I think the music industry is undergoing a revolution in production and distribution at the moment, which means:
a) there is no stable basis for massive innovation in sounds, and much rock-crit discourse is built on demand for innovation in sound.
b) tastes are separating out into niches, even if people will happily enjoy more than one. But there is less emphasis on combining or crossing over in order to achieve mass appeal, and this is where one source of innovation comes from + then see comments in a) about rock crit discourse.
+ [possibly not directly linked]
c) some odd things are happening in the mainstream in the UK, which I blame on the BBC, but this is short hand for dictatorship of certain ideas of what constitutes tasteful music.
i.e. revolution in ways of making, selling / obtaining and listening to music BUT not in types of music. But someone else will tell you different at a micro level perhaps, and there is possibly a quite extensive reshuffling going on underneath the radar of concerned-but-not-fanatical listeners.
There's also a definite age thing, i.e. no-one is producing anything which sounds radically dissimilar to what I've heard before; but I'm discovering that loads of things I thought were new back in the day just sounded like older things (e.g. post-rock was just prog / kraut rock coming round again).
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-05-10 03:41 pm (UTC)a) there is no stable basis for massive innovation in sounds, and much rock-crit discourse is built on demand for innovation in sound.
b) tastes are separating out into niches, even if people will happily enjoy more than one. But there is less emphasis on combining or crossing over in order to achieve mass appeal, and this is where one source of innovation comes from + then see comments in a) about rock crit discourse.
+ [possibly not directly linked]
c) some odd things are happening in the mainstream in the UK, which I blame on the BBC, but this is short hand for dictatorship of certain ideas of what constitutes tasteful music.
i.e. revolution in ways of making, selling / obtaining and listening to music BUT not in types of music. But someone else will tell you different at a micro level perhaps, and there is possibly a quite extensive reshuffling going on underneath the radar of concerned-but-not-fanatical listeners.
There's also a definite age thing, i.e. no-one is producing anything which sounds radically dissimilar to what I've heard before; but I'm discovering that loads of things I thought were new back in the day just sounded like older things (e.g. post-rock was just prog / kraut rock coming round again).