Inconsequential music

What is it?

Thinking about the nature of "consequences" in music and thinking about how I've always wanted to reject them, though I'm not really clear on what I mean yet, and am doubtful I ever will be or will be able to be. There's an element of migration and flexibility involved but also a detachment from discourses of meaning, one off the top of my head being social media measurements / scalability, but others too, sometimes seemingly contradictory. I'm definitely thinking of the moralism of real v. fake, positing that everything is real but that doesn't mean modes of production can't be criticized. Related is Terre Thaemlitz saying, "Routes, not Roots". Not that an approach like this isn't floating above all social context but is actually attached there / moving towards telling the truth about it and critical in an honest way about new consumer outlets. Re-attaching to experience in a critical way.

Is there a bit of asceticism involved? I would say yes, probably more than an avowed materialist like Thaemlitz would care for. I think you could characterize it as an orientation / commitment towards navigating production, but also a mode of experiencing open to states of sublimity etc. Maybe from the state of "all music is sublime" and adding a sort of rejection of the consequentialness that is attached to aesthetic judgment.

What would you characterize as "inconsequential music," and why? Maybe an example would help me respond...

are we talking about stuff like vaporwave?

my bloody valentine?

I don't really know. It isn't 100% the music, it's like 50% the music and 50% the approach to it / context of hearing and appreciating it. I guess maybe an example would be, I was at the record store looking for disco that "could be cool today" and found an album by Muscle Shoal Horns that looked promising, I wasn't familiar with them at all, and I picked it up. Now it's one of my favorites but I'm not sure how I would present it or "make it relevant" or use it as a piece of my personal hype wave, you know? it's just got great playing and singing, the songs are solid and it sounds incredible. it doesn't fit my personal brand or anything. i would love to share it, or the experience i have of listening to it, somehow, but without 1) going all roots discourse about it or 2) having to shoehorn it into some sort of "thing" that "I do." more honestly, i guess i'm just struggling with how to share music in a way that feels comfortable but might somehow still "work" in a live space. Interested in hearing other digressions of course and not sure how i'm coming off tbh, if someone wants to enlighten me on that i'd be open to hearing it.

xp vaporwave might be related, i don't really know as i'm not that familiar with it.

barely anyone will admit it but most people "judge" music based on how they imagine they'd appear listening to/making it. maybe that's the binary you're after?

The first thing I thought of reading your initial post was old Brian Eno - Music for Airports, Discreet Music. Nothing particularly hip or identifiable about it for the unfamiliar. Which is not to say that it isn't enjoyable, just that it seems divorced in a way from an immediate context.

wait, so is this about your/a person's relationship to music?

consequential music provokes convincing images of 'another, better you'. you muse

is it even possible to have GOOD music if it has no Consequence?

http://api.ning.com/files/klmPPeYfCPjo2beDVlwrOOC7Y2h41KX-9vBEPgw1MwaPpqU0K*Z1pFEGDbqmYqwvPusRlIekc1hV*2hazg9GFLwDi9ZBxEOv/consequence.jpg

xp to qualmsley that is interesting and i think it's true. maybe i'm talking about when and how that translates into hypedollars or something. maybe i would just like to look like an open-minded but grumpy gay dad or w/e. that would be fine. i'll put "open-minded but grumpy gay dad" on the flyers, lol

xp lolz

hypedollars in terms of the musicians or in terms of the listener/fan?

is this related to incidental music? i was thinking the other day how the score to star trek ii was really good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-8D6j5LPho

"mattresslessness was the drummer for Gay Dad."

(Old joke, I kid.)

haha. yeah i think the james horner score to star trek ii probably fits this. i guess i'm mixing up a few different things. there's music that is just.. not really compelling from a consumptive angle but still like alive and worthwhile or w/e. and there is a way of listening to things that hears life in relationship to the hype and is maybe critical of the hype. hype is not the greatest word i know but in a broad sense i guess it sort of fits. really should defer to critics here who are good at this sort of thing like xhucx. i don't know what i'm trying to say anymore.

inspired by this carles post

http://carles.buzz/auth-music/

think that + adorno and benjamin dating

that carles post is fake deep hell

how?

i think it's hypocritical and limited by carles marketing niche but i like the idea of music being experienced and sustained in ways that aren't immediately internet-friendly.

hypertext is silent

this might be a digression but the disco example you cited makes me think that you're talking about music that doesn't seem socially viable because the cultural moment or w/e prevents it from being useful for people as a signifier for their identity-creation. like people might feel silly listening to something even if it's 'good' b/c they don't know how it makes them look to be listening to it, or how it is meant to be interpreted socially. or maybe just that you don't like the obvious viable avenue for integrating it into a 'live' situation (e.g. check out these obscure dusty grooves on soul night w/$4 drinks.) but that sounds not as broad as what you're alluding to in your OP.

i think a lot about playing out the music i listen to, and how the feeling of listening to something that i would be unlikely to ever be able to play out changes the experience i have listening to it privately. i also mentally mold hypothetical situations, e.g. the setting, people who'd be there, types of substances ingested, etc., while listening to stuff to create an ideal environment for it and that enhances my response to it. i consider it a kind of puzzle to try to figure out what kind of dj set and setting i would have to create to be able to 'successfully' play certain types of music. and i also think of how when creating a set it reflects on how people perceive my "brand" and i think i try to wiggle out of any particular brand b/c i would like to somehow reject identity-creation as an aspect of playing music i like for people, even though that's impossible. but a lot of times the reason i think about these sorts of things while listening to music is b/c it helps me responde to music in a way that i otherwise wouldn't due to blunted sensitivity from overconsumption or anhedonia or w/e

co-sign all of that. maybe i'm being too philosophical about a failure of imagination.

now you're making me think of star trek ii as a kirk/khan dj battle

you're welcome

this is a fascinating thread, though i suspect that the approach to music appreciation being discussed is, at least in part, alien to me. i mean, i frequently buy or listen to music more or less at random, with little understanding of either the context from which it emerges or the sense in which it might culturally persist. i agree that there's something...i don't know, maybe i want to say "lonely" about such listening, in that (absent further exploration) it attaches to nothing, just hangs there as a detached bubble of experience.

http://www.recordsale.de/cdpix/f/foxy-party_boys(2).jpg

i don't have trouble sharing such enthusiasms, though. like, i bought a copy of the above album probably a decade ago, apropos of nothing, only because i was intrigued by the sui generis time capsule quality of the cover image. it's not bad on the whole, but it does contain one absolutely killer track, a goofy r&b/power-pop hybrid called "she's so cool". i played the shit out of this tune, foisted it everyone who'd listen (including ILX iirc). no one really gave a shit, but that didn't bother me much. i still have it, metaphorically speaking, and it's presently making me smile. is it "consequential"? i'd have to say no, not even within the scope of my own listening. but that's okay. given the chance, i'd happily play it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr_UcFCqFcQ

inspired by this carles post

I dont understand any of this thread, but reading this particular link actually made me feel seasick/stressed

This seems to perfectly describe all the music I listen to, as I never concern myself with things like consequences/importance/relevance/cultural context, or how to sell this music to others, or to make it look like something more than just sounds I enjoy. Music is pretty much a solitary and selfish experience as far as I'm concerned and none of these things seem to matter more than the actual act of listening.

Although I might be posting off topic since I don't understand much of the OP and I'm merely trying to figure out what this is all about based on the subsequent messages.

Different modes of listening but its the same here in the woods. Some magic happens and I forget the world, or it doesn't

But I get stressed easily and like switching off the swirling tumult

If it pops up on Forgetify its inconsequantial. I can't see how else music could qualify for this description.