Noise And...Everything Else

[Andrew McIntosh]

Our Fearless Leader made a remark, in passing, that I think is worth looking into more.

(R)eality remains that it hardly ever just music, and it doesn't need to be rational.

There are many other qualities that seem to inspire us to like what we like, and this can bring up the issue of "why" when it becomes apparent to others who don't care for such qualities. Concentrating on certain, particular sub-genres, for example. Concentrating on releases only from one's own country or area. Supporting the releases of people who are friends. Choosing to only listen to releases that have a particular political, or other thematic bent. Only supporting certain well known artists. And on and on.

Obvious questions that occurred to me are, isn't the individual restriction missing out on potentially enjoyable sounds from outside the chosen restrictions? And what if what your friend has released is boring, or if The Rita's latest box set is just plain dull? But, as has been pointed out to me before, does that matter? In a world of glut, making such restrictions may just well be as good a hedge as anything else against simple and mindless consumption. Even though our acceptance within those restrictions often is, in itself, simple and mindless consumption.

We all make our limits, and they can be based on things that are as much not about music as just about it. I think it might be interesting to look at that - what our limits are, why we choose them, what we think about them.

[Zeno Marx]

Obvious questions that occurred to me are, isn't the individual restriction missing out on potentially enjoyable sounds from outside the chosen restrictions?

Yes, but time, amongst other things, plays a role.  A restriction of today might not be a restriction of tomorrow.  All in due time.

In a world of glut, making such restrictions may just well be as good a hedge as anything else against simple and mindless consumption.

One of the primary reasons I do it.  For sanity.  For organization of my sprawled interests and desires.  I've longtime considered it necessary and even positive.

Even though our acceptance within those restrictions often is, in itself, simple and mindless consumption.

Not necessarily so, but you do have to have faith in your own parameters, though.  Is that mindlessness?  I don't think so.  I assume most of us come to such conclusions and build such parameters out of experience and other knowledge.  And then I go back to time and the leaking that plays part in that variable.  Things seep through and become possible.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Obvious questions that occurred to me are, isn't the individual restriction missing out on potentially enjoyable sounds from outside the chosen restrictions?

It is possible, but it happens anyways. There is simply such amount of music in general, that no matter how much you try, no matter how open-minded you try to be, soon you realize that there's millions of records you can't give "equal chance".

I think it is good to have selective taste, so you are not compulsive hoarder of everything. But what I mean in the starting quote is that to consider rational choice isn't that big. If it's about personal enjoyment, sparking personal interest in hearing or getting material, it needs only to be something what caught your attention. It can be that something was said to be innovative, extremely well done, best release of year, groundbreaking angle to noise, landmark album of specific artist, something that changed history of music, etc.
Those appear more rational choices - willing to hear the best stuff out there. But sometimes it simply ain't enough. There might be thousand landmark albums by celebrated cult artists, yet the choice is "new female artists" or "blatantly misogynist sex noise", because it stood out. It woke some curiosity and enthusiasm.

I'm firm believer that noise is most often much more than just the sound of noise. Packaging, era, situation, connections, gender, race, equipment, etc..   I have no problem with that. I'm glad it has more to do with human culture than pure mathematics or the reasoning what tries to deconstruct into meaningless fragments that lose the relation to experience.

Of course this doesn't remove option to discuss the choice, taste, preference or alternatives.

[secondplanet]

I think a lot (if not most) of the limits people make for themselves are ingrained through the conditions of their peers. We put more "credibility" into people based on criteria without any thought to it, and that extends to something beyond music taste. And it has nothing to do with trust or friendships in particular either--when it comes to information like music, from what I've seen, there are people who more often follow the recommendations of strangers on the internet than of personal friends. There really is no way to remove the "people" aspect of listening; even if you did try to isolate yourself from others' music discussion, you would make decisions based on album art, names, and genres introduced to you through other mediums.

[practical life]

if you can't be fair, be arbitrary.

[dmkerr]

I find internet forum members to be very credible with respect to advising on unheard (by me) music.  The problem is the subjectivity.  It's great to hear all the "important" music but it depends on how well I happen to enjoy the music.  If I'm recommended a particular disc by an unknown artist that doesn't hit me in the right manner, I may skip that artists other discs to my detriment.  Conversely, if my first listen to an artist happens to be THE schizz, future purchases may be wanting.  I'm not very well versed in this music yet, but if I may be allowed to veer, I purchased the Sun Ra Arkestra's "Live In Montreaux" back in the early 1980's and was blown away.  Subsequent Ra purchases left me a bit cold.

So it's hit or miss.  There's just too much good stuff out there and I have to pick and choose the right ones.  That makes this forum very important to me.  And a bit dangerous as well.

[dmkerr]

Forgot to mention... the review section of this forum is critical for all of us, but especially newbies!  The more I read and the more thorough the review, the better chance it has of being heard. 

[LIFE]

It's impossible to judge music at face value unless you have a very basic approach to what music is and how it fits into your life. Everything about who you are and what makes something what it is influences how you're going to interpret it, even if you're misinterpreting it.

When I was more actively involved with checking out new releases and that type of thing, I think some of my opinions and tastes could be considered inconsistent, but overall there are things that I intuitively like or dislike. Even though I had LPs released on a Michigan label that I greatly respected and some of my "labelmates" would fall into the Midwest noise category, I can say that I was never interested in much Midwest US noise. It seemed like party noise with a comic book approach to dark subject matter... and what's funny is in theory I should have liked that, as I am a drug and alcohol user and I am not against a "good time", but something about the "fun" attitude of the Midwest noise turned me off based on the role I think noise is supposed to play in my life. I don't hold it against them, but I consciously avoided it and I may very well have missed out on things I would have enjoyed. That is fine, though... my life is not lacking because of it.

I remember in that funny interview with Fenriz of Darkthrone a few years ago he talks about how his friends had to stop telling him who was involved with certain bands or else he would unfairly judge it, haha. I think I'm the same way. Sometimes we can escape our biases, but other times it takes more effort to get over a bias than it does to just go about your life in a way that is natural to you.

The bottom line is that life is chaotic as fuck and anyone who can impose a sense of order on it in a way that is intelligent and constructive is cool to me.

[HONOR_IS_KING!]

When I was more actively involved with checking out new releases and that type of thing, I think some of my opinions and tastes could be considered inconsistent, but overall there are things that I intuitively like or dislike. Even though I had LPs released on a Michigan label that I greatly respected and some of my "labelmates" would fall into the Midwest noise category, I can say that I was never interested in much Midwest US noise. It seemed like party noise with a comic book approach to dark subject matter... and what's funny is in theory I should have liked that, as I am a drug and alcohol user and I am not against a "good time", but something about the "fun" attitude of the Midwest noise turned me off based on the role I think noise is supposed to play in my life.

You mention Midwest this and Midwest that, but you only mention Michigan really.

What Midwest do you speak of? Or were you only involved in Michigan, because the No Coast I was apart of was not goofy, comic, nor party in any way shape or form. All the way from Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland, and Dayton there are a plethora of gents who do genuine and sincere Industrial and Harsh Noise with no silliness involved.

Michigan I've never really seen as worthwhile scene Industrial/Noise with the exception of Paranoid Time, Dog Lady, Redrot, and some of the projects Khris R. (Body Collector/Liable/etc) was involved in...

[SNSE]

Michigan I've never really seen as worthwhile scene Industrial/Noise with the exception of Dog Lady, Redrot, and some of the projects Khris R. (Body Collector/Liable/etc) was involved in...

heh

[HONOR_IS_KING!]

Michigan I've never really seen as worthwhile scene Industrial/Noise with the exception of Dog Lady, Redrot, and some of the projects Khris R. (Body Collector/Liable/etc) was involved in...

heh

I am a jackass Pat. Forgive me, should've mentioned you too.

Machete's aren't very comic.