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Rant on Dance Based Electronic Artist(s) Artist's CD's
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| Rodas |
Ok, so a DJ or an already established producer in the dance market decides to put together an "artists" cd (almost every producer / dj eventually gets around to one of these now a days).
So if an established producer / dj decides to an artist album and has mainly focused on a preferred sound across dance records his entire carrer, why would he focus on producing downtempo music for an artist cd? To try to be more diverse? To try and be more outlandish? Maybe in the days of Underworld and Way Out West this was true, but now the contination of this just seems like an ongoing trend within the dance community.
Just in time comes Leama & Moor's new artists album,
Common Groud
I remember reading the first promos from the record comapny on Leama & Moor's new album "Common Ground" which stated that alot of their new material on the 2006 album release was a throwback to the old "Tangerine Dream" work of the 1980's. Tangerine Dream work, of the eightees!!!!! S*AFF@(#@!$#FSF!
While many like myself know Tangerine Dreams work and are fans of it for reasons which are personal more than anything else, may not find that necessary a bad thing. For others, Tangerine Dream are popular for focusing on instrumentals featuring all electronic based percussion / synths which was rare for that time and making it commercial (i.e. in movies, t.v., etc). But then again, that was almost two decades ago, and most of the members have moved on to other project (ex. Paul Haslinger doing cuts off of "The Girl Next Door (2005)" movie.
Not only have the members moved on, but so have Directors which have used their music in movies. Jerry Goldsmith's original score replaced the original Tangerine Dream's in the Directors Cut (2002) of the 80's fantasy movie "Legend" which his score was replaced in the first place to make the movie more accessible for kids.
With that said, this doesn't all necessarily mean that the work on "Common Ground" will not necessarily, work, right? Wrong.
What the record company failed to notice here is that the recording process has changed sound compared to what it was say, twenty five years ago. Well maybe they did notice, but figured that if they told people that was the motive in the first place, it wouldn't matter, right?
"Common Ground" is not a throwback of what was twenty-six years ago over new panned and bright drums / fx / samples, it is instead much more of a lackluster attempt to try to make something out of what is unfortunatly nothing. Nothing here seems new or thought out. One may ask why they didn't take a look of how much material from the 80's is being remastered to fit the sound of today. It's sad when such a thing is so blatently in your face, why not take notice? Then it makes it seem like a missed oppertunity when things like that are passed up.
Even on the Lostep - Burma rip off "New Division" do the boys fail to make a rip off right. They seem to have forgotten what made Burma the track it was. Instead, they strip it all bare, no layered sounds, no structure, just straight foward of what sounds like again, nothing much.
There's unfortunatly nothing here of what we remember from the Leama era, no Melodica's or Requiem For A Dream's, no Odessi's, just alot of nothing. At least we didn't get lied to because, this is infact, a throwback to the Tangerine Dream era. So at least they've succeeded in that. That being, making an electronic aritst record, for kids. Kudos.
Rodas |
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| Rodas |
I updated the above with link resources.
Rodas |
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| Ishkur |
Not new. They all do that.
See, the truth is most of them probably hate the music they spin/produce under pseudonyms, but they make it anyway because it makes the girlies panties moist and you dumb peons will dance to it. In other words, that is all business to them: they make what the market likes, what will move product, what will sell copies, and what will get them paid the most.
An original artist release doesn't have these restrictions and so they can go balls-out with their creativity and not care about the end result. For once, they can do what they really want, free of the capricious whims of clients, marketing managers, label heads, distributors, lawyers, etc...etc....
About 5 years ago Olav Basoski made an original artist album that was actually some pretty intelligent, smooth, lustrous downtempo. But it was never picked up by any label and still sits somewhere on his shelf/hard drive, heard by no one. Why wasn't it picked up? Because the label wants what will sell, ie: his brand of disco house. He didn't feel like doing disco house.
You'll find this happens all the time. Neil Young tried to get out of his contract with his label by making a techno album (no joke, look it up) and his label sued him, saying it wouldn't sell because its not his standard country-rock fare and it was admittedly a bit amateurish and rushed and he only made it to fill his contract and break things off with them. The same thing is legendarily documented in Prince's struggles with his label, when he went so far as to legally change his name to a symbol and release a bunch of odd, self-focusing albums during the 90s that were for neither market appeal nor mass acceptance. He was literally making music for himself and to fill his contractual obligations. Now that he's free, he's making music for commercial viability again, and he's back on top.
Artists do that all the time. Sometimes they don't care if something sells--they just want to do something for their own sake. Gwen Stefani released an album 6 years ago called Return of Saturn, which was mostly a concept album on her biological clock ticking. It was a milksop, sophomoric album, nothing like her No Doubt stuff and NOTHING like what she's doing today, but it was something she felt she had to make anyway, even though critics panned it and it sold poorly.
Sometimes artists just want to do their own thing for awhile. Most of the time, however, they don't release such work. The old standard is that a painter will destroy his first 500 paintings, because those "are just for practice". |
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| Mr.Mystery |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ishkur
Gwen Stefani released an album 6 years ago called Return of Saturn, which was mostly a concept album on her biological clock ticking. It was a milksop, sophomoric album, nothing like her No Doubt stuff and NOTHING like what she's doing today, but it was something she felt she had to make anyway, even though critics panned it and it sold poorly.
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Just because I like nitpicking - Return of Saturn was a No Doubt album, not her solo album ;)
Anyway, the rest of what you said is pretty much spot on. The only exception to this I can think of is the Three Drives album which proved their one trick pony status for good. |
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| Ishkur |
Return of Saturn was a No Doubt album like The Final Cut was a Pink Floyd album.
(in other words--technically yes, but creatively no they weren't. Both were actually solo albums of the frontmen foisting it upon their respective bands) |
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| Mr.Mystery |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ishkur
Return of Saturn was a No Doubt album like The Final Cut was a Pink Floyd album.
(in other words--technically yes, but creatively no they weren't. Both were actually solo albums of the frontmen foisting it upon their respective bands) |
Uh huh. |
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| weymouth |
| I need to pick up that director's cut of Legend, I heard the music is amazing. |
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