<<It's also easy to be distracted by audio-geekery and too many choices available.>>
I think there is so much value in that one sentence, it bears repeating ad infinitum. The possibilities are so endless in 2008, that a number of undesirable by-products has emerged... Most significantly, much like the current state of Hollywood movies, it's so easy to fall into the trap of getting wrapped up in to the concept of technical brilliance and completely lose the entertainment value in the process. In Hollywood (well, LOTS of movies, really...no need to restrict it), the goal is ticket sales. Butts in seats. On television, it's faces in front of screens to watch advertising. In years past, being adept at your craft brought people and the ticket sales or faces in front of screens were the by-products. The tables have turned, and it's the pure "spectacle"....i.e. the concept, not the execution, that brings viewership. Anyone of my/our generation need only look at the last 3 Star Wars movies to prove my point. It wasn't the acting and it CERTAINLY wasn't the dialogue that made those films box office successes. If there were any other name attached to them but George Lucas, those films would've been laughed out of the theater, or worse. The dialogue was absolutely ATTROCIOUS. It was the concept that brought people (including myself) in. The spectacular effects. The story line (which was no surprise if you haven't been living under a rock since 1977)...the end product, when taken at face value, was fairly laughable. This is completely the problem I had with Hawtin's previous "mix" cd's - they may have been interesting in theory, and clinically perfect, but that's just it. They were clinical. Cold. Sterile. Devoid of any sort of soul or funk. Or entertainment value...For a supposedly "dance" record, I wasn't in any way motivated to even nod my head at the desk by anything I heard on those recordings. If those recordings had been made by me, or any other non-name, they wouldn't register a blip on the scale. But because of who he is, and his cache of previous successes, the lack of quality was given a pass in the name of progress. I think this was the feeling that a lot of people share when they claim that Hawtin is a product of "marketing" more than "substance". The confusing thing is, he didn't start this way. m On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 9:27 AM, kent williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Well, I don't know that what I wrote is categorically, > deterministically true. It felt plausible when I wrote it. > > I think one knows what moves one's own self when working on a track, > but it's not easy to know how other people react to what you're doing. > It's also easy to be distracted by audio-geekery and too many choices > available. > > > > On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 3:04 AM, Martin Dust <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > On 5 May 2008, at 04:21, kent williams wrote: > > > > > > > I'll say this about Mr. Hawtin -- he's no dummy. He talks a lot about > > > the concepts he's trying to implement in his music. I've been left > > > cold by a lot of his output, and my suspicion is that when he's alone > > > in the studio, the concepts rule over the emotion. > > > > > > > I don't feel the same way about his output as you Kent but I'm also not > > sure I'd agree with the concept over emotion idea either, it just seems to > > determislistic to suggest that this is the case. > > > > > > > It's always difficult to find emotion when you're working with > > > machines in a room by yourself. A techno producer is like an old > > > school photographer -- you make the music, but don't see how it > > > develops until you see how a dance floor reacts. > > > > > > > This is just wrong :) I can't and don't believe you think the above is > > actually true, do you? > > > -- "Play more things that make me dance around and less things that make me sit and look miserable in a plastic chair" - Brian Eno Blind faith in bad leadership is not "Patriotism".
