No, Aphex Twin is far more intelligent than Happy Hardcore. Most happy Hardcore is the equivalent of a children's book or a National Lampoon movie, while Aphex Twin is more like Donnie Darko or Atlas Shrugged. What counts is the effort.
Or sometimes he'll have a piss-take with people who fancy him 'intelligent', and play a piece of sandpaper on a turntable. :p
Domesticated
To elaborate on my earlier "complex vs intelligent" statement; to me, complexity is a lot of things happening at once, while "intelligence" in music deals more so with the interactions of the elements with one another and the coherency of the piece as a whole. Anyone can throw 10 layers on top of one another and be "complex", but to make the layers work together and evolve as one is what I define as intelligent production.
Looking through my collection, I have come to the conclusion that some genres have more scope for intelligence, while others are more conducive to frivolity. In general, I would say that for me, the most "intelligent" type of music often seems to be progressive house; the deeper '90s kind that Digweed, Warren and Seaman used to play. It's not a my most favourite genre of music, but all the elements have an amazing sense of coherency and common goal. I don't think most techno is smart, contrary to what techno fanboys say.
Also, the longer a track is, (but not always), it seems that the producer has to be clever enough to pull it off. I'm always attracted to tracks longer than 10 minutes and rarely find them to be bad, perhaps because the producer needs to be intelligent and really evolves the track from start to finish. Superficial, crap producers tend not to make lengthy songs.
Thinking about it, I also realised that subconsciously, one of the reasons I am so drawn to electronic music over instrument-based music is due to electronic's broader scope for creativity and intelligent usage of sound.
Choices:
Âme - Rej [Minimal/Techno]
This one should be obvious to most people. It's not incredibly layered, but the elements complement each other perfectly with superbly timed peaks and troughs. The main melody is simple yet sophisticated at the same time.
Hiroyuki Oda - Transmigration [Trance]
I think all of his tracks are clever, but this one particularly. It's funny because most modern trance is pretty "dumb". The 3:30 to 4:00 minute mark is the best example of why I chose this track. It has three complex, evolving melodies all working together and sounding incredibly coherent.
Hallucinogen - Alpha Centauri [Goa Trance]
I don't think I need to explain this. The interplay of elements is amazing, and the progression of the track is too.
Amazing coherency of sound and atmosphere with barely any layers. These guys are one of my favourite groups because all their tracks are like that. See next track too, one of their lesser known works but probably my favourite.
Paradise Soul - Moscow Rendezvous [Progressive]
Pryda - Aftermath [Progressive]
Prydz' work is not half as good as it used to be, and I think for the reason that he used to think a lot more about his tracks. I find the newer ones "dumber" than his old stuff. Like the OP's Acid Eiffel, this track is actually very single-minded but has an amazing evolution of sound. In the same boat is Buick Project - At The Rave.
This is a strange choice because full-on is decidedly shallow and one-dimensional. If you don't already think I'm an idiot from the previous choices/comments, you probably will after listening to this track. Most people would say it's as stupid as happy hardcore, but behind this track I sense an immense intelligence. The builds and breaks are masterful and the interplay of elements too good to be true.
(edit: I just had a listen to this and it's been sped up. The quality is and it sounds horrible. One of the most intelligent parts of this track is his usage of silence - this faster version kind of wrecks that because the silences don't sound so significant.)
Plastikman - Spastik [minimal techno]
Nikola Gala - Subterra [progressive]
Nathan Fake - The Sky Was Pink (James Holden Remix) [Techno]
Akzidenz Grotesk - Isbjörn [techno]
SYSTEM-J
quote:
Originally posted by Domesticated
To elaborate on my earlier "complex vs intelligent" statement; to me, complexity is a lot of things happening at once, while "intelligence" in music deals more so with the interactions of the elements with one another and the coherency of the piece as a whole. Anyone can throw 10 layers on top of one another and be "complex", but to make the layers work together and evolve as one is what I define as intelligent production.
I don't think many people count "having lots of layers" as a definition of musical complexity. I certainly didn't. Arksun was saying in a thread the other day that modern trance can have in excess of 80 tracks on the sequencer simultaneously, but nobody except the fanboys would claim modern trance is complex.
By complex I was referring to the relative complexity of the composition of a piece in terms of music theory- its use of time signatures, harmonic development, counterpoint and so on. This seems a pretty solid definition, unlike the one you're putting forward for intelligence, which seems very subjective to me. I love progressive house from the 90s, but I don't think I'd call the stuff you're referring to particularly intelligent in any way. Your use of "coherency" is very vague.
MrJiveBoJingles
Most dance music is incredibly simple in musical terms, even simpler than a lot of pop. For the most part, when it stops being simple it also stops being dancey, as with a lot of IDM. Some kinds of dance music are more complex than others, and certainly the production process for dance tracks can be more complicated than for almost any other kind of music -- but the end musical result is almost always very simple. Simple but effective, which is what makes it work on dance floors.
Corey
Robert Babicz - Dark Flower (Joris Voorn Magnolia Mix)
Mind X - Sensation Seekers (Martin Roth Nustyle Remix)
Undo - Paracaidas
Sebastien Leger & Chris Lake - Word/Ghost
Vibrasphere - Tierra Azul
Vibrasphere - Ensueño
only couple of them I can think atm.
Trance-MB
"Intelligent" can have many explanations.
Simple tracks which became big hits like "Speedy J - Pullover". Intelligent looking at the succes.
Also then tracks by Westbam, Marusha, BBE and so many others could be seen as intelligent. Even some hardcore tracks in that view maybe are.
Then you have complex tracks like have been mentionend above. In general I think most examples of intelligent tracks do have many layers or at least sound complex.
But next to that tracks can be intelligent simply because the sound beautiful. The intelligent than is more the choice and effort realizing this, like:
Traumatic - Tribal Symphony (especially > 5:28)
But on the other hand tracks like these also can be seen as intelligent:
Jones & Stephenson - The First Rebirth
Luxor - Superstitious
Lunatic Asylum - The Meltdown
Lazonby - Sacred Cycles
Personally I think most of the work of Jam&Spoon is intelligent and also if you listen to the God's Groove album.
And then you can think, maybe this is intelligent for being that stupid, that funny, that simple and had that much influence on the future:
I tend to compare it to paintings. Huge value and highly respected, but the artist was stoned or drunk most of the time, like the Dutch Herman Brood. Made 10 paintings in 5 minutes and even got paid for it.......
Domesticated
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I don't think many people count "having lots of layers" as a definition of musical complexity. I certainly didn't. Arksun was saying in a thread the other day that modern trance can have in excess of 80 tracks on the sequencer simultaneously, but nobody except the fanboys would claim modern trance is complex.
I wasn't talking about lots of layers within a sequencer, I was talking about multi-layered melodies that use three or four melodic lines running in tandem to, and opposing one another, which would fit with your definition of "harmonic development" and "counterpoint" below. As I also mentioned though, some of the most intelligent tracks are the simplest too, just like Einstein's "E=mc2" equation is.
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
By complex I was referring to the relative complexity of the composition of a piece in terms of music theory- its use of time signatures, harmonic development, counterpoint and so on. This seems a pretty solid definition, unlike the one you're putting forward for intelligence, which seems very subjective to me. I love progressive house from the 90s, but I don't think I'd call the stuff you're referring to particularly intelligent in any way. Your use of "coherency" is very vague.
Yes, my definition is massively subjective, because the concept of intelligence is subjective too.
To elaborate on "coherency", I think an intelligent producer makes music with the same feel as a movie with a strong storyline, or a painter with a clear image of "the whole". From start to finish, the track has a clear idea of itself and none of the elements in the song are "fillers". Every sound has it's place and complements or opposes something else, creating a certain "linked" feel between everything where if you were to add or subtract any element, the song would essentially be ruined. The sense of complexity within the music theory also comes into play too, because this most often adds to the sense of commonality between all the elements if they are written with underlying musical similarities that aren't necessarily readily apparent (i.e same key, same note length).
It's the difference between someone throwing a load of paint on a canvas randomly or a true artist sitting down and thinking "I want to paint x & y subject" then painstakingly constructing a large-scale image.
SYSTEM-J
quote:
Originally posted by Domesticated
I wasn't talking about lots of layers within a sequencer, I was talking about multi-layered melodies that use three or four melodic lines running in tandem to, and opposing one another, which would fit with your definition of "harmonic development" and "counterpoint" below.
quote:
Anyone can throw 10 layers on top of one another and be "complex", but to make the layers work together and evolve as one is what I define as intelligent production.
Surely this is a contradiction in terms, as "making the layers work together" and "running in tandem to, and opposing one another" are synonymous?
PETRAN
People would possibly say something is "intelligent" in EDM when it probably uses unusual, prototypical, unique sounds and synths that actually work together and create some special atmosphere and "not-intelligent" as something that uses the formalaic, predicted, tried-and-tested (by mumbers) ideas with the only purpose being to make people dance.
Complexity may play a role but now that i think of it its not as important as i first thought. Most important are the combinations of ideas used. The same occurs in all art actually.
Project-K
quote:
Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
when it stops being simple it also stops being dancey
counterexample; jazz
SYSTEM-J
quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
People would possibly say something is "intelligent" in EDM when it probably uses unusual, prototypical, unique sounds and synths that actually work together and create some special atmosphere and "not-intelligent" as something that uses the formalaic, predicted, tried-and-tested (by mumbers) ideas with the only purpose being to make people dance.
You mean "atypical".
MrJiveBoJingles
quote:
Originally posted by Project-K
counterexample; jazz
How is that a counterexample? The same principle applies within jazz: the form most popular for dancing (swing) is also the most musically simple.
Most people just don't like to dance to shifting time signatures or oddly phrased melodies.
