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Topic: I admit it's growing on me, but is it Mike O?< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
jtchivers Offline




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Posted: June 30 2010, 12:22

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A good example of what can be accomplished using mostly sequenced instruments


Sorry, ^NabLa^, but I reckon that Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, and Kraftwerk were doing more interesting music with sequencers nearly 40 years ago.
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Cooper Roy Offline




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Posted: June 30 2010, 18:17

Quote (jtchivers @ June 30 2010, 12:22)
I reckon that Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, and Kraftwerk were doing more interesting music with sequencers nearly 40 years ago.

How much do i concur? let me count the ways.  :)

Saw Tangs Live in 1974 doing very naughty things with very early sequencers. ;)

CR


--------------
"I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave-and nothing but laughter to console them with.Laughter is my religion.In the manner of most religions, I admit my laughter is pretty desperate."
                                                                   John Irving
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nightspore Offline




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Posted: June 30 2010, 23:07

"Interesting" implies it appeals to the mind. The thing about Mike's music is that it appeals to the emotions.
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ex member 892 Offline




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Posted: July 01 2010, 10:54

Quote (nightspore @ June 30 2010, 23:07)
"Interesting" implies it appeals to the mind. The thing about Mike's music is that it appeals to the emotions.

For me Mike's music appeals both to the mind and the emotions.
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Sir Mustapha Offline




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Posted: July 01 2010, 13:57

Quote (nightspore @ June 30 2010, 23:07)
"Interesting" implies it appeals to the mind. The thing about Mike's music is that it appeals to the emotions.

I could easily consider that an insult. :)

"Mind" and "emotion" are complimentary, mutually necessary, and appealing to one without appealing to the other is sort of like taking a dive on a swimming pool without getting wet: even if you could somehow manage it, what's the point? :)


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Check out http://ferniecanto.com.br for all my music, including my latest albums: Don't Stay in the City, Making Amends and Builders of Worlds.
Also check my Bandcamp page: http://ferniecanto.bandcamp.com
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nightspore Offline




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Posted: July 01 2010, 22:01

Quote (Sir Mustapha @ July 01 2010, 13:57)
Quote (nightspore @ June 30 2010, 23:07)
"Interesting" implies it appeals to the mind. The thing about Mike's music is that it appeals to the emotions.

I could easily consider that an insult. :)

"Mind" and "emotion" are complimentary, mutually necessary, and appealing to one without appealing to the other is sort of like taking a dive on a swimming pool without getting wet: even if you could somehow manage it, what's the point? :)

I agree with this very Kantian point. Still, the fact that they're complementary and mutually necessary doesn't mean that they're indistinguishable: if they were, we wouldn't have two separate words for them.
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^NabLa^ Offline




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Posted: July 02 2010, 06:23

Quote (jtchivers @ June 30 2010, 17:22)
Quote
A good example of what can be accomplished using mostly sequenced instruments


Sorry, ^NabLa^, but I reckon that Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, and Kraftwerk were doing more interesting music with sequencers nearly 40 years ago.

In your opinion, that is :)

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^NabLa^
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Cooper Roy Offline




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Posted: July 02 2010, 11:45

Quote (nightspore @ July 01 2010, 22:01)
I agree with this very Kantian point.

"You mentioned Kant and I was shocked
You know,where I come from,none of the  girls have such foul
tongues."
                                  Hasta Manana Monsieur/Sparks

How they hangin',Nightspore?   :p

CR


--------------
"I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave-and nothing but laughter to console them with.Laughter is my religion.In the manner of most religions, I admit my laughter is pretty desperate."
                                                                   John Irving
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: July 02 2010, 18:18

@ NabLa & jtchivers: of course Jean Michel Jarre [no hyphen, please - he never had one!], Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk were doing more interesting things with sequencers 40 years ago - 40 years ago, sequencers were brand new things, and of course the people you mentioned were very good at being "creative" with sequencers. But this is not the point. The point is that, to me, "interesting" doesn't always equate with "good" - especially in music. JMJ's Oxygene and Equinoxe were absolute masterpieces, but then he got progressively down and down and down and in 2004 he produced "Aero", which was pure dream-house RobertMiles-ish shit. [My Gosh, Robert Miles does it so much better than JMJ, let him do it! :p] I can't comment on Tangerine Dream as I'm not familiar with their output, but I'm very much familiar with Kraftwerk's output - I've got their Catalogue box. And, to me, some of the stuff that Kraftwerk did with sequencers 40-odd years ago is terrifyingly boring. L+S never bores me. Yes, it may be predictable, overly computerized and "uninteresting", but to me it's excellent music. And that's what the main point is: the music on L+S is good.

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Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian
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nightspore Offline




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Posted: July 02 2010, 20:39

Quote (Ugo @ July 02 2010, 18:18)
JMJ's Oxygene and Equinoxe were absolute masterpieces,

The impression I always get when I listen to Equinoxe is that, having produced one really good piece (part 5), JMJ started scratchng his head and thinking "Oh no, I'll never produce anything as good as that in the short term. What can I do?" His solution was to produce a variation on part 5 and an extremely short album!
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Milamber Offline




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Posted: July 02 2010, 21:10

Nightspore have you seen Oxygene in your living room .
A friend sent it to me a few weeks ago on Divx.
Looks like half the synths are ready to fall apart on JMJ.

Have you ever cringed when a fellow Aussie says, do you like
Geen Michael Jarrr-Raay that poof. The Chisels, thats real music you wally woofter.
Philistines.
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jtchivers Offline




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Posted: July 02 2010, 21:43

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Jean Michel Jarre [no hyphen, please - he never had one!]


He most certainly did! It's a reasonably common French name, and it is hyphenated. That's his birth name and how it was written until he dropped it in 1991 (probably to appeal to the English speaking world, which clearly can't cope with a hyphen) ;)

Makes me laugh this thread. None of us is going to convince the other by arguing about tastes - it's all completely subjective. To me, there's more interest in JMJ and Tangerine Dream, and Kraftwerk precisely because they were pioneers in popular electronic music (and because their early albums were musically interesting - yes, even in repetition). Analogue synths just sound better to me than digital or even virtual analogue synths. But most importantly for me, they didn't use stupid dance beats in their music in their early works (and as far as I'm aware TD still haven't).

I would agree that JMJ hasn't done much interesting really since Revolutions (except perhaps the follow up Oxygen 7-13 album - or Oxygène in French - note the grave accent on the first 'e' if we're being picky :p)

I agree that some of the music on L+S, perhaps even a lot of it, is good. I personally don't like how it is arranged and I'd prefer Mike to be working fully with real instruments again (to bring the music alive for me - his sequenced music lacks power to me), but there are plenty of people who will disagree with me and who love L+S, so that's fine.

It's good that we have different tastes, or the world would be a very boring place. I will just never be convinced by anything sequenced which has anything remotely resembling a stupid dance beat with a kick drum on the 1st and 3rd and an open hi-hat sound on the 2nd and 4th beat...whoever happens to be using it - in the same way that I'll never be convinced about the merits of rap (another thing which should have died off years ago)!
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Cooper Roy Offline




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Posted: July 03 2010, 03:42

Quote (Ugo @ July 02 2010, 18:18)
@ NabLa & jtchivers: of course Jean Michel Jarre [no hyphen, please - he never had one!]

I'm sure he had! Just in-between the Mini-Moog and the Eminent String.What would Oxxy-Jean be without it?

-sorry,alternate universe Jarrre   ;)

CR


--------------
"I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave-and nothing but laughter to console them with.Laughter is my religion.In the manner of most religions, I admit my laughter is pretty desperate."
                                                                   John Irving
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Cooper Roy Offline




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Posted: July 03 2010, 03:55

Quote (Ugo @ July 02 2010, 18:18)
I can't comment on Tangerine Dream as I'm not familiar with their output, but I'm very much familiar with Kraftwerk's output - I've got their Catalogue box. And, to me, some of the stuff that Kraftwerk did with sequencers 40-odd years ago is terrifyingly boring.

Mmmmm,Ugo. I have a copy of the Bible but would not claim to be very familiar with J.C.'s output...

If you have said box listen again to Kometenmelodie 2 on Autobahn and tell me its not a life-affirming sequenced beauty?

(proviso-my familiarity is with the original mix of 74.Now,where have we seen  mix of 74 on these forums before?) :laugh:

CR


--------------
"I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave-and nothing but laughter to console them with.Laughter is my religion.In the manner of most religions, I admit my laughter is pretty desperate."
                                                                   John Irving
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jtchivers Offline




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Posted: July 03 2010, 04:34

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I'm sure he had! Just in-between the Mini-Moog and the Eminent String.What would Oxxy-Jean be without it?


:laugh: Killer synths, those Hyphens! They had an amazing dash!  ;)

Ah, Autobahn - what a beautiful album! I agree - the original 1974 mix. Unfortunately, another band who felt compelled to 'whizz all over a Picasso' - in this case their own work - by releasing The Mix (or Das Mix, depending on your geography). But lo, what sound through yonder speaker breaks? 'Tis another stupid bl**dy dance beat!

Actually, I always thought that Autobahn was played without sequencers, based on the contemporary footage and the beautiful mistake at 6:01 of the title track (a bit like Mike's own lovely mistake in the double speed guitar finale section of Tubular Bells Part 1 - it probably makes him cringe, but I missed it in Tubular Bells 2003 and I'm glad he left it in the remixed version. Shows he's human... and that he didn't have enough time to fix it!;) It doesn't have the precise, lifeless (and therefore perfect) synthetic sound of their later work - which I love by the way!

...that track Computer Love (or Computer Liebe) - what a rip off of the lovely Coldplay song, Talk! :p
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: July 03 2010, 08:30

@ jtchivers: of course Jean-Michel Jarre has a hyphen in his French name, but he only does on his ID card. What I meant is that he never artistically had one. When Oxygène originally came out in France, his name on the cover had no hyphen, so it wasn't a matter of English-speaking audiences - his name just looked better that way. :) Regarding "Computer Love", I'm sure that you're joking, as I'm sure you know that it's the other way around. :) And it's not a rip-off, but it's fully authorized: the story goes that Chris Martin wrote a long letter to Ralf Hütter explaining in detail the what, the how and the why, and asking if they could do it; Hütter replied just "Yes". By the way, Autobahn (the title track) does feature a drum machine. Isn't a drum machine a very simple sequencer?

@ Cooper Roy: Kometenmelodie 2 is really, really good. Autobahn (the track) is good in some sections and very boring in others. Of course the version on The Mix is awful in comparison to the original, but it works very nicely within the context of Kraftwerk's latest audio-visual multimedia live show (or pseudo-live, I may say. :D).


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Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian
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jtchivers Offline




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Posted: July 03 2010, 09:10

@Ugo - Interestingly, although not on the album covers (I'd never noticed that in all these years!;), his name is hyphenated (its correct spellling) on many of the labels on the actual vinyl. Strange fellow! Of course, he just started using Jarre anyway after a while on the covers.

Yeah, I was joking about Computer Love. I was outraged when I heard the blatant rip-off by Coldplay - I was just annoyed that many of my contemporaries heard it and were raving about how great a melody it was and how clever Coldplay were for coming up with the song (you know the kind - follow the music press). You should have seen their faces when I played Computer Love to them and told them when it had been released. ;)

Supposedly, Hütter replied via fax with the word 'Yes', like you say - brilliant - the enigmatic Kraftwerk!

I believe that all the 'drumming' on Autobahn was actually played by Wolfgang Flür using custom-made electronic pads (that's certainly the impression I got from the contemporary footage and what I read) - depending on their line-up, Kraftwerk used acoustic drums, drum machines (well, primitive organ presets) or up to two members playing electronic percussion from what I remember, but I am not an Überfan, so don't quote me on that!

I remember building an electronic drum kit using a bedside table, patches of foil, a broken Commodore joystick, and drumsticks with foil ends when I was a kid - a VIC 20 program did the rest - great fun! That was based on what I'd seen them use (except the VIC 20 bit obviously!;)
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nightspore Offline




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Posted: July 03 2010, 09:13

Quote (milamber @ July 02 2010, 21:10)
Nightspore have you seen Oxygene in your living room .
A friend sent it to me a few weeks ago on Divx.
Looks like half the synths are ready to fall apart on JMJ.

Have you ever cringed when a fellow Aussie says, do you like
Geen Michael Jarrr-Raay that poof. The Chisels, thats real music you wally woofter.
Philistines.

Actually, I have a Cold Chisel record somewhere, Milamber. Where I do martial arts they tend to play AC/DC - although they do have one music track that features a trancish version of "Moonlight Shadow".
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: July 03 2010, 10:43

Off-topic, @ nightspore: are you really into martial arts? Cool. :cool: I'm not, because I'm not into fighting sports not being a fighter by nature. About the "trancish version of MS", may it be this one (which I think I've already linked other times in this board) ?

@ jtchivers: I remember lots and lots of TV performances, from when I was a kid, with at least two members of Kraftwerk playing drum pads or something like that. I often though that it was just for scenic purposes, and that the drum part was programmed. Most of the drumming in "Autobahn" sounds too regular to me to be actually played live, even on pads. But if there is footage of them actually playing those drum parts on pads, well, I stand corrected. :)


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Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian
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nightspore Offline




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Posted: July 03 2010, 20:51

Quote (Ugo @ July 03 2010, 10:43)
Off-topic, @ nightspore: are you really into martial arts? Cool. :cool: I'm not, because I'm not into fighting sports not being a fighter by nature. About the "trancish version of MS", may it be this one (which I think I've already linked other times in this board) ?

Hi Ugo, yes, we had a discussion about this a while ago - you told me that you had done fencing once. I'm mainly training in Taekwondo, but I do a bit of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu now and then. The trouble is, jiu jitsu is like chess for the human body (for every move there's a counter move and a counter counter move); you never ever master it.

And we also had a few conversations about E-rotic's version of "Moonlight Shadow" (and their versions of other things.)
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