Skip to main content

Listening Report: John Oswald

 

As much as I despise the Plexure album because it is truly exhausting to listen to, John Oswald created the epitome of multitasking. I think this piece harbors a certain amount of arrogance toward society. Oswald just took everything and put it together. I don't think it was his intention to provoke anyone with it. He is probably well aware that not everyone can be reached with every type of music – especially when it is all mixed together. He claims it is a musical quote – a reminder that the world is full of plagiarizing, but I think it’s not an homage to anything. It just exists in its own little entity. I obviously don’t know if Oswald thought that he had created the greatest piece of music to ever exist – I certainly don’t think so. And as I have already mentioned, I physically cannot listen to it. But it shows how messy something can be.

 

I personally think it sounds like someone is skipping through their playlist – I don’t know – maybe the passenger in a car (aka “the DJ”) and I am the poor driver that has to endure someone not letting a song finish. It truly agitates me. But that is just my opinion.

 

It has something special though. When I think about people that use music as journaling – giving a song the feelings of a whole generation (this is mostly the case when a song defines a certain era), reminding people of situations they have heard it in the most – these plunderphonics albums serve as exactly that. John Oswald put the greatest pop songs over years into one album – one continuous track that combines them all. It is almost like a time capsule that people probably won’t know how to read in the future (which is a pretty funny thing to imagine).

 

People will probably argue that he butchers the songs, that they are not the original "great hits", but as he has mentioned, that was not his intention. You just need to reasonably be able to recognize the source. He's having fun with it while keeping the connection to the original. It's almost as if he's testing the limits. And I imagine that could be a reason for people to feel attacked by this.

 

For me, personally, it is not a problem. I just don’t like the way its sounds. But that doesn’t them from the fact that he is “destroying” a great original.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure

 Sarah Kumar Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath The Future of (American) Music 06 Mar. 2023 Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure According to John Oswald, “[a] plunderphone is a recognizable sonic quote, using the actual sound of something familiar which has already been recorded” (Lecture Slides 18). However, only if the source stays recognizable can it be called plunderphonics. In his album Plexure , several songs are played back and mixed together, thus creating a new sound. This is interesting because while the excerpts of songs that are used are recognizable or at least sound familiar to some degree, played backwards and mashed up as they are in Plexure , they create a new sound. Like on the cover of the album, on which a collage making up a man can be seen, the mixing of different songs played backwards gives a new feeling to something known. The way the songs are mixed makes them unintelligible. The meaning of the words of the original recordings are not able to be compr...
Post a Comment
Read more

John Cage – Inlets

  This does not sound like music to me. Depending on the interpretation of different players or performers, this piece will always sound different. In this case, it sounds to me like someone is walking through a cave with water at the bottom, dragging their feet through it. Sometimes it sounds like water in a toilet bowl, especially when we hear the water in a bigger shell being swished around. These sounds are relaxing in the background, it is like a gentle stream of water. I just wonder what went through the head of the composer while writing this piece. But I guess he had some experimental ideas that are interesting to try out. Those shells are quite pretty, I have never seen such big ones that are not broken. I was surprised when something else happened towards the end of the piece. That tone which came out of the one shell was so clear, it sounded like a trumpet. I didn’t know that shells can sound like that. It was quite beautiful. It was a nice way to end the piece. I di...
Post a Comment
Read more

William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops III

  The Disintegration Loops is a quartet of albums published in 2002 and 2003 by American avant-garde composer William Basinski. The pieces are made up of tape loop recordings that were played over time, with noise and crackles rising as the tape deteriorated. Basinski noticed this effect when attempting to convert his older recordings to digital format. The completion of the recordings coincided with the September 11, 2001 events, which Basinski witnessed and adds a deeper meaning to the composition. The composition is fascinating in many ways and makes the listener lose track of time. The tape loop recording had a very calming effect on me and put me in a trance-like state when I listened to it in its entirety. The tape loop is really soothing, so much so that I didn't even notice the loss of quality when I first listened to it. It makes you forget about time and allows you to really get into the piece capturing the calmness it exudes. You forget or don't really notice how i...
Post a Comment
Read more