Somebody may now explain to me why I have “Russian Lullaby”
stuck in my head
It's a great bedtime song. Some people have those white noise or music generators. I have techno. Works like a champ.
So, techno music is interesting. For those of you unawares, "Russian Lullaby" is a techno (technically Eurodance, I suppose, but that's splitting hairs) song by Russian Swedish musician E-Type.
It's not a particularly good song.
This is where my trouble lies. The song is ridiculously catchy despite being the epitome of stereotypical euro techno crappy dance club music. You know...the simple repetitive drum beat and dippy nebulous electronic instrument melody. (Think of that insurance commercial about boots and pants.) The exact sort of thing that makes people think techno music sucks, and you have to admit that they have a point.
But, there is entirely electronic music which can be filed in the "Techno" bin which is truly amazingly artistic music. Think Depeche Mode, or Enigma, or Delirium, or anything Vince Clarke has ever touched. The problem lies in the fact that techno music is by far the easiest music in the world to produce.
Anybody with a keyboard and a computer can put out techno music. Set some crap to repeat, plink around on a couple of keys, put in a couple pre-programmed drum fills to a drop, make some creative edits, and you're all set. You've created a song. It's now ready for distribution. The problem is that it's not necessarily good. The hard part of musical creativity is, and always has been, making GOOD music. The only thing you've taken out of the equation is instrumental proficiency, which was required in the pre-computer era. But now that the performance part has been relegated to a mere computer chore, it's remarkably easy to produce techno music.
So it's out there...a lot of it. And a lot of it is crap. But, occasionally, some of that crap is frustratingly catchy and gets stuck in your head.
No comments:
Post a Comment