That seems like nonsense, given how genres slimed together by the late 90s. Everybody was stealing from everybody else and the best we could do was throw around labels like “alternative.” ClearChannel made every genre pull toward country while country became R&B for hwhite people. Meanwhile the electronica scene had discovered computers - a development that took longer than you’d think - and a bunch of dorks styling themselves as DJ [noun] had MP3s all over piracy services. This is right before Youtube, SoundCloud, and MySpace let truly independent artists reach arbitrarily large audiences.
If we really want to start an argument - there’s people who say anything generated literally is not music. Kids these days are growing up with the ability to drop a diss track on their friend for a faux pas that happened five minutes ago. Formulaic, yes, but immediately distinct from everyone listening to the same ten conventionally-attractive pop artists.
Actually he wrote a lot about 90s music in this theory, his main example of a subversive musical genre from the 90s was Jungle/D&B.
I mean I don’t think its complete nonsense, this is definitely something that has always happened regarding the capitalization of popular music, Gramsci wrote about some of the tendencies, in his analysis of italian theatre and how monopolized capital exploited artists and small venues, back in the 1920s. I think the pressures certainly exist, especially because of the examples you mention, like clear channel, but also live nation and ticketmaster. Those pressures to homogenize and commodify music are objectively the result of monopolization of the music industry. Culture and economy are intrinsically bound up in one another.
But also I feel that he sort of over stated his point, like his analysis is sort of warped by chronic depression and like fiercely hating the Arctic Monkeys.
I think the point isn’t that categories hardened in the sense that they stay distinct but that there are no more experiments, nothing subversive. Stealing and mixing things you know work, is exactly that. Your kid’s diss track will be totally generic with no original idea. That’s the whole point of the comment above, not that it’s exact covers.
That seems like nonsense, given how genres slimed together by the late 90s. Everybody was stealing from everybody else and the best we could do was throw around labels like “alternative.” ClearChannel made every genre pull toward country while country became R&B for hwhite people. Meanwhile the electronica scene had discovered computers - a development that took longer than you’d think - and a bunch of dorks styling themselves as DJ [noun] had MP3s all over piracy services. This is right before Youtube, SoundCloud, and MySpace let truly independent artists reach arbitrarily large audiences.
If we really want to start an argument - there’s people who say anything generated literally is not music. Kids these days are growing up with the ability to drop a diss track on their friend for a faux pas that happened five minutes ago. Formulaic, yes, but immediately distinct from everyone listening to the same ten conventionally-attractive pop artists.
Actually he wrote a lot about 90s music in this theory, his main example of a subversive musical genre from the 90s was Jungle/D&B.
I mean I don’t think its complete nonsense, this is definitely something that has always happened regarding the capitalization of popular music, Gramsci wrote about some of the tendencies, in his analysis of italian theatre and how monopolized capital exploited artists and small venues, back in the 1920s. I think the pressures certainly exist, especially because of the examples you mention, like clear channel, but also live nation and ticketmaster. Those pressures to homogenize and commodify music are objectively the result of monopolization of the music industry. Culture and economy are intrinsically bound up in one another.
But also I feel that he sort of over stated his point, like his analysis is sort of warped by chronic depression and like fiercely hating the Arctic Monkeys.
I think the point isn’t that categories hardened in the sense that they stay distinct but that there are no more experiments, nothing subversive. Stealing and mixing things you know work, is exactly that. Your kid’s diss track will be totally generic with no original idea. That’s the whole point of the comment above, not that it’s exact covers.