Working within limitations is more interesting than free-form composition
Perhaps that's true for you. The question is not whether it's more interesting, but why we exalt only one specific form of limited composition.
Remember how solid a 2x22-minute-side record could be, compared to the inevitable filler generated to fill the space available on a CD?
What I remember is that albums used to have a few good songs on them and a lot of crap to fill up the space because the Cartel wanted to sell more profitable albums versus singles. 78s with good singles on them consistently out-sold albums with those same hit songs featured, because people wanted the songs they wanted. The advent of the CD didn't change that. The fact that the CD single was strangled in its grave (which probably more than anything else led to Napster and what followed) was a business decision, not a format decision.
"pieces that have no strictures as to length, rhythm or instrumentation" are usually not engaging on anything but an intellectual level, if even that
Sez you. One of the things I love about EDM is there's no fixed length for a track, BPM is a variable to be played with, and instrumentation is what you make of it. It's still far too enslaved to 4/4, in part because much of it is built off pop music. If you're comparing to the experimentation of, say, Philip Glass then I'd probably agree with you. Or even most of modern jazz, one of the few music forms I simply cannot tolerate. And I agree with you about Radiohead.
But is wide popularity the only proper metric? And if so, why?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 12:22 pm (UTC)Perhaps that's true for you. The question is not whether it's more interesting, but why we exalt only one specific form of limited composition.
Remember how solid a 2x22-minute-side record could be, compared to the inevitable filler generated to fill the space available on a CD?
What I remember is that albums used to have a few good songs on them and a lot of crap to fill up the space because the Cartel wanted to sell more profitable albums versus singles. 78s with good singles on them consistently out-sold albums with those same hit songs featured, because people wanted the songs they wanted. The advent of the CD didn't change that. The fact that the CD single was strangled in its grave (which probably more than anything else led to Napster and what followed) was a business decision, not a format decision.
"pieces that have no strictures as to length, rhythm or instrumentation" are usually not engaging on anything but an intellectual level, if even that
Sez you. One of the things I love about EDM is there's no fixed length for a track, BPM is a variable to be played with, and instrumentation is what you make of it. It's still far too enslaved to 4/4, in part because much of it is built off pop music. If you're comparing to the experimentation of, say, Philip Glass then I'd probably agree with you. Or even most of modern jazz, one of the few music forms I simply cannot tolerate. And I agree with you about Radiohead.
But is wide popularity the only proper metric? And if so, why?