I don't understand these new-fangled dudes who are all up on the raer before they've even heard the standards.
as mr. tripledouble pointed out, there are no rules to record collecting, but these insta-uber collectro's seem most interested in just having somethign that is highly coveted. i don't know if it is so they can try and show off to others or just feel good about themselves.
remember there was that one dude who came to soulstrut a while back and he was flossing all these super rare titles but wasn't even conversant in the basic language of the genres he claimed to be into to. who seeks out and buys grodeck whipperjenny before they buy "the payback"?. it was like he figured rarest is equivalent to the best and fuck the rest...i find that attitude is unsettling.
Has anyone just seen a cheap ass record without knowing shit about it and just said "fuck it, I'm gonna buy this..."?
I probably do that 10-20 times a year at a goodwill, flea market, swap meet, whatever...it's about as out of context as one can get and it's really fun.
If it sucks...who cares; it cost me nothing...I'll just make a point to get some dope samples off it, if possible.
If it's dope...awesome; I've just expanded the knowledge I use for applying "context" to my more targeted digging endeavors.
It's all good either way.
Eventually, if you dig long enough...you will develop a context/targeted list of wants/ specific eras for labels you are gunning for...whatever.
And asking new jack questions on the board and getting the OG hazings is all good too...it's all part of the fun.
One thing I do is load up my iPod with a maybe a thousand of the 30,000 mp3s I've downloaded from soulseek, soulstrut, etc.. over the years and play it all on shuffle. Then, as each song comes on, without looking at the artist or title, I decide what star rating to give it based solely on how much I enjoy the way it sounds. When I find a five star song, it gets added to the wants list. As a result, just about every record in my collection is there because it represents my taste.
for me, this is so completely antiseptic and passionless that i don't even know where to start. i understand the impulse - to separate the music you're actually hearing from any notion of rarity / cachet / predisposition, etc, but why deny yourself context in the service of some sort of arcane qualitative hierarchy? there are so many elements both tangible and ephemeral in listening to a record that go beyond the music that's actually on it... if this is really how you feel, you may as well just content yourself with a hard drive full of unlabeled mp3s, no? then you can truly be on a personal musical journey that represents the sanctity of Your Own Taste without any of the extraneous influence of history. when i'm listening to music and i'm thinking about where it's from, who made it, the environment it was created in, and all the related stories around it, it's a completely different experience than just listening to some anonymous mp3, no matter how incredible the music is.
not to mention those records themselves whose characters are enhanced by weird scribbling on the sleeve, notes from former owners, the smell of 40-year-old thai sticks, heinous spindle marks and shit - i mean, this is supposed to be why we're into this medium in the first place, and why we get singled out as obsessive and neurotic. this is what separates record collectors from every other human with an ipod and an internet connection - each person with His Own Taste. we all complain about how everyone is a DJ and then say "at this point, context really doesn't matter anymore." is that not completely hypocritical? maybe it doesn't "matter" as such to 99% of people, but our type of musical appreciation and evaluation is some idiosyncratic shit that we've built a community around, and it feels weird to toss that out the window.
obviously steve, i know you're a person who respects music and has spent time researching it and even playing music in homage to your favorite records, this is all cool and i'm just using your post to throw some thoughts out there. but i'm totally with 'shied on this one, and it's not some neo-luddite "i remember when we had to actually learn about shit" reductionism either. although that is definitely part of it, i know from spending time with guys who've spent lifetimes amassing knowledge and truly honing their taste - you physically hear so many different things when someone plays you something with the benefit of a real point of view and through the lens of context. critically or reverentially listening to music is exactly what separates people whose records i'm interested in listening to from people whose outlook doesn't mean shit. this even extends down to well-curated blogs or whatever, people who really scour and have that insatiable need for new discoveries, along with the impulse to share them. and it's exactly why the dude w/ the philly int'l question got reprimanded so harshly - dude, do some fucking homework you know? not everything is a given, and you can't actually hear everything with only your ears.
I don't understand these new-fangled dudes who are all up on the raer before they've even heard the standards.
IVE HEARD THE RARE AND THIS IS AWESOME ESPECIALLY IN COMPARISON TO MOST THE BIG BUCKS STUFF OF SIMILAR STYLE
Listen to Herb Kent, be in the know about the the tracks you love without knowing you feel so
Then bust a nutted love explosion all over your dynamic five
Lets face it. Record collecting and obsessing over old artists and genres is, at its heart, a nostalgic endeavor. As such, claims to authenticity are easy to come by and near impossible validate. Each generation explores the past with their own lens and participates in a process of filtering it to fit their current tastes and context. And so on and so forth. An example of this being the relative absence of ballades in the repertoire of "revivalist bands".
That being said, understanding the larger context is essential for finding records and creating new material as well(for the musicians on the board). Otherwise you are just caught in a self indulgent pursuit of obscurity for obscurities sake, not the discovery of new takes on familiar ideas. I think this is especially true with soul because the personalities, history, and social context are so ingrained in its sound and meaning.
I don't understand these new-fangled dudes who are all up on the raer before they've even heard the standards.
IVE HEARD THE RARE AND THIS IS AWESOME ESPECIALLY IN COMPARISON TO MOST THE BIG BUCKS STUFF OF SIMILAR STYLE
Listen to Herb Kent, be in the know about the the tracks you love without knowing you feel so
Then bust a nutted love explosion all over your dynamic five
Big_Stacks"I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
mannybolone said:
Stacks: how is it different from learning something new? Like, for example, an academic discipline? Or a language that no one in your family speaks?
Maybe you start with the canon. Maybe you start anywhere, arbitrarily and then begin to pick up more bits and pieces before it snowballs.
Hey Manny,
You raise some great points. I would suggest that the desire to learn something new starts with some level of pre-existing knowledge, or at minimum, curiosity. That said, I pursued industrial-organizational psychology because I wondered, based on my early, negative work experiences, how management could manage personnel more effectively. Thus, the context I faced at work drove my quest for knowledge of how to enhance the workplace, a topic that I study to this very day. So, as applied to this thread, I did not approach my area of expertise devoid of experience with relevance to it. This is very similar to my approach to record collecting, in which I have some background to drive what I look for in music. I can't understand having an interest in soul music totally devoid of awareness of Philly International Records as a bastion of stellar soul music. Maybe I'm just old, but the query in the other thread just struck me as very odd given our professed, intrinsic interest in music on Soul Strut.
I don't understand these new-fangled dudes who are all up on the raer before they've even heard the standards.
Major
Sorry, but this concept is way outdated at this point.
To somebody in their 20's, the 70's was a past century and there is no reason why they would (or should) look at it the way I did growing up then.
At this point Boscoe is as much on the radar as Donny Hathaway, maybe more, and that's the way they are going to come to it.
tripledouble said:
theres no set curriculum to this shit thank god
This is an interesting point. It raises a couple questions for me.
1. 'Standards' to whom? Who decides that they are 'standards'?
Isn't it true that songs can become 'standards' long after they have been produced and originally forgotten about. Hasn't hip hop created a number of tracks that are now considered 'standards' through 20 years of sampling what were once relatively unknown records?
What was the status of these records before hip hop? Are there dudes out there that think because you found out about a track through hip hop sampling you haven't gone about it the right way? (There probably are!). It all seems very relative to me.
2. Can songs that existed before the internet become 'standards' because of the internet?
The internet has been around for 10 years+ years now. If a ???standard??? is made through to a combination of time + growing universal appreciation, then can ???pre-internet tracks??? that have surfaced and gained recognition since the internet eventually become universally accepted standards?
I don't understand these new-fangled dudes who are all up on the raer before they've even heard the standards.
Major
Sorry, but this concept is way outdated at this point.
To somebody in their 20's, the 70's was a past century and there is no reason why they would (or should) look at it the way I did growing up then.
At this point Boscoe is as much on the radar as Donny Hathaway, maybe more, and that's the way they are going to come to it.
tripledouble said:
theres no set curriculum to this shit thank god
This is an interesting point. It raises a couple questions for me.
1. 'Standards' to whom? Who decides that they are 'standards'?
Isn't it true that songs can become 'standards' long after they have been produced and originally forgotten about. Hasn't hip hop created a number of tracks that are now considered 'standards' through 20 years of sampling what were once relatively unknown records?
What was the status of these records before hip hop? Are there dudes out there that think because you found out about a track through hip hop sampling you haven't gone about it the right way? (There probably are!). It all seems very relative to me.
2. Can songs that existed before the internet become 'standards' because of the internet?
The internet has been around for 10 years+ years now. If a ???standard??? is made through to a combination of time + growing universal appreciation, then can ???pre-internet tracks??? that have surfaced and gained recognition since the internet eventually become universally accepted standards?
I would say yes, absolutely.
A record like Boscoe sank like a stone when it was released and had next to no influence at the time. Now, however, it influences the way the current generation looks at soul music of the 70's, maybe more than some accepted 'standards' do. It was a vital expression of it's era that just happened to have gone unnoticed.
Think of literature. An author like HP Lovecraft was not really known in their day, yet is now more famous than many writers who were big sellers then, many of whom are all but forgotten these days.
I could probably pick better examples if I tried harder, but that's the idea.
One thing I do is load up my iPod with a maybe a thousand of the 30,000 mp3s I've downloaded from soulseek, soulstrut, etc.. over the years and play it all on shuffle. Then, as each song comes on, without looking at the artist or title, I decide what star rating to give it based solely on how much I enjoy the way it sounds. When I find a five star song, it gets added to the wants list. As a result, just about every record in my collection is there because it represents my taste.
for me, this is so completely antiseptic and passionless that i don't even know where to start. i understand the impulse - to separate the music you're actually hearing from any notion of rarity / cachet / predisposition, etc, but why deny yourself context in the service of some sort of arcane qualitative hierarchy?
Arcane qualitative hierarchy? It's just "how much I like listening to it". What other factor could possibly be more important in deciding which records belong in my collection? The function of my collection is so that I can listen to songs that I love in the best sounding format. There is no album artwork, liner notes, or even personal relationship to the artist that can make a song sound better to me than it would without those things. Records are only as good as the music on them. I listen to music that gets me off. I seriously have had orgasm-like reactions to music. I can hear a song and know zero information about it and it can still affect me like almost nothing else in the world, inspiring me with passion that I can't even begin to describe. It's a very aesthetic experience for me, like it never bothers me if a singer is singing in a language that I don't understand because I'm listening foremost to their voice, not the words.
As you picked up on, I very much do not want my decision on whether or not to own a record to be based on things like rarity, story, price, era, appearance, label, location, etc.. none of these things make a song sound better.
rape_donkeys said:
there are so many elements both tangible and ephemeral in listening to a record that go beyond the music that's actually on it... if this is really how you feel, you may as well just content yourself with a hard drive full of unlabeled mp3s, no? then you can truly be on a personal musical journey that represents the sanctity of Your Own Taste without any of the extraneous influence of history. when i'm listening to music and i'm thinking about where it's from, who made it, the environment it was created in, and all the related stories around it, it's a completely different experience than just listening to some anonymous mp3, no matter how incredible the music is.
All those things you mention are interesting to me but I'm just saying that before I want to learn about an artist or record, I have to love the music first. Why would someone research an artist if they didn't love their music?
When I'm listening to music, I usually imagine the band performing in the studio or on a stage.
The sanctity of My Own Taste. I really don't know how to take this. I'm just trying to think of the alternative. What, should I be building a collection museum-style like a label completist? I have no use for a record if I don't love the music.
The whole "blind listening" thing I'm talking about is for purity, so I can judge music purely on artistic merit, talent, and performance. I really believe that most musicians would much rather you judge their music based on how it sounds instead of the story of their personal lives or anything else. Thats one of the great things about art, you can achieve perfection even if your personal life is completely fucked up.
rape_donkeys said:
not to mention those records themselves whose characters are enhanced by weird scribbling on the sleeve, notes from former owners, the smell of 40-year-old thai sticks, heinous spindle marks and shit - i mean, this is supposed to be why we're into this medium in the first place
You really lost me here. I am not a record fetishist. I love music, not pieces of plastic and cardboard. I first started collecting records because the songs I was looking for were not available on cd, and then later because I prefer the way they sound.
rape_donkeys said:
obviously steve, i know you're a person who respects music and has spent time researching it and even playing music in homage to your favorite records, this is all cool and i'm just using your post to throw some thoughts out there.
Simon, I appreciate being able to have a respectful and thoughtful discussion where we can agree to disagree, that's what forums like this should be all about. In the end people like things for different reasons and it's great that we can learn others' perspectives and even learn a little bit about ourselves in the process. And I know, in addition to having an affinity for smelly records, you also have great taste in music.
rape_donkeys said:
but i'm totally with 'shied on this one, and it's not some neo-luddite "i remember when we had to actually learn about shit" reductionism either. although that is definitely part of it, i know from spending time with guys who've spent lifetimes amassing knowledge and truly honing their taste - you physically hear so many different things when someone plays you something with the benefit of a real point of view and through the lens of context. critically or reverentially listening to music is exactly what separates people whose records i'm interested in listening to from people whose outlook doesn't mean shit. this even extends down to well-curated blogs or whatever, people who really scour and have that insatiable need for new discoveries, along with the impulse to share them. and it's exactly why the dude w/ the philly int'l question got reprimanded so harshly - dude, do some fucking homework you know? not everything is a given, and you can't actually hear everything with only your ears.
Pretty well said, the only thing I would say is that I believe if someone was raised on a deserted island with no exposure to music history at all, there is still the possibility that they could have been born with enough natural talent to create meaningful and powerful music that I might love. Probably not, though.
I wrote the following before seeing your post:
I believe that one of the main reasons I became so obsessed with funk was because I was deprived of it for the first 17 years of my life. If I had grown up listening to soul music, maybe I would just think of it as commonplace.
I'll try to break it down the best I can: At 17 I got into the easy-to-obtain funk, stuff that could be found on CD at Tower (but of course still slept on tons of "classics"). But at 20 (1997), I had my mind completely blown away by WKCR Across 110th Street hosted by Chairman Mao, Danny Rudder, Amir and others. I'll never forget the first time I tuned in and heard what I thought must be some K&TG; or War songs that I just didn't know, but when they read the playlist and it was General Crook, Ivan Boogaloo Joe Jones, Ultrafunk, and Hugh Boynton, and this went on with 40 new artists week after week, it became clear that there was a whole world that existed without my knowledge. I had considered myself knowledgable and was actually pretty pissed that this stuff had been kept from me, wasn't usually played on the radio, wasn't available on cd at Tower, and was not common knowledge like it deserved to be. It affected me so much that I joined the student radio station at Penn State and started a show to give this lesser-known music some long overdue shine, and to give others the experience that that show had given me. A couple years later I interned at a reissue label and started a band for the same reasons.
So, my natural path of discovering soul music by studying the classics was interrupted by an awesome college radio show, as I'm sure many young collectors' paths were interrupted by any number of sources on the internet or somewhere else where some kind collector decided to share their knowledge. And once you get a taste of the deeper stuff, that's what you start looking for.
I don't think hard-to-find music is better than common music, but I do think that good music should not be so hard to find.
And as far as collecting goes, I sometimes pick the rarer record first, just because there is less of a chance that I'll see it available again.
And I can also understand people's tendency to collect rare things over common things. It's enticing to own something that only thousands or hundreds of people own instead of millions.
Agreed though on not calling yourself some kind of aficionado without knowing the basics.
I don't understand these new-fangled dudes who are all up on the raer before they've even heard the standards.
Rare is exciting. If dudes wanted a whole collection of smooth soul, i think they'd be better off if they just stuck with an old school jams radio station or buy used CDs. Takes up less room. It's not anything surprising in any hobby.....you want some shit that nobody else has seen/heard/smelled/tasted....
I don't understand these new-fangled dudes who are all up on the raer before they've even heard the standards.
Rare is exciting. If dudes wanted a whole collection of smooth soul, i think they'd be better off if they just stuck with an old school jams radio station or buy used CDs. Takes up less room. It's not anything surprising in any hobby.....you want some shit that nobody else has seen/heard/smelled/tasted....
exactly. apply the same thinking to travel.
You want to go to Mongolia because you read about it on the internet?
I'm afraid you can't Timmy-travel-a-lot. You have to go to the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty first. These are the quintessential classic holiday locations.
Big_Stacks"I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
phatmoneysack said:
yuichi said:
HarveyCanal said:
I don't understand these new-fangled dudes who are all up on the raer before they've even heard the standards.
Rare is exciting. If dudes wanted a whole collection of smooth soul, i think they'd be better off if they just stuck with an old school jams radio station or buy used CDs. Takes up less room. It's not anything surprising in any hobby.....you want some shit that nobody else has seen/heard/smelled/tasted....
exactly. apply the same thinking to travel.
You want to go to Mongolia because you read about it on the internet?
I'm afraid you can't Timmy-travel-a-lot. You have to go to the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty first. These are the quintessential classic holiday locations.
Hey PhatMoneySack,
It's funny that you used a travel example. The very reason why I am such a travel aficionado is because, as a child, I was totally enamored with social studies class. I used to read about and look at pictures of places, all while imagining going to them someday. To this very day, I work toward seeing said places, and have visited many of them. So, as I said about picking my profession, there was a reason why I made the choice, some experience that picqued my interest. I didn't pick my profession or interest in travel, music, etc. because it's the cool thing to do, my friends do it, Pete Rock sampled it, at random, etc., but because of genuine, intrinsic interest in the pursuit. I guess my question is how can one call her- or himself a soul music fan but has no clue whatsoever that Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes recorded on Philly International Records? I can understand this tendency occurring with raers, but with the basics? Come on!!! As Ice Water Slim said, "I Don't Understand It."
It's funny because with all this discussion of "knowing the abundant popular music of our time before you're worthy of internet-driven rare binge", I find it just as "unauthentic", for someone to go through every world-known artist of our time, just for the sake of "having heard it before" and trying to get down for the sake of getting down with said popular artist.
If you wanna talk about "context", there it is right there. Maybe those once popular artists aren't resonating as much with the newer generation within this new context of consuming music. There's a place and time for everything, and how would you expect some 19year old to be getting down to some Teddy Pendergrass and call it a day? And that's precisely what a lot of you dudes are expecting. Ain't gonna happen.
Ease up. If some internet-relying newbie in the game is getting their shits and giggles out of $500 rare groove then fuck it. You got the upper hand! lol What is there to be mad about?
Big_Stacks"I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
yuichi said:
It's funny because with all this discussion of "knowing the abundant popular music of our time before you're worthy of internet-driven rare binge", I find it just as "unauthentic", for someone to go through every world-known artist of our time, just for the sake of "having heard it before" and trying to get down for the sake of getting down with said popular artist.
If you wanna talk about "context", there it is right there. Maybe those once popular artists aren't resonating as much with the newer generation within this new context of consuming music. There's a place and time for everything, and how would you expect some 19year old to be getting down to some Teddy Pendergrass and call it a day? And that's precisely what a lot of you dudes are expecting. Ain't gonna happen.
Ease up. If some internet-relying newbie in the game is getting their shits and giggles out of $500 rare groove then fuck it. You got the upper hand! lol What is there to be mad about?
Hey Yuichi,
It's not so much a big deal in the larger scheme of life; however, learning of music that way makes one ask questions like "Are there any good records on Philly International Records?" Shit, a so-called basketball fan would be looked at sideways for asking, "Was Michael Jordan a good basketball player?" Hell, I'm 42 years old but I know a thing or two about Elgin Baylor, John Havlicek, and Oscar Robertson. The reason why people make ignorant (and premature) statements like LeBron James being one of the best players of all times is because they don't know shit about Oscar Robertson who, incidentally, averaged a triple-double for an entire season! Don't get me wrong, Bron Bron is very talented but there is a long line of legends who must be considered before making best of all time-like statements.
All I'm saying is that it takes context to have true understanding of something because the situation wherein it occurred is meaningful. Ignorance is bliss for some, but to those of us with perspective, it's saddening (not anger-provoking as you suggest, Yuichi) when people miss the bigger picture. For collecting, a much richer experience can be achieved by understanding the 'whens', 'whys,' and 'hows' of music in addition to the 'whats.' I run into this exact concern with my (young) HR students who want to know what to do, but don't know (or care) two shits about the rationale(s) behind the actions (despite great emphasis upon such rationales in my instruction). Their approach results in a dependent, rote-level of knowledge that does not allow them to be sufficiently flexible in applying what they know to novel instances. Not surprisingly, employers who hire from our program complain about how some of these folks can't analyze situations and synthesize various pieces of information to make HR/business-related decisions. I have to face it, I've gotten old!!!
What I was getting at there with that exaggerated example was slightly off your original topic and more in response to the argument that we often see on here and elsewhere ??? ???you can???t have an interest in the things we like unless you adhere to our prescribed of way liking those things???.
I???ve got nothing against this. It is natural to feel this way. It???s how groups define themselves against the ???other???. It is a common response of almost everyone who is passionate about something.
I just think it???s time to move on from this ???pre-internet age digger??? vs ???internet age digger??? authenticity debate.
So much of the context that I have gained about all the genres and artists that I love has been learned through the internet (alongside real-world means as well, i.e. gigs, record stores, conversations, books etc). But my point is everyone on this forum has more than likely learnt a ton of information that wasn???t available to them before because of the the web and that shouldn't make them any less passionate.
I am super grateful to be a part of this strut, and to have been able to develop my interest as a result. I think in essence though we are in agreement, because I also seek to understand the the bigger picture behind my interests.
I totally understand what you guys are saying and can agree with it for the most part.
But to me, it's kind of the opposite. Great music doesn't need any explanation or context. If it's good it's good. If it's dull to your ears, it's dull. If you're trying to validate the greatness of anything with a long-winded explanation, then more than likely the person you're trying to convince is just not "feeling it".
There's very few artists or athletes that can transcend generations, and it's real natural for the younger generation to find the old, well dull and unappealing.
Furthermore, there is definitely a clear distinction between a label like HI and Philly International. I personally own very few if at all of the latter. Definitely a lot more "polished" and "glossy" compared to the grittier instrumentation of a classic HI recording. And maybe the reason why the beat-digging crowd won't be too fond of the latter.
I mean Jones Girls or Prince is cool, and I like listening to 'em on the radio, but I won't be in a hurry to pick up their entire catalog right away either.
Pretty much everything in my life is out of context. I'm always looking for new media to consume, as long as it isn't too expensive. Some of my best finds (books, music, art, movies) have originated from serendipitous moments. It's more fun when you're not expecting it.
LeBron James being one of the best players of all times
Nobody believes this yet....
Unless you're on ESPN or TNT and obliged to make a comment like "Kobe Bryant is THE best closer in the NBA" and then "Lebron James is arguably THE best ever with his skill set" on a week to week basis, nobody is buying the sensationalist bullshit.
Lebron definitely made the best "transition" from HS to pros though.
Big_Stacks"I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
Almond said:
Pretty much everything in my life is out of context. I'm always looking for new media to consume, as long as it isn't too expensive. Some of my best finds (books, music, art, movies) have originated from serendipitous moments. It's more fun when you're not expecting it.
Hey Almond,
I agree that serendipity is a wonderful thing. Hell, I'm a scientist so I totally know how that works. But, there should be some backdrop guiding you to some extent. How much depth can one achieve in a domain without some guiding context?
digging w/o context is not new... i knew dudes 15 years ago who were into Northern Soul, but didn't own any Temptations records or who were into Lee Perry but did not own any Dennis Brown... it is what it is...
Big_Stacks"I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
p_gunn said:
digging w/o context is not new... i knew dudes 15 years ago who were into Northern Soul, but didn't own any Temptations records or who were into Lee Perry but did not own any Dennis Brown... it is what it is...
Hey Peter,
Great point, but I would assume they KNEW about The Temps and Dennis Brown, no? If not, then that's seriously . I'm sure they wouldn't ask, "Are there any good LPs on Motown or Studio One/Greensleeves/Trojan Records?"
I don't understand these new-fangled dudes who are all up on the raer before they've even heard the standards.
Rare is exciting. If dudes wanted a whole collection of smooth soul, i think they'd be better off if they just stuck with an old school jams radio station or buy used CDs. Takes up less room. It's not anything surprising in any hobby.....you want some shit that nobody else has seen/heard/smelled/tasted....
exactly. apply the same thinking to travel.
You want to go to Mongolia because you read about it on the internet?
I'm afraid you can't Timmy-travel-a-lot. You have to go to the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty first. These are the quintessential classic holiday locations.
Hey PhatMoneySack,
It's funny that you used a travel example. The very reason why I am such a travel aficionado is because, as a child, I was totally enamored with social studies class. I used to read about and look at pictures of places, all while imagining going to them someday. To this very day, I work toward seeing said places, and have visited many of them. So, as I said about picking my profession, there was a reason why I made the choice, some experience that picqued my interest. I didn't pick my profession or interest in travel, music, etc. because it's the cool thing to do, my friends do it, Pete Rock sampled it, at random, etc., but because of genuine, intrinsic interest in the pursuit. I guess my question is how can one call her- or himself a soul music fan but has no clue whatsoever that Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes recorded on Philly International Records? I can understand this tendency occurring with raers, but with the basics? Come on!!! As Ice Water Slim said, "I Don't Understand It."
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Whether someone "can call her- or himself a soul music fan but has no clue whatsoever that Harold Merlvin and the Blue Notes recorded on Philly International Records?" is a question symptomatic of a different time; a time before youtube, rare music blogs and social networks; a time in which scrolling through your co-workers itunes meant Maroon 5 shared equal space with other vapid music, not forgetting the occasional classic rock album or Mozart recording. Nowadays, I'm not shocked when I stumble across an utterly inconsistent musical spectrum. "Like, what the fuck is this $200 krautrock album doing next to Good Charlotte in this dudes Itunes?" Influence, social suggestion, as with all things, but in this case music, works much more horizontally than it once did, and I think, generally, it's a good thing. However, perhaps it calls for redefinitions of a hyper-categorical type when it comes to the question of 'being a fan,' if it bothers you that someone regards themselves as a soul music fan without specific knowledge you find essential to that title. I just think it's unreasonable to apply the same standards of knowledge and information to up-and-coming collectors and music fans when information is gathered in an entirely different way than it once was.
This is a great thread for learning which strutters have an insatiable passion for music and which ones have a competitive hobby that involves round pieces of black plastic.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Like what you like. Just try not to sound like a jackass when grown folks are talking.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
Horseleech said:
phatmoneysack said:
Horseleech said:
DJ_WubWub said:
HarveyCanal said:
I don't understand these new-fangled dudes who are all up on the raer before they've even heard the standards.
Major
Sorry, but this concept is way outdated at this point.
To somebody in their 20's, the 70's was a past century and there is no reason why they would (or should) look at it the way I did growing up then.
At this point Boscoe is as much on the radar as Donny Hathaway, maybe more, and that's the way they are going to come to it.
tripledouble said:
theres no set curriculum to this shit thank god
This is an interesting point. It raises a couple questions for me.
1. 'Standards' to whom? Who decides that they are 'standards'?
Isn't it true that songs can become 'standards' long after they have been produced and originally forgotten about. Hasn't hip hop created a number of tracks that are now considered 'standards' through 20 years of sampling what were once relatively unknown records?
What was the status of these records before hip hop? Are there dudes out there that think because you found out about a track through hip hop sampling you haven't gone about it the right way? (There probably are!). It all seems very relative to me.
2. Can songs that existed before the internet become 'standards' because of the internet?
The internet has been around for 10 years+ years now. If a ???standard??? is made through to a combination of time + growing universal appreciation, then can ???pre-internet tracks??? that have surfaced and gained recognition since the internet eventually become universally accepted standards?
I would say yes, absolutely.
A record like Boscoe sank like a stone when it was released and had next to no influence at the time. Now, however, it influences the way the current generation looks at soul music of the 70's, maybe more than some accepted 'standards' do. It was a vital expression of it's era that just happened to have gone unnoticed.
Think of literature. An author like HP Lovecraft was not really known in their day, yet is now more famous than many writers who were big sellers then, many of whom are all but forgotten these days.
I could probably pick better examples if I tried harder, but that's the idea.
People are talking past each other here. Canon and context are two very different things.
Digging without context happens all the time - every time I pick up a record I've never seen before, bearing no immediate clues to its origins, I am digging without context. Then I get the record home, I listen to it, and I start to establish context. Learning about the record. That is the fun of it, to me. Record collecting is one big hunt. Context can help you on that hunt, but ultimately I find that context is the end, not the means.
I just don't understand the rejection of that idea. It sounds like dudes who say they never learned anything important from a book. Wearing ignorance as pride, and remixing it as "taste". I can understand that people would rather declare records to be worthy based on their own context and not the record's. There's something to that, but I think it's missing something bigger.
I don't really like a lot of shit out there that is sworn to, records that people tell me all the time that are MUST OWN records, canonical records that define something or other. But I almost always spend the time to find out what the shit is about. And if I never tried to "get" a record that didn't hit me the first couple spins, there would be a long list of much-loved records missing from my collection.
Comments
as mr. tripledouble pointed out, there are no rules to record collecting, but these insta-uber collectro's seem most interested in just having somethign that is highly coveted. i don't know if it is so they can try and show off to others or just feel good about themselves.
remember there was that one dude who came to soulstrut a while back and he was flossing all these super rare titles but wasn't even conversant in the basic language of the genres he claimed to be into to. who seeks out and buys grodeck whipperjenny before they buy "the payback"?. it was like he figured rarest is equivalent to the best and fuck the rest...i find that attitude is unsettling.
I probably do that 10-20 times a year at a goodwill, flea market, swap meet, whatever...it's about as out of context as one can get and it's really fun.
If it sucks...who cares; it cost me nothing...I'll just make a point to get some dope samples off it, if possible.
If it's dope...awesome; I've just expanded the knowledge I use for applying "context" to my more targeted digging endeavors.
It's all good either way.
Eventually, if you dig long enough...you will develop a context/targeted list of wants/ specific eras for labels you are gunning for...whatever.
And asking new jack questions on the board and getting the OG hazings is all good too...it's all part of the fun.
for me, this is so completely antiseptic and passionless that i don't even know where to start. i understand the impulse - to separate the music you're actually hearing from any notion of rarity / cachet / predisposition, etc, but why deny yourself context in the service of some sort of arcane qualitative hierarchy? there are so many elements both tangible and ephemeral in listening to a record that go beyond the music that's actually on it... if this is really how you feel, you may as well just content yourself with a hard drive full of unlabeled mp3s, no? then you can truly be on a personal musical journey that represents the sanctity of Your Own Taste without any of the extraneous influence of history. when i'm listening to music and i'm thinking about where it's from, who made it, the environment it was created in, and all the related stories around it, it's a completely different experience than just listening to some anonymous mp3, no matter how incredible the music is.
not to mention those records themselves whose characters are enhanced by weird scribbling on the sleeve, notes from former owners, the smell of 40-year-old thai sticks, heinous spindle marks and shit - i mean, this is supposed to be why we're into this medium in the first place, and why we get singled out as obsessive and neurotic. this is what separates record collectors from every other human with an ipod and an internet connection - each person with His Own Taste. we all complain about how everyone is a DJ and then say "at this point, context really doesn't matter anymore." is that not completely hypocritical? maybe it doesn't "matter" as such to 99% of people, but our type of musical appreciation and evaluation is some idiosyncratic shit that we've built a community around, and it feels weird to toss that out the window.
obviously steve, i know you're a person who respects music and has spent time researching it and even playing music in homage to your favorite records, this is all cool and i'm just using your post to throw some thoughts out there. but i'm totally with 'shied on this one, and it's not some neo-luddite "i remember when we had to actually learn about shit" reductionism either. although that is definitely part of it, i know from spending time with guys who've spent lifetimes amassing knowledge and truly honing their taste - you physically hear so many different things when someone plays you something with the benefit of a real point of view and through the lens of context. critically or reverentially listening to music is exactly what separates people whose records i'm interested in listening to from people whose outlook doesn't mean shit. this even extends down to well-curated blogs or whatever, people who really scour and have that insatiable need for new discoveries, along with the impulse to share them. and it's exactly why the dude w/ the philly int'l question got reprimanded so harshly - dude, do some fucking homework you know? not everything is a given, and you can't actually hear everything with only your ears.
Then bust a nutted love explosion all over your dynamic five
end thread.
Hey Manny,
You raise some great points. I would suggest that the desire to learn something new starts with some level of pre-existing knowledge, or at minimum, curiosity. That said, I pursued industrial-organizational psychology because I wondered, based on my early, negative work experiences, how management could manage personnel more effectively. Thus, the context I faced at work drove my quest for knowledge of how to enhance the workplace, a topic that I study to this very day. So, as applied to this thread, I did not approach my area of expertise devoid of experience with relevance to it. This is very similar to my approach to record collecting, in which I have some background to drive what I look for in music. I can't understand having an interest in soul music totally devoid of awareness of Philly International Records as a bastion of stellar soul music. Maybe I'm just old, but the query in the other thread just struck me as very odd given our professed, intrinsic interest in music on Soul Strut.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
This is an interesting point. It raises a couple questions for me.
1. 'Standards' to whom? Who decides that they are 'standards'?
Isn't it true that songs can become 'standards' long after they have been produced and originally forgotten about. Hasn't hip hop created a number of tracks that are now considered 'standards' through 20 years of sampling what were once relatively unknown records?
What was the status of these records before hip hop? Are there dudes out there that think because you found out about a track through hip hop sampling you haven't gone about it the right way? (There probably are!). It all seems very relative to me.
2. Can songs that existed before the internet become 'standards' because of the internet?
The internet has been around for 10 years+ years now. If a ???standard??? is made through to a combination of time + growing universal appreciation, then can ???pre-internet tracks??? that have surfaced and gained recognition since the internet eventually become universally accepted standards?
I would say yes, absolutely.
A record like Boscoe sank like a stone when it was released and had next to no influence at the time. Now, however, it influences the way the current generation looks at soul music of the 70's, maybe more than some accepted 'standards' do. It was a vital expression of it's era that just happened to have gone unnoticed.
Think of literature. An author like HP Lovecraft was not really known in their day, yet is now more famous than many writers who were big sellers then, many of whom are all but forgotten these days.
I could probably pick better examples if I tried harder, but that's the idea.
Arcane qualitative hierarchy? It's just "how much I like listening to it". What other factor could possibly be more important in deciding which records belong in my collection? The function of my collection is so that I can listen to songs that I love in the best sounding format. There is no album artwork, liner notes, or even personal relationship to the artist that can make a song sound better to me than it would without those things. Records are only as good as the music on them. I listen to music that gets me off. I seriously have had orgasm-like reactions to music. I can hear a song and know zero information about it and it can still affect me like almost nothing else in the world, inspiring me with passion that I can't even begin to describe. It's a very aesthetic experience for me, like it never bothers me if a singer is singing in a language that I don't understand because I'm listening foremost to their voice, not the words.
As you picked up on, I very much do not want my decision on whether or not to own a record to be based on things like rarity, story, price, era, appearance, label, location, etc.. none of these things make a song sound better.
All those things you mention are interesting to me but I'm just saying that before I want to learn about an artist or record, I have to love the music first. Why would someone research an artist if they didn't love their music?
When I'm listening to music, I usually imagine the band performing in the studio or on a stage.
The sanctity of My Own Taste. I really don't know how to take this. I'm just trying to think of the alternative. What, should I be building a collection museum-style like a label completist? I have no use for a record if I don't love the music.
The whole "blind listening" thing I'm talking about is for purity, so I can judge music purely on artistic merit, talent, and performance. I really believe that most musicians would much rather you judge their music based on how it sounds instead of the story of their personal lives or anything else. Thats one of the great things about art, you can achieve perfection even if your personal life is completely fucked up.
You really lost me here. I am not a record fetishist. I love music, not pieces of plastic and cardboard. I first started collecting records because the songs I was looking for were not available on cd, and then later because I prefer the way they sound.
Simon, I appreciate being able to have a respectful and thoughtful discussion where we can agree to disagree, that's what forums like this should be all about. In the end people like things for different reasons and it's great that we can learn others' perspectives and even learn a little bit about ourselves in the process. And I know, in addition to having an affinity for smelly records, you also have great taste in music.
Pretty well said, the only thing I would say is that I believe if someone was raised on a deserted island with no exposure to music history at all, there is still the possibility that they could have been born with enough natural talent to create meaningful and powerful music that I might love. Probably not, though.
I wrote the following before seeing your post:
I believe that one of the main reasons I became so obsessed with funk was because I was deprived of it for the first 17 years of my life. If I had grown up listening to soul music, maybe I would just think of it as commonplace.
I'll try to break it down the best I can: At 17 I got into the easy-to-obtain funk, stuff that could be found on CD at Tower (but of course still slept on tons of "classics"). But at 20 (1997), I had my mind completely blown away by WKCR Across 110th Street hosted by Chairman Mao, Danny Rudder, Amir and others. I'll never forget the first time I tuned in and heard what I thought must be some K&TG; or War songs that I just didn't know, but when they read the playlist and it was General Crook, Ivan Boogaloo Joe Jones, Ultrafunk, and Hugh Boynton, and this went on with 40 new artists week after week, it became clear that there was a whole world that existed without my knowledge. I had considered myself knowledgable and was actually pretty pissed that this stuff had been kept from me, wasn't usually played on the radio, wasn't available on cd at Tower, and was not common knowledge like it deserved to be. It affected me so much that I joined the student radio station at Penn State and started a show to give this lesser-known music some long overdue shine, and to give others the experience that that show had given me. A couple years later I interned at a reissue label and started a band for the same reasons.
So, my natural path of discovering soul music by studying the classics was interrupted by an awesome college radio show, as I'm sure many young collectors' paths were interrupted by any number of sources on the internet or somewhere else where some kind collector decided to share their knowledge. And once you get a taste of the deeper stuff, that's what you start looking for.
I don't think hard-to-find music is better than common music, but I do think that good music should not be so hard to find.
And as far as collecting goes, I sometimes pick the rarer record first, just because there is less of a chance that I'll see it available again.
And I can also understand people's tendency to collect rare things over common things. It's enticing to own something that only thousands or hundreds of people own instead of millions.
Agreed though on not calling yourself some kind of aficionado without knowing the basics.
Rare is exciting. If dudes wanted a whole collection of smooth soul, i think they'd be better off if they just stuck with an old school jams radio station or buy used CDs. Takes up less room. It's not anything surprising in any hobby.....you want some shit that nobody else has seen/heard/smelled/tasted....
Apparently there is....
exactly. apply the same thinking to travel.
You want to go to Mongolia because you read about it on the internet?
I'm afraid you can't Timmy-travel-a-lot. You have to go to the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty first. These are the quintessential classic holiday locations.
Hey PhatMoneySack,
It's funny that you used a travel example. The very reason why I am such a travel aficionado is because, as a child, I was totally enamored with social studies class. I used to read about and look at pictures of places, all while imagining going to them someday. To this very day, I work toward seeing said places, and have visited many of them. So, as I said about picking my profession, there was a reason why I made the choice, some experience that picqued my interest. I didn't pick my profession or interest in travel, music, etc. because it's the cool thing to do, my friends do it, Pete Rock sampled it, at random, etc., but because of genuine, intrinsic interest in the pursuit. I guess my question is how can one call her- or himself a soul music fan but has no clue whatsoever that Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes recorded on Philly International Records? I can understand this tendency occurring with raers, but with the basics? Come on!!! As Ice Water Slim said, "I Don't Understand It."
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
If you wanna talk about "context", there it is right there. Maybe those once popular artists aren't resonating as much with the newer generation within this new context of consuming music. There's a place and time for everything, and how would you expect some 19year old to be getting down to some Teddy Pendergrass and call it a day? And that's precisely what a lot of you dudes are expecting. Ain't gonna happen.
Ease up. If some internet-relying newbie in the game is getting their shits and giggles out of $500 rare groove then fuck it. You got the upper hand! lol What is there to be mad about?
Hey Yuichi,
It's not so much a big deal in the larger scheme of life; however, learning of music that way makes one ask questions like "Are there any good records on Philly International Records?" Shit, a so-called basketball fan would be looked at sideways for asking, "Was Michael Jordan a good basketball player?" Hell, I'm 42 years old but I know a thing or two about Elgin Baylor, John Havlicek, and Oscar Robertson. The reason why people make ignorant (and premature) statements like LeBron James being one of the best players of all times is because they don't know shit about Oscar Robertson who, incidentally, averaged a triple-double for an entire season! Don't get me wrong, Bron Bron is very talented but there is a long line of legends who must be considered before making best of all time-like statements.
All I'm saying is that it takes context to have true understanding of something because the situation wherein it occurred is meaningful. Ignorance is bliss for some, but to those of us with perspective, it's saddening (not anger-provoking as you suggest, Yuichi) when people miss the bigger picture. For collecting, a much richer experience can be achieved by understanding the 'whens', 'whys,' and 'hows' of music in addition to the 'whats.' I run into this exact concern with my (young) HR students who want to know what to do, but don't know (or care) two shits about the rationale(s) behind the actions (despite great emphasis upon such rationales in my instruction). Their approach results in a dependent, rote-level of knowledge that does not allow them to be sufficiently flexible in applying what they know to novel instances. Not surprisingly, employers who hire from our program complain about how some of these folks can't analyze situations and synthesize various pieces of information to make HR/business-related decisions. I have to face it, I've gotten old!!!
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
What I was getting at there with that exaggerated example was slightly off your original topic and more in response to the argument that we often see on here and elsewhere ??? ???you can???t have an interest in the things we like unless you adhere to our prescribed of way liking those things???.
I???ve got nothing against this. It is natural to feel this way. It???s how groups define themselves against the ???other???. It is a common response of almost everyone who is passionate about something.
I just think it???s time to move on from this ???pre-internet age digger??? vs ???internet age digger??? authenticity debate.
So much of the context that I have gained about all the genres and artists that I love has been learned through the internet (alongside real-world means as well, i.e. gigs, record stores, conversations, books etc). But my point is everyone on this forum has more than likely learnt a ton of information that wasn???t available to them before because of the the web and that shouldn't make them any less passionate.
I am super grateful to be a part of this strut, and to have been able to develop my interest as a result. I think in essence though we are in agreement, because I also seek to understand the the bigger picture behind my interests.
Its all about attitude and respect really.
But to me, it's kind of the opposite. Great music doesn't need any explanation or context. If it's good it's good. If it's dull to your ears, it's dull. If you're trying to validate the greatness of anything with a long-winded explanation, then more than likely the person you're trying to convince is just not "feeling it".
There's very few artists or athletes that can transcend generations, and it's real natural for the younger generation to find the old, well dull and unappealing.
Furthermore, there is definitely a clear distinction between a label like HI and Philly International. I personally own very few if at all of the latter. Definitely a lot more "polished" and "glossy" compared to the grittier instrumentation of a classic HI recording. And maybe the reason why the beat-digging crowd won't be too fond of the latter.
I mean Jones Girls or Prince is cool, and I like listening to 'em on the radio, but I won't be in a hurry to pick up their entire catalog right away either.
Nobody believes this yet....
Unless you're on ESPN or TNT and obliged to make a comment like "Kobe Bryant is THE best closer in the NBA" and then "Lebron James is arguably THE best ever with his skill set" on a week to week basis, nobody is buying the sensationalist bullshit.
Lebron definitely made the best "transition" from HS to pros though.
Hey Almond,
I agree that serendipity is a wonderful thing. Hell, I'm a scientist so I totally know how that works. But, there should be some backdrop guiding you to some extent. How much depth can one achieve in a domain without some guiding context?
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Hey Peter,
Great point, but I would assume they KNEW about The Temps and Dennis Brown, no? If not, then that's seriously
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Whether someone "can call her- or himself a soul music fan but has no clue whatsoever that Harold Merlvin and the Blue Notes recorded on Philly International Records?" is a question symptomatic of a different time; a time before youtube, rare music blogs and social networks; a time in which scrolling through your co-workers itunes meant Maroon 5 shared equal space with other vapid music, not forgetting the occasional classic rock album or Mozart recording. Nowadays, I'm not shocked when I stumble across an utterly inconsistent musical spectrum. "Like, what the fuck is this $200 krautrock album doing next to Good Charlotte in this dudes Itunes?" Influence, social suggestion, as with all things, but in this case music, works much more horizontally than it once did, and I think, generally, it's a good thing. However, perhaps it calls for redefinitions of a hyper-categorical type when it comes to the question of 'being a fan,' if it bothers you that someone regards themselves as a soul music fan without specific knowledge you find essential to that title. I just think it's unreasonable to apply the same standards of knowledge and information to up-and-coming collectors and music fans when information is gathered in an entirely different way than it once was.
Digging without context happens all the time - every time I pick up a record I've never seen before, bearing no immediate clues to its origins, I am digging without context. Then I get the record home, I listen to it, and I start to establish context. Learning about the record. That is the fun of it, to me. Record collecting is one big hunt. Context can help you on that hunt, but ultimately I find that context is the end, not the means.
I just don't understand the rejection of that idea. It sounds like dudes who say they never learned anything important from a book. Wearing ignorance as pride, and remixing it as "taste". I can understand that people would rather declare records to be worthy based on their own context and not the record's. There's something to that, but I think it's missing something bigger.
I don't really like a lot of shit out there that is sworn to, records that people tell me all the time that are MUST OWN records, canonical records that define something or other. But I almost always spend the time to find out what the shit is about. And if I never tried to "get" a record that didn't hit me the first couple spins, there would be a long list of much-loved records missing from my collection.
I don't think that's true at all. The percentage of young people who even know who/what Boscoe is (relative to, say, Al Green) is small indeed.