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I recently tried reading the book How Music Works, but couldn’t make it past the first chapter because David Byrne pointed out that music was relative to culture. This point was demonstrated by the steel drums used in Africa to echo across trees to make everyone aware of their presence. Being that I could see why a banjo wouldn’t be good in this situation, I found the book to be less than fruitful so I put it aside, at least for the time being.
Having spent the majority of my life on the east coast, which is a real bevy of choices when it comes to music, I couldn’t help but think that something like country music relates to a state like Texas. Is this a fair generalization to make? I’m not saying everyone who lives in Texas likes/listens to country music, but the fact remains that if you go to Texas and flip through the radio stations you are bound to find a lot more country stations than in, say, Connecticut. So I guess before I read about this concept I was given firsthand knowledge of it, moving out to Texas and then back to Connecticut again.
The idea of music being relative to one’s culture does intrigue me, though, when it comes to this archives collection from Orange Crush. From the piano we start off with, to the sound of a helicopter, to audio clips about the cosmos, to The Illegal Wiretaps, to a whole bunch of other noises this music crosses nearly every genre I like while barely sticking to one.
In a lot of ways, this album plays more as a soundtrack, a compilation of various bands if you will, because despite its fluidness, it can sound like a different band depending upon what track you’re on.
A sparkling example of this is the song “Electrophonic”, which we find at the halfway point on this album, which has a very new wave/Beverly Hills Cop type sound. Quite different from the electronic/ambient music we had heard just a few tracks prior.
What one must look for when listening to this music though is the culture in which it is connected to, thus that will explain everything. We live in a society where having free wi-fi is not so much a privilege anymore but it seen more as an afterthought.
As a computer programmer myself, I find this music to be outstanding to write code to and thus I have determined that it is in somehow a reflection of the prevalence of technology in society today. Spin that into what clever genre name you should see fit.
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