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Originally Posted by afterthefact
Just please, if you insist on calling it music, than at least make it sound like music. Make noise. Make all of the noise you want. But then try something that is even harder. Make it fit into a song. I mean, anybody can make noises, but it's the great bands like SY that are able to create these noises, and then make them into, not only a listenable song, but a great song. That's what separates the true musicians from the 16 kid with 13 pedals and a microphone in his mouth.
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Songs are
not music. Songs are
pop music, which is a type of music. Stravinsky didn't write songs, but I don't think you could argue that he didn't write music, dispite his propensity for "difficult listening". Sonic Youth do primarily mine the fields of pop music, but I don't think Lee was using any less skill when he created From Here to Eternity than when he wrote "New York City Ghosts and Flowers", and Flipped Out Bride stands up pefectly well against "Schizophrenia".
Noises can be crafted just as well as notes, and some choose to use either or both in songs. There are degrees of skill in such crafting and then there is just inspiration which can be worth considerably more. Yes, a dumb kid twiddling nobs without inspiration is just as painful as a dumb kid mastering his note for note Yngwie "chops", but what does either of those extremes have to do with listening to good music? Noise appears to be the new hardcore punk, and most hardcore actually sucked despite the fact that the best might have happened to rule. We come back to that inspiration factor. It gives the kids something to do, and some of them actually learn enough to eventually get good, while most get bored and play World of Warcraft instead.
I don't think Ashley was just fucking around. I think that "Rozart Mix" by Cage is a completely credible and listenable piece of "music". Crank Sturgeon is a genius though it has a lot more to do with performance than songwriting or even "music" in his case; still the inspiration makes it a quit pleasurable experience. Merzbow for me is not an everyday thing, but sometimes he hits the spot. But then so do the Carpenters.
As for the Wolf Eyes sub thread, the one time I saw them live, opening for Sonic Youth, they were pretty dull and uninspired really. Meanwhile Human Animal which came out later is a brilliant album. I don't doubt they also have records I wouldn't feel that way about, and that I could have seen a better show, but I'm just pointing out the "They're a live band, not a record band" argument is not exactly to be taken as gospel.