So I was just listening to some of this CRYSTAL CASTLES stuff on Lala, and I was all "Huh, is this shallow flash-in-the-pan-hipster-bullshit (kinda), or is it actually kinda hot (yes), or do I care?"
Then I read this. I dunno, I mean I've got friends in the utopian, free-everything-on-the-internet camp (some of y'all), and some friends in the how-can-the-internet-help-me-get-scrilla camp (some more of y'all), and what I'm wondering is, is this a clear-cut case of naive hippies setting themselves up for exploitation? Or of shallow untalented scenesters grasping around for some authenticity to cash in on? Hey, is the music even good enough to set off a quandary like this?
PS Oh, but hey, you know what is tight as fuck is that new Clark album.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
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Personally, I can't get into the whole bloghouse/two-person "band"/8-bit thing because it just seems like New Wave all over again. ("Neu" Wave perhaps?) I guess I'd rather watch one person DJ these tracks than see two people "play" them on a stage with a MicroKorg.
ReplyDeleteThere are entire genres of music that depend on exploiting old source material or manufactured sounds. If you're gonna sue Crystal Castles, then you also have to sue Daft Punk, Madlib/Dilla, Ceephax, Goldie/Metalheadz, Dangermouse, commercials that use the Amen/Funky Drummer/Apache break, and so on.
From now on copyright issues will be based on frequencies. If your music uses something between 0-50 Hz you have to pay 70's funk bands. 50-500 Hz goes to Barry Manilow, 500-5,000 to Phil Spector, 5,000-10,000 to Russell Simmons, 10,000-20,000 to Elvis, and 20,000+ to Aphex.
(Some of that MGMT shit is catchy though.)
i like crystal castles when that awful bitch isn't screaming over the track. it sounds good.and clark, well, i'm mad at him. at bloc, he played about 30 tracks that made me wanna bust a nut and he didn't release a single one of them on this album.
ReplyDeleteit cause clark wants you to bust nutz when he is present, not when your all by yourself at home/in the car/riding your bike. He is like a stripper more than a porn star.
ReplyDeletep.s. am I in the skrilla camp or the free hippy camp? I like that Dead philosophy of giving out some shit for free (like live shows and digital EPs, remixes) but selling some stuff like CD's and T's. I think people buy more shit if you give them shit to step in first.
Everything you said about Clark applies to Plaid too. Every time I see them live they are more gangster than ae but they can't seem to put out a good record anymore.
ReplyDeleteBrian- I figured you'd connect with the idea of gettin' skrillz as an ostensible label-head, but I also know you to be a hippy, so I figured you might offer unique perspective.
ReplyDeleteJarret- My concern goes beyond straight sampling, which is the source of everything I like in multiple media, and more to the question of whether or not this is plagiarism. I could see it as a harmless extension of mashup culture, even, in those terms, pretty explicitly as a shout out to this lesser-known chiptune dude. Except I'm worried that Crystal Castles are just callow, ahistorical cokeheads smitten w/the 8-bit 'aesthetic,'and they know they can get away with ripping off an entire scene to get the sounds they lack the ingenuity to self-generate because it is a free internet nerd scene. But maybe I am reading WAAAAAAAYYYYY too much into their haircuts.