From decidedly un-’Celtic moods’ to ‘Peruvian Piss with pan-pipes’ to the rest of them I wish people would stop making synthesiser backed shite that denegrates local cultures in service of middle-of-the-road profiteering.
It’s like being offered a prime piece of fillet steak and opting for beef chewing gum instead. Or like going to the zoo instead of seeing animals in their natural habitat.
Tell you what, here is an idea – if you want to get a feel for the music of a country listen to the original music and not the snythesised muzac-ed version of it – then get some. We live in the day of the download – it isn’t difficult. Better yet, go to the places where you might find it and listen.
I quite like most kinds of music but if I feel like I want to listen to The Doors I just put on The Doors, I don’t watch pop-idol and wait for an adolescent fucktard to ruin it for me. If I want to listen to Verdi I don’t put on Joe Dolce. If I want to listen to Public Enemy I don’t listen to New Kids On The Block. If I want to listen to Bach I don’t put on Muzac and so on.
Why has it become acceptable to do so with more traditional forms of music?
Firstly, because the people who make these things are selling an idea rather than a piece of music.
Secondly, the idea they are selling is of a culture untainted and that untainted culture might be too far from those peoples ideal of a homogenized McCulture. Therefore they soften the blow for the audience (without asking them if they wanted it softened) by taking out any of the individualism and idiosyncracies in the music that might make it interesting.
When you listen to these albums (normally I am near to retching after a few seconds but for the purposes of this article I tried to listen to a few of them straight through) there is a formula – and it goes like this…
- Start with a single (semi) acoustic instrument playing a melody that evokes hollywood style images of the place where the music in question is supposed to come from.
- After around 30 seconds add another instrument.
- Add a singer.
- Gut out anything that might make the music genuinely belong to a particular time and place and replace with a mass produced machine making a pattern of notes vaguely similar to some of the traditional music of the area in question though not necessarily using the correct scale.
- Over the next few minutes build up to a crescendo with a few instruments and a load of synthesiser stuff until any vestige of traditional music is gone.
There is nothing better than seeing the traditional music of a place performed in the right setting. It is also tremendous to see traditional music performed as it should be in a different setting. I used to share a flat with an African guy in Scotland and he had a band and quite often I would get woken up on Sunday mornings by them practising. It was wonderful to see and hear.
The traditional music of Scotland and Ireland are similar and I like both. Like the two nations, the two kinds of music have a similar heritage, history and starting point. It does annoy me a bit though when I search around youtube and look at the comments on Scottish music things and see them described as ‘brilliant Irish music’.
Yes, FYI – the Whitehouse is a stunning Canadian symbol.
I know that it is just another example of mass-produced saccharine culture but I even saw one called ‘Celtic panpipes’ once. Behave.
It is like seeing the Paris in Disneyland instead of seeing Paris. It is like sex with a partner of 50 years with 10 condoms on and 10 femdoms in. So safe and sanitised you are in absolutely no danger of actually feeling anything.
indeed. Companies are in the business of manufacturing demand. they certainly do this with music. There is so much shit on the radio, it is hardly bearable at work.
David Byrne has an excellent article on a slightly different theme, but it touches on this subject… I Hate World Music. Well worth a read (as indeed is most of Byrne’s writing).
thanks for the link jim, and for the nice comments about the films
graeme – if you can get it away with it then headphones are good!
No fan of Clannead then?
errrm, no.
Oh, super. I’d started to believe that I was the only dull old fuddy-duddy who thought this way. It’s why I mostly avoid ‘Celtic’ Connections. If you need to plug it into a wall-socket it’s not a musical instrument, it’s a domestic appliance. And if I wanted to listen to that sort of rhythm I’d put an unbalanced load in the spin-drier.
How ’bout Deep Forest? I hear just enough indigenous music on NPR to know that, much like American Folk music, it’s just not my thing. As you say, if you want to know what it really is, then you’ve got to absorb the original, local bands/groups.
I guess it comes down to; I agree on this take. Making music mostly for its commercial value is an utterly nauseating waste. I also have big love for things which have been heavily spun off of an original. Remakes often suck. IMO, they frequently achieve heights the original simply wasn’t capable of reaching. I think DF does the latter, though I don’t any other groups like them.
“like being offered a prime piece of fillet steak and opting for beef chewing gum instead” except without the murder n that?
Music is my favourite topic.Music is life.
You can’t put tags on music because music is spontaneous, like love.
I agree on your cultural identity idea:that doesn’t mean although that cultural expressions of a no global community shoul be pure too.
Think about mixed couples. Saying that people should listen only to folk music is like saying that you don’t bealive that 2 different cultures should blend.That sounds racist.
I’m not particularly crazy for synthesised music either,but there are nice combinations of rock-folk,blues folk music.
I think you are generalizing this time.And I think you are being a bit snobbish too.
Our life is made of experiences.When we write a novel or a song it is a sum of our experience or of what appeals to us most,to what gives us emotions.
So criticing music which is the blend of two different kinds is like saying that the mulatto child of a mixed couple hasn’t the right of living beacause he isn’t completely white or comppletely black!
On monday,Paul made me hear a cd of Van Morrison in his car,who is an Irish blues singer who revisited Irish celtic music,the cd is fantastic but it is a blend of different music styles!How do you explain that?
I think it’s nice you have such strong ideals but make sure idealism doesn’take over your life!!
Hope your snobbism doesn’t prevent you to answer me.
I know you are not a racist .
I’m provoking you because as I was really nice to you with my other comments and you didn’t answer,I thought that if i were rude maybe you would answer…
I notice that you answer only to flattering emails,but not to mine.
I reached the conclusion that the problem is not my comments but I am.
So the only thing left for me to think of is that u r rude.
Especially after 6 months that we worked together and talked a lot it is really weird for me seeing that u r not answering me.
Have I done anything wrong to you?Offended you?
I only wanted your friendship because I thought u were a nice guy but u r obviously not interested in mine because u answer to anybody but me.
Again,I can’t help myself thinking that u feel superior to me and I can’t learn anything by anybody (and I mean you) who is so unhuman and indifferent as you are despite all the humanity you claim to have ,so I was obviously wrong.
So I apologize for disturbing you and assuming that you are a better person than u r goodbye.
P.s : on top of that u didn’t even bother to say goodbye!
Fits me good for over estimating people.THanks again 4 teaching me how people can be rude.Thank you very much.