening' of dance music simply by virtue of it being popular. He essentially thinks everyone is stupid but him and his mates. The myriad of problems he lists are not new, not exclusive to dance music and only exist if you have a limited frame of reference or few chances to interact with live music. Sure they have been amplified this century through sheer information overload but not necessarily to the detriment of music. These 'part timers', glamour chasers along for the ride, do not represent the the spirit of any genre they crop up in. They're the epitome of populist pandering and the antithesis of amateur art. How does making a cookie cutter tune from presets and sample packs represent the underground of anything? The problem here is that normal people are liking his music and with that comes the pitfalls of any popular genre. They don't ruin a genre as large as dance music, they're a symptom of its popularity and with dance music being such a textured, varied thing they represent a tiny proportion of the available output. |
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'For better or worse, dance music is generally not considered serious by the majority of the more established music media' utter bollocks. What established media are we talking about here? Rolling Stone Magazine? Top of the Pops? Dance music is well regarded in academic circles, providing you have the quality to back it up, like all genres. Specialist press is the way the underground is represented now due to the sheer volume of information, unless the author is beamoaning dance music not being on the same popularity level as simple pop music? This is confusing, does he want dance music to be more popular (and so increase the instances of things like part timers, fair weather fans etc) or does he want it to be legitimate? This feeds in to his point about amateurism in music jornalism. Let's ignore zines, that have been the self-produced mouthpieces of music for decades, and move on to the crux of the authors problem. There's simply too much going on for it to be covered completely by 'competant' writers. How is that in any way a bad thing? There are hundred of shows in every genre of music going on around the world every day and thanks to the internet we have the possibility of learning about all of them. When something is emerging from the underground its apostles are usually the young and hungry, barely able to verbalise their thoughts and so I have no problem with them being the ones filling in the huge hole that music reportage has in the internet age. The good writing almost always comes with retrospective analysis anyway. With his comments about PR firms it seems the authors main concern is not actually the quality of the writing by these 'amateur' journalists but that they simply have shit taste and lack any semblance of rational thought. It also puts forward the idea that what these people genuinely like is not legitimate music. I think this is really the crux of the article, 'people like things I think are shit, that's amateur and harms dance music because I'm a 'true professional''. |
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These 'play the music business' DJs are again nothing new, an extension of the millions of covers bands that have filled small bars for decades. The author seems to be experiencing popular music for the first time while also having never really been a part of the underground, exisiting in this sort of limbo where everything is not what he wants it to be. I wonder if he's an embittered aspiring DJ, perhaps in his late-20s, early-30s, in a US state with a very narrow scene?* 'Once this kind of artist has infiltrated the journalists and music charts by paying for it, they are now being taken seriously by some dance fans for almost no real reason outside of media hype.' Holy shit! It's almost like popularity can have zero correlation to your perception of quality?! Again, is this all about popularity for the things YOU like? Promoters hiring the latest trend is not exclusive to dance music and not in any way surprising in the commercial realm, they have to make money too. I really am starting to think he is bitter now, if you're 'actually interested in making outstanding art' why would you want to play at these sorts of populist events curated without a soul who book 'undeserving artists' for people who don't care, unless it's for money? The author seems to want popularity for the underground without any of the trappings that come with that. His comments about how amateur promoters and DJs ruin the long term dance music fans relationship to the music is utter rubbish. If you've been going to shows for a certain genre of music for a while one shit show isn't going to turn you off. You're invested in the music and have come to understand what it is about it that you like, if listening to bad examples puts you off a genre you were never really interested in the first place and, far more likely, you moving away from music in your 20s simply means you're human. |
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His notion that there is a high turnover of dance music fans shows a shocking lack of awareness to the fact that there is simply a high turnover of music fans in general. Music resonates with far more people when they're younger and as life takes hold it simply becomes a less important factor in the vast majority of peoples lives, it's not a reflection on the quality of music they were listening to. Again the author seems to think that basically people are stupid and don't know what's good for them. 'Everything gets set back to zero again, typically as each hyped subgenre’s tenure expires.' Welcome to music. This is not necessarily a quality issue, music reflects the time of its creation. 'Where does this leave the true professionals? Where does it leave the skilled DJs, young and old, who are committed to dance music for the long haul?' smells like self insert. 'True professionals' is almost insulting. Where is this idea that the music press are universally positive coming from? Some examples of artists who were, in the authors eye, unfairly promoted would do a lot to service his argument. |
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'this isn’t about me deciding which artists or tracks deserve the hype; it’s about all of us being critical and making our own minds up about which producers and DJs deserve our support.' How can he type this as the conclusion to what he's written above? He clearly has very strong feelings about what is 'good', which evidently does not chime with this notion of free thinking critical analysis. What he's essentially saying is 'don't listen to this song or go to that gig that hasn't been put on by a 'true professional' like me'. The masses will go to the shit they like because it's on, they want to dance and it sounds good to them. You and your bastions of true art can go to the smaller, actually underground shows because that's where these things reside, they don't need popularity, they're art. That the author clamours for populist recognition for artistic expression says a lot more about him, his limited worldview and his genuine intentions in his musical pursuits than it does about the state of music. * clicked his twitter bio at the end and it says 'You sold platinum round the world, I sold wood in the hood... For booking in this solar system contact deez@nutz.org' |
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wow that was long. |
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It basically seems like he thinks dance music is ruined unless it's a huge money spinning entity which is also in no way populist or corporate. It's completely removed from reality. |
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'Everything gets set back to zero again, typically as each hyped subgenre’s tenure expires.' Welcome to music. This is not necessarily a quality issue, music reflects the time of its creation. yeah this is the crux of the piece for me, he doesn't get that the ephemeral nature of pop music culture is its beauty not its weakness. It's not a fucking dynasty where honoured traditions are handed down to the next generation. It's kids and young adults sniffing glue and yelling and fucking around with whatever technology is cheap and available. |
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sometimes you have to "ask a question out loud" to prove its falsety. one thing is sure though, there is way more music/art on the planet than can ever be mass marketed. so inevidently the cut of the big ones will be deluded. yes, a possible difference for writers i see in they have to dig deeper into the rabbit hole, as opposed to wrtiting a critique to an album you get paid to review and everyone hears about due to its big promotion. but since ive always believed the music industries control of the media and control of the artists was in their best interest and not in the artists´s´s´s or the listeners, (at least that is what every music documentation says). i couldnt care less about the writers making a living advertising what the music industry wants to sell to us. i stop right here, sexical, that is a loong article, i still have to finish :) |
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Yes. Well, anything by me is. Which is my fiendishly evil plan. By making cheap unimaginative, poorly mixed and barely paletable, dance music I'm hoping to deaden the art for the true professionals I bitterly detest and rival. Mwahahaha. You'll all pay! You'll ALL pay! * Spins around twirling his cape before escaping into the dark night by scootech * |
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hahahahaha great :) |
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my music is so amateur a damaged nematode worm could have made it, but it has its charm I guess |
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Golly, amateur music, whatever next? I mean, we're not going to go back to the world of only physical media, where yes, there was a bit more involved in getting an album or a, shudder, EP out and distributed. The Music Press was dying on its arse before the Internet took off. Back in the day I used to get Melody Maker, NME and Sounds. And then one by one they folded or, in the case of NME, became an Indie Smash Hits (but without the humour). And now they give it away free outside Tube stations. But what happened? I was trying to find out why, then I found this article from the Guardian from Dec' 2000 ( ) and there's this quote at the end from jug-eared Radio Disc Jockey Steve Lamacq; "The closure was a business decision. Melody Maker was just not selling enough copies to keep it going. If you go back 10 years, you would scour the Melody Maker for singles reviews and think 'I'll buy that because it sounds quite good'. ... Also, you can get gossip from the internet. Many bands have their own websites that give you far more information than the music press. Garbage, Ash and the Offspring all have regularly updated diaries of what they are doing, so you are getting that info straight from the horse's mouth." What a chilling glimpse into the late 90s/early 00s. Garbage, Ash and The Offspring... |
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I have to confess I listened to that first Ash album loads while I was avoiding my GCSEs |
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YOU ARE THE PROBLEM. Continuing my unsolicited ruminations on the Death of the Music Press (long before the asshat in the OP startled himself with the notion of "professional music") I cam across this article from 2004. And whilst it's got some good, some meh points, what struck me was this bit; "... the music press wasn’t simply metropolitan taste makers telling us how it is. In order to be credible with their readership, the music weeklies reported on emerging scenes and gigs in small-town Britain. You felt that your local venues and record shops were alive with possibilities. And more often than not, they were. Thus reading NME or Melody Maker was akin to being part of an in-the-know club, always the hallmark of a great publication, and something which music websites today can’t replicate... The lifeblood of the music press wasn’t talented Oxbridge graduates alone; it was also thousands of bored teenagers using pop music as a source of immediate excitement and long-term escape from Nowheresville. " I think this is true. There are so many factors involved in, let's go back to the original topic, Dance Music, The Scene, The Underground, The Press. It can be a way of life, essentially for young people. That doesn't stop old people liking music, making it,reading up on it and theorising, but it is about the young. Instead of any scene, or trend, beyond the big POP STARS or established genres, there is, thanks to the likes of Bandcamp, and almost infinite, atomised galaxy of micro-scenes and individuals, some of whom have their fanbase at a size that is possibly proportionate to their appeal (which might well number under 10 people). No one can like everything, not even everything objectively "good". I don't know what I am saying. In short, there's no going back. |
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I miss being so inspired by a written description of how music sounded that I ran out and bought it unheard, then to marvel at how well the writer captured the sound in words. (I also bought some crap that way, oh well) |
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Reading the article a second time over it's kind of hard to point out what exactly is "the problem" if there even is any, and since the article is from 2015; "has it been fixed" ? Or whatever 'it' is.. There is such an incredible amount of music, types of artists and types of listeners that it's hard to see where there could ever genuinely be a 'problem' unless perhaps a singular person's incapability to make up their own mind somehow puts people out of making a living or something but has that ever happened? I duno.. Does anyone else recon these kinds of global discussions about art happen when we start taking art too seriously? |
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haha crying about making a living and not be able to do ONE dance music track. |
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and not be able to do ONE dance music track. like the most of us, but we (usually) dont cry and/or want to make a living about that |
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i take issue with this artcle. i am a full-time punk |
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