words and music

[devi]

So, dear readers, here are the ideas behind that genres poll I did last week.

It starts with something I thought would be a confession, a dangerous one of the sort liable to get me lynched or get objects lobbed at my head. Now the results are in, I feel a bit safer saying it. I like dance music.

Thing is, I also love indie music and (a lot of) goth music and all manner of verse-chorus-verse music, music with lyrics that make sense of life, and it doesn't even have to be well-sung or well-played, if the lyrics are good enough to carry it. I like music that's right next door to spoken word performance, where the music takes a back seat to the lyrics, but the lyrics are shiningly brilliant.

This makes perfect sense to me. Music is for different things, serves different functions. Dance music is for, well, dancing to, that sort of hypnotic wild trance-dancing that strips you of self-consciousness and daily worries and leaves you elated. (Hello ultraruby!) And it's for spurring myself to work - I write faster and maybe better with a pulse of beat in the background, with slowly evolving melodies; lyrics are too distracting. It's music that provides a soundtrack for travelling at speed, or for travelling in your imagination. Music with guitars, by bands, with words, is for something else entirely. It's about that twinge in your heart when you hear a lyric that expresses something perfectly. It's music you live through and feel through, music that helps you explain things to yourself, music that puts you on an emotional rollercoaster from hope to misery and back, or that just helps you laugh at life. Music that provides a soundtrack for walking in the dark or standing moodily down in a tube station at midnight.

I couldn't do without either of these things, even though they're such different experiences it seems clumsy even to call them both 'music'. Fair enough, you say. Eclecticism is good. The poll results seem to bear that out.

But back at Dublin City University it was a different story. I didn't know any other eclectics who liked, say, Orbital as much as they liked Radiohead or the Smashing Pumpkins. You were a rocker or a raver, and the rockers and the ravers tore each other to bits in a perpetual scrap on the music boards of the BBS, and never the twain did meet.

And the divide seems to have persisted among my various groups of friends (or at least I thought it had until I did the poll). I've always felt like the lone advocate of electronica among a nation of trad-goths and indie-kids, and when I try to defend it, I'm told more often than not that it's chav music, stupid music, music for people with no brain cells. I reply that they're probably not listening to the right dance music, that it can have intelligence and complexity, that I like it with the same bit of my music brain that grew up on classical and for a lot of the same reasons (Pachelbel's 'Canon' has much the same effect on me as Orbital's 'The Girl With The Sun In Her Head'). But things remain the same: I have a yen to go to dance clubs and no one to go with.

And it looks like the whole world is going that way too. Alexis Petridis wrote recently in the Guardian that dance music is dead. (Though, if you read the article, I think I'm pleased that he says it's going back underground. I'd prefer little underground scenes to great big impersonal superclubs any day.)

So my poll had several purposes. Firstly, to see if the rocker/raver divide still exists, and to find other eclectics. Pleasingly, there are quite a few of you.

Secondly, to see if my flist was actually as anti-dance as I thought, and it's true that the indie/rock/etc people - those of you who chose no dance at all - vastly outnumber the eclectics and the dance-only folk. But there are more of the latter two types than I'd been expecting.

Thirdly, I wanted to investigate my half-formed hunch that people who liked dance would get along with classical, and vice versa. This wasn't borne out at all. In fact, it was the indie/goth/rock folk who tended to like classical, rather than the other lot. I guess I'm on my own there, then.

There's another post bubbling under in my brain, about what clubbing is for, but that's for another day. Thank you all for ticking the tickyboxes.

Comments

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I'm on the side of the angels I worried that ticking everything for 'like' (and OK, it varies how much music within each genre I like, but some of each) but nothing for 'elements you absolutely must have' (because I could think of a few tracks I love which lacked each one) might look like I was taking the p1ss.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

No, I think it makes perfect sense to have everything in one and nothing in the other, if you're a true eclectic. For example, the purely indie people might tick 'must have good lyrics', because for them lyrics mean more than any other part of the music. Or purely dance fans might tick one of the musical-correctness-related ones, ruling out all those sweet indie bands who have genius lyrics but can't play their instruments.

The only must for me was the originality one.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

That was why I didn’t answer the poll at all. Answering a poll but ticking everything feels too much like copping out.

[ultraruby.livejournal.com]

Hello! Your swimming between the genres sounds very familiar. I have no dancing friends at all anymore, and even when I did have a little band of trance friends, a LONG time ago, they were shunned by most of the other people I knew for having baggy trousers and the like. 'Belfast' by Orbital makes my spine tingle in the same way as the flower duet does. It's simplistic, maybe, but also so complicated. And the fact that there's no words just leaves more room for the imagination - like the difference between books and films; both good, just different.

Oh, and by the way, if ever you fancy a big hand-in-the-air-like-a-scene-in-a-film night out, I'd definitely be interested in coming along. Seriously!

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! Hands in the air!

This is another reason I did the poll :) And I love 'Belfast' to tiny pieces too. It's interesting you picked that one to go alongside a classical piece, because what makes 'Belfast' for me is the little samples of Hildegarde von Bingen in it.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

I thought goths these days only liked bad trance music anyway. Give me THE DAMMED any day! Or at least Eloise which is BRILLIANT.

(BTW I missed your poll due to busy/office absence else I'm sure I'd rattle on more here!)

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Yeah... the dance that cybergoths dance to is often lamentably cheesy. At least with The Damned you know you're going to get cheese, but rock-type cheese may well be more tolerable than the brand of cheese a lot of goth-dance bands deal in (usually very earnestly sung lyrics in atrociously bad German-English over twee synths).

I do like a few goth-dancey bands, but most of them are a bit cringe-inducing.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Eloise is one of my favourite songs to hear in a Goth club. I can't abide what Goths are listening to these days, sadly.

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

I liked what you once told me about liking dance music because you first liked classical music (except you put it much better than that). It made me reassess it somewhat and want to start listening to electronic stuff more (where should I start?). Go you and your theories!

[ultraruby.livejournal.com]

I used to go out with a classical musician who explained fugues to me, and to me good dance music is kind of like fugues - interweaving themes and stuff. I'd like to know more about how it works; there was a programme on radio one years ago about a certain chord structure (I think it was called desh? Or maybe I'm stupidly wrong there) that somehow creates a euphoric type feeling in most people, and it exists in a lot of classical music, and has been traslated into pop and dance records too.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

Me not liking classical music is currently because I’ve not really been exposed to it. I decided once I was going to try some opera, but never really got round to it (something by Puccini).

Oh yes, and does “opera” count as part of “classical”, or is it a genre in its own right?

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I'd lump it in with classical, personally, though that doubtless betrays my vast lack of understanding of opera. I don't like opera at all. There are a few arias that I love, the bits that actually have tunes, but sitting through a whole opera drives me crazy. It's the way they sing at each other between the big arias, words sung but with no particular melody... what's the point?

I'd rather have them speak those little bits, or sing them to one of the big themes of the opera like they do in Les Miserables.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Since you're coming out of the closet it's probably worth me commenting that whilst I am generally very much of a rock music person, the vast majority of the stuff that has impressed me of late has been either dance music or other stuff done by people from the world of dance music.

Having grown up in the 80s, this troubled me greatly. Dance music being, of course, t3h 3val ! But now you've said you like some of it I feel suitably reassured.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Yeah... my next True Confession might be that I get a huge kick of nostalgia when I hear dodgy early-90s acid house music.

But what's the dancey stuff that's impressed you lately?

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

There was an option missing from your poll: ambient. I'm a very definite fan of ambient music for writing, coding, or anything else that involves a light trance state.

Also, I've not a huge interest in classical in general any more; most of it sounds rather dull after a while. My interests within it are baroque, early music (inasmuch as that's classical, which is to say that it's not, really, but that's where it often lands) and modern classical-style composition, like the Lord of the Rings soundtracks. Much of that lands in the same headspace as ambient, for me.

I'm really looking at about five categories of music, which aren't so much genre as effect. "Sound-but-not-listen" (ambient, etc, as above), "Listen-to-the-lyrics" (Most other music I listen to), "I-can't-hear-that" (Sarah McLachlan), "Turn-that-off!" (mainstream pop and most rap, except Eminem, who's in Lyrics), and "Mosh" (pretty obvious, often crosses with Lyrics).

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Could you give some example bands for 'ambient'? I have a feeling there's an overlap between ambient and my 'intelligent dance/Warp Records' option (CiM, Clouddead, Animals On Wheels, Telefon Tel Aviv, Ulrich Schnauss, Nightmares on Wax etc etc) at least in terms of effect. Calling that stuff 'dance' might have been misleading, as a lot of it is too slow and dreamy to actually dance to it.

[nisaba.livejournal.com]

melston likes dance music too... It's a difficult time for me, but I'm slowly coming to terms with it... ;)

[philipstorry.livejournal.com]

Can't say I'm a massive fan of dance, really. It's the antithesis of music in many ways, as far as I'm concerned.

That having been said, I suppose I'm warming to "totally electronic" music. Ben's stuff (found here: http://music.qolc.net/cgi-bin/songs) can be absolutely brilliant - I like it for much the same reasons I like classical music.

I think that this is probably a culture thing, actually. Music tends to be heavily linked to culture. I grew up having no real preference, and was thrown into the rock culture as a teenager. I went to gigs, drank lots, and sat around comparing bands to other bands with my mates. It seemed a world away from the dance culture, which was more drug-related and less interesting.

Yet the first two CD albums I ever bought predated my rock interests. One was dance, one was rap. I veered away from rap because, well, rap isn't my culture. Most chart rap seemed to describe a completely different world which had no bearing on me whatsoever. Chart rap is something I find very difficult to listen to, because it's just not at all linked to my hopes, fears, aspirations and dreams. Whereas my Dream Warriors album is rap, yet keeps my attention by having absolutely no mentions of guns, drugs, and all the usual shite that's in rap.

That's probably it, now I think about it. It's not a musical genre that I dislike - it's the culture that it reflects. Give me Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden doing rap, or Joe Satriani doing dance beats with a guitar over it, and I'm happy. Give me eclectic dance or rap, and I'm happy. Give me the mainstream of that culture, and I just can't relate...

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

That's a good point about scenes. I've never felt any attraction to the mainstream dance scene. Maybe if I had actually been involved in it, the dance music experience would have soured for me.

Why is dance the antithesis of music? Do you believe that music made on machines is necessarily soulless? (I know lots of people who share that view.)

[ki.livejournal.com]

if i remember correctly (and who knows since i just woke up) in your poll you defined 'like' as something you couldn't live without - something of that ilk.

i love all kinds of music. but if i had to go without certain genres my life would be poorer for it.

i love jazz and old blues. bluegrass, funk, sixties-hippie-music, dance, house, electronica, experimental electronica, punk, rock, pop, regge, goth (of all varieties), classical, some indie (though i've never had a clear idea of what is indie and what isn't).

mostly, i'm not a fan of rap and country - though there are even exceptions to that.

music is like air to me. (:

[ultraruby.livejournal.com]

I like genres that start with post; postrock, postpunk...also mathrock, funk, old jazz, blues, bhangra, zydeco, electronica (in our record collection it's labelled as 'intelligent finance') twee indie, general indie, alt-country, some actual country, alt-rock, punk, dub, ska, some reggae, soca, hi-life, classical, kwaito, some opera, world music generally, drum and bass, some techno, silly house, goa trance, classical, folk, meaningful songs by girls I can sing along with (sub-classified into 'birds of America' and 'Scandi girls' in our collection), some rap, some r&b, and pop.

Everything, really.

[tranq-tryptizol.livejournal.com]

Hope you don't mind me commenting here - I saw this post on a friends page.

The attitude you can only listen to dance or indie music is a bit absurd.
You've hit the nail on the head with some of the Warp-style artists you mention. I'm not surprised however if some write off dance music if they only get to hear trance, which is a very moribund and predictable type of dance music.

For dance music acceptable to rockist ears why not try the DFA compilations, who adopt an indie/punk ethic into everything they do.
Further than that Output and BPitch control labels to name just two are releasing a wide range of interesting 'dance' music. (Avoid anything with Ibiza on the cover though ;).

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Ooh, recommendations. Thanks - and you're more than welcome to comment. What does DFA stand for? (Might be tricky to track down if I've just got an acronym.)

[tranq-tryptizol.livejournal.com]

Ok, go into HMV or an indie store and ask for 'The DFA compilation volume two': they should know what it is... if they don't, they're useless.

It's a recent compilation of all their releases: LCD Soundsystem, THe Juan Mclean etc. some of it is punky electronic, some ambient electronica, some resembles early Acid House. I'm sure you will like it.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, yes! DFA++. Indie and dance in one handy package!

[tranq-tryptizol.livejournal.com]

here's the website:

http://www.dfarecords.com/

[caescarna.livejournal.com]

"Thirdly, I wanted to investigate my half-formed hunch that people who liked dance would get along with classical, and vice versa. This wasn't borne out at all. In fact, it was the indie/goth/rock folk who tended to like classical, rather than the other lot. I guess I'm on my own there, then. "

The thought ran through my mind some while ago that trance music [of the like produced by Infected Mushroom] was entirely contingent with Classical Music in terms of the repeating structures employed, and the use of fugue etc. Like you I'm surprised that most dance music fans don't express a predilection for classical music, maybe the goth / indie crowd see it as complimentary to the music they mainly gravitate towards?

[philipstorry.livejournal.com]

I certainly agree that any music can have soul in it, whether you make it with traditional instruments or electriconic ones. On this I think we agree. :-)

If she's eclectic, can I be eclectic too?

[j4.livejournal.com]

I didn't answer the poll because I really couldn't work out what my answers would be -- it may be a truism but I think good music transcends genre, and often I don't even know what genre other people would regard things as (and genre is IMHO really only useful as a shorthand for conveying an impression of what they can expect from something to somebody else). Are Orbital 'dance', or 'trance', or what? Is Frank Zappa rock, or jazz, or blues, or none/all of the above? When Elvis Costello plays with the Brodsky Quartet, does his music become 'classical'? What about William Orbit's remixes of 'classical' music?

All stupid rhetorical questions, of course, but I'm really not just trying to be facetious -- thinking about what genre the music I like belongs to doesn't seem to achieve anything for me, either in terms of working out what else I'm likely to enjoy, or in terms of telling other people interesting/useful things about the music I like. Thinking about the individual components I like in music may be more productive -- e.g. interesting lyrics, strong melodies, a danceable beat -- but perhaps not much more productive! A large portion of my music collection consists of female singer-songwriters with acoustic guitars; but I'd rather listen to good heavy metal than mediocre folk songs. But then this boils down to "what's 'good'?" and that's a question I don't think I can answer without a hell of a lot more thought...

As for the dance/classical crossover -- kind of depends what you mean by 'classical'. Dance and baroque music seem to share plenty of characteristics in common -- structured development of rhythms and melodies, strong rhythmic ground, repetitive basslines etc. -- but in practice if what you want from dance music is something you can dance to (at least in the way that people tend to dance in clubs), I'm guessing that Norman Cook could beat the entire Bach family, hands down.

(Perhaps it's time for verlaine to do Music Wars? ;-)

Re: If she's eclectic, can I be eclectic too?

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

(Perhaps it's time for verlaine to do Music Wars? ;-)

I did think of that, actually, but it would probably be intimidating photos of band lineups rather than the music itself!

[zenithed.livejournal.com]

I have a yen to go to dance clubs and no one to go with.

That offer we talked about a few weeks back still stands: d&b, hard house, that psy-trance place you were talking about (*ages* ago)... I'm always up for new clubs and new experiences.

I probably ought to get off my arse and organise a proper gang of people who say "I would go to X if only other people were going".

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Good stuff. I thought your cold turkey from Slimelight might apply to clubs in general!

I think my main criterion is a good beat you can dance to.

[shermarama]

But that covers a lot of stuff. The rhythm can be coming from a lot of places. I do like some dance music, especially more hip-hop direction stuff because this is unquestionably something to dance to, but I've been to the odd trance night and been left totally cold; what is there to dance to in stuff that just goes on and on with nothing crossing the beat stucture? That's dance music for people who don't want to have to think about dancing, to me.

If I'm doing the drum part for a song, I can't play it unless I could dance to it. There are a lot of ways I like to dance, of course, I've been seen dancing to ultra-slow doom, but it's to do with intent and the little extras that bring a beat to life rather than speed or sound.

But that doesn't exclude electronic stuff at all. I like Mouse on Mars a lot because all the little mouse-noises add themselves up into stomping great detail-packed beats, what more can you ask for? I'd be up for going to more dance clubs, but probably not the trance variety. Someone told me about a really good dancehall night the other week, now there's music expressly designed for it.