Recycling regurgitating the latest thing

Reshuffle > Edit > Recyle > Goto 10?

Just something I’ve been thinking about recently; but those of you who are musicians, artists, DJs and the like – do you get fed up with recycling or regugitating the ‘latest thing’?

I think this affects DJs and mashup/cutup artists more than others, the feeling or pressure from the media and record industry to work with the latest acapella/track or genre unless you feel out of the loop – there does seem to be a cycle or feed chain with what goes around; even obscure artists getting picked up seem to have some strange synchronicity or loop/pattern to it.

It’s a weird sort of media-malaise; an editing ennui…it was sort of covered in the Pet Shop Boys ‘DJ Culture’ – the video and timing was synchronous with the Gulf War and the sampling of media-friendly clips of Iraq being bombed.

The feeling that you’re regurgitating what’s gone before and just part of an endless feedback of making crap pop singles or oldies palatable is one of the reasons I don’t make many mashups unless I have a good reason (political/humour) and a message to do so.

Unlike say The Fall or Wesley Willis I don’t have voices in my head forcing me to create tracks or artwork – but there is this low-level background hum of ‘getting along’ and wanting to keep up with others or wanting or keeping a media/online profile – this is what I have resisted – Kelly Clarkson, Gwen Stefani and Britney can sleep safely in their beds knowing I won’t be messing around with such pop shite anyday soon; pop-culture currency or no.

…ahh but am I ‘Losing My Edge’?
Are the footprints sounding behind me?
Do I care?
Or am I talking crap?

I get more excited about Wayne Butane (thanks bjason for that pointe ) and Shitmat and ‘bad’ outsider music than I do most mashups nowadays…

Comments

2 responses to “Reshuffle > Edit > Recyle > Goto 10?”

  1. Matt Hite avatar

    I’ll stick my neck out there and say “I’m with you, Tim.” I try to stear clear of the flavor of the week as far as my own mash-ups go… funny thing is that what I consider to be my best work is also probably bound to be the least recognizable:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20081122021359/http://www.beatmixed.com/2005/10/the_lovemakers_.html

    Which ironically doesn’t make it much of a mash-up if it’s two bands nobody knows …

    :/

  2. Mr Fab avatar

    He he, spoken like a true MusicForManiacs-type person (I’ve written about Mr Butane a couplea times – they quote me on his website!) But I think it’s just natural that after having obsessively immersed yourself in one scene there will be a bit of a burnout after a while. Doesn’t mean the style is dead of course – as you know, most folks out there still have no idea what a mashup is, and it’s new and exciting to them. But creative sorts often want to move on after exploring something. I personally won’t be doing too many more a+b mashups anymore (he says now). This year, I’ll be doing more complex sound-collage type things, or mashups with alot more elements (a+b+c+d+e…), and maybe integrating more live instruments, vocals, etc. But it’s all bootleggery, innit?

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