The epitome of..
Pretentious music.
"attempting to impress by affecting greater importance or merit than is actually possessed."
Yeah, and that Mozart guy was pretentious as fuck too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smpTDkLCYb0
Get me a fiddle and lets get back to basics!
Nah dude, you're pretentious. 🤣
You know that on a synthesiser, you can press one solitary key and get a very dramatic, harmonic, rich tone, don't you? Then you can edit in some sound effects samples in any audio editor and make that one note sound very impressive, like Blade Runner impressive.
Then you wait for the praise and plaudits to come rolling in, and you receive them gratefully because you know how ridiculously easy it was to do.......
So are you saying that synthesizers produce worthless music?
I like Vangelis's scores. But I wouldn't chill and listen to his music. I'm not a musician. But he did some great soundtracks. You don't think the music in "Blade Runner" was effective?
I do know rock though. And great bands make great use of synthesizers. So I take you don't like Brian Eno, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Genesis, Devo?
It's just a different technique. And a genius will make a masterpiece with it. A dolt will make muzak.
I think you're just being cynical because you're not a fan of that music style.
No, I'm not a fan of strictly synthesised music, I admit. But I do appreciate it if it seems to have some traditional musical training behind it. If it's just very simple sustained notes, which rely on electronic enhancement to work, then yes I think that's worthless. Its only value is to a person while they're learning the basics of the keyboard.
Genesis at least incorporated synth tones into a solid rock structure. The synth component complemented the rock groove. I don't know the other people you mentioned.
I'm a fan of all music, (except of course rap and hiphop, which doesn't qualify), and I can listen to synthesisers when they're part of the composition as a whole. But music that is solely synthesised, ie, artificial, is frankly boring to me because it doesn't come from a "musical" brain, but a digital brain. When I listen to music I like to imagine the person or group who's playing it, not just some guy sitting at a computer in an empty room.
I even bore myself when I sit and dabble at my synth.
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I share your disdain for Hip Hop, most of it. It's relegated instrumentation to the background and replaced it with some guy yapping in your face. That's not good music to me.
But the complexity of the musical instrument being played is not always tantamount to a better song. A piano is more complex than a flute. But some songs played on a flute are just more aesthetically beautiful than more complex pieces written for a piano.
I just look at the end result. I'm not a musician so the effort to play the instrument is not important to me.
I just know Depeche Mode made some damn good music.
"But the complexity of the musical instrument being played is not always tantamount to a better song. A piano is more complex than a flute. But some songs played on a flute are just more aesthetically beautiful than more complex pieces written for a piano."
Absolutely right. Couldn't agree more.
Had a listen to "Enjoy The Silence", and yes, it's not bad.
But one thing I often notice about modern music is that the musical quality of the backing often sounds much better than the singer's voices. Many performers can make interesting instrumental music, but their voices are not always up to the same standard.
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Pioneers in electronic music (such as Delia Darbyshire, Tomita, Wendy Carlos and Vangelis) didn't have it as easy as we do today creating this type of music. The equipment they were using was massive and finicky, not like using a synth suite today. They had to work hard to create all these novel soundscapes. It wasn't something that was dashed off easily (especially in the early 70s). By the mid-80s, the synth music was becoming easier to produce, and all too many film producers saw it as a way to save money by only paying one person who didn't need to rent out session musicians and a large recording studio. Not all of them were as talented as Vangelis and others. For every Tomita or Vangelis there were far too many John Teshes and Kitaros who didn't possess their genius. In short, it became a lazy short cut - but it was not always thus.
shareThat's right. Synthesised music actually goes back to the early 60s, with Moog and others. Very primitive in those days. I don't think they actually called it music per se, but rather electronic sound effects; but they were very excited at the potential. The holy grail was to create an exact replica of a real-world orchestral instrument using electronics alone.
But I still can't see Vangelis as being especially talented in this kind of music. Not that there's anything noticeably wrong with his efforts, it's just fairly straightforward tonal variations without a hint of melody or structure. It's the kind of thing I used to do when I first got a synth, and spent hours experimenting with it.
You, Onan, and everyone else at this forum, could do the very same thing.
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But no one else but a handful actually did, though, so it couldn't have been that easy. I also think Bladerunner in particular is quite unique in how the music blends in with the ambient sounds of the soundtrack. There are also some pretty strong melodic ideas which also helps. There are in fact some very unique and original sonorities produced on that soundtrack.
I just finished watching "Witness" (1985) with an electronic score by Maurice Jarre. Jarre was more famous for his sweeping symphonic scores for "Lawrence of Arabia", etc.. His electronic score really isn't that great, and his use of synths really isn't that interesting in terms of color and timbre. I really think the "Raising of the Barn" sequence would have been much better played by an orchestra. Jarre's attempts at a more trendy electronic sound just came across sounding bland and washed out, as too many synth soundtracks did. The music of Vangelis, by contrast, really only works as electronic music. I've heard attempts to play his music with a full orchestra and it really doesn't come across, in my opinion. The more techno-oriented synth music of Tangerine Dream really hasn't had the staying power of "Chariots of Fire", "Bladerunner", "Missing", "1492" and "Alexander" either. So Vangelis and a handful of others clearly DID have something pretty special and unique.
I'll have to watch the film again and this time focus on the music... instead of Sean Young.. I do recall there are "explosions" and diminishing tones that cover several bars, and so on. I suppose you could say that the music matched the visuals pretty well. I don't notice any strong melodic lines, though, except maybe in the love theme. That piece has always sounded like a blued version of "You're Just Too Good To Be True". Pretty tune, but that's not due to its synthesised source.
I think it's not at all surprising that Maurice Jarre doesn't excel at synth music. The man is classically-trained with a lifetime of learning and musical experience behind him. In fact he deserves the term "genius" far more than Vangelis, imo. He's been trained to use each and every instrument of an orchestra to create his symphonies. To expect someone like him to make rich, complex, and evocative music using only one keyboard is like expecting a master painter to do a painting using only one crayon.
Interesting topic, though.
There's a reason why Vangelis is Vangelis, and... well, you're not.
shareOoooo, sharp.. ouch!
Hehe, listen, being compared negatively to that man is what I consider a compliment. He never did anything that any other amateur dabbler with a Roland couldn't do. He just got lucky and sold it.
Sorry to burst your bubble.
I heard someone once call Mozart "an untalented hack." It's amazing what acrobatics relativism has allowed.
share