The Emancipation of Music in the Internet Age: A Half-Assed Review

Perhaps more than any other industry, music has been revolutionized by the Internet. Sure, online shopping has changed the way we think about acquiring goods, but it's not like you see your local supermarket or hardware store going out of business. And yes, the accessibility of visual media—feature films, TV shows, documentaries—on the world wide web is just a Google search away, but the cinema down the street and the 1000+ channels available on satellite TV are still very much alive and kicking. But the music industry, on the other hand, is nothing like it was in 1992 when Al Gore invented the Interwebs (or was that Ted Stevens?). Remember that Virgin Records where you got your first CD as a child? It's gone. Remember what it was like to struggle to tear off the cellophane around that CD? Or what it was like to read the liner notes on that glossy insert? Hell, do you even remember CDs?

And it's not just CDs; it's even buying music at all. Even if you decide against purchasing the physical copy of an album and instead opt to download it digitally off iTunes, you're still in the minority. I'm going to share a little trick with you: Think of the first song that pops into your head. Now, type the name of that song and its artist into Google, tacking on 'mp3', 'mediafire', or 'rapidshare' to the end of the query. I'd venture to say that 90% of you are able to find a downloadable copy of that song on the first page of results. Right?

Now, it's not all bad. For every horror story of the RIAA punting babies whose parents downloaded the latest Justin Bieber single (just joshin'), there's a story of a bedroom producer or local upstart band or some other musically-inclined starving artist who's been able to get their stuff out there with MySpace Music or bandcamp or Soundcloud. Doug Appling falls into the latter category, but not only did Appling—or, as he's better known, Emancipator—got his stuff out there, he became Internet famous. Exposed to the masses primarily via pirating communities and the blogosphere, Emancipator's instrumental hip hop has found quite the following by way of Internet word-of-type. So much so, in fact, that the one-man act Emancipator finds himself opening for BoomBox in venues across the country. Lucky for me, one of those venues happened to be Charlotte's Neighborhood Theater.

So, last Friday night, I headed up to NoDa and paid my hard-earned cash to see these two acts perform. When Emancipator finally took the stage, I actually mistook him for a roadie—his unassuming dress and demeanor caught me off guard. Perhaps this should have been a sign, a sign that a performer—no less good music—was not on the docket that night. What ensued for the following sixty minutes was some of the most uninspired music I've heard in quite some time. From the mundane, tired rhythms undergirding the pieces to their irritatingly predictable turns and melodies, I quickly found myself wondering what the hype was all about. Aside from "Greenland," the opening track from Emacipator's sophomore release, Safe in the Steep Cliffs, the rest of the overlong set was utterly snore-inducing.

Allow me to elaborate: In my estimation, the appeal of "Greenland" lies in its unabashed indebtedness to video game music. The nearly 8-bit line that begins the piece to ethereal synths to the driving boom-boom-clap to the heartrending violin sample—it all screams Halo to me. It's geeky cool like an acne-faced pothead hipster version of DragonForce. And that's fine. It's fine because it's Emancipator forging himself a new niche in the genre, rather than retracing steps on the same well-trod ground that Dilla, Shadow, and RJD2 conquered years ago. Except this is the only evidence of hypeworthiness that he showed all night.

The rest of the sound Emancipator produced with his laptop, sequencer, and Squier guitar (I shit you not) ranged from half-baked renditions of Pretty Lights to the music you'd hear on the Weather Channel in the room of an upscale island resort. And all of it sounded like it was produced on GarageBand with the default loops and samples that came with the pre-installed iLife package. For fuck's sake, pirate some upgrade packs. And as for the samples, I swear they were all 128 kbps Dirpy rips. To add insult to injury, not only were the samples low quality, but they all succeeded in butchering what made the originals great. Pink Floyd, The Fugees, Sigur Ros—they all were criminally defiled. To top it off, the man missed several blatant opportunities to kick up the tempo, drop the beat, and create danceable pieces of music like the crowd wanted. I mean, I understand you're supposed to be a "trip-hop" act, but that doesn't mean who can't give the average concertgoer what he/she wants, just for shits and giggles...

And the funniest thing is that, despite all my criticisms, I respect the guy. Emancipator is living the dream: a 19-year-old making a living off of music. Maybe he's just getting a handle on the rudiments of live performance. Maybe I was charmed by his meek request that concertgoers buy some of his merch. Or maybe I'm just a softie and should continue ripping on an unsuspecting musician. I won't, though. Instead, I applaud Doug Appling for seizing the opportunities presented by the Internet and wish him the best luck moving forward as he hones his craft.

...oh, and as for BoomBox: don't waste your money. Unless you've dosed yourself with enough MDMA to tranquilize a horse or are tripping on so much acid you swear that light fixture just honked its clown nose at you, you're going to be bored shitless. Save singer Zion Godchaux's god-awful vocal interludes, you'll be hearing the same arpeggiated chords and fatiguing electronic basslines for an hour and a half. Instead, save up your money and go see Phish. Period.

Emancipator
Greenland [alt]
Shook (Mobb Deep vs. Sigur Ros) [alt] | Listen for "Vaka" sample
All Through the Night [alt] | Listen for "Hey You" sample

BoomBox
Midnight on the Run [alt]

How Strange It Is to Be Anything at All: A Discussion of Musical Morality and the Mashup Genre as a Societal Barometer

In general, I try my best to stay off my high horse when it comes to my musical opinions and tastes. Listeners have their own concepts of what music should be, and I respect that, despite any disagreements I may have in terms of subjective preference. However, there come instances in which the music lover in me cannot sleep soundly without expressing my qualms. This is one of those instances.

The mashup genre as we know it today can be traced back to Greg Gillis—or, as he's more popularly known, Girl Talk. Sure, there were records like Since I Left You and The Grey Album and Endtroducing... that are all several years Feed the Animals' senior. Hell, the genre is even indebted to musique concrete of the mid-twentieth century. But when somebody describes something as being a "mashup," the archetype that's been constructed in our heads is one of popular songs meshed together with a hip hop bass line and I-buy-my-shirts-at-Target ironic song titles. It's DJ Earworm's annual "United State of Pop." It's The White Panda's "Throw Some Tik on that Tok." It's Super Mash Bros' "Boom Boom Pau." It's any acne-faced computer geek with GarageBand, a YouTube account, and a dream. Now, this is not to say that just because the mashup genre happens to be DIY-friendly that it is inherently illegitimate. After all, never before has music technology and knowledge in general been as readily accessible as it is right now—what with Internet in our computers and phones, mp3s an informed Google search away, and tutorials on how to do everything from tying a tie to boiling an alligator head all at our fingertips. In a way, it's the modern-day equivalent of recreating a popular Tin Pan Alley song after dinner on the nineteenth century middle-class family's piano.

Allow me to reiterate: I have no beef with the mashup genre, nor do I have a problem with its gentle learning curve. Where my blood pressure starts getting raised, though, is when unwritten rules of popular music are broken. I'm not talking about music theory or the marriage of unlikely songs or even the aesthetics of the often-shoddy production jobs; I'm talking about the unacceptable pairings of bona fide masterpieces of pop with half-assed, got-drunk-in-the-studio-and-threw-on-AutoTune drivel. In other words, pairings that defy the will of the musical deities that be and disregard the spiritual capacity of music (and there is one, mind you)...

Torpeedoh has committed one of these mortal sins with "Get Loose," from his Girl Talk-aspiring Buckwild (that ultimately just lands him in the land of Gillis wannabes along with E-603 and Easter Egg). The track begins unassumingly and expectedly enough with an adrenaline-rousing Blur, Tag Team, and UNK musical stew, ebbing and flowing in intensity along with Albarn's 'woo hoo' and Coxon's massive guitar riff. At 1:28, however, the song falters and satisfies our society's perpetual musical ADD by leaving the trio of samples behind and instead opting for the duo of Drake's "Best I Ever Had" and... Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane over the Sea"?!?!

Some background: I first heard this track on Friday night at a college party. It was replete with the mainstays you might expect at such a gathering, including plenty of alcohol. The experience I'm about to describe to you I wouldn't wish on anyone. Hearing two dozen drunk girls chanting "you da fuckin' best" over Jeff Mangum's magnum opus of magnum opuses with their arms in the air in that way only drunk girls do was legitimately saddening. That enchantingly simple four-chord progression that serves as a backdrop to quite possibly the most perfect three minutes and twenty-two seconds of pop music in the past two decades. That musical canvas Mangum paints with his unrefined, yet heart-achingly beautiful voice. Those lyrics Mangum penned in a Romantic outpouring of emotion after the diary of Anne Frank haunted his dreams... All of it defiled by a corporate puppet who used to play this guy on Degrassi.

Perhaps worst of all is that less than a minute later (2:24), the agony is over, and Journey's ubiquitous "Don't Stop Believin'" keyboard riff exchanges duties for instrumental backup to Drake's annoying croon. Just like that. I'm not sure if you've ever listened to In the Aeroplane over the Sea, but it's fucking emotionally draining. I have to clear out time in my day if I want to listen to that record because every single song touches me at my core. Even listening to just one song requires at least five minutes of quiet reflection afterward. This shit is heavy. Torpeedoh blots out Neutral Milk Hotel's candid emotionalism and substitutes Drake's hedonism and self-indulgence in its place.

So what?

Call me a cynic. Call me a snob. Tell me I'm overreacting. Tell me that there are much more important things to worry about, that there are bigger fish to fry. You're more than welcome to do so. But when I hear music of this caliber—a form of art, I'd say—that has been treated in this manner, I can't help but feel a little upset, as it reflects not only a decline in general music appreciation, but more importantly and alarmingly, it is a sign of society's appraisal of sensation over substance, of "feelin' for a fix" rather than "lay[ing] in the sun and count[ing] every beautiful thing we can see."

Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane over the Sea [alt]
Torpeedoh: Get Loose [alt]

Ohrwurm

In German, it's called an ohrwurm, but in English we call it an earworm—or the-fucking-song-that-won't-get-out-of-your-head. The earworm tends to be an infuriatingly annoying tune that you probably enjoyed at your six-year-old birthday party but after enough weddings and bar mitzvahs you've learned to despise: the YMCA, the electric slide, the Macarena, Barbie Girl, etc. Or, if you've ever been to Disney World, the granddaddy purp of aural STDs, It's a Small World. Now, here at Muzjiks, we like to pride ourselves in bringing the best music (and, we admit, the occasional gimmicky bullshit YouTube mashup just to boost traffic) to you, so we're offering you an earworm today, but it's not one that makes your cochlea cringe, but rather it's a song with an infectiously catchy melody.

Titled "Pumped Up Kicks," this song comes to us from the Australian band, Foster the People. Aside from its melody that proves to be one of the catchiest in recent memory, the song is also notable for another reason: [rant] it's the only fucking song the band has. Hear me out: I support the blogosphere as much as the next guy (I'm a part of it), but come on. Really?!? Isn't it a bit premature to hype up a band as "the next MGMT" after one four-minute ditty? Granted, the four-minute ditty happens to be more addictive than a cocaine-coated Peep, but still, it's ONE SONG.

So, listen to "Pumped Up Kicks," but can we pump the breaks on the MGMT (or other similarly popular, successful, and generally consistent artists) comparisons at least until they put out an EP? [/rant]

BUT, I must say that the way Foster the People slides that one note in the word "pumped" during the chorus is indicative of an understanding of melodic nuance that could bode well for their future.

Foster the People: Pumped Up Kicks [alt]