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Re: videos and music and music sales
Stephen Goodman
<spgoodman@earthlight.net> wrote:When rock acts started dressing up, and then went beyond that to light shows, video backdrops, auxiliary performers running round the audience like circus clowns, etc - at least in the 70s I recall that many of the pundits of the time derided such visual enhancements, often pointing to same as some kind of 'evidence' that the music itself must be lacking somehow, or otherwise below some arbitrary line dividing Art from Crap.
Sure.. I remember that well, being one of the teenagers with 3 chords, ripped jeans and a safety pin thru my nose... funnily enough though time has a new story to tell.. The music of..lets say YES... one of the biggest contenders for "Why punk needed to shake up the shit"... is now rather differently lauded. Given a whole chapter in a recent book on Noise music, and recently given a big article in Wire magazine. And also recently discussed on this list. I think that really the main augument at the time against these mega bands with big stage shows and light shows, were that they were irrelevant to the times... The UK and the US, were in a slump of poverty and unemployment and the "kids" (me) were angry and couldnt give a shit about Roger Dean album covers of Tolkeinesque landscapes... what prats.. we thought...
But the music stands for itself now (no visuals to take away from the experience) and its wasnt so bad... just badly timed.
Visuals have always been part of music, when Pil played behind a screen once, the stage was invaded by angry fans wanting to see something... The DJ culture we went through gave us the notion that we need not understand what that guy on stage is actually doing (and I often suspect - not much) but in my view anything goes as long as you arent miming or faking... and I kinda think that although we dont need to dress up in silver costumes and come out of spaceships and use laser harps and triple guitar necks...
but sometimes i feel that, maybe, just maybe.. we should at least put a clean shirt on and use a coloured light or two??
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