Where will music go next?

[primushead]

All this talk about composers and 'dudes who wrote hymns' (refer to the beatles influence thread) got me thinking...what will music evolve into next?

Popular music a couple hundred years ago involved organs...pop music of the 20's-40's involved 'big bands' and pretty much the last half of the 20th century (and still today) involves guitar/bass/drums.  Do you think rock music will fade away into the 'classical' category?  Rock music as a whole has explored so many different avenues, but it can only go so far.  What will the next breed of music be?  What instruments will it encompass the next wave of 'pop music'?  Hm....

[aMillionDreams]

don't forget the synthesizers of the 1980s.  I could see music going back into that direction (of electronically manipulated sounds).  However, I think that music will always periodically return to the guitar/bass/drums formula (thanks god for rock and roll).

[primushead]

Sure, electronic music has a place...but even that has only so far to go.  Oh yeah, hip hop/rap.  Definitely a mainstay of today's generation.  But how long do you think that can last?

[aMillionDreams]

I think electronic music could keep evolving.  And I'm not talking about electronic music in particular, but how each generation uses its technology, disco, synth bands, djs all use modern electronics to shape a new sound.  I don't really see any real change occuring in music but just rehashings.

I think hip-hop is almost over.  Have you ever noticed how people who like hip-hop always prefer the songs with melody?  Eventually these people will realize that there are worlds of music they have not yet explored.  That same damn beat is old and tired.  Just my opinion though.

[primushead]

Totally agree.  Granted, there is some very good rap out there...but the same ol' damn beats get old.  I agree.

[EC]

Interesting, interesting.

A friend called and said that the folk music scene has become huge in Europe.  Coffee shops have sprung up all over the place with people coming out to listen - anybody in Europe care to talk about that?  

I think what's interesting is that, it's probably not going to happen that many more non-electronic instruments will be created.  A lot of people are composing music on their computers (ie plugging in the notes and the specific instrument sound, and playing it that way).  (What I mean by that is that people aren't trying to invent new acoustic instruments.  Not that the existing ones won't be built.)

Will there be a new "style" of music?  Of course there will be.  There always will be.  And may just be a new take on an old idea, or a blend of several ideas.  Bjork has used throat singing, lots of guys (BJM comes to mind immediately) are using ancient instruments and giving them new voices.  People are messing around with sounds.

The cool thing is, and I believe to be especially true for My Morning Jacket and most bands that influence me, that people are the result of everything they've ever known, and they're also creating their completely own sound.  Because we have a much greater access to all kinds of music nowadays (ie it's easier to get), we have bigger ears.    

[primushead]

Ah yes...very insightful.

[thebigbang]

Long article in the local rag discusses new music genre
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050910/SCENE04/509100328/1011/SCENE
Sample this
Mainstreaming mash-ups
Will copyright issues squelch music-merging genre?

HEAR IT
"Friday Night Sound Clash"
Where: WFPK, 91.9-FM
When: 9-11 p.m. Fridays


 Negativland's 1991 two-track, 12-inch single "U2" included notorious outtakes from Casey Kasem.
 Negativland's 2005 release "No Business" is 100 percent appropriated.

 "It still has an edge because it's illegal. It's forbidden fruit."
— MATT ANTHONY, WFPK-FM

Run-DMC, above, created a proto-mash-up using "Walk This Way" by Aerosmith, below, in 1986, appropriating the song for its own purposes. (Gannett News Service photos)

 A 1999 album by DJ Z Trip and Radar gave mash-ups a shot in the arm.

 Danger Mouse's "The Grey Album" is a mash-up of the Beatles' "White Album" and Jay Z's "Black Album."

By Paul Curry
Special to The Courier-Journal

Computer technology has opened the frontier for a new generation of music artists who need no musical training and no musical talent.

In a form of hip-hop called mashing, pairs of unrelated songs are edited together, chosen both for their curious similarities in tempo, chord progression and tone and for their dissimilarities in lyrical content and historical context. The resulting tracks are called mash-ups.

"It's the ultimate punk rock," says Mark Hosner, founding member of the band Negativland, probably the most prominent sonic experimentalists of the last quarter-century. "You don't even have to play an instrument."

WFPK-FM's Matt Anthony, who hosts the "Friday Night Sound Clash," says they're the most exciting thing happening in popular music.

And, for the most part, they're illegal, constructed from the original material without the permission or license of the artists.

"It still has an edge because it's illegal," Anthony says. "It's forbidden fruit."

His show recently featured a mix of Marvin Gaye's vocal from "Sexual Healing" with the instrumental portion of an unidentified Oasis track. One of Anthony's favorite mash-ups pairs XTC's "Making Plans for Nigel" with Tweet's "Oops, Oh My."

"I try to throw in a mash-up every week. I always get calls about it," Anthony said. "It's always people who love one song or both and want information about the track." But most of the mash-ups he receives are burned from copies of other copies, and no information is available.

As for the legal issues involved, Anthony admitted, "I hope people like (what's played), but I hope nobody notices. If I get a cease-and-desist letter, I'll stop."

He points out that Shady 45, rap superstar Eminem's station on Sirius satellite radio, features a program called "Mash-Up Mondays," hosted by Cypress Hill's DJ Muggs. So far as he knows, Eminem has not been told to change his programming, so Anthony doesn't expect that the music industry will be too concerned that he plays one mash-up each week.

The music industry is concerned, of course, about artists being compensated for their work.

"Copyright law is an attempt to strike a balance between protecting original works and stifling creativity," said Robert Gwin, a copyright attorney in Louisville.

The owners of copyrights in the original sound recordings used in mash-ups could assert their right to be paid whenever their properties are sampled. But the creators of mash-ups may also have an interest in copyrighting their own constructions, whether or not they have obtained a license to use other artists' original recordings.

But so far, no one has pursued a case far enough to set a precedent.

A sampling of history
While it may seem as if sound sampling is a recent development, it has had an intermittent presence on commercial radio since at least 1956, roughly coinciding with the dawn of rock 'n' roll.

It was in that year that the duo Buchanan and Goodman released "The Flying Saucer," the first of a number of "novelty edits." The recording was simply a series of fragments from popular songs strung together with a mock news-report narration regarding the sighting of a UFO. A reporter asks what one bystander would do if he saw a UFO, for instance, and Elvis sings "Take a walk down lonely street." Hilarious.

In the 1960s, the practice was somewhat commonplace among the giants of pop music. The Beatles included haphazardly edited calliope sounds into the mix of "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite." The Beach Boys appropriated the sound of a railroad crossing from an uncredited sound-effects recording for "Pet Sounds."

The music industry, recognizing a threat to its proprietary interests, lobbied Congress, and in 1971 an overhaul of the Copyright Act included special protection for sound recordings, as opposed to compositions -- basically making it illegal to create the kind of silly sound collage that Buchanan and Goodman had introduced to mainstream radio.

In the mid-1980s, with the advent of hip-hop and the introduction of commercially available digital sampling devices, the practice of sampling exploded, although fans of mainstream pop music wouldn't be aware of it for years.

The growth of sound sampling has followed two basic paths. Most prominently, it is a somewhat necessary element of hip-hop, with songs built over lifted riffs, entire songs being remixed over heavy beats and, of course, the recent appearance of mash-ups.

Elsewhere, sampling has been adopted by experimental artists and groups like Negativland, who engage in the practice for humorous or educational effect.

Unlike most bands, the members of Negativland are not limited to the narrow roles of singer, drummer or vocalist. Nor do they limit themselves to the creation of sound recordings. An art show that opened this week in New York City focuses on the various visual aspects of their 25-year career.

But while the flashpoints of their recording career have sprung from their pointed use of sound samples, Hosner is quick to point out that it was never the group's intention to become crusaders for appropriation.

"Our only interest was in trying to make interesting work, to follow our noses," he said. "What happened was we found we were interested in using sound, taking things out of context." He refers to this process as "repurposing."

The band's earliest recordings included sounds that Hosner and his collaborators had made at home, such as relatives' voices and pet noises. Later, the group started to think more critically about media and advertising and realized that it could comment on these elements of contemporary American life through its work.

In 1991, Negativland released a two-track, 12-inch single titled "U2." Disguised as a parody of the U2 song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," the recording included a notorious series of outtakes from "America's Top 40" featuring Casey Kasem trying to announce a new song by the band and cursing his production staff for a variety of offenses.

"There was nothing wrong with what we were doing," Hosner said. "We were responding to the world we experience and using the available equipment to do so. End of story."

But within days of its release, the band and its record label, SST, were sued by Island Records (owners of the copyright to the U2 catalog), and Negativland's "U2" was withdrawn from all markets. The controversy nearly killed the group, but it bounced back, publishing the entirety of the court papers and correspondence between the various parties as a book, "Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2" (1995). The final version of the book included a CD with a historical overview of copyright and fair use in popular music, organized as a sound-collage.

In 1997, the band released "Dispepsi," another collage of sounds appropriated from commercials and news reports concerning the so-called "Cola Wars."

In 2001, the band reissued the "U2" recordings on an album of related material, retitled "These Guys Are From England and Who Gives a ****" -- a direct quote from Kasem's included rantings. And its most recent release, this year's "No Business," is 100 percent appropriated. There is no original content whatsoever.

The Beatles' track "Because" is chopped up, nearly beyond recognition, with the lyrics explaining that "new is old" and "old is new." Ethel Merman's "There's No Business Like Show Business" is edited into a treatise on "stealing show people." Through careful cutting, it is revealed that "Raindrops on kittens, and schnitzel on roses" and "Ponies in dresses and warm doorbells" are just a few of Julie Andrews' "Favorite Things."

The CD comes with a 50-page booklet titled "Two Relationships to a Cultural Public Domain" and a yellow whoopee cushion with a copyright symbol printed on it. The essays in the booklet make the argument that corporate law and copyright are responsible for the death of folk music and are detrimental to the healthy evolution of artistic expression.

To date, Negativland has not been sued for any of the post-"U2" releases.

What's next?
Meanwhile, over the years, listeners have become accustomed to a certain kind of appropriation in rap and hip-hop. When Run-D.M.C. covered Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" in 1986, it paid a royalty -- but what it really did was appropriate the song for its own purposes. The result was a proto-mash-up of styles, with Run-D.M.C. rapping the verses and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry rocking out on the choruses.

That same year, Will to Power had a hit with a medley of two completely unrelated songs. In "Baby I Love Your Way/Free Bird Medley (Free Baby)," the two songs were woven together like a dialogue. But again, Will to Power paid royalties for the two songs and re-recorded them.

Mash-ups got a shot in the arm in 1999 with the release of the album "Live at the Future Primitive Soundsession, Vol. 2." Not a "live" album in the sense that any rock fan might understand, this was an organized "performance" by DJ Z Trip and Radar spinning records for an audience wanting to dance.

The set list included hip-hop standards from LL Cool J, Eric B. and Rakim and Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew, but the tracks were tweaked, chopped and blended with sound snippets from a variety of sources, including rock standards like Pink Floyd's "Is There Anybody Out There" and Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion."

"Live at the Future Primitive Soundsession, Vol. 2" is widely regarded as a masterpiece of turntabalism.

According to Brian Peters, a clerk at Louisville's ear X-tacy, DJ Z Trip is to mash-ups what Elvis was to rock 'n' roll. "I admire the guys who can do it with as little technology as possible, two turntables and a microphone," Peters said.

Unfortunately, the album isn't legitimately available. In fact, there probably aren't any examples of this style of entertainment available from any legitimate source. While royalties are assessed and collected from clubs where recorded music is played, there are no such statutory schedules for reproducing such "performances" in any way.

If you tune in to Anthony's "Friday Night Music Clash," you might hear a more recent, computer-generated mash-up. While he has an appreciation for turntabalism and Z Trip in particular, Anthony points out that for his purposes, "If it sounds good, it sounds good."

And it may be that royalty statutes would cover the songs used in a mash-up when presented in such a way. That issue has not been tested.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes Louisville and Nashville) did recently consider a case involving sound sampling, Gwin said. In the case of Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Film (a case involving three chords from George Clinton's "Get Off Your ---- and Jam" that were legally sampled in a song called "100 Miles" that was then licensed to appear in the soundtrack to the film "I Got the Hook Up" without the permission of the original copyright holders), the court advised that recording artists must "get a license or do not sample."

But other courts in other cases might interpret the law differently.

An episode involving mash-up artist Danger Mouse suggests one of the problems involved in settling the various issues surrounding mash-ups: If the infringing behavior is stopped before someone sues, the courts may never have the opportunity to rule on the practice.

In late 2003, Danger Mouse mashed the vocals from Jay Z's "Black Album" with instrumentals lifted from the Beatles' "White Album," which was recorded in 1968. He called it "The Grey Album" and uploaded it, giving it away to anyone who wanted to hear it.

Within months, he received a cease-and-desist letter from EMI, which owns the copyrights to the Beatles' catalog. (In stark contrast, Jay Z loved "The Grey Album" and gave Danger Mouse a job producing tracks for his next project, an album by Beanie Sigel.) With his compliance there were no grounds for a suit, although "The Grey Album" is more than likely still available from other sources.

In the meantime, it is clear that sampling in any form may constitute an infringement. The downside of this interpretation is that the mash-up genre may never be allowed to thrive, and mash-up artists may never be compensated for their talents.

Fans of mash-ups are at odds with the law, but they're "an unstoppable force," says Negativland's Hosner, who describes the phenomenon as "the sound of collage becoming irresistible to millions of people."

[TheLink]

wow, a lot of info there.  to me, hip hop cannot go anywhere kind of like rock will always be the standard 4 member band belting out riffs and singing loud.  Our Canadaian friends have done some good sruff like godspeed and Silver Mt. Zion.  But, I am not sure what else you can add to rock to make it different.  Z is a good album that shows a band can make some subtle changes to make things more interesting rather than the same old thing like the Strokes and such.  I think Radiohead has done as much as they can and it would be nice to see em go back to a Bends kind of album.  Rap, to me, had its best days in the late 80's with gangsta rap.  Now, it is all the same to me.  and, mainstream country is just like Britney Spears crap.  Will music save the world?

[EC]

Will music save the world?

yes. :)

[marktwain]

Saying hip-hop and rap beats are all the same is like saying rock and roll is just 3 loud chords.  There's some truth to it, but it is oversimplifying.  Have you heard those Dangermouse beats on the Grey album?  What about Lyrics Born? or the X-ecutioners?

I think hip-hop definitely has a future.  But the future is not indicated by the crap on the radio - same as for rock, and pop, and whatever else.

[primushead]

What about those beats on the new fifty cents?  Isn't fifty cents cool? ::)