I watched
the Grammys…well, part of them, at least the parts the Foo Fighters were
on. Yes, I’m going to be biased here
since I am a fan of the band, but I found nothing wrong with what he said. In fact, I clapped out loud (to myself, mind
you) and said “Hell yeah! That’s right!”
when he said it. Yet, some music press
and music artists were openly critical about what he said, saying he
essentially denigrated a musical form different from his own.
Here is what
he said (thank you, LA
Weekly):
“This is a
great honor, because this record was a special record for our band. Rather than
go to the best studio in the world down the street in Hollywood and rather than
use all of the fanciest computers that money can buy, we made this one in my
garage with some microphones and a tape machine...
“To me this
award means a lot because it shows that the human element of music is what's
important. Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument and
learning to do your craft, that's the most important thing for people to do.
"It's
not about being perfect, it's not about sounding absolutely correct, it's not
about what goes on in a computer. It's about what goes on in here [your heart]
and what goes on in here [your head].”
I suppose
you could take the comment about “not about what goes on in a computer” could
be construed as blasting electronic music, but I didn’t hear it that way. He later clarified his comment to say he
loves electronic music, he LOVES Skrillex, et al, but why did he even need to
go there? What I heard was “if you can’t
sing the note, you should lower the key or not sing it.” I heard “despite technological advances and
all, you can still use the old stuff to record your music.” I heard “music is emotion, baby!” I thought he was blasting auto-tune and
digital pitch correction and how music now recorded on computers doesn’t have
the warmth that older records had.
Honestly, they don’t. There’s a
reason why vinyl has grown in popularity recently—a lot of the music pressed to
vinyl was recorded on analog (I do know that some newer stuff was recorded
digitally).
I didn’t
hear his comments as a dig on musicians that use turntables and computers to
create music. There’s as much practice
and heart in that music as there is in using a guitar or drums or oboe or
whatever. The voice is an instrument;
you use it to create music. Turntablists
have been able to take recorded music and manipulate it into a fresh musical
number; listen to Steinski. Apart from
probably pissing off some copyright lawyers and a few music artists, he offered
a very fresh take on rap and dance music back in his heyday. Listen to Flying Lotus’ Cosmogramma, which is an amazing record and an example of the
advancement in the use of computers to create music.
Not all
electronic artists are created equal, however.
For every Prodigy or Kraftwerk, there’s a Deadmau5 or Owl City. I’m sorry, I didn’t find the last Deadmau5
record to be that innovative, and I threw in Owl City because, while
“Fireflies” was a hit, that album is so lame.
Some writers keep harping that electronic music is the direction, the
future of music, but it’s been around for years. Heck, it’s been around for decades. Yet people still pick up guitars, people
still play piano, people still hit tambourines.
As forward-thinking as electronic music is proclaimed to be, it still
doesn’t suit every listener.
