Bloated by the beats
February 27 2011
Harmonic hypertension. Diatonic diabetes. Chanson chunkiness.
Music, popular music, is experiencing an epidemic.
The Pianobabbler has written about the sensual deadening antiseptisized, commoditized, processed-food-ized, super-dumbing-down-sized mass music has brought to the musicsphere (What Happened to the Song? or How the Song Became a Hamburger, Pianobabbler 116.)
The other night the Pianobbabler had a chance to observe the phenomenon up close. Field research.
DJ Quantic. British lad, living in Colombia. He has earned a reputation as an intelligent spinner.
On a North American tour, Quantic stopped in Toronto last night.
The reports do not lie. Quantic played music that, though of obscure origin, sounded rich and substantive. Schlock pop, not. Centre-of-the-soul music-of-the-people. Unknown South American forms and performers. Rhythms and harmonies and melodies familiarly strange, always accessible.
With beats.
Wherein lies the rub.
The beats. The rub is the beats.
People packed the club (Quantic sells out where'er he goes.) The Pianobabbler stood in a corner listening to... listening for the music. He stood alone. The rest of the crowd crowded the dance floor. They shook, shimmied, loped, broke, swayed, jumped, moved to the beats.
The beats... thumpa thumpa thumpa LOUD thumpa thumpa...
As good as the underlying music was, it sank under the weight of the hyper-subwoofered beats. The song became the vehicle for the pounding thumpa thumpa. Much like mass market food- that burger, that potato, even that salad -serves as a vehicle for fat, salt and sugar.
We need fat, salt and sugar, we need beats, rhythm, pulse in our music. And just as industry has given us fat, salt and sugar in quantities far greater than we need, to the point of pathology, so industry gives us excess beats. They bloat and sink the music. They lead to harmonic hypertension. Diatonic diabetes. Chanson chunkiness.
Just as too many people can't seem to consume enough industrial food, so they gorge on the beat-besieged music. After a night of this, one could no more go listen to the Rachmaninoff Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 19, than one could switch from a steady diet of Doritos to organic watercress.
You retort: dance lives in music's marrow. No dance, no music. True. But. In music's rich alchemy, dance cannot be the only atom.
The Pianobabbler respects the technique and art of the DJ. It takes skill and musical acumen. Understood. But when raw electrical bass-boosting and add-on digital loops bedizen the music to the point of smothering it, someone must speak up.
The Pianobabbler has spoken umpa umpa umpa umpa umpa...
The Pianobabbler has babbled.
The Pianobabbler is a RonDavisMusic production. The Pianobabbler's blog posts appear weekly at pianobabbler.com. Please remember to leave your comments and thoughts below. Subscribe to the RSS feed. And subscribe to RonDavisNews by clicking on the Mailing List link, above right. And follow us on Twitter.
blog comments powered by Disqus
A brilliant adventure. On his latest recording, My Mother's Father's Song, Ron Davis embraces both his family's rich cultural heritage, and boldly re-engages with the jazz standard.
- click here for details
Please subscribe to Ron's monthly email with updates, announcements and photos. You'll get a free MP3 or PDF of Ron's music when you sign up.
- click here to join
