Zack: Of the four albums I listened to while working on my prospectus, this one suffered the most form my diminished attention. It faded into the background a bit too easily, unlike Tarkus, and wasn’t compelling enough to get me to go back and relisten, unlike Marcus Garvey. That said, I’m not super sure I would have liked it even if I had been enraptured. I’ve come around a lot on electronic music, but I’m pretty particular. The Avalanches key sound is plunderphonics, which is a made-up word that means sampling a lot. Apparently, Since I Left You has somewhere in the ballpark of 3500 different samples in it, which is a thing that sounds wrong but I can’t refute. This type of music is something I have historically disliked (I can’t emphasize my dislike for Girl Talk enough), but at least when you have that many samples it’s impossible to know who precisely you’re just straight up stealing from so it actually is sort of your own work. Still, it just didn’t have the smoothness of Air or the soulfulness of Daft Punk, so I can’t imagine it would have grabbed me even if I was locked in.
Favorite Tracks: Etoh; Close to You; Live at Dominoes
Emily: Wikipedia decided to call Since I Left You a "plunderphonics" album. That doesn't seem like a real word, and it appears to be essentially the same thing as a mashup. The only difference between this type of album and, say, Girl Talk or The Grey Album appears to be that the insane number of samples draws from less-well-known sources rather than Top 40 pop, rock, or hip-hop. I still consider it a mashup, though, mostly because I really don't want to give the term plunderphonics any credence. Either way, anytime I listen to a mashup now I think about the copyright implications (what can I say, I'm almost a lawyer). Music and copyright is a hot topic right now, with the Blurred Lines/Marvin Gaye case saying that a song with a similar "vibe" to a copyrighted song is infringing, as well as continued controversy over what constitutes the fair use of a sample as a beat or in a mashup and whether the sampled artists should provide compulsory licensing. My guess is that here The Avalanches paid nothing for the samples they used, and it doesn't appear that they got in any trouble for it - regardless of the similarity between the original compositions and the final product. They created something original and new, but only by standing on the shoulders of others. This means of creativity has been embraced by musicians for decades and across genres, but the law hasn't really caught up yet. While I doubt that The Avalanches will get caught up in this evolution, as this album is already over 15 years old, it'll be interesting to see how artists and musicians - both the samplers and the sampled - adapt to a possible new legal regime that overlaps with artistic expression.
Favorite Tracks: Frontier Psychiatrist; Since I Left You; A Different Feeling
No comments:
Post a Comment