Wednesday, May 27, 2020

type beat

what wouldn't i give for an official instrumental of "Motorsport"?

it doesn't exist, so I must sate the craving with ersatz - the "type beats"

none of these re-productions quite capture the ethereality, the mistiness  of the original by Murda Beats & Cubeatz  -  like systems music screwed, a few bars of Michael Nyman looped in a deep tranquilizer trance

but fun to listen to all in a row - or even simultaneously














likewise what wouldn't i give for a vocal-free "Goosebumps" beatscape?

















What would Adorno say about this?

Or about the phenomenon of loop-makers  -  hustling cottage-industries churning out not even beats but sub-beat components, in hopes of a way into the biz

Theodor's concepts of pseudo-individuation and part-interchangeabilty fit the way almost all contemporary pop is made, where there isn't even a singular hit factory but multiple sites of constructions. Component elements are developed in different studios round the world, by people who never actually meet;  extreme specialization rules (a guy whose only job is working on the vocals, another on beats, yet another on the mix of the final assemblage).  The loop-maker sweatshop-of-one is  the ultimate extension of these Adorno-ite principles -  somewhere between vagabondage, longshoremen crowding the dock in hopes of getting some work that day, and unpaid internships

The sample packs with kick drums etc on peddled by labels or producers with a rep are related, but from the other way around: a name selling off their trademark sounds, FX, etc to hopeful aspirants. 

I think also, on the subject of type beats, of the ceramics sculptor Ken Price and his remark: "A craftsman knows what he's going to make and an artist doesn't know what he's going to make, or what the finished product is going to look like."



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