When his turn came, he took the stage, plugged his speaker output into the sound system and performed some of his original electronic tunes. I was a little surprised by my reaction to this atypical act.
I liked it.
Aside from some synthesizer-heavy tracks from artists like Alan Parsons and Pink Floyd, I’ve never been a big fan of electronica, but I appreciated the infectious beats this dude had concocted and the creativity that obviously went into his work. I also admired the courage he had to play his pieces in a venue that usually featured the usual assortment of folk and country efforts. It’s hard enough for a lot of us to get up in front of strangers and pour out our souls to an unknown reception. That was cool.
Of course, I use electric instruments and even a midi controller on occasion, but I don’t consider that real electronica. It's doubful any of my songs will be covered by using calculators as was a tune by Daft Punk. My music is certainly nothing like the tracks put out by people like Sophie Xeon, the Scottish musician, producer, and singer/songwriter who died much too young earlier this year.
She was considered a pioneer in her genre so I checked out her video for her song “Faceshopping.” It gave me some context to what she may have had in mind. The video features a variety of strobe-lit effects-produced facial contortions. One YouTube commenter compared the sound to a collection of construction site noises and another warned that the flashing style of the video should not be viewed by anyone with photosensitive epilepsy. But it is clear to me that she was taking her art to a new level of creativity and making a statement about the sale of an artist’s online image.
Some of the other tracks I sampled are less hectic but still out there compared to most popular titles. But then again Jimi Hendrix is probably still considered to be pretty far out by many industry aficionados even to this day.
It’s not the type of music I would listen to for appealing melodies or rocking rhythms, but I can see why dance clubs might pump out the digital beats to get the patrons gyrating.
Regardless of my own personal tastes, if the purpose of music is to get people to feel and think, I see where this fits the bill. Electronic music; it’s not just for robots anymore.