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Unfinishedness, April 22
Apr. 22nd, 2012 05:40 pmOver on Tumblr, Trevor posted nice things about me, which I therefore urge you to read. Appropriately enough, the passage of mine he cites as "perfect" is one that I myself find very problematic. Maybe "perfect" can mean, "desperately needs a lot of elaboration" — which is certainly more stimulating than "wraps it up so that we don't have to say anything more on the matter."
In that paragraph, I claim that the rock 'n' soul singers on the U.S. version of The Voice are looking backwards rather than into adventure, whereas the quirk girls who've heard Adele and who draw on the last two decades of quasi-eccentric singer-songwriters are hearing a world of permutation and possibility. And I perceive similarly open ears in the South Korean take on almost any music.
Now, I wouldn't say such things if I didn't believe them, but if confronted by a skeptic I'd have a lot of trouble even explaining what I mean much less supporting it. For instance, why does the re-working of disco and freestyle by Korean producers like Shinsadong Tiger and SweeTune go into my category adventure, whereas the 57 or so varieties of mewlers, bawlers, gruff baritones, AC smoothies, etc. that I'm calling "soul" all get consigned to the retro bin? Why can't the fact of so many varieties be evidence of permutation and possibility in soul, too? South Korea feels fresh to me while the American soul bores feel barely reheated, but this feeling hardly explains anything, and I lean heavily on the explanatory power of the actually quite opaque word "adventure."
( Further responses owed to Askbask and Arbitrary_greay )
In that paragraph, I claim that the rock 'n' soul singers on the U.S. version of The Voice are looking backwards rather than into adventure, whereas the quirk girls who've heard Adele and who draw on the last two decades of quasi-eccentric singer-songwriters are hearing a world of permutation and possibility. And I perceive similarly open ears in the South Korean take on almost any music.
Now, I wouldn't say such things if I didn't believe them, but if confronted by a skeptic I'd have a lot of trouble even explaining what I mean much less supporting it. For instance, why does the re-working of disco and freestyle by Korean producers like Shinsadong Tiger and SweeTune go into my category adventure, whereas the 57 or so varieties of mewlers, bawlers, gruff baritones, AC smoothies, etc. that I'm calling "soul" all get consigned to the retro bin? Why can't the fact of so many varieties be evidence of permutation and possibility in soul, too? South Korea feels fresh to me while the American soul bores feel barely reheated, but this feeling hardly explains anything, and I lean heavily on the explanatory power of the actually quite opaque word "adventure."
( Further responses owed to Askbask and Arbitrary_greay )
