Anyone remember the golden days, when syrfox would have already started the "Old, untalented, and pulling things backwards" parody thread by now?

If I wasn't off my face right now I'd have the most awesome punk-as-fuck response to that. I just wrote it but ended up deleting it because it's either the greatest thing ever written about The Stooges or a load of drug induced shit. And i'm playing it cautious.

Your post is brilliant though

I like how not a single person in this thread has actually attempted to answer the original question. I guess music's more boring than any of us realized. At least no one's said "Mike Patton!" or something completely fucking ridiculous! Hah..

The most forward-thinking, intelligent, inventive music I've heard in the past 10 years has come from Japan. But, I dunno, it may be too late for Zazen Boys to save rock music... but they tried. A bunch of people tried. But Mukai isn't young, so I dunno if that counts.

I guess Rich Woodson's Ellipsis would be my only vote. Though I'm sure he's retired by now... Anyone who seriously attempts to push music forward usually gives up. They'll eventually revert to simplicity, because that's what sells, that's what people know.. there is a big risk in being too out there, unfortunately. You gotta have some hook to get people into your stuff.

I'd say the most important, forward thinking album of all time was probably White Noise's AN ELECTRIC STORM from 1969.

http://www.mediafire.com/?2yyjmznwdga

Since pitchfork's review was the first to come up, lemme paste it!

White Noise's landmark 1969 album An Electric Storm might not the first thing most people think of when considering 1960s music, but there are few records anywhere tied more intrinsically to the moment of their creation. Recorded in the months immediately prior to the widespread availability of keyboard-based synthesizers, An Electric Storm might be one of the most painstakingly crafted electronic recordings of all time. Pieced together on improvised equipment via innumerable tape edits, this remarkable album is at once futuristic and unavoidably date-stamped, serving as a fascinating audio snapshot of a bygone era in sound generation and recording technology.
One of the few acts in pop music history able to trace their origins to the lecture hall, White Noise were first conceived when American electronic engineer David Vorhaus-- following a lecture by BBC Radiophonic Workshop veteran Delia Derbyshire-- enlisted Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson to integrate their experimental electronics with more pop-oriented material. (Derbyshire, of course, was by this point already responsible for the classic theme song from "Dr. Who"and other music for BBC TV and radio programs.) Commissioned by Island Records' Chris Blackwell, the three musical scientists soon holed themselves up for months in their Camden Town studio, fastidiously assembling what Vorhaus later surmised to be the most heavily tape-spliced album in history.
Yet knowledge of White Noise's academic or technical background does little to prepare the listener for the widescale psychedelic mayhem of An Electric Storm. Despite its brief 35-minute running length, the album covers an enormous amount of stylistic ground, as White Noise overlay their fractured pop songcraft with musique concrète effects, weird bits of radio theater, and long stretches of gothic horror. While other groups of the period--such as Silver Apples or The United States of America--made use of similarly primitive electronic equipment, An Electric Storm was a separate beast entirely, and its singular textures have been a primary influence on such subsequent acts as Stereolab, Broadcast and Belbury Poly.
Not originally issued in the U.S. until 1973, the album has seldom stayed in print for long, and surely owes at least a portion of its peculiar mystique to its rarity. With their latest reissue, Universal has kept the original tracklist intact, without unearthing any additional alternate or bonus material. The album has been splendidly re-mastered, however, and An Electric Storm remains a virtually requisite headphone experience with an otherworldly appeal that transcends its considerable influence.
Like so many ambitious albums of the time, An Electric Storm is consciously split into two distinct sides, the first half dubbed "Phase In" and the second "Phase Out". On the first side, White Noise indulge their daffy pop appetites with such bizarre trinkets as the cartoonish "Here Come the Fleas" and "Love Without Sound", the sensuous track which first encouraged Blackwell to pony up the cash for the full album. With the aid of rotating vocalists Annie Bird, Val Shaw, and John Whitman, the songs on the album's first half are melodic and memorable, and often infused with a cheeky sense of humor. The group's quirky wit is perhaps best witnessed on "My Game of Loving"; the album's notorious "orgy" track that follows an ecstatic bit of sexual frenzy with the sound of contented snoring.
Things get considerably scarier during the lengthy "Phase Out" segment, which begins with the group's 11-minute ambient centerpiece "The Visitations". This death-defying piece, which reportedly took over 3 months in the studio to assemble, ostensibly tells the tale of a motorcycle accident and its supernatural aftermath. Packed dense with disembodied noises and eerie panning effects, this intense track can become addictively engrossing, a perfect slice of audio theater that one can't help but ride through to the very end.
Vorhaus, Derbyshire and Hodgson took so long in recording An Electric Storm that Island started to get antsy, and well before completion the label began to demand the finished product. Presented with the challenge of such a time crunch, many groups might panic and fall back upon more conventional material. But true to their iconoclastic nature, White Noise instead improvised the still-astonishing "The Black Mass- An Electric Storm in Hell", a spirited cacophony layered thick with percussion, funereal chanting, and the tormented screams of the damned. Like the rest of An Electric Storm, this dark finale sounds quite unlike anything recorded before or since, and stubbornly refuses to ever settle in as background music.
And this unrehearsed episode of grotesquerie provides An Electric Storm with a strangely appropriate ending, as it stands as one final monument to White Noise's unique inspiration and eccentric approach to technical problem-solving. Theoretically, with the benefit of all the ensuing advances in recording technology, it should be easier than ever for today's musicians to duplicate such a production. Perhaps this deceptive sense of ease is precisely why no one has ever really been able to do so.

I was thinking of another brilliant forward-thinking band that has been around since 1989 -- BABYLAND! And I just read they broke up. Oh well. YOU SUCK CRAP is a masterpiece! Seriously..

You should have posted it anyways. Fuck what the neighbors think, fuck what you think....if ya wrote it, ya shoulda posted it.

Really wish i could have read it

:(

Yr a smart dude.

Snobbery doesn't pay.

Only actual arguments you can give in the way of debating what I wrote was some ill-half-assed shit regarding Sanders + Coltrane.

Try harder.

Haha, sway, I think Derek is the LEAST snobby person on this board. By far. I don't think a less pretentious dude exists! Derek is always posting about great new music, too, as he is one of the few who seeks it out. I think that should be appreciated, since most people talk about the same handful of bands. But I've never seen him try to shove his opinion, or taste, down anyone's throat. Totally awesome dude... not snobby in the least.

And your post on the Earth 2 thread was crazy! I mean, I loved it, but come on.

cheers for posting that ASP, that Electric Storm is awesome, opening song sounds sweet and the last song is mad, for the time as well that's amazing. Have you ever heard George Harrison's some what bizarre second solo album, "Electronic Sound" released in the same year as An Elecric Storm.
It's basically Harrison messing around with one of the early moog's and making two lengthy outer spacey noise tracks with it.

I wouldn't say this album was really pushing things forward however.

I was just simply giving my opinion on what you wrote! Obviously people will have different perspectives on what pushing things forward actually is, and in my viewpoint I couldn't see anyone you listed pushing things forward apart from Coltrane (props for mentioning him by the way, he's one of my favourite musicians. A total unique visionary). Perhaps I could have been less harsh about it, fair enough.

Anyway, I don't think of The Stooges as pushing things forward. They had a similar sound to others of that ilk but it was their own personality that brought about their influence to the next generation. I'm not into The Stooges at all though so excuse me if I sound ignorant.

Swans? Yeah I could see how their early stuff could be seen as pushing things forward but again I think it was their personality that made them unique rather than bring forth a whole new musical beast. I should also mention that their later gothic era was simply an extension of what had been laid down previously. If you wanna argue further then no problem.

Anyway, I think PUSHING THINGS FORWARD is something like Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica because it is so otherworldly and really is a whole new musical experience. Certainly not a consistent or perfect album but I can see the magic it has. This doesn't really fit in with the thread though as Beefheart isn't young (and sway, neither were the bands you posted).

WHOA!

Thanks dude, never even HEARD OF this! I love stuff like this!!

"White Noise" never got me off, not my thing.

I'd love to do meth to it.

i really like harry partch, and as of lately i have been listening to him more. but i really doubt that he pushed music foward more than anyone who ever lived.
just saying. the question is also, what does it mean to push music forward?
people who really pushed things forward were folks like the people who invented polyphonic music, like leonin and perotin. or the 14th century ars subtilior music that had ridiculous rhythm changes every other bar or so.

The Rolling Stones

To be honest, deep down, I don't care one bit about how innovative a band is for as long as it moves me enough to warrant repeated listenings. Of course there are moments with some bands when, as well as enjoying what's coming out of the speakers/amplifiers, I am left thinking '' I don't think I have heard this combination of notes/sounds matched this way''. I am more curious as to what current musicians are thought of doing something that might give you a sense of things shifting the gear onwards, since this is something that comes up on this forum more than any other I've visited.

I've always thought that The Go! Team had a unique sound, with the cheerleader chants, and all. They're pretty young, and talented...right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0eso4ARXzk

Annie Clark (St. Vincent).

EDIT: as it was requested to elaborate, for the successful blend of "contradictory" characteristics in her music (very good pop melodies and atmospheres, noisy and twisted guitar playing, and somewhat dark lyrics).

plus sexy stockings

Hm. Maybe "pushed forward more than anyone who ever lived" is a bit much, but inspiring Beefheart, Zappa, and the Residents -- 3 of the artists who definitely, without a doubt, pushed music forward -- is one thing. Another is all those instruments he designed. Another thing is, to this day, I can't name a single artist who sounds anything like him (despite his obvious influence, especially in Mr. Van Vliet).

Perhaps, he pushed things so far that no one's ever caught up yet.

I guess it's like this -- do I really think he was the most unique, forward-thinking, and talented musician to ever live? Definitely. On the other hand, has he influenced modern music at all? Probably not. The Beatles can be called the biggest "pusher-forwarders", but only because they were more heard, more liked, and more influential. But what is influence? What is any of those factors? I mean, that doesn't mean they were better.

Blah, I dunno.

How has Beefhart pushed music forward? Don't get me wrong, big fan of his here.

Einsturzende Neubauten pushed music forward.

I'm not even sure what "pushing music forward" means anymore. If it means having an artist w/ really progressive ideas that are bound to be ripped off over the next ten-fifteen-twenty years....that's been happening since forever.

98% of everything I listen to stems from blues (and of course...rock). I really don't think that there is much more that can be done with it...which isn't to say that I don't think people can no longer get "creative" with it.

Seems as if more of the seemingly progressive stuff these days happens to be working within the scheme of metal-based-musics. But, it only seems that way to me because for years a deliberately stayed away from most things metal.

Whatever, it's all rock.

I'm at work, draggin, slow-pokin, and really wanna be home listening to the Stooges w/ a big fat ass foam cup filled to the brim w/ caffeine. That shit's progressive. Maybe I'll throw some paint mixed w/piss concoction all over the walls during this nicotine + caffeine induced session. performance art. I'll leave the tv on some static-fried station and record the whole thing. Pay some Vietnamese friend to shout red-neck jokes in her native tongue.

Fuck everything.

My minds already been blown too many times. If it happens again, great...kinda hope so, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm taken aback by little, and virtually nothing shocks me these days.

Well, first of all, he inspired the Beatles (who all attended a Beefheart gig together). Especially John Lennon (Safe as Milk was Lennon's favorite album of all time). I'd say pretty much every musician worth a damn has namedropped Beefheart at one point or another (The Fall.. Mark E. Smith mention him by name in 3 songs!). I mean, listen to pretty much any of the bands on any of those Beefheart comps; Dog Faced Hermans, Sonic Youth, etc. Oh yeah, Hendrix was a Beefheart fan too, but he died shortly after saying that so I debt he was too inspired by them.

I'm willing to say that he invented what we call "math rock", what we called "no wave"; hell, pretty much any avant-garde, or overly technical music within a rock context. Don't get me wrong, there were some prog bands that existed around the same time, but no one was doing what Beefheart was doing. I'd say just about every band on Skin Graft owes a debt to Beefheart.

More than that, he inspired painters, filmmakers, television show creators (The Mighty Boosh!).

So, as an inspiration -- yes, definitely. As far as "pushing things forward", he completely reconfigured the rock language; NO ONE sounded like something like Trout Mask Replica. You can draw a few very basic connections to blues, free jazz, etc.. but I'd say within a rock context, nothing had come close. Now, not everything was verse chorus verse, but Beefheart went beyond that; he skipped that idea and just had sections, he had every instrument playing in different time signatures, he had guitar riffs constructed of noises instead of "conventional" riffs. And he made it all sound musical!

I really can't think of another musician who invented their own language, inspired so many influential people, and was actually commercially successful (slightly, and only in the UK, but hey...). Oh, and in a really short amount of time. Like 13 years, but like 5 of those years were in sitting around waiting for an album to come out that never did, and Beefheart recording some shitty sellout records. Let's skip those.

KoRn

I think music will reach a seriously high point when folks learn to focus more on "inspirations" than "influences"

Mucho-biggo difference.

Adam- get technical, forget about points of views that have not suffered from a certain fastidiousness, then get back to me.

surely if someone is inspired enough by something that it affects their work, then it's an influence.

EDIT: That was addressed at Ann Ashtray.

Get technical?

He took away the 4/4 mother heartbeat from rock music for good. He made it safe to be different, atonal, discordant. And he still rocked.

Seriously, name a catchier band, with better riffs, that would still constitute as... experimental (for lack of a better word) rock music.

If Trout Mask (and don't get me wrong, it's far from my fav album by him) isn't an example of "pushing things forward in rock music", what is?

Of course that's AAAAAAAAAAA way of looking at it. But, seems things have gotten stagnant to the point of influences being obvious. Not a bad thing, just boring. Go walk around in the woods, drive around in yr car, go to the theater and out to eat alone, get drunk w/ no music playing, watch TV w/ no volume...whatever...then create. As opposed to "hey, let's do something that sounds like a combination between Throbbing Gristle and Neil Young"...which seems to be the more common thing.

TRY AND FORGET ABOUT WHAT YOU"VE BEEN LISTENIN' TO WHEN CREATING MUSIC!

Lee's great about taking personal situations/visuals and being able to create some sound-sphere around it. Course, it's still an "influence", but an "inspiration" sounds better.

Look at these two sentences:

"I was inspired by the ocean to write this song"

"i was influenced by the ocean to write this song"

...one makes more sense to me. I don't think outside of no box, I think inside of my own. My mind is open to everything/anything/anything/everything that enters it.

Yeah, your sphere of influences is what makes it or break it for me. If you are only influenced by music you are fucked. Particularly if you are only influenced by music you think of as ''innovative''.

Exactly, man.

You def. worded what I was getting at better than myself. Thanks.

Rob's not here, so.....SONIC LIFE!

I can't think of a more prophetic lyric than kraftwerk's 'computer love' right now.

I think part of the problem with this subject for me is that when people say 'music' I think of it in quite a (classical-centric), broad sense. Beefheart definitely transposed some ideas from outside of rock music onto instruments which don't generally do 'that sort of thing'. The difference between pushing music forward and pushing rock music forward is a semantic one, but important. Beefheart didn't do much in terms of harmonic, rhythmic or melodic development of music in general; similarly, someone like Steve Reich transposing ideas from African rhythmic music isn't pushing music forward so much as it is innovative.

Another pair to mention are Branca and Chatham - in as far as they applied existing techniques to instruments which hadn't really been used for that purpose. Which, from a formal point of view makes them timbrally innovative but not musically innovative.

Just to clarify that a bit - if you're playing Mozart-esque stuff on an alien instrument - electronic synthesiser, sousaphone or whatever - then the music itself remains the same, but the sonority is 'innovative' (or just 'different'). I often think that Beefheart's great innovation is using rhythmic ideas from contemporary classical, free jazz and applying them to melodic ideas from blues. The criminal thing with Beefheart isn't so much his creative impulse as it is the lack of anyone who approaches rock music with a comparable mindset. This doesn't really make him important, in my view, for music in general but he's certainly irreplaceable for popular rock music.

Partch is a difficult one for me - there are plenty of people who pushed different tonalities, and many of those people pre-date Partch. The problem for me is that Partch uses fairly standard musical structures on top of some fairly 'radical' tonal innovation. Partch is probably not very well thought of in formal musical terms for this reason, whereas the spectralists or the Xenakis fall-out tend to construct the form of the music differently based around innovative tonalities. The interesting thing about the rock mindset towards music (as I understand it) is that it's more than happy to allow dogmatic form to dominate. Interestingly, I find that this wasn't the case with jazz but, since about 1980 or so, and with very few exceptions, it is now.

To explain that idea of form - MBV's Loveless is considered a groundbreaking album. And within the rock context, it definitely is; from a timbral point of view, it is. In terms of production, it is. But on a formal level, the songs are structurally identical to the more prosaic Ecstasy and Wine or any other bog-standard late-80s schmindie. Of course, if the songs weren't bog-standard, there's no way the record would be popular within the rock context, because (repeating myself) the rock audience is inextricably tied to a form that is inherently not that interesting.

So I suppose my cards-on-the-table moment - my music theory is by no means great (you'd have to turn to fugazifan or the greatly missed noumenal for that) but I can't quite get away from the idea that rock music's hermetic notions of 'genius', 'avant-garde', 'innovation', 'trail-blazing' [etc] simply don't hold up in a broader context. But there are adjacent musics which do do something more interesting in a musical context. AMM are the first thing that come to mind, or Bailey's free-improv, but you could name any number of things where the pre-existing notions of form, structure, tonality, timbre, rhythm, melody, harmony [etc] are re-invented. That's not to say that a great deal of free-improv isn't a dead-end today, but for a while in the 60s it seems very forward thinking and impressive.

I probably should have quoted from this - my point above was perhaps more about the idea that no-one 'invents' the language of music. I've been transposing some ideas from gamelan into an electric guitar quartet recently. There's no fucking way that's 'groundbreaking'; I can't think of anyone else that's done it though. Like Beefheart, I merely borrow the language; I suppose the difference is that I'm a lot more self-conscious about doing so. Oh, and the other great difference is that he's very good, whereas I'm not as good as I want to be. Yet.

Okay, another attempt at a serious answer:

What about Dälek?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i789TMw49rE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTeIq8CCG3s


I mean I know that the beats could be compared to plenty of shoegaze/drone/noise/etc. artists, but I have never heard another rapper release so many tracks with such fuzzed-out, atmospheric production behind it.

Truly an original, and pretty young as well...right?

first of all i i doubt that my knowledge in music theory surpasses yours.
and i agree with you. i have recommended a leonard meyer article here before that explains it pretty well. from what i can remember he differentiates between univesal musical laws, to restrictions of a certian era, strategies of a certain sub era a composers personal dialect and intra opus style.
so basically bach, mozart and wagner all functioned within the same rules, although each one had different strategies of writing within that set of rules and thus each had their own dialect. and each piece of music had its own inner set of rules. so basically that means that there have been very few complete musical revolutions, not to mention the few, as glice stated that happened in rock which actually affected other music.

so i guess the question of pushing music foward is not the person who does the revolution (like scheonberg) but the person who pushes the music as far as it can go within each set of rules (wagner)
or something like that.

and to reiterate another of glice's points, there is no sound, almost, that comes out of nowhere. i have yet to hear a band or composer that sound like nothing that was ever heard before them. and in order that i dont start another boring acedemic rant i will simply state- intertextuality.
and i will also state that i agree with genteel death, who i think wrote that furxasha's kobold moon is a brilliant album.

Wow, Glice. I mean, I mostly agree with you, but damn. Haha. I don't think I can properly respond. Mind is blown!

Ive already given you rep for this, but everyone should know this is just about the best post ive ever read on here