Re: The Story of our Age & New reading please

[Kim Flint <kflint@chromatic.com>]

At 07:34 PM 10/29/98 -0800, Andre LaFosse wrote:
>David Kirkdorffer wrote:
> 
>> Here's what i was thinking.
>> 
>> Maybe:          Jazz was the "sound of the 20's - 50's"
>>                 Rock was the "sound of the 50's - 70's" 
>> In the 80's we experienced the start of a kind of post-modern melange of
>> things
>> In the 90's we're continuing along the same road -- but increasingly 
>aided
>> with technology. 
>> Seems to me that drum & bass and various IDM-oriented music best sum up 
>the
>> age we live in:
>
>I'd have to disagree a bit here.  If there's any type of music that
>would follow your jazz and rock examples, both in terms of social impact
>and in terms of its musical role, I'd say it's got to be rap/hip-hop. 


interesting thing about hip-hop and another post about going to live in a
culture to understand it's music....

I grew up in a white, culturally homogenized and pastuerized american
middle-class suberb. Did not like or understand hip-hop then. (liked heavy
metal, and later jazz-fusion, of course - the theme musics of suburbia.)

moved away to a university famed (and attacked regularly) for it's
multiculturalism and diversity. started liking hip-hop. Mostly
"message-oriented" hip-hop like PE, KRS-one, Paris, etc. still didn't "get
it" very well.

For the last 5 years, lived in a poor, mostly black part of Oakland. It's 
so
different from where I grew up that I guess you could think of it as 
another
country in a way, or another culture anyhow. Got to know people a bit, feel
much more comfortable there now. And I find I'm completely happy watching
hardcore hip-hop videos on soulbeat and "the box". Go figure....music has a
deep cultural connection to the people who make it. get to know the people,
and the music starts to make sense.

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?" 

Other things about our age:
- world population doubles every 40 years, and it's pretty damn crowded 
now.
- receiving way more information than is possible to understand,
mediastreams are constant.
- fundamentalism vs everyone else, world wide
- mass migration
- previously isolated cultures getting mixed together, trying to maintain
identity and figure out how to relate to each other

I have no idea what the musical results will be, but I expect it will be
pretty damn screwy. :-)

kim
________________________________________________________
Kim Flint, MTS                 408-752-9284
Chromatic Research             kflint@chromatic.com
http://www.chromatic.com