Nice to see a discussion on 313 that involves no threats of mayhem.
Tom, time and again, you make no concessions to anyone else's taste. While I like the stuff you like, and can listen to you DJ all the live long day and enjoy nearly every track, I like a lot of stuff you don't. I think I get what appeals to you about what you like, but there's more than one way to the top of the mountain. And I don't totally get your thesis in this discussion. Music technology either matters (which is what you seem to be saying when you complain about computer-produced music) or it doesn't (which is what you seem to be saying when you talk about people making great music, simply). I think the truth of the matter is more complicated than that. People evaluate Electronic Music in terms of sound design, in addition to the more traditional attributes of rhythm, melody, harmony, and structure. If you want to advance the state of the art, you try and build something, either in the world or in your computer, that makes a new sound. To do this new technology is important. Where artistry and talent come into play is in finding, manipulating, and arranging new sounds in a way that's pleasing to listeners. Believe me, I've spent hours and hours making 'sounds never heard before' in my studio, and most of them are awful. But the sounds you use isn't the only factor in producing music -- you need to consider things like rhythm, structure, and harmony, the balance between repetition and novelty, and production technique. More important than any one of those properties is whether the artist has anything to say through the music. An artist's music, to be truly worth listening to, needs to be something more than beats, notes, and noises. You can call it 'soul' but it's not a narrow, Ray Charles definition of Soul. It's more a sense that the music is inhabited by something, something that speaks to _your_ soul. Something that can't be reduced to formula and reproduced at will. And even if that spark is there, there's no guarantee that you'll respond to it. Everybody needs to find what speaks to their condition. Aesthetics can never be absolute. On the subject of production values . Guys like Larry Heard may have not obsessed over the latest gear, and made music very simply, but it's a mistake to say that they didn't spend considerable time and energy on getting the production right. Larry is a perfect example of this. He may just have a drum machine and a couple of synths going into a track, but they sound really, really, good. I know the machines Larry Heard used on his early tracks, and believe me, you can't just plug them into a Mackie 1202 and have something that sounds that good come out. There are plenty of closely guarded production tricks in dance music. You find that out if you get serious about producing tracks. It's not all in Keyboard or SOS or Electronic Musician. Every one of the people they interview isn't telling everything about how they work. Some of them jealously guard their secrets, and others aren't even conscious of doing anything unique when they build a track and mix it down. Because of their ears (and what's between them) they make hundreds of aesthetic and technical choices every hour in the studio. What it comes down to is this: It's the person, not the tools, that makes any art special. The fact that a bunch of clueless raver kids can string a few loops in Acid or Live has absolutely nothing to do with what real artists are doing. Most of the music that gets isn't any good, and a lot of it that is good isn't to your particular taste, or mine. No one has the perect, objective, comprehensive critical faculty to decide what is or isn't good.
