On Wed, 14 Nov 2001, Brendan Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > | -----Original Message----- > | From: Lester Kenyatta Spence [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > | Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2001 5:17 PM > | > | > Interesting point... I'd be tempted to say that techno was the first > | > specifically post-industrial tribal music. Other genres of > | music, like > | > rock'n'roll or hip-hop, have always had tribal aspects to > | them, but techno > | > is specifically post-industrial. > | > | This is interesting as well....how are you defining "post-indutrial?" > > The dictionary definition is "a period in the development of an economy or > nation in which the relative importance of manufacturing lessens and that of > services, information, and research grows" - most Western nations are now in > a post-industrial state and have been since the late 1970s. Although there > have been new genres of music since then besides techno, techno's origins in > Detroit - a city which became post-industrial a while before many others, > what with the collapse in auto manufacturing there and the subsequent decay > of the city - kind of mark it as a genre of music which ties very closely > with post-industrialism.
Hm. Although I don't think it is an accident that what we think of as "techno" comes out of Detroit for the reasons you mentioned, I actually think hip-hop might be the first post-industrial music...and that techno is the first to actually REPRESENT itself as post-industrial. Do you see the distinction? I was giving a lecture about "mass society" yesterday, and it occurred to me that we can trace the development of music in a similar fashion...rock and roll in particular. Rock and roll is a very industrial music in that it calls into being a certain sense of scale (large large concert halls, a loud loud sound which requires big big speakers, etc.). It also calls into being a certain type of industry to feed it. Ticketmaster to deal with the consumer aspect of concert technology for example. (apologies for obvious oversimplification.) But hiphop is the first music to violate those forms...and it was produced by some of the first casualties of the industrial era--"colored" (black american, black carribbean, latino, some white) men and women who were unable to get jobs in the plants during the seventies. It took a low-tech approach with high tech tools and created a sound that was a pastiche of bits and pieces of previous work. And in juxtaposition to the megaband, all that was needed was "two turntables and a mic." Note how the scale becomes more human...in pointed juxtaposition to the industrial trend. Now the themes are definitely NOT post-industrial...but I think the music itself was as far as the social factors leading up to its creation. > Of course, it's easy to say things like that about techno as it is an > ambiguous and amorphous genre of music - and it's just as easy to disprove > statements like this for exactly the same reason. My perception of techno is > that it's a post-industrial genre - and, hey, if we think of 'industrial' as > the musical genre rather than the phase of economic development, that makes > sense too! Perhaps even more sense. peace lks (i forwarded this to a friend of mine who recently wrote a book called BEETHOVEN'S ANVIL which deals with music and culture broadly considered.) --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
