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BT (Binary Universe) vs. Jon Hopkins (pg. 3)
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| kitphillips |
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
Blahblahblah |
All of this. TBU is overblown technicality attempting to compensate for an utter lack of inspiration.
And I was bored by all the hiphopish stuff he did earlier too. |
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| PaulSn |
| Ehm...what movies were the tracks in TBU used for? |
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| Floorfiller |
| quote: | Originally posted by WirelessEyes
BT tied the golden ration to the visuals and audio, which is truley ground breaking.
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what is so ground breaking about that? |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by kush paintings
I bring this up, because I am curious as to what others, who have heard both in depth, think. Do you see the clear influence Contact Note probably had on BT, and does this somewhat detract from the hype of "genius" that Binary Universe seems to be upheld by, or do you see it differently than I? |
I'm not sure why everyone is so keen to pull TBU down from any angle they can find. I mean, the record was released in 2006. How can it possibly not have influences from other artists? The term "genius" is a contentious one, but it does not mean "sounds like nothing else out there".
By the way, BT was using the stutter edit in 1994, and he wasn't the first person to use it.
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
Hey, chill-out guys BT has done nothing new and innovative. Yes he maybe pushed the boundaries from the technical side of things but musically he hasn't discovered anything new, nor has he played something mind-blowing which was never heard before. |
Yes he has. He did new and innovative things in the mid-90s.
| quote: | | So, what BT has done in this new album is nothing new or mind-blowing or innovative. Its just a good IDM/Ambient/Electronica album which is there with many other similar albums. Nothing more, nothing less. |
Actually, hardly any of the people you mentioned sound much like TBU at all, even the likes of Telefon Tel Aviv which people short-sightedly proclaim as sounding exactly the same. The point is not so much that BT did something never done by anyone else before (although the restrictions he placed on himself when writing certain tracks, the technical tricks and some of the time signatures certainly count as experimental) but rather that he brought together a lot of things that have been done before and made them all work together. Besides, This Binary Universe has a lullaby quality to it (the driving concept behind the album) which I don't think anyone you've mentioned has explored properly. People may occasionally write tracks with a lullaby sound to them, but to deliberately make an album that has that quality and yet is constructed out of bleeding-edge technology and musical experimentation is something special, especially from a man who was drifting on an aimless current of dance-pop attempts a couple of years before. BT isn't a dedicated IDM producer who only does one thing, he made one IDM album out of nowhere.
There are too many snobby IDM fans who don't like BT gatecrashing their pretentious party, people who need to stop trying so hard to dismiss the record and just listen to it for its own merits. |
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| Rognalf |
| The "stutter edit" is simply a rapid succession of notes. BT isn't the first one to come up with that. His album is good, but you guys need to hear more ambient/idm music. Then you'd understand that although it's a brilliant album, it's nothing new at all. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by Rognalf
The "stutter edit" is simply a rapid succession of notes. |
You lost your credibility here. |
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| PETRAN |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I'm not sure why everyone is so keen to pull TBU down from any angle they can find. I mean, the record was released in 2006. How can it possibly not have influences from other artists? The term "genius" is a contentious one, but it does not mean "sounds like nothing else out there".
By the way, BT was using the stutter edit in 1994, and he wasn't the first person to use it.
Yes he has. He did new and innovative things in the mid-90s.
Actually, hardly any of the people you mentioned sound much like TBU at all, even the likes of Telefon Tel Aviv which people short-sightedly proclaim as sounding exactly the same. The point is not so much that BT did something never done by anyone else before (although the restrictions he placed on himself when writing certain tracks, the technical tricks and some of the time signatures certainly count as experimental) but rather that he brought together a lot of things that have been done before and made them all work together. Besides, This Binary Universe has a lullaby quality to it (the driving concept behind the album) which I don't think anyone you've mentioned has explored properly. People may occasionally write tracks with a lullaby sound to them, but to deliberately make an album that has that quality and yet is constructed out of bleeding-edge technology and musical experimentation is something special, especially from a man who was drifting on an aimless current of dance-pop attempts a couple of years before. BT isn't a dedicated IDM producer who only does one thing, he made one IDM album out of nowhere.
There are too many snobby IDM fans who don't like BT gatecrashing their pretentious party, people who need to stop trying so hard to dismiss the record and just listen to it for its own merits. |
Groundbreaking in the mid-90s? What was so groundbreaking about him? Ok "Ima" was a nice progressive house album and that was it. I can't see whats so "omg-is-so-groundbreaking" about it.
When TBU first came out i thought that it was a well-made IDM album. I insist that there is nothing groundbreaking about it, it is just a very well-engineered and polished IDM album which was based on previous IDM-type music. I can't see what's so "new" about it. I've heard every single aspect before.
Looking back to it now, i have to say that TBU is one of the worst albums i own (and i own a lot, a lot of albums). Its trully one of the most blatant,souless,musically- uninspired, musically-poor and dull albums i've ever heard in my life. I actually never got back to it after the first listens i gave. Its excellently engineered musical emptyness. Ofcourse this just my opinion... :D |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
Groundbreaking in the mid-90s? What was so groundbreaking about him? Ok "Ima" was a nice progressive house album and that was it. I can't see whats so "omg-is-so-groundbreaking" about it. |
By the time Ima was released, BT had changed the entire direction of progressive almost single-handedly. Sasha gave him support and Blue Amazon were doing the same thing, but without BT the entire scene would have been different.
| quote: | | When TBU first came out i thought that it was a well-made IDM album. I insist that there is nothing groundbreaking about it, it is just a very well-engineered and polished IDM album which was based on previous IDM-type music. I can't see what's so "new" about it. I've heard every single aspect before. |
Well done for repeating every argument I've already addressed whilst adding nothing new. Deep. |
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| PETRAN |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
By the time Ima was released, BT had changed the entire direction of progressive almost single-handedly. Sasha gave him support and Blue Amazon were doing the same thing, but without BT the entire scene would have been different. |
I guess that he was one of the first who spawned the bigger, more-melodic, epic and fluffy sound, possibly together with Paul Van Dyk, Humate and similar artists of that era. I'm not sure how one can call this "watering-down" groundbreaking. I guess that it was "groundbreaking" in terms of the market, assisting progressive/trancey sounds getting substantial mainstream exposure but i don't think that he invented something. Groundbreaking were the stuff coming from Chicago, from Detroit, from Germany-early-90s but not the stuff that BT was doing, that was more like polishing and dumbing-it-down. Plus i don't think that he was the only one who did this stuff, Paul Van Dyk's first two albums were not that different (and IMO were much more interesting and better).
Thanks! :D |
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| DRM |
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
I guess that he was one of the first who spawned the bigger, more-melodic, epic and fluffy sound, possibly together with Paul Van Dyk, Humate and similar artists of that era. I'm not sure how one can call this "watering-down" groundbreaking. I guess that it was "groundbreaking" in terms of the market, assisting progressive/trancey sounds getting substantial mainstream exposure but i don't think that he invented something. Groundbreaking were the stuff coming from Chicago, from Detroit, from Germany-early-90s but not the stuff that BT was doing, that was more like polishing and dumbing-it-down. Plus i don't think that he was the only one who did this stuff, Paul Van Dyk's first two albums were not that different (and IMO were much more interesting and better).
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The problem I have with this entire argument is the whole claim that making a genre more trancey is watering it down. |
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