Ableton Forum

Machinesworking wrote:

theshaggyfreak wrote:Listening to him has turned me on to some ideas with my own music. That's another reason why I tend to listen to stuff that doesn't always fit in the realm of what I normally enjoy. You can learn from anything and everything.

Hmm? Your CD is going to be called "Binary Souls Other Dimensions", yet you say your going outside what you normally listen to with BT?????

Look, BT is pop music, period. It's no stretch for anyone listening to electronic music in any form to listen to him. What is a stretch, is for people to listen to the groups he's lifted ideas from, and that's all that makes me ill.
Shit? how many threads have there been on Autechre? Neptunes? Venetion Snares? Aphex Twin? The guy from Coil dies, and it barley registers with anybody here, and apparently they were responsible for the glitch sound, (not surprising really). Hardly any attention compared to the guy who copies them, and gives what they do a standard melodic structure.
(Those aren't my favorite groups, Don't own any Aphex Twin for example, but all have contributed to the genre more than BT IMO, and deserve the props for that)

If you can't listen to a band and not hear their influences you're tone deaf. Everyone has roots, everyone copies what they hear and listen to whether they know it or not.

It still sounds like if it's music you don't like, it has no value.

I hate boy bands and most pop music these days, I'm not impressed by BT but you have to admit the guy is one seriously talented mother fucker.

BT = seriously talented mofo

Machinesworking wrote:Hmm? Your CD is going to be called "Binary Souls Other Dimensions", yet you say your going outside what you normally listen to with BT?????

No. BS/OD is the name of the project which I came up with before I ever heard of This Binary Universe. My wife is really the BT fan. Electronic wise, I normally listen to Tangerine Dream and stuff like that. Like I said, I don't sit down and write music to go after a specific sound. I just start playing and go from there. If a tune gets inspired from something I've heard recently, so be it.

Machinesworking wrote: Look, BT is pop music, period. It's no stretch for anyone listening to electronic music in any form to listen to him. What is a stretch, is for people to listen to the groups he's lifted ideas from, and that's all that makes me ill.
Shit? how many threads have there been on Autechre? Neptunes? Venetion Snares? Aphex Twin? The guy from Coil dies, and it barley registers with anybody here, and apparently they were responsible for the glitch sound, (not surprising really). Hardly any attention compared to the guy who copies them, and gives what they do a standard melodic structure.
(Those aren't my favorite groups, Don't own any Aphex Twin for example, but all have contributed to the genre more than BT IMO, and deserve the props for that)

Personally, I don't believe in saying, "I like this genre of music or I like that genre of music." I'll never say, "I hate all rap music" or "I hate all country music" because that's never going to be the case for me. The wall of CD's that my wife and I own contain many genres and are not inclusive to one or two of them. I get tired of people who seem to think that 'their' genre is the best or their favorite musician invented this or invited that. It doesn't really matter in the end. I don't care if someone doesn't like the same music I do. I don't care if people think my ideas or my music sucks. There's no rule saying they can't.

I see your point lm. As a member of the folk art type of electronic, I am encouraged by all of the people out in the world that contribute to it. Without them, MY music wouldn't go anywhere. Without the community that has been formed (such as this forum), I wouldn't be able to write the stuff I do because I get stuck and get help or I can always get immediate feedback by posting some tune I'm working on and get honest feedback from a diverse group of people. It is indeed a wonderful thing and I am amazed by the power of the internet to allow me to have that opportunity. Before it would be whoever was around me (like, where I live) and that has its limits (culture, tastes, availability, etc). Now I can post a song in this thread and a few people all around the world will listen to it and maybe post how bad it was .

The thing is, as a folk art, it has its limited scope because its just the people in my sphere of contact. Like you said, maybe we will be a force to be reconed with if we can "get our music heard"...

...but that will lead us to the SAME place that BT is. He does stuff he likes to do, but he has gone the "get my stuff on a label" to get it heard. He probably enjoyed the social scene of the type of music he was interested in it made it all the more attractive for him to "break into". I doubt he said to himself "what's popular today? THAT'S what I'M gonna write!". He just wrote what he enjoyed, no different then the rest of us. People in his "community" liked it, so he played it in other communities, and they liked it. Now he has a following, a label gave him his break, and now his community is large.

If I could do that, I'd be estatic and humbled. However, I'm content with my friends listening to it and that's cool by me. He, however, thought that lots of people would like it so he worked his butt off to get there. Now lots of people listen to it! He and those people that choose to listen to it are happy! Win/Win!

I see what you are saying that his "style" doesn't represent the vastness of the electronic music culture, but it DOES represent a part of it and based on its success, I'd say a decent sized portion. I have been influenced greatly by his style and if he would have just kept playing his music for his friends, I would have never benefited from it. I'm glad he, and all those that have "made it" that I enjoy listening to, went through the effort. It pushes me to try to write music that I didn't think I could.

Personally, I enjoy supporting the "local musician" that is defining his style...but a lot of times, it is NOT music that I would normally listen to. I admire their work and efforts, but that doesn't mean I would enjoy listening to it. Is that bad? No. Do I think they "don't get it" because they don't like what I like? No. Its just different.

I'm going to think more about what you posted...I never thought of where I am from your angle, but I like it.

Tone Deft wrote:It still sounds like if it's music you don't like, it has no value.

Dead wrong there, Aphex Twin for example. He has about three songs I like, out of hundreds. I recognize that it's his sense of humor that I'm not into, and that he has merit musically, has done plenty of innovative things etc.
I could list plenty of groups that I don't like the music of that I can intrinsically see the value in.
BT has a little value musically, but nowhere near what people give him, it's always that way with pop music fans though, and talking to people about it is a waste of time, so I'm out.

Machinesworking wrote: Look, BT is pop music, period. It's no stretch for anyone listening to electronic music in any form to listen to him. What is a stretch, is for people to listen to the groups he's lifted ideas from, and that's all that makes me ill.
Shit? how many threads have there been on Autechre? Neptunes? Venetion Snares? Aphex Twin? The guy from Coil dies, and it barley registers with anybody here, and apparently they were responsible for the glitch sound, (not surprising really). Hardly any attention compared to the guy who copies them, and gives what they do a standard melodic structure.
(Those aren't my favorite groups, Don't own any Aphex Twin for example, but all have contributed to the genre more than BT IMO, and deserve the props for that)

The deal for me is this...

Those other people might have "invented" glitch, techno, house, trance, etc. That's fine. But if I don't like to listen to it because I don't LIKE it, then I won't listen to it. If Aphex Twin is suppoed to do glitch better than BT because the "glitch elite genre people" say so, it doesn't mean I have to like it. BT's glitch may suck in comparison but I LIKE it better. Why? Dunno, but its probably a combination of alot of things.

Those other people get my respect becasue of what they've contributed to the electronic form as a whole, but that doesn't mean that everybody has to listen to them whether they enjoy it or not.

As for people saying "BT is the inventor of Trance" or whatever...it doesn't matter. Those claims are generally made by the masses and that doesn't limit itself to music. Hell, Al Gore invented the Internet! Do you see the MIT grads and superhumans that DID invent it get bent out of shape? No, they probably laugh about it. So we should do the same.

And IMO specifically about somebody slapping a melodic structure around something already invented...so what? Not everybody likes chaos. I think that might be what I like about BT so much. He takes pieces of what I consider chaos (most of the glitch I hear) and develops boundaries around it that makes it what I'd consider musical. Do I call the hardcore chaos lovers out there a bunch of idiots because they don't like it the way I do? Why in the world would I do that? They're happy, I'm happy! Good for us all.

"you're coming from the world of dj culture and i'm not."

you know where i'm coming from? your wrong

"to me, "ghetto tech house" is just another bullshit dj marketing term. that's all i'm saying, nothing about your tastes."

I just threw some adjectives together I wasn't describing or validating a genre or my taste.

I have no time to mentally masturbate on a forum with you so have fun!

one review i read of TBU said it sounded like "a mix of aphex twin and yanni." which i think is pretty accurate. except i think you can throw in knock off of autechre and boards of canada in there too. The yanni part is what's overpowering for me though. I could get into a track like 1.618 if it didn't have the bounce delay cliches and supermarket melodies.... but yo, the guy actually has a sample of a baby crying or something in there in one of the tracks along with some awful new age shlorp. how can anybody handle that shit and not feel like they're listening to adult contemporary new age music mixed with idm??


the funny thing is that a lot of BT fans are hating the record for being too out there....


anyway, it's cool, people like what they like. It's just unfortunate how this sort of stuff overshadows a lot of actually interesting stuff that is going on. And also like i've said a bazillion times now, how it manages to be mis-represented as electronic music as a whole.



.lm.

I love BT and can write a short novel about how he has influneced my music and life, and how he plays countless instruments etc. etc.. but for those of you that dont know him, to go

www.btmusic.com

Also, DivX has a high quality, hour video interview with him in his home studio.

leisuremuffin wrote:
the funny thing is that a lot of BT fans are hating the record for being too out there....

I don't consider those people fans because they want to put him in a box that THEY like.

Lets say you have 20 people that listened to your music and they liked it. Then you started writing a different style because you wanted to explore it. Now 15 of those people stop listening to you because they didn't like that style, 3 of the others really liked it, and 2 could take it or leave it.

What would you do next? Would you worry about the 15 that walked or just say "screw it, I enjoyed it and like it, so don't let the door hit you on the way out"?

drez wrote:

leisuremuffin wrote:
the funny thing is that a lot of BT fans are hating the record for being too out there....

I don't consider those people fans because they want to put him in a box that THEY like.

You're always going to have die hard fans with certain bands/musicians. It's the same way with the whole Windows/OSX thing. There's always going to be people who bite into one thing or another because they have some sort of devoted love for it. Personally, I don't work that way. I listen to what I listen to because I like it and not because I'm a fan.

leisuremuffin wrote:My issue isn't with the type of music that BT makes, it's with the fact that the music BT makes represents a greater portion of the world of electronic music than it should.

I like to look at this from a different point of view...I think artists like BT who go a little more to the mainstream can actually bring in more listeners to the "electronica" genres than would ever have happened...since his music and production gets "marketed to the masses"...people hear it and like the vibe that never would have before and go "who is this BT guy?" and "oh he makes trance (watching nebulae cringe again)"..."what is this trance/electronica/techno music?"..."hey, I'll buy a cd that has a bunch of different artists and give it a listen"...and presto you have another person who has been exposed and likes and will dig deeper and around further into other artists...etc...etc...etc...

well, that's what people have been saying about commercial electronic music for more than a decade now, and it simply has not been proven true.


i'd love it if it were the case, but the real result is this:

more and more the dance scene gets clogged with folks who are into it as a scene rather than as an experience and for music. Hence you see folks having to dress and act a certain way to fit in, and the music becomes more and more pigeon holed into certain genres, whatever the flavor of the moment is. Less and less do you see dance parties that actually have an alternate room with different non- dance exclusive electronic music in it. Not that long ago, in the mid nineties, i and others were able to get slots in the alternate rooms of these parties to play some pretty out there music, and got a good response from people who needed a break from the main room for a minute or were simply tripping so hard that the stuff we were doing was actually more appealing. Now that's simply unheard of, because no promoter will touch anything that isn't within a definable genre, and usually dance exclusive. But wait, that's just on the dance party front, on the listening music front lot's of musicians have adopted some electronic elements into their music with great success, but pure listening electronic music has floundered, in part because the potential audience can't get past their distaste for the club vibe that dj culture stuff has tainted this music with, BT's records are a good example of this.



certainly there are exceptions, but i think without question, DJ culture's mainstream electronic music has done more to hurt electronic music as a whole than it has to help it. Electronic music did not become the next big thing at the end of the nineties, it's more like it became a lame and divisive party scene.


now, i'm not saying that there isn't great stuff happening out there, because there is! I'm just saying that it is not being fed by mainstream stuff. People don't go from the bad club scene to something better and electronic. They usually get tiered of it eventually and move on to something else entirely. (or move onto shitty "lounge" downtempo stuff) The folks who are into supporting homegrown electronic music usually came from the earlier dance scene, before it went horribly wrong, or from marginalized areas like industrial or "idm" (whatever the fuck that means) or even from academic electronic music. none of those genres can really be considered popular.


Also, i'm not trying to shit all over the current dance music scene in it's entirety at this point either, i think there is good stuff happening there too. In my opinion mostly surrounding the "minimal techno" and whatever other stuff that has sprouted out of that. But you have to admit there are more shitty dance parties out there than good ones. Or maybe not, maybe you don't give a shit. i dunno.





.lm.

what an odd topic.

I think one of the problems people here aren't understanding each view points. BT isn't a 'Glitch' artist. He doesn't claim to be. I have talked to him about it directly. He sees genres as a tool. TBU isn't a "glitch" album. It isn't a classical album, nor a jazz album. He combines all of those elements- which he said are his interests in music- into one concept album.

Was Picasso not a 'real' cubist because he wasn't the originator of the style- he didn't stick with only that style either.. and by his own words later in life said in effect that he 'sold out'. Does that mean he didn't have talent or contribute to the art world?

I don't think BT is the ultimate electronic producer. I don't think anyone here is saying he is. Has his skill and talent (and hard work) helped to make him a success? yah. Like his work or don't.