From eluna@coil.com Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 02:26:01 -0500 (EST) From: eluna To: 313 mailing list <313@hyperreal.com> Subject: (313) jeff mills sells out: so WHAT there are some very valid issues to be considered in reference to mills' release of "the other day" CD on react. some of you have implied that he is compromising himself in some way by trying to reach a wider audience. others have argued that it is no compromise at all; that moving up a notch or two can only enhance his musical and artistic message. either way, these are the kinds of issues which face many techno music producers today, and they deserve to be discussed seriously and critically. but in this case, none of us can know what jeff mills is really thinking because as of yet, none of us has asked him. clearly, he must want to reach a wider and perhaps more diverse audience, but to extrapolate any further would be pure guesswork without the input of the man himself. so we are left to guess; our only evidence being the music itself. listen to it again. is this accessible music? some of it, yes. but the majority of jeff's music is so brooding, obscure, and abstract that even if he sold records and CDs by the truckload, i would still argue that there is very little about his music that could be considered "accessible" (a word that we ought to define anyway). the fact that jeff mills is succeeding in spreading his artistic and musical message to a wider audience does not prove by any means that people who are buying his music UNDERSTAND it. popularity does not equal comprehension--as demonstrated time and time again by the widespread acceptance of complex and challenging music, from the avant-garde word/sound/ideascapes of laurie anderson to the unbridled, impatient impressionism of claude debussy. and we simply don't have to worry about jeff mills becoming the next moby, because even if he reaches such a lofty position in the hierarchy of music production, it will probably only enhance his ability to transmit artistic and challenging music to a wider base of both interested seekers/listeners (us) as well as less-interested consumers/absorbers (the masses). he's proven this already, by generally raising the artistic stakes with every series of releases (axis 15 and 16 being as or more conceptual than axis 11, 12, and 13, for example). my own feeling is that jeff mills will never even get that far, or if he does, he will not stay there for long. throughout pop music history there have been several bands and musical concepts that have reached immensely large audiences only to "regress" back to a level of mere self-sustenance; a position of medium-visibility and modest critical acclaim where only the barest compromises in so-called "artistic integrity" are necessary ("artistic integrity" being another one of those pesky ideas we'd need to define). those who have already traversed this ground include the more underground sounds of public image limited (in the early years), the swans, and skinny puppy; and even some higher-profile artists such as brian eno, neil young, and sonic youth (to cite rock'n'roll examples). so for those of you who are obsessed with keeping music within certain "underground" boundaries (and i've been just as guilty of it myself), i predict that jeff's popularity will rise significantly within the next year or so, but will even off close to that level of medium-visibility, critical acclaim, and self-sustenance. also, keep in mind that the current music scene today is changing a great deal. major labels, while they may arguably still seem to be a threat to so-called "underground" interests (another word that needs defining), are having to adapt to the myriad of genres and subgenres of music which exist today. the immense number of artists currently involved in electronic dance music (not to mention other music) means that even a wildly successful release by jeff mills will never have the same cultural, commercial, and musical impact that such monolithic artists such as frank sinatra, elvis, the beatles, michael jackson, and madonna enjoyed only a few years ago. i predict that the days of a single artist being able to set the pace for nearly everyone and everything, are nearly over. even wildly-successful techno acts such as the prodigy and josh wink only have an impact within certain musical circles, and the more artists are competing within these ever-hybridizing circles, the less room there will be for each of them. finally--and most importantly--the furthest-reaching implication of the wider acceptance of jeff mills' music is that it will be heard more often, by people from all walks of life. along these lines, if we accept that the major strengths of techno lay in its decentralization of the artist-as-ego, its (incomplete) resolution between technology and humanity, its ability to dissolve distinction, and its questioning of music as a culturally-bound creative project, then jeff mills is indeed on the forefront of a new way to understand music. i can think of no territory more worthy of artistic exploration. "show me the money" ++ e d ele-mental.coil.com/