Re: The Story of our Age & New reading please

[Brad Knox <B.Knox@latrobe.edu.au>]

Kim Flint wrote:

> 
> Now, I guess from experiences like this, I don't find myself reacting to 
>new
> music with the almost instinctive "It's different -> I don't understand 
>it
> -> I hate it -> this is not music -> what kind of losers would make trash
> like this" response. Now it's more like, "It's different -> why? -> what
> about that culture resulted in this music? -> how does this music convey
> those themes? -> can I learn anything from that?"
>

Excellent words to live by there, Kim.... heres the same question with a
different 
slant... "what about this culture resulted in THIS music?" ie. looping etc

for me i guess the answer would be the associated isolationism... that i 
use a
guitar 
is probably a remnent of the whole rock thing.

but, how much of music may be put down to cultural change and how much to
reaction to 
existing music? i wonder this about non-western (especially indian) 
music.. (i
wonder 
how much the raga has changed over the last i dunno... 1000 years) it seems
every musical action has an associated musical reaction... was (is?) grunge
really an angsty reaction to the society of the late eighties or bland late
eighties pop? is hip hop some search for urban identity/culture or just a
catchy beat? 

i havent been "listening" to other decades as closely as the nineties 
(that is
i've been *in* the nineties more ;) but does anyone else reckon the 
changes on
the whole musicscape have been pretty darn fast/big compared to the
eighties?... metal became industrial, hip hop exploded into a myriad of 
dance
styles, grunge became bland pop, retro went from 60's to 70's to 80's.... 
(i'm
talking popular stuff - my search for cds over the decade reached ever 
greater
spirals of obscurity and hard-to-getness) 

hmmm maybe im just getting old (boy, things sure were different before all
these new fangled changes...)

brad