Sinister: Electronic Renaissance

[the duke of harringay]

Belleanseb at aol.com wrote:

> >
> > The story I heard about Electronic Renaissance
> was that it was a
> > throwaway song, Stuart M proving (to Chris?)
> that it was dead easy to
> > write dancy stuff.
> > Luv
> > Iain, Glasgow
>
> That sounds very plausible to me, sadly Stuart
> succeeded in proving
> quite the opposite.

i agree, but not quite... if the initial impetus
for the song is indeed as suspected, then what
Stuart has in fact proved is that yes, it is
indeed very easy to write a 'dance' track, but
that hmmm, when you come to listen to it all,
maybe it's actually rather more difficult to write
a GREAT dance record.  Because 'ER' is hardly
great, and in fact it's hardly a 'dance' record at
all.  It has a drum machine doing a vague 'disco'
beat, but, um, so what? It's 'dance' in the realms
of, say St Etienne (and again, not as good as
their best), but hardly cutting edge.  Count the
number of crap dance records you hear.  Now count
the number of crap windy indie records you hear.
What's the difference?  there is none...  It's a
complex area, trying to 'copy' someone else's art,
someone else's genre of art.  Watch out for the
batches of B&S copycats, and see how many match
up... because they don;t have the edge, the spark,
the essential It.  Pick a wadge of drum and bass
platters, pick out the ones that are Special...
define what they have... you find it difficult,
because it's a complex entity.  It might seem
easy, but it's not.  Balances and indefinable
sonic responses.  Don't say something is 'easy'
until you can make something that deals in the
currency and hits the mark of greatness.

cultural commentary over.

the dashing duke

(that's dashing as in a hurry...)
--
Tangents On-Line
http://www.virtual-pc.com/tangent/
Tangents On-Paper: PO Box 102, Exeter, EX2 4YL, UK

tangent at mail.zynet.co.uk



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