Dance Moves and Countering Popular Culture’s Asceticism

 

Since its release a few days ago, I have been thinking about the new Girl Talk album a little more with each passing day (I spin the disk more than once daily) and I have started to wonder about certain cultural and psychological qualities to music.  Specifically I’ve started to become interested in how much the beat of a song matters in the grand scheme of the song as a whole.  Some may argue that such an interest is of no importance when concerning contemporary popular music, as those types would begrudgingly say (as they probably have said ever since they put that Miles Davis or J. S. Bach recording on their turntables for the first time) that most music today is crap.  Without going into my theories on aesthetics and art, I will simply say that the masses, even when keeping consumerism and knowledge boundaries in mind, still listen to various bands and songs in one genre over others.  The market can indeed control which artists get big and which don’t, but bands and artists get discovered or created based on the qualities of the listeners.

So now that, hopefully, it’s understood that even the more basic types of music (though the types are often expanded on by complex, avant-garde or underground types) deserve critical analysis, let’s get back to my concern for the beat of the song.  If you turn on the radio today, chances are the first thing you will if you have never heard the song before will be the singing voice in the song.  The singer is undoubtedly the most relatable to the listener as the singer can make contact via the musical qualities of voice as well as the linguistic, verbal communication qualities (ie. language) that the listener can most easily relate to (both in terms of linguistic speech patterns and the the similarities in emotional capacities of the voice).  But after agreeing or disagreeing with the singer, whether by knowing who the singer is or by not knowing and choosing whether or not to accept the voice, one lingers on the song to see how effective the beat of the song is.  Now this is a rudimentary and perhaps naive inference because there are obviously tastes in genres and sub-genres, emotional factors within the listener, et cetera that will influence a decision to keep listening, but for the sake of argument, let’s stress the important the beat of a song–including the rhythmic or pacing qualities a song has (ie. how fast or slow it is).  The beat includes a combination of percussion, both keyboard melodies, synthetic strings, and otherwise drums, Granted, the voice and other melodies (guitar, backing vocals, singer or rapper) strictly replace the function of the beat as dominant in songs that lack or do not focus on having a beat, if any beat at all, but for songs that have a drum line or use variations on cyclical percussive patterns, there tends to be a theme (perhaps this is my hypothesis or postulate, if you will), that lack of beat equals lack of song.  I bring this up particularly with Feed the Animals because the album, in its arguably seamless entirety, makes use of sampled beats that spontaneously change faster than a Venetian Snares track, and ultimately the track has such auditory suction because of its ability to maintain a vibrant, diverse, and energetic series of beats that makes it both pleasuring, interesting, and at many times, hilarious.

On a random google search I came across this article on human timing mechanisms and their relationship to an internal beat.  This is the hard science end of what is required when analyzing mass interpretations of music and many of the biological functions that are going on between perception and braing activity.  Unfortunately I am not well-versed in literature of the sort so I don’t know what established arguments or camps currently exist, particularly in terms of euphonic approaches to contemporary music.  What I do know is that Girl Talk combines the pre-established relations to hit (popular) songs that most people know, probably primarily through radio, in what could be considered a Jungian throwback to the development of some collective unconscious, some constantly changing, constantly unfolding razzle dazzle that is able to hit all genre bases (thus, perhaps, nullifying genre), and that is able to hit popularity and obscurity bases (you’ve got Nine Inch Nails, Of Montreal, and Lil Wayne; you’ve got “Come on Eileen” and “Throw Some Ds” and Baby Mama’s intense spit about lip gloss).  After all is said and done, the focus comes down to the sheer number of changes that happen throughout this wonderful new approach to soundscapes–it’s like an epic symphonic poem, of sorts–it’s like the world of music condensed and then manipulated, like the world’s greatest computer turned into a two inch long flash drive that is colored pink and makes pig noises.  The total length of the new album (fifty five minutes) is astonishing–it keeps the listener wanting more, gives a delicate, well-maneuvered shift between rises and falls in energy and mood, and the music does not wear out through repetition.  It’s important to understand how easily repetitive electronic music of any sort can get.  From hip-hop spinning to heavy goa trance tracks to drum and bass to artists like Diplo and DJ Shadow–all of these sub-genres of music (that aim to not only please the listener aurally but provide the incentive to groove or dance) can get really old and obnoxious and bland if not expanded on regularly.  The old Girl Talk album, Night Ripper, was good at what it did, but I think many would agree that the first half of the album really shines, where the second half of the album tapers off into “okay, we’ve seen your mashup capabilities and know you’re good at what you do, but we liked the first half better–it was more explosive” land.  But that’s not a huge bash to Night Ripper.  A potentially larger bash would be the compliment that the album was generally enjoyed all the way through because it was played at parties where extensive alcohol consumption levels were as a) mind-blowing (literally and figuratively) as the music itself, and b) were as long-lasting as the repeat button on the player that spun the disk.

But before I go overboard, I think this is where a cultural inspection of popular music becomes an important piece of the puzzle in understanding why certain music is considered “good” and certain music is danced to because it’s “good to dance to.”  It is a complicated assessment of how far down the music intricacy rabbit hole you want to go.  The music that is good to dance to, to groove to, that initiates you and keeps you an active participant in it–rather forces you to feel it’s energy and assertiveness–is probably, more often than not, just like all other forms of music, crap.  But look at Girl Talk and tell me the music is crap–perhaps it’s even more noteworthy because it combines accessibility and that electronic musician talent that is often lost through the bass lines and beats of most of the crunk and club music out there–those songs that maybe incorporate a maximum of four instruments in their beat, with maybe a sample from a keyboard and a few synthetic string arrangements.  You know the type.  Hell, even artists that I listen to on a regular basis–Young Jeezy, Bun B, T Pain, Lil Wayne, Birdman, Trina (we could all go on)–don’t exactly have beats that are genre defining or even defining.  Most of the cultural staples are, in essence, remembered because of their lyrics.  “Everyday I’m hustlin, hustlin–” that line is really easy to recall, but do you remember any of the music that stood behind Rick Ross’s little gem?  Diehard fans might, but then ask them how many of the beats of Rick Ross, who I enjoy thoroughly by the way, they can recall and describe to you.  It’s a test that’s not supposed to prove anything.  If you don’t know the beat of one of the twenty-plus hip-hop songs off Bun B’s King of the Trill album, no one is going to beat you up and stop calling you gangsta.  In contemporary popular music, ranging from hip-hop to electronic mash-ups, the beats tend to be “in-the-moment” features of the music.  Their function is to serve you while you are listening, as opposed to when you are reflecting or remembering.  I am not going to say that some songs, such as Busta Rhymes’s “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See,” or Animal Collective’s “Purple Bottle” have beats that you can’t remember if you’ve heard these songs before (and liked them, by the way–let’s not forget basic memorization patterns!).  Some songs are exceptions.  Maybe they are examples of the real mainstream “art” of the medium, as they will probably have a better chance of standing the test of time than, say, “Fireman” by Lil Wayne, or “Let’s Make Love in the Club” by Young Jeezy.  While those songs do have their positive qualities, their function is, depending on how you look at it fortunately or unfortunately, temporary.

I have single-handedly gone from an interest in how the beats of the song matter to how songs maintain throughout time or fall apart and fizzle into dust.  That’s generally what happens when I approach culture.  But these thoughts will have to be expanded.  If you download the new Girl Talk album, take a step back as your shoulders are moving up and down, your head is nodding, and your fingers are tapping.  Start to question what qualities within each track (and within the album as a whole) make you want to dance, and make you want to continually dance.  I still wonder why the new album is so successful.  I’m pretty sure it has something to do with its appeal through popular culture by way of familiarity and humor, combined with its ability to sound good through those cultural elements and the beats that are used.  Another interesting factor is that the songs on the album have beats that are not always distinguishable.  Meaning, he probably took the drums from somewhere, but where?!  The next question would be: does it matter to know where the beats come from, or are there qualities about them that make them good even when they are not distinguisable between songs?  It’d be hard to doubt that certain beats and beat patterns are all over different songs, and that, though the sounds of the percussion and synths may very, their patterns are cyclically identical through history.  But what makes a beat pleasing to the ear?  What’s the best (most effective) drum track, and how can it be expanded?  Girl Talk expands–notice the glitching and the spitfire fragmentation–but there are even more successful tracks that are played in dance clubs everywhere, blasted from cars that travel down the road, and find homes in the cell phones of people everywhere.  The minimalist would say, “it sounds good.”  But just as poetry addresses natural breath by way of meter, and just as songs often refer back to their metronomic approach to time and speed, I think that aural substance in given spots of time, little packets that enter in and out of the airwaves, in and out of the ear, affect the perception of euphony greatly.

In other news, I started to listen to the new Sigur Ros album, the first two tracks in particular.  The album is called Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust and apparently it’s produced by the same guy who has a production history with Nine Inch Nails, which explains why the first two tracks have a heavier, fast-paced, percussion-oriented, studio-resonating sound.  A big difference from the ambient currents of ().  Though I’ve got virus problems on my home computer, the album will probably get listened to and reviewed this evening.