quietly observing reactions to the new friends& album "folx" has been an oddly prophetic-seeming experience, given the stylistic similarities to my own forthcoming LP Reconstructing Summer. there i find a sort of vicarious interaction with critical polarization on a larger scale than i'm personally familiar with, which ideally will remain vicarious as i continue ignoring most if not all post-release reception of a project and diving straight into finishing up the next one, lest the well of my creative spirit be poisoned by The Discourse and in turn potentially form some petty desire to "prove the haters wrong". it's really of no use to me. anyone can say anything about anything. they will say anything about anything. might as well be randomized. an uncaring force of nature. luckily, i have no such incentive to reflexively avoid spectating the conversation surrounding folx, an album that last time i checked Was Not Created By Me, at most merely influenced an unknown amount by feedback i (in addition to many other test listeners) gave on its demos. i can dare to question the critics without any of the undesirable side-effects. yippee!
a recurring sentiment i've noticed among detractors of such hyper-eclectic digital musicians is the assumption that our sonic density is little more than a way of Disguising Weak Songwriting, whatever "weak songwriting" might mean to you. "style over substance", as if there will ever be a coherent definition of musical Substance in the first place. so let's contrast that with an actual behind-the-scenes perspective! while i can't speak on behalf of every artist dealing in aural maximalism, to me this comes across as a fundamental misunderstanding of the creative process. even whilst producing the poppiest of my work, there is no hard line between Songwriting & Sound Collaging; both approaches coincide, inform each other, merge into something more diverse than either could accomplish on their own. textures that might normally be considered Finishing Touches are often foundational layers like any other. not once have i thought to myself anything resembling "hmmmm, since i'm not satisfied with this melody, i shall deliberately conceal it with noise instead of rewriting it, and the foolish masses will be too distracted to notice! muahahahahaha..." these compositions were Always going to be that dense, both as a matter of thematic relevance and of personal preference. it's eclecticism as an act of celebration, a simultaneous wielding of numerous disparate musical traditions in search of new ways to reveal their strengths, in search of sensory transcendence to take some brief solace in as everything crumbles around us. disliking the result of that is one thing — you are entitled to your hatred of joy — but i think you cease to be worth taking seriously as soon as you begin projecting your own grievances onto the work's intent. i see critics fall into this obvious trap constantly and it's maddening. take this quote for instance:
Music is, obviously, subjective, but to me, Folx is one of the most fundamentally off putting things I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to. It’s a monumental act of hubris in the vein of other legendarily overindulgent flops like “Be Here Now,” but with all the ballsy, who-gives-a-shit attitude that makes them so intoxicating replaced with a snobbish intellectualism that feels like it’s sneering at me for “not getting it.” Any potential saving grace from the context surrounding this record in the actual music is mostly hopeless, with 112 tracks of music meant not to make you dance, or groove, or be shocked, or rock, or do much of anything except to nod along like you’re in an art gallery.
thinking a work feels snobbish is not the same as it being snobbish, and i'd argue the former says more about whoever's engaging than the work itself. you may feel like it's sneering at you because many have come to erroneously associate all forms of textual density with academic pretension. (perhaps i too am now pretentious for writing a sentence with too many words longer than six letters.) and who is this reviewer to say what the music of folx is and is not "meant" to inspire in you? i was sure as hell shocked by it, and i sure as hell danced, so are we to believe i was Doing It Wrong? when this reviewer asserts that folx is "not pop music" because "hooks, repetition, and any semblance of memorability or catchyness are thrown out the window", am i to believe my brain is malfunctioning for having looped the vocal repetitions of "Mr. Tambourine Man" for days now?[1] this is what i mean by anyone can say anything about anything; the notion that There Are No Hooks Anywhere In This Album is a demonstrable factual error, and yet it persists as one of the most prevalent criticisms. shared reality is so dead that we cannot even agree on what's contained in an audio file. at this point, i've come to accept that pretty much any artistic analysis which favors Qualitative Assessment over Thematic Interpretation is worse than useless and should be discarded on principle. i'm being a little hyperbolic there, every rule has an exception, et cetera, i've just completely run out of patience for that shit. fellow maximalists, please continue doing what you're doing. we've got a beautiful thing going here.
