[Moshe]

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...ic/#more-32737

November 24, 2009, 3:41 pm
The End of Music

By GLENN BRANCA

 

In The Score, American composers on creating "classical" music in the 21st century.

Tags:

mp3's, Muzak



We seem to be on the edge of a paradigm shift. Orchestras are struggling to stay alive, rock has been relegated to the underground, jazz has stopped evolving and become a dead art, the music industry itself has been subsumed by corporate culture and composers are at their wit’s end trying to find something that’s hip but still appeals to an audience mired in a 19th-century sensibility.

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For more than half a century we’ve seen incredible advances in sound technology but very little if any advance in the quality of music. In this case the paradigm shift may not be a shift but a dead stop. Is it that people just don’t want to hear anything new? Or is it that composers and musicians have simply swallowed the pomo line that nothing else new can be done, which ironically is really just the “old, old story.”

Certainly music itself is not dead. We’ll continue to hear something approximating it blaring in shopping malls, fast food stops, clothing stores and wherever else it will mesmerize the consumer into excitedly pulling out their credit card or debit card or whatever might be coming.
There’s no question that in music, like politics, the bigger the audience gets the more the “message” has to be watered down. Muzak’s been around for a long time now but maybe people just can’t tell the difference anymore. Maybe even the composers and songwriters can’t tell the difference either. Especially when it’s paying for a beach house in Malibu and a condo in New York.

Of course, we could all just listen to all of our old albums, CD’s and mp3’s. In fact, nowadays that’s where the industry makes most of its money. We could also just watch old movies and old TV shows. There are a lot of them now. Why bother making any new ones? Why bother doing anything new at all? Why bother having any change or progress at all as long as we’ve got “growth”? I’m just wondering if this is in fact the new paradigm. I’m just wondering if in fact the new music is just the old music again. And, if that in fact it would actually just be the end of music.

 

Glenn Branca has composed 13 symphonies: six for electric guitars, three for harmonic series instruments, three for orchestra and one, No. 13, for 100 guitars. The first movement of No. 14 was premiered by The St. Louis Symphony in 2008. He is recording a new album, “The Ascension: The Sequel.” Visit his Web site »

[fugazifan]

intersting. but what is really brilliant is that his newest album is going to be "the ascension [name taken from a coltrane album] the sequel"
oh the irony (which im sure he is aware of)

[Glice]

This was posted on another forum I post on. What I said there was, basically, "what a cock". Which is what I'll repeat here. He's not had an interesting idea for 20+ years, and he's got the temerity to supplant his own lack of vision onto others. Cock.

[atsonicpark]

I love Branca but this is sort of a tired point to make. We're probably living in the most exciting time in our lives if we pay attention to the underground, all the microlabels and whatnot, mainly because of the advances in technology. This goes for film/music/etc... Yeah, the mainstream is by far the worst it's ever been -- remakes of remakes of homages of remakes of ripoffs of tributes of etc etc etc, but who cares? Branca is crotchety.

[Glice]

The mainstream is definitely atrophying in a way it never has. One interesting consequence of that is that those areas that still hold onto the idea that the 'underground' is meaningful seems hopelessly passé and tired now. 2 birds, one stone, and everyone's happy.