Hollow

From decidedly un-’Celtic moods’ to ‘Peruvian Piss with pan-pipes’ to the rest of them I wish people would stop making synthesiser backed shite that denegrates local cultures in service of middle-of-the-road profiteering.

It’s like being offered a prime piece of fillet steak and opting for beef chewing gum instead. Or like going to the zoo instead of seeing animals in their natural habitat.

Tell you what, here is an idea – if you want to get a feel for the music of a country listen to the original music and not the snythesised muzac-ed version of it - then get some. We live in the day of the download - it isn’t difficult. Better yet, go to the places where you might find it and listen.

I quite like most kinds of music but if I feel like I want to listen to The Doors I just put on The Doors, I don’t watch pop-idol and wait for an adolescent fucktard to ruin it for me. If I want to listen to Verdi I don’t put on Joe Dolce. If I want to listen to Public Enemy I don’t listen to New Kids On The Block. If I want to listen to Bach I don’t put on Muzac and so on.

Why has it become acceptable to do so with more traditional forms of music?

Firstly, because the people who make these things are selling an idea rather than a piece of music.

Secondly, the idea they are selling is of a culture untainted and that untainted culture might be too far from those peoples ideal of a homogenized McCulture. Therefore they soften the blow for the audience (without asking them if they wanted it softened) by taking out any of the individualism and idiosyncracies in the music that might make it interesting.

When you listen to these albums (normally I am near to retching after a few seconds but for the purposes of this article I tried to listen to a few of them straight through) there is a formula - and it goes like this…

1. Start with a single (semi) acoustic instrument playing a melody that evokes hollywood style images of the place where the music in question is supposed to come from.
2. After around 30 seconds add another instrument.
3. Add a singer.
4. Gut out anything that might make the music genuinely belong to a particular time and place and replace with a mass produced machine making a pattern of notes vaguely similar to some of the traditional music of the area in question though not necessarily using the correct scale.
5. Over the next few minutes build up to a crescendo with a few instruments and a load of synthesiser stuff until any vestige of traditional music is gone.

There is nothing better than seeing the traditional music of a place performed in the right setting. It is also tremendous to see traditional music performed as it should be in a different setting. I used to share a flat with an African guy in Scotland and he had a band and quite often I would get woken up on Sunday mornings by them practising. It was wonderful to see and hear.

The traditional music of Scotland and Ireland are similar and I like both. Like the two nations, the two kinds of music have a similar heritage, history and starting point. It does annoy me a bit though when I search around youtube and look at the comments on Scottish music things and see them described as ‘brilliant Irish music’.

Yes, FYI - the Whitehouse is a stunning Canadian symbol.

I know that it is just another example of mass-produced saccharine culture but I even saw one called ‘Celtic panpipes’ once. Behave.

It is like seeing the Paris in Disneyland instead of seeing Paris. It is like sex with a partner of 50 years with 10 condoms on and 10 femdoms in. So safe and sanitised you are in absolutely no danger of actually feeling anything.