re: the Dark Age

["Emile Tobenfeld (a.k.a Dr. T)" <emile@foryourhead.com>]

At 1:28 AM -0800 12/28/05, loop.pool wrote:
>Emile wrote:
>"Some of us aging hippies were hoping the decade would signal a
>rebound from some unsatisfying (to us, at least) musical tendencies
>(disco, fusion, etc,) of the 70's. We were disappointed-:)"
>
>
>Respectfully, Emile, I need to agree to disagree with you:
>I am an aging hippy  and I personally thought that the early 80's gave
>us some of the most innovative pop music since the late 60's.

I admit to mainly being a wiseass with this remark. I try to take 
what is good (for myself) out of each era and leave the rest.

>
>For me, the whole DIY ethic of new wave music (from the original 
>impetus of punk in
>the late 70's)  was wonderful , I believe and at least in
>my home town, there were far more bands playing all original creative 
>music
>in night clubs that did not hire cover bands than any time in the 
>next 25 years.
>
>Add to that the early 80's revolution in sampling that highly 
>effected everything from motion picture
>soundtracks to pop group recordings.............
>
>The rise of MIDI which led to composers being able to flesh out
>full creative visions without necessarily having to rely on bands or 
>orchestras to play them
>(which completely changed and made more egalitarian, the musical 
>world because it changed the
>fact that you either had to be rich or very famous to flesh out 
>ideas if they were grandiose ---think orchestral).
>
>The 80's also saw the rise of really affordable equipment and 
>digital processing so that more and more people
>could make music without having to have a lot of money.

although in the early part of the 80's, most midi users were simply 
trying to emulate acoustic instruments with synths. The more 
interesting (to me) developments involving making music that could 
not possibly mbe made even with a studio and orchestra mostly came 
later.

>
>The next things I say are Amero-centric so I'll apologize for that 
>but it is all I can speak about because I was nowhere else in the 
>world during the early 80's:
>
>The fact that Disco was forced to change to stay economically viable 
>meant that tons of new rhythms and timbres entered
>music. particularly from the Caribbean.........Rap and Hip Hop also 
>added incredible new rhythmic sophistication to
>popular music........

and without the heavy gangsta' element that dominates now.
-- 

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two 
opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the 
ability to function."

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Visit "Before the Fall -- Images of the World Trade Center" at 
http://www.foryourhead.com

                Emile Tobenfeld, Ph. D.
Video Producer                  Image Processing Specialist
Video for your HEAD!                    Boris FX
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