The producer here is clearly talented, but the fact remains that notwithstanding Liam Howlett's setup in the late nineties, today's most basic music production software is a country mile more powerful than that which produced some of the most memorable music of the last twenty years.
I often think that there exists a clear analogy between electronic music and video games. The computer games of the 80s and early 90s possessed a simplicity and level of fun - often characterised as playability - which was to a certain extent lost when the exponentially-increasing power of hardware in the late 90s led to programmers to concentrate on all encompassing 3D effects at the expense of simple fun.
Likewise, I feel that many musicians today get too caught up in the neverending technical possibilities offered by their software (and digital hardware) at the expense of good, simple music which hits a spot close to the heart.
All the gear, but no idea - to coin a phrase.
I'm not sure what you'd call the musical equivalent of playability, but I think more musicians should bear it in mind. :)
I'm not as pessimistic. I really hold to the belief that the proportion of unimaginative 'workmen' in a field is constant. Lowering the cost of hardware allows more people to enter the field.and increases the amount of mediocre stuff but also increases the amount of excellent work produced.
That's not to say I don't agree with a lot of what you've said.
Love it. I think this is a universal rule. I've seen it apply to music (electric guitarists with their pedals), graphic design (with Adobe CS), renovations (shiny tools) and conversation (superlative vocabulary).
I think we still see innovation in games, but what's happened is there are also more clones. So every year we get a bunch of first person shooters, that are more or less the same type of game but with different storylines, graphics, and environments. So this drowning by copycat games makes it seem as if innovative new games are not being produced as much anymore.
It has always been this way (at least as far as I can remember, I've had a PC since '86), you just don't remember the 1,000,000th space invader/pacman/tetris clone.
Sometimes clones work. I really enjoy some Super Mario World romhacks, for example, because they took a winning formula and did it well. Here's my favorite one:
Simplicity and purity of idea maybe? I make Drum and Bass, and it seems that the whole genre has gone through a period in the last seven years whereby the opportunities afforded by sequencers and plugins have led to music which was often technically proficient, but uninspired, and more importantly, uninspiring.
Now, there's a resurgence of minimalism which I'm absolutely loving. When there aren't a thousand things going on in a tune, the choices you've made are laid bare for all to see. We had to go through some pretty ridiculous stuff to finally get here, though.
I completely agree with the analogy between 8 (and to some extent 16) bit video games, and the current generation. Limiting your scope makes it much easier to flesh out your ideas... it forces you to go for depth, because your breadth is more or less predetermined. Some of the best music humankind has ever seen was written for one person sitting at one musical instrument, capable of making a fixed range of sounds.
As a fan, I prefer a good layered number of tracks that drop down to simple and ramp back up to complex melodies/harmonics.
It's hard to find the perfect song, but I've listened to thousands of near misses ;)
Glad to hear things are leaning out, hope that doesn't always mean less tracks.
In the end, you have to make music you want to make... that you like, that pushes where you want to push ... and then if other people like it great. If you try to please the crowd, but that doesn't motivate you ....
Frank Zappa pops into mind as an example. Eric Satie another. They just did their thing. It's an important decision: If pop sounds are your thing ... which might be called 'musicality' ... it's a much easier road. But most ear candy is soon forgotten. And the 'deep' stuff takes time to find an audience.
Hundreds of thousands of people have access to the technology, so sounding modern but standing out from the crowd is really hard. Luckily, the tech has also provided the means to reach an audience you could never reach before. So whatever you do can find an audience.
I often think that there exists a clear analogy between electronic music and video games. The computer games of the 80s and early 90s possessed a simplicity and level of fun - often characterised as playability - which was to a certain extent lost when the exponentially-increasing power of hardware in the late 90s led to programmers to concentrate on all encompassing 3D effects at the expense of simple fun.
Likewise, I feel that many musicians today get too caught up in the neverending technical possibilities offered by their software (and digital hardware) at the expense of good, simple music which hits a spot close to the heart.
All the gear, but no idea - to coin a phrase.
I'm not sure what you'd call the musical equivalent of playability, but I think more musicians should bear it in mind. :)