Arthur FlenyoHow modern electronic music got trapped by the capitalism, and why its future is only beginning.
(my thoughts)
There are people who say that electronic music has run its course by now, and that just as every possible technique on the guitar has been explored, so too has everything that could be tweaked on a synth been tweaked; so, according to them, electronic music has reached a dead end and nothing new will come of it, only endless nostalgia cycle.
But I think they’re wrong, not only because electronic music hasn’t developed specifically in terms of its content (it's still remains a very abstract "genre" most of the times, especially compared to prog. rock or classical music, for example), but also because the market has imposed such a huge restrictions on production that people, it seems, have forgotten how to think without them. When it comes to electronic music, these restrictions are as follows. About 50 years ago, subtractive synthesis took over the entire market because of it synths then became cheaper, more compact, and faster, which led to many technologies being completely forgotten and many concepts remaining unrealized. For example, in the USSR, almost all films made before the 1970s used the ANS optical synthesizer, which generates sound from light beams, and the sound produced by such instruments differs from that of digital or analog synthesizers, even though it may be a wave of the same type. It sounds unique even compared to today. But because the market required an industry to be created and market required only these types of technologies that could be put into mass production, all this diversity was discarded. Today, we could start studying all of this anew, but we don't. And it seems we're stuck in an endless loop of simulacra and “nostalgia.”
Also, there are some people saying that neural networks "democratize" art. In reality, they don’t, because democratizing art means making its best examples accessible for the masses to absorb and be understood in its complexity. So, while some say that neural networks "democratize art", others complain that everything sounds monotonous and boring. But in essence, digitization, the shift to DAWs, and the ease of music creation represent a past wave of “democratization” that, by lowering the barrier to entry, has already made a lot of things uniform.
About 30 years ago, even within the same genre different songs were created by different people using different instruments under different conditions; it was recorded and processed in different ways, resulting in greater diversity. At the same time, the very limitations of the past pushed people to think and act creatively with what they already had.
In short, it’s incorrect to say that electronic music has reached its limit and realized its full potential. It has simply reached its market limit. In reality, there’s such a vast field for growth!
#ElectronicMusic #SynthHistory #Enshittification #LateCapitalism #CapitalistRealism #Creativity #Resistance #Hauntology #Simulacra
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