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Re: Accessibility

On Sunday, July 13, 2003, at 10:53 AM, Dave Stagner wrote:

> Remember that Radiohead's Kid A opened at #1 with NO promotion from 
> their label and nothing radio-friendly!  You know where i heard it 
> most?  As musak at cooler stores.  It's terrific background music.

Here here!  I love Kid A.  It's their "Sergeant Pepper's."  The 
production is loop heavy and always interesting from start to finish.  
Look at the last Peter Gabriel album's credits.  Half the songs are 
credited with the use of a device called a "JamMan."  Nice.

> I've been thinking about accessibility a lot lately.  I think 
> audiences are smarter than we give them credit for, and we can produce 
> something that can appeal to them AND to us, if we try.

Exactly.  Some times I think all it takes is adding a cool beat or 
interesting visual context.  I usually try to play the room.  If I'm 
doing a loopfest, I know there's usually a lot of open minded people 
attending and I can go all out with sonic mayhem.  When I play 26mix I 
make sure there's usually a groove, something nice to look at and keep 
it near a tonal center for the most part.  I'm not selling out, because 
I like both types of music and I think if you can hook people with 
something a bit more accessible, you can gently lead them to more "out" 
music.  Someone might pick up the last Bowie album and hear the pretty 
Torn loop and think, "Oh, let me check out this guy" and be led to his 
more progressive solo stuff.  I think his Splattercell stuff is a 
masterful example of adding nice grooves to interesting music.

Mark Sottilaro