Discussion on oversaturation in the PE scene and its nuances

Started by VORACLE, January 11, 2025, 08:57:33 PM

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Phenol

I've given this a few spins in my head and I don't see any indication of oversaturation, lack of musical quality or anything like that. What I do see is a lack of connection on several levels and my take on it is that social media has made us communicate in a different way than we used to leading to certain issues. Before SoMe people used to communicate on a much more physical level; on an international scale they would (hand)write letters, send each other tapes and images, exchange ideas etc. like that and maybe talk over the phone as well. On top of that, they would meet on special and rare occasions for live events. Local scenes would be more like small circles built around friendship and actual social interaction exchanging ideas with reference to the wider international scene they were in contact with. That means there were clear and tangible connections between artists, art an audience. Physical items contained those connections and we could thus relate to them. Now it seems to me that the connection between art and artist is lost in the SoMe public image bullshit machine. Audiences' connection to the art is limited to likes and brief, superficial top 10 lists, fucking bandcamp links and stupid save 10% codes for downloads that have zero value for anyone. That way, the connection between artists and their audience is really just one media image superficially engaging with another one. There is no real and tangible action or meaning behind any of it. We still have live shows, at least, where people meet in real life, form real connections and produce and experience real underground culture in meaningful ways. The point is that with the connections being severed like that on several levels things - releases - lose meaning. That's where we're at, I think, and that's why we often have a hard time connecting with a lot of current stuff.

excruciation

PE and noise are extremely oversaturated and I haven't seen many original ideas or releases coming out in quite a while. It's sort of the same thing over and over again - obscure band name + controversial subject + extreme limitation = boring and generic PE/noise.

how many more releases do we need dealing with child abuse, prostitution, sexual sadism, white supremacy, etc. before enough is enough? these themes have been beaten in to the ground the last 40+ years and are so boring and trite I can't even listen to 90% of new releases coming out.