Quote from: WCN on July 16, 2020, 12:50:21 PM
As for criticism of the "content" of PE, that's a whole different beast. I'm sure I'm not going to cover all my ground here, but my attraction to PE and the "darker side" of noise as Mikko has put it, is that in its best cases, it gives honest language to evil and power - something which is rarely done in art. The thing is, I find that it often stops there, and the argument that it's "dealing with" certain topics to be an overstatement for most PE artists. Rather in most cases it is simply exploiting them. This is certainly OK and can be fascinating and, depending on what kind of person you are and what your values are, continuously so. But for others, the amount of time needed to wallow in this specific pool is limited.
I recall
Cipher stating in social media in event of Keith of Mania/Taint passing away, and I quote it from there:
"Keith represents a voice in the noise/industrial lexicon which I fear is being pushed into a corner - the last place he would or should ever be - and I'm so pleased to see so many of you share your memories of him and his work."I don't think there is other musical genre that deal with society or existence in general like old school industrial / PE. Of course, I am not aware of every artists and possibly not every genre of sound, but as far as I know it is fairly unique.
If there would be for example, death metal group making songs involving somewhat related topics, you can bet it has very different discourse going on. More akin to sleazy exploitation films and reaching level of comedy, than... say "dark". This is of course not to dismiss the juvenile sleaze. It has its place.
Anyways, I have so often repeated my conclusions, but I'd say that PE is rarely
telling how it is. There is so much on responsibility of listener that it really is not the flaw of art itself if it doesn't always work. One analysis on how art is being dealt with, is that one commit in it. Learns to experience as see. Other way is just swallow it. Besides these, of course, is just dismiss and reject. The ones, who just flat out reject stating that there is nothing to be found: I get it as personal statement. That's as far as it is accurate.
In danger of crossing over with tough guy topic, I must say that one absolutely can not convince someone, why "negative energy" would be thing to revolve with IF he absolutely hates all that. You know, how to explain the atmosphere of bonehead live-show to someone who absolutely doesn't want to see fights that may escalate to level of... lets say not just someone falling on their asses in the pit. Such negative energy and bad vibes is something that most people do not need or want. Often even oppose. Either by laughing for it's stupidity or being cautious of its harmful nature. One can not deny this dark side of culture has substance quite different from things that are predominantly positive, creative and constructive. Of course I am not advocation noise shows should be of negative vibes of this type. Not at all.
Industrial/PE, for me, has the both merged. To various degrees. The fact that artist may not be "telling how it is", is not lack of substance. It may just mean that just to
swallow it, makes little sense. And why Cipher quote was necessary, I firmly believe that there is nowadays vastly more intent to just swallow or/and reject, not to commit.
