Throw THIS on me...

Hey, Readerland.  The Ogre is back to drop some knowledge, so let's just get right to it.

We were on a roadtrip/at the Mensa Annual Gathering for the past couple of weeks and I met some new people.  One of the guys (Hey, John!) and I were talking and I mentioned that I DJ for PartyFM (listen.partyfmradio.net 1 pm Eastern today!).  He asked what kind of music I played and I attempted to explain my shows to him and we got into a discussion about different music styles that we liked and disliked and it turned out that we were both fans of progressive rock.  Well, one discussion lead to another and I was talking about how I dislike music that seems overproduced or that has way too much going on at the same time in it.  I've heard this called "The Timbaland Effect."

What's funny about that is that I'm also a fan of classical music and if you have a full orchestra doing their thing, everything is incredibly layered and complex and has a lot of different parts going on at the same time, but it almost never feels like it's too much.

I think this is the reason I've always been attracted to music from the 40's, 50's and early 60's, because most everything was simple.  Vocals, guitars, drums, and maybe some keyboard.  Bluegrass and blues are awesome for that reason.  Even in their complexity, they keep things from getting too bogged down.  I've heard some tracks, especially in hip hop and dance music, where the producer seemed to feel like every single second of the track needed to have some kind of sound in it, even during the break, when it really should just be the beat and maybe one effect.  The listener needs a break from all of the sound to appreciate what they're hearing.  If you continuously throw sound at people, they become used to it.  You need to ease the throttle back sometimes or you'll blow out the engine.

Okay, I'm not sure that last analogy made any sense.

Anyway.  What I'm trying to say is that while complex music can be beautiful, sometimes there is also a beauty in simplicity and some artists would be served well by learning that.

A friend of mine (Hey, Matt!) is a "creates music" DJ instead of "playing music" DJ like me and he produces really good stuff.  He produces techno, but it tends to be very minimalist, which I think makes it great.  Check him out at stia.bandcamp.com.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now, but I'm sure I'll have more thoughts soon.  Until next time, be awesome to each other.  #WWWYKI