musical coincidences/odes/subconscious moves?
dCastillo
1,963 Posts
Being one who listens to music carefully, I can't help getting in the musician or creator's shoes, wondering about the factors that went into what I am hearing--beit the time, environment, geography, experiences, what they had for lunch the day before, what movie they saw the other week, news headlines...all that stuff. Being such an attentive listener, I find myself constantly figuring out why I like what I like, and the specific elements that make something appeal to me. Doing so, I often discover similar or near-identical emements from different artists, and curiosity follows. Were said similarities a conscious desicision made in tribute, one of direct influence, or rather something subconscious? Better yet, complete coincidence or a matter of global brain? (I can't help but think there is a science to beauty, or at least some sort of global/cultural/regional aesthetic we either strive to acheive or gracefully master without much thought at all) I'm sure all this is common practice to many of us and is something we either consciously or subconsciously do--just seldom spelled out like this, but in any regard, I can't help but find it fascinating like the industrial revolution or the great pyramids.So....what's up with this shit?For the sake of not having this end up as some ambiguous thought, I propose we discuss some of these occurences. The more interesting ones would probably be cases of similarities in separation. Examples where you have musicians, artists or groups that come from entirely different worlds or times, and create something that is 2 steps away from identical. Or even cases where the release of both similarities to the world were nearly simultaneous, and there is little chance of one being aware of the other's doing. That would be rad.But really, I start this topic because I was listening to some Theo Parrish, and when listening to a track I would normally skip over, I heard a drum pattern that made me jump out of my seat and scream "DILLA!"Case:Theo Parrish - "Summertime is Here" (Parellel Dimensions)+DILLA! - "Anti-American Graffiti" (Donuts)Perhaps this is not the most interesting case (I can't help being break-centric!), but I can still picture Jaydee chilling to some Theo Parrish, silently conspiring how he can rock the crap out of that drum pattern with those Movietown Sound drums, you know?OK........GO!
Comments
Hippy Weed[/b]
Ha!
I was thinking the same thing before hitting "post", but nah. Just 3am and I have to stay awake slaving over web shit.
Case:
+
G.B.H. - "Alcohol"
(Words & Music: Abrahall, Blyth, Lomas, Williams)
You're like a kind of religion,
I see you each night on television.
I can't remember all your names,
I love you running through my veins.
Alcohol, oh alcohol, I love you in my brains.
Acohol, oh alcohol, I never want you again. [/b]
Pretty certain it was Choice Is Yours.
Edit: Actually, not sure. For some reason on first reading I read Scenario as Showbiz & AG's Represent which is kind of apt as I've always mentally linked that and Scenario in my private mind sorting machine.
On a vaguely related note, was listening to Wild Magnolias Ah Anka Ting Tang Boo Shanka Boo and was struck by the similarities between it and Kool & The Gang's Summer Madness. Something to do with the mood and synths I think.
Cool topic, D. I've wondered this before, are the ideas all just floating around out there in the cosmos and we mentally 'snare' them, thus occasionally pulling the same card as another - or do the themes come strictly from within our own minds...recycling bits of our subconscious along with active workings of our conscious train of thought? I've heard it said many times that there are no truly 'new' ideas within music (at least not in recent time). Anyways,,,I don't know what I'm going on about now.
Did Dylan write anything genuine?
I love that Theo track.
Sons of Darkness = Rhythm Makers = GQ
Thus, the similarity.
Once I got past those vocals, I've come to dig it too!
[color:pink]Jeez I was up late yesterday[/color]
Nabokov's Lolita or Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra being prime examples of un(sub)conscious biting.
Ulrike Meinhof's theories of intertextuality are worth a read. BEWARE: she put down the pen and picked up the gun, joining the German Red Army Faction and started killing people. The theories remain, however.
Speaking of, this book looks promisingly Didionesque. "You crush. What you. Don't ever touch."
I still stand that the two versions (G.B.H / Robert Brown Jr.) of "Alcohol" are the best example of said phenomenon. I doubt GBH were big on obscure 45s. While getting drunk and singing about alcohol isn't that unique, those two choruses are quite complimentary.
Not so profound examples are endless:
Rubberband Banks
boying boying boying
Tokyo Diamonds
choing yoing yoing yoing
This is what Google brings. However, when searching with the keywords being her name + intertextuality, all I can find up front are references to Intertextuality and the Media. Is that post-modern? Will we have any textuality in the future, or will information be trapped in a maze of gateways that point fingers at eachother (and any finger pointing away leads to a secret handshake society)?
Enough of that thought though. What about the anti-references? Stumbling into unique expression with no knowledge of it being formerly expressed? (Is this what it feels like to be...post-proto?)
What about Darger and Mingering Mike?
What about We All Together and Journey?
What about those Music from Mills drums?
What is judged higher, brilliance without worldliness, or brilliance from just that?
I'd love to read about this stuff or days.
Little known fact: According to wikipedia, intertexuality is the 17th element of hip-hop.
This was right around the corner in the Kinzie Outback, by the way.
The guitar and the basslines are quite similar, arn't they? Birth Control must have been influenced by this oddball record, which has been released in 1968, two years before the Birth Control debut. I really wonder how Birth Control could have been aware of this record, as it's a rather obscure one, which hasn't been released in Germany or Europe. Or is there there another song, by which those two songs could be inspired by?
McNair's came out in '66-'67, and IMarc4's in '76-'77
Have a listen...