Re: electronica double standard?

["Stephen P. Goodman" <sgoodman@earthlight.net>]

>matthew hahn wrote:
>>I have to agree on the subject of DJing.  I am not knocking it, but in
>>deference to looping I'm willing to submit that DJing is more emotional
>>than technical, more creation of moods from other people's music, than
>>creating one's own.


Scott Bullerwell <tanelorn@dimensional.com> responded:
>Interesting... You might make the same observation about any number of
>non-electronica bands that play essentially recycled or nostalgic music
>(Porcupine Tree, for example.)  It's kosher in music criticism to knock
>bands that sound too much like older bands, but
>electronica/sampling/remixing is seemingly exempt from that criticism.  I
>don't think I understand why that is.  Anyone?


Probably because I suspect that most music critics have or have had enough
of a broad array of opinions about it that none of them can agree at times
as to WHAT 'electronic' music IS, to say nothing of the failure on some's
parts to understand new patterns of expression.  Having made hugely 
mistaken
statements about the music that's appeared since the mid-80s, perhaps these
same critics are holding their horses, and as a result, not really
expressing an opinion that coincides with anyone elses'.  End result, the
melange that exists today.

Not one critic - or listener in many cases - will be able to tell you
EXACTLY WHAT any of the following comprises: 'Ambient', 'New Age', 
'Trance',
'Techno', 'Electronic', 'Experimental', 'Beat', and so on.  I believe this
problem of identification actually may occur as a result of noone wanting 
to
be nailed for coining a tragically incorrect term for the music.  "New Age"
came to be derided in many cases, for instance, because it implied
attachment to some kind of alternative religious process, but that didn't
stop record stores from putting Eno and others into that section, instead
of, say, the "Experimental" or "Electronic" sections, where he'd been
before.

I think there's more of a need for marketing purposes to come up with a
'term' for what this all is - and what We do as well - than there is for
artists to identify what it is they're doing or achieving.  But again this
is not new.

Stephen Goodman  * It's... The Loop Of The Week!
EarthLight Studios    * http://www.earthlight.net/Studios