What is the "Sound" of "Now"?
If it's not the hyper-regressive sound of the big-sellers or the Bumford & Cunts anti-now folk renactment dross, what is it?
I mean, if you were to put this year (and maybe the past few too) into a time capsule of sounds that define 'now' and no other era, what would go in it?
The ambient sprawl of John Maus and SBTRKT would def be in there, and some of the post-Burial types, for me, for sure.
Just started reading: Simon Reynolds' Retromania http://www.avclub.com/articles/simon-reynolds,59501/
- Relevant artist taggings:
- Sbtrkt »[x]
- John Maus »[x]
- "All songs are about The Sex" - DiS waves farewell to Singles columnist Wendy Roby
- Leeds Festival 2012: Drowned In Sound's Friday blog
- In Photos: Latitude Festival 2012 - Day 2 @ Henham Park, Suffolk
- SXSW 2012 - The DiS Review
- Watch: SBTRKT in session for BBC 6 Music's 10th Birthday Celebrations
- At the Drive-In, Blood Red Shoes, Metronomy, SBTRKT, Shins, Cure, Paramore and more for Reading &
- AIM confirm second Independent Music Awards for 2012
- Latitude 2012 Bill: Bon Iver, Bat for Lashes, Brian Cox and billions more brilliant bands announced
John Maus
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Don't try and pin it down
Whatever it is, it's dead the minute it gets 'defined' and pinned-down.
true, true (THREAD KILLER!)
but i'm curious what people think it is and isn't.
Yeah, sorry
That was a bit mean. On with the debate.
I don't think there is one.
I think that's why so many posts on DiS hark back to 90's era bands and movements (e.g. 90s US indie/alt rock, etc). I can't think of any significant progression in musical style that isn't a throwback in the last two years, and the 00's isn't much better. The 90's was replete with genres really taking off ('Intelligent Dance Music', 'Trip Hop', 'Shoegaze', 'Grunge', etc). Now we're in 'Nu-gaze' and 'Nu-rave' and probably lots of others. The lack of definitive 'sound of now' is probably behind the freedom a lot of artists have in not following a trend, and might be why music is still exciting (or is more exciting) now.
i wonder if it's because of technology
or rather, the lack of some new exciting instrument?
see also: www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-07/27/imogen-heap-wired-video
someone needs to come up with a new...
Sampler?
a key reason for the current wave of electronic bedroom producers has been the availablity of cracked software over the internet
I totally agree with this statement.
Viva Brother
80's style synth pop?
that is all I am hearing these days.
rubbish farty Skrillex dubstep
Is that not what Bro-Step is?
I think it's probably the sound of a man punching a pigeon in the beak whilst jumping on a pavlova
The sound of a man punching a pigeon in the beak whilst jumping on a pavlova
is sooo 2010.
It's all about obese women stamping on orphans while cooking popcorn these days
Oh sure...
...jump on the bandwagon now it's gone mainstream, you scenester. The sound of greasing ocelots with Marmite while throwing Jacobs Cream Crackers against a passing school bus is where it's at now.
I'm also reading retromania
We should start a book club....
the social board once had a book club, maybe we should resurrect it?
although, it will take we weeks to get my teeth into retromania, only a couple of chapters in at the minute. need to take some time off to read it, probably :)
Bumford & Cunts
Nice. I call Black Eyed Peas the "Black Eyes Please"
HUMOUR.
In reference to you're actual question:
I dunno what the sound of now is but whatever it is, it's got a 16 bar rap for a middle section.
Quick , make the wikipedia article before someone else claims it.
men with side partings hitting floor toms and then going "wooooah ah woah"
over ummpitty umpitty loops.
Unquantized rambling dance music with long intros with collage-y looking album covers.
Nonchalant Pale Americans.
Sunshine...endless fucking atrocious sunshine
So Washed Out, then.
Probably.
haven't dared to listen yet
Nonchalant Pale Americans
Good band name
there isn't one
because the usual driver of a new or 'now' sound is technology - new instruments, new recording technology, new media delivery platform etc
but the computer hooked to the internet as the technology of now has opened up the entire history of recorded music via youtube (research) and cracked DAWs, VSTIs and sample packs (application)
it's also split the 'mainstream' but technology has been providing progressively more niches since way back - the net is simply an extension of that
so, in sum, the sound of now is, if anything, a cacophony of influences
there isn't really anything out there that I am aware of which wasn't either hinted at, tried out or plain done to death in a previous 'era'
the SBTRKT record is good though aye
so... 'refinement'?
come again?
refinement of pre-existing 'sounds'?
(i shoulda never have posted in this dubious thread)
hmm
refinement is a bit of a loaded word - bastardisation is as close in many cases
Overly minimal soul influenced electronic nonsense.
JESSY JAY
But on a serious note - PROLS the weeknd.
Dubstep was a truly 'new' sound when it first came out
Even though it's been completely ripped to peices, both through the mainstream casually turning it into a normalised cliche (wobble-wobble-wobble) and both the post-dubstep acts deconstructing it and fusing it with other genres. It was new when it first came out, and reflected a certain mood of what it's like to live in the 21st century etc etc.
But even it was still a continuation of electronic dub and before that dub and reggae etc etc. I guess there is no real 'sound' of 2011. Like in Reynolds Book, because the internet is such a massive thing and anyone at anytime can listen to any peice of music from any point in history, the focus on creating something truly new is gone, and is more about experimenting with past genres.
NYAN CAT
over and over again. that's how i want to remember 2011
How to dress well
The sound of Now
http://www.nowmusicstore.com/*/*/Now-That-s-What-I-Call-Music-78/10B8V0000000?back=
I'm sure this wasn't here when I posted my hilarious response below
You're one late anyway, fool. 79 blud.
Disc 1
Adele - Someone Like You
Aloe Blacc - I Need A Dollar
Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song
Jason Derulo - Don't Wanna Go Home
Lady Gaga - Born This Way
Jennifer Lopez - On The Floor
Alexandra Stan - Mr. Saxobeat
Katy Perry - Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)
The Wanted - Glad You Came
Nicole Scherzinger - Don't Hold Your Breath
The Black Eyed Peas - Just Can't Get Enough
Take That - Love Love
Jessie J - Nobody's Perfect
The Saturdays - Notorious
Rihanna - California King Bed
Scouting For Girls - Love How It Hurts
Coldplay - Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall
Cee Lo Green - I Want You (Hold On To Love)
Yasmin - Finish Line
Ed Sheeran - The A Team
Birdy - Skinny Love
Templecloud - One Big Family
Disc 2
Pitbull feat. Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer - Give Me Everything
LMFAO feat. Lauren Bennett & GoonRock - Party Rock Anthem
DJ Fresh feat. Sian Evans - Louder
Example - Changed The Way You Kiss Me
David Guetta feat. Nicki Minaj & Flo Rida - Where Them Girls At
Chris Brown feat. Benny Benassi - Beautiful People
Calvin Harris feat. Kelis - Bounce
Loick Essien feat. Tanya Lacey - How We Roll
Nicki Minaj - Super Bass
Tinchy Stryder feat. Dappy - Spaceship
Wretch 32 feat. Example - Unorthodox
Vato Gonzalez feat. Foreign Beggars - Badman Riddim (Jump)
Snoop Dogg vs. David Guetta - Sweat (David Guetta Remix)
Swedish House Mafia - Save The World
DEV feat. The Cataracs - Bass Down Low
Mann feat. 50 Cent - Buzzin
Chase & Status feat. Tinie Tempah - Hitz
Katy B - Broken Record
Nero - Guilt
Alex Gaudino feat. Kelly Rowland - What A Feeling
Wynter Gordon - Dirty Talk
Inna - Sun Is up
this pretty much
with a side order of whatever that Juke/Hessle flavoured stuff is going to eventually get called.
completely agree
(it was grunge for me in 1991)
The way in which American rap and r n b has embraced (to my ears embarrassingly outdated sounding) house music, with the David Guetta-irising of everything and everyone is frankly depressing.
I dunno
there's a lot of very god stuff happening with the people who've appropriated house as an offshoot of dubstep and UK funky. Something like say the drums of Blawan, to me, are just as potent as grunge was when I was a youngun. Similar raw and ragged vibe that most house has done it's best to avoid up to this point.
pretty much that^
But I'd just call it dance rather than narowing it down to house. I think there is a big dance thread running thru a lot of music at the moment. From the electro/trance-esq chart R&B or pop in general to dubstep wobbles in the charts, all this underground bass music. Then you hear it in the home listening stuff too from abient/electronic and indie. I think dance has just opened up and started to exchange more ideas between genres within itself than has happened in a while. Plus its filtered out into other areas.
But yeah I don't think there is ever one sound that takes over, there is usualy a lot going on you can find threads all over the place if you look hard enough. But for me right now its some kind of dance thread running pretty wide.
indeed
I don't think a sound has to be new to be the sound of now either. Nothing just jumps out of knowhere you can trase a thread thru all of music.
just sayin...
if its happening now its a sound of now lol.
Ambient / Drone,
for me, at least.
i think that in 20 years time we'll look back at now, 2011
as being right in the middle of a period of enormous change. because we're in the middle of it NOTHING is defined at all. all we can say is what's been destroyed and what may appear in a few years time.
would you say
we're living in the eye of a storm?
possibly
potential for awesomeness in years ahead: large
there's a good interview w/ super-cool Kodwo Eshun (mate of Simon Reynolds & fellow Wire writer)
where he's talking about how many completely self-contained scenes are going on at the same time in 1998. so i don't think there was a simple 'sound of now' then, and i wouldn't say it was much different now in that there are all these little disconnected scenes, the difference i guess is those scenes aren't as good/groundbreaking...maybe stuff is flicked up a cycles of derivativeness/rubbishness in 10 years as time goes by. idk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RivGWjlLoQ
Indie 60s R'nB Pop
Best Coast, The Weeknd, Deerhunter, Beyonce, DJ Quik, Destroyer, Dum Dum Girls, Erykah Badu, even Flying Lotus, Twin Shadow, TV on the Radio, more pop stars like Robyn and Lykki Li, Vivian Girls...and so on.
all sorta have that 60s element, whether it's the the Phil Spector-ish Ronettes or Motown (Stax and Hi).
*take Destroyer off list
Kaputt's really more like Steely Dan 70s.
is that not the sound of then, then?
depends
do you mean "now", as in when I type this, or when you read this? Because as I type this, it's possibly Disappears, but right now, I think it's The Fall again.
James Blake
The man's cybernetic math-whinge and mix of 80s Dad Rock with post-Kid A angstronica is pretty much the epitome of "Now's" "sound".
And allow Bumford & Cunts — I shall be using that.
just saying what we're all thinking
if you get a few mins, watch this video
http://seaninsound.tumblr.com/post/8256713319/this-and-if-you-enjoyed-that-i-recommend-scott
Interesting thesis question but...
the idea that 'everything is a remix' is pretty astute — but I hope there is a difference (other than purely semantics) from being inspired by something to strait up copying it.
my historical knowledge of events isn't good enough to be able to look into the correlation between dates of the multiple examples he uses, but the one example he did use (in the trailer for Ep4 after the credits) I did know off the top of my head — the 'unusually original' Synecdoche New York and Tom McCarty's Remainder (a most excellent book) shows that he's fudging a little.
Remainder was first published in 2005, while Synecdoche New York was released in 2008. Take 2 years off for a movie's development and you still have around a year difference, more than enough time for Charlie Kauffman to have read the cult (but almost self published) Remainder and thought, that is a cool premise, a man re-staging his life on a bigger and bigger scale but focusing on smaller and smaller detains, I'm going to nick it.
Is that creativity or plagiarism?
swagswag
HNW
Mutant Bass
Aphex Twin's...
...latest album is the sound of now. Except he won't release it. The contrary bastard.
this will also be the sound or Radiohead, in 2012, and then the sound of many Yorke obsessed bands sending around soundcloud links in 2014-2022
Nah
Radiohead never really ripped off Aphex. It was always more about robbing from Amon Tobin and nowadays Flying Lotus.
This discussion reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pehHOqx7JXg
It's old now (2009) but still relevant. And very funny.
this is well worth a quick nose if you can't be arsed to read all of Retromania
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/08/retromania-why-is-pop-culture-addicted-to-its-own-past/242868/