Deck the House
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Akufen - Deck the House
I have a confession. During a rather dark twelve or fifteen month period in my life, around about the end of high school, I attended quite a few - and it pains me to admit this - raves. You know: glow sticks, bad house music, large pants, drugs made in someone's bathtub. Seriously. All of the sudden, everyone I knew was either a DJ or saving up money to buy turntables. The raves were in people's basements, obscure community centres in small villages, or even out in the woods. While everyone I knew seemed really into the whole thing, I would always be sober at these raves, most often in a state of extreme crankiness, and would be subjected to hours of the absolute worst music ever produced. The beats were always the same, just at a different tempo, and the songs themselves blended into one another in such a way that I think you had to be really concentrating to tell the difference between them. Among other things, the songs were filled with the cheesiest vocals ever conceived ("Oooo love is every-eeeee-thing, whooooaaaa", etc.), whistles, smoky smooth jazz saxophones, bad synths - I get angry even thinking about it. All that people at these raves cared about was that the music was easy to dance to, which it was. (If I can dance to it, then it is easy to dance to.) In fact, I'm willing to bet that house music is the absolute lowest common denominator in the spectrum of dance music. It is, after all, intended to appeal to a group of people, largely out of their mind on a painfull mixture of bad drugs made of household cleaners, dressed like teddy bears and sucking on soothers.
Which brings me to this song. If house music is, by its very definition, bad, what am I supposed to make of good house music? Can there possibly be such a thing? Is the whole basis for my philosophy of music criticism (ie, the question "Is this song at least better than house music?") somehow inherently flawed? You can ponder these questions while you listen to the song posted above. I'll just add that, when I first heard this song, my mind literally exploded. Seriously, it was totally gross. We can discuss the matter further in the comments.
[This song is from the very, very good album "My Way". Buy it here.]
Akufen - Deck the House
I have a confession. During a rather dark twelve or fifteen month period in my life, around about the end of high school, I attended quite a few - and it pains me to admit this - raves. You know: glow sticks, bad house music, large pants, drugs made in someone's bathtub. Seriously. All of the sudden, everyone I knew was either a DJ or saving up money to buy turntables. The raves were in people's basements, obscure community centres in small villages, or even out in the woods. While everyone I knew seemed really into the whole thing, I would always be sober at these raves, most often in a state of extreme crankiness, and would be subjected to hours of the absolute worst music ever produced. The beats were always the same, just at a different tempo, and the songs themselves blended into one another in such a way that I think you had to be really concentrating to tell the difference between them. Among other things, the songs were filled with the cheesiest vocals ever conceived ("Oooo love is every-eeeee-thing, whooooaaaa", etc.), whistles, smoky smooth jazz saxophones, bad synths - I get angry even thinking about it. All that people at these raves cared about was that the music was easy to dance to, which it was. (If I can dance to it, then it is easy to dance to.) In fact, I'm willing to bet that house music is the absolute lowest common denominator in the spectrum of dance music. It is, after all, intended to appeal to a group of people, largely out of their mind on a painfull mixture of bad drugs made of household cleaners, dressed like teddy bears and sucking on soothers.
Which brings me to this song. If house music is, by its very definition, bad, what am I supposed to make of good house music? Can there possibly be such a thing? Is the whole basis for my philosophy of music criticism (ie, the question "Is this song at least better than house music?") somehow inherently flawed? You can ponder these questions while you listen to the song posted above. I'll just add that, when I first heard this song, my mind literally exploded. Seriously, it was totally gross. We can discuss the matter further in the comments.
[This song is from the very, very good album "My Way". Buy it here.]
posted by ian at 3:03 PM
1 Comments:
That's my favourite Akufen track too. Even though dance music is faulty and repetitive, it can sometimes surprise you.
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