New Yorker essay on indie entropy

[Adam Blake]

Very probably.

[howard male]

Joel wrote -

And if Talking Heads or any of the others could have played like Funkadelic or Sly & Robbie back in the day, they surely would have.

Of course they would have - that was their overriding desire - but I think you're missing my point, Joel. The fact they couldn't was something they had to get past in order to understand they were always going to sound like white boys doing funk. But Byrne was wise enough to realise that not getting it quite right was what made Talking Heads sound like Talking Heads.

What I was trying to say was all these black influences are now an integral part of popular music - even if they're buried way below the surface, and so some new bands don't even think in those terms anymore.

Perhaps the problem is with our expectations: we shouldn't be expecting a piece of wood to be a piece of steel. Maybe today each band just gets on with it without having to be feverishly preoccupied with trying to achieve the rhythmic elasticity of African-American musicians. We may utter a sigh of exasperation every time we here that laborious ("what time do I clock off?") drumming of the latest rock band, but perhaps that's better than them having to self-consciously try to be funkier, which only rarely - ironically as a by-product of ineptitude - resulted in something new and exciting.

Joel wrote -

While I really like Johnny Marr's guitar work, he's no Dr. Nico (and I don't think he's trying to be, either).

As for Marr - no, he's not trying to be Dr. Nico, but there's definitely an acknowledged influence of African guitar just as he's also an influenced by Richards, Bolan, and no doubt many others which a bigger fan of the band than I am could probably point out. One again the point is that even by the time of the Smiths, rock musicians were being less overtly studious of, say, soul and blues (The Stones, The Animals) and more freely eclectic.

All that groundwork has now been done and I think nearly all pop music has within it the DNA of African-American forms, if not in its swing and swagger, then in its chord sequences or melodic nuances - yes, even the kind of unlistenable, self-referential rock we've been discussing here.

[Dayna]

Those older white rock bands like Talking Heads, & The Animals, had kind of a unique sound of their own & they were fine.

But the newer ones from the 90s are the ones that are bland. If they have any black influence at all, I haven't heard it.

[judith]

DNA

Speaking of DNA and music, here's an article about DNA sequences converted to music:
http://www.nslij-genetics.org/dnamusic/

How it is created and some samples here:
http://www.toddbarton.com/present/

I tell you, listening to stuff like this (DNA Sequences as musical signals plus some of the aforementioned) makes me want grab a 6 pack and sit down at a drum kit.

[Ted]

Dunno about DNA - but this is the sound of the Sun:

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/singing/

[CantSleepClownsWillGetMe]

What Howard said +

Another point which might have been made is that white popular music is exactly that, popular. Whether anyone here (or the chap who wrote the article) likes it or not!

Isn't it extremely patronising to the millions of people who love this music to berate it for its apparent lack of 'black' influences when clearly many people love it the way it is, right here, right now.

The fact is it doesn't need to have obvious 'black' influences in its sound in order for people to like it. It's moving in a different direction. But why is that so difficult to accept ...... could it be an age thing maybe?

June

[judith]

Dunno about DNA - but this is the sound of the Sun:

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/singing/

This is incredible. Thank you so much, Ted. "Ten million resonances echoing inside the sun"...the sun is rhythmic. The solar folklore section is very interesting too.