Anyone who enjoys musicology or enthnomusicology or anthropology must surely be aware of the fact that different cultures have not only different aesthetic preferences, but sometimes a completely different idea of what sounds like music, looks like art or clothing, tastes like food, etc. The divide between Western and non-Western music truly does exist, despite the cultural erasure of globalization in media (everyone listens to American and European top 40 music, everywhere in the world!) and the increasing popularity of hybridized East-West musical genres (see: k-pop, j-rock, Western 60's rock music using sitars, gongs, and chimes alongside Western instrumentation like guitars, orientalism in classical compositions -- composers such as Rameau, Saint-Saens, even Beethoven and Mozart used Near Eastern motifs in their compositions, French punk rock that employs Southeast Asian motifs such as Bérurier Noir's "La Fille du Delta" or "Vietnam Laos Cambodge").
A friend of mine once told me a good story about Ravi Shankar in which the legendary Indian composer and sitar player attended a concert of classical music in the US. When asked afterward what piece he had liked the best, Shankar responded that he liked the first song the best. The person asking hummed the first composition that had been played, and Shankar said, no, it sounded like this, and hummed an entirely unfamiliar piece of music. The hosts asking the question were puzzled by this and asked Shankar more questions about what it sounded like, what instruments it used, etc. Shankar said it was the best piece because it sounded the most like music to him, and kept describing it. Finally, everyone figured out that what Shankar liked, what sounded like music to him, was the sounds of the orchestra warming up their instruments together. The rest of it really didn't sound like music to Eastern ears, or at least not like the music that Shankar preferred himself. It is likely that Shankar would not have enjoyed more than an occasional bit of exposure to this non-musical-sounding music. Although I love music from around the world, I have to admit that Indian traditional music, like music from farther east, including Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, etc.) traditional music, and even these culture's pre-globalized pop music, is something I like only in small doses because it sounds so different to my ears. The experience of hearing it is intense, hard to deal with, and sometimes even unpleasant if I have to hear a lot of it.
Therefore, one can assume that what would truly perturb and torture East Asians would be Western music, and the more it diverged from Eastern musicality, the harder it would be to hear. The tones and scales used in Chinese and Japanese traditional musics are distinctive and sound "Eastern" to the Western ear, right? So one can imagine that Western music "sounds Western" and would be suitable as an instrument of aggression if it were used to accompany military and cultural aggression, as, in this instance, it surely would be. It would remind the people forced to hear it that their entire cultural system, including their aesthetic one, was imperiled, disregarded, and endangered. This Western aesthetic, applied by force, would be quite a powerful assault.
I chose Taake because this kind of extreme black metal is VERY distinctively Western, and also in a way that many Westerners don't appreciate. The harsh, snarled, screamed vocals (in Norwegian!) at the beginning of the song, coupled with the driving guitars and blastbeat of the drums, are certainly very aggressive and not pleasant to the ears of the uninitiated. The song's motif then switches to a slower, more folkloric and lilting melody, with non-distorted guitars, but continued use of picking. However, Western folkloric music is still very foreign to Eastern ears, and juxtaposing it with Hoest's raw, sometimes squawking, usually screaming, tortured howls, er, vocals, and the gloomy ambiance, plus the echoing, lo-fi production, seems to be at odds with the lightness and sweetness of the folkloric melody, threatening to make it sink like a soufflé with the miserable weightiness that much of Norwegian BM creates so well. Then a slower motif comes in, which is even gloomier, before a more driving reworking of the intro riff comes in, speeds up the song, and gives the transition to a very cathartic-sounding howl from Hoest, then another fast-tempo, pulsating build-up recreates the tension... before the folkloric motif, now a leitmotif, reasserts itself.
The movement between folklore and contemporary motifs and instrumentation is a VERY Western tradition, and a modern one at that. It is not something that occurs in any culture's traditional music, and is still a fairly unpopular style in Eastern popular composition. That kind of Westernness would surely alienate the Eastern ear, as well as being FORCED to hear it. The song closes with the folkloric motif being played over the quintessentially black metal, driving blastbeat and tremolo-picking, distorted, manically sped-up riffs of the guitars. The music then builds to another crescendo, more unearthly howls and screams, and a finish on the folkloric letimotif, in which the drums and distorted guitars fade to the background, while an angelic, mixed male and female chorus vocal reminiscent of traditional Norwegian vocal music comes in to close the song and the album.
I think it's a beautiful song, but I am also a Westerner long habituated to extreme music and the hybridization of genres. I think most Westerners don't like this music, and most Easterners would HATE it and find it very, very, very unpleasant to be subjected to it. Frankly, the control and manipulation of sensory environments is something that many people, myself included, are very susceptible to. I feel panic and paralysis if I am forced to listen to a Top 40 song that I don't like while in a public place. That music hurts my ears and soul because it is so contrary to my aesthetic sensibilities and preferences, and I feel this sense of being powerless and small when I am subjected to it against my will. It makes me angry and profoundly anxious.
To convey the power of torture through music, I will tell you a story of my own. I recall once when I was 8 and at summer camp (ironically, at a camp for diabetic children) and my fellow campers played a nearly constant rotation of the song "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard, which was very popular that summer. It was a song for which I had no particular affection to begin with, finding it somehow both sleazy and banal, and hard to buy as a come-on with its dumb, vague metaphors and big, dumb, overproduced guitars, but hearing it repeatedly was making me CRAZY with panic and anger. I begged the girls in my cabin to stop playing it, trying to explain to them why being forced to hear a song I didn't like hurt me, but their only response was to laugh and play it several more times, even louder. I went to the counselor in tears and she told me to just ignore it because it wasn't a big deal. I thought I would seriously lose my shit. Then, a more sympathetic, younger, hipper counselor gave me her Walkman with headphones and a Sinéad O'Connor album. That young woman saved my sanity. I really hated the other girls in my cabin for their act of aggression. They were bullies and rude and unfriendly to me, but I simply could not understand why they had been so cruel and done THIS, even when I explained to them why I needed them to stop playing the song.
I think that the incident when detainees at Guantanamo were tortured with Metallica and other shitty rock and pop music on repeat was really disgraceful. Not just because late-period Metallica sucks, but because I think it is really an unspeakably cruel torture to violate someone's comfort by creating a sensory environment that violates not only their tastes, but their cultural habits and their morals. For that reason, while I think I have an argument for Taake being some of the worst/most effective music for this exercise, it sort of makes my skin crawl to do the exercise. Fascinating assignment, though!
wow! i was kind of expecting everyone to follow my lead and post michael bolton. i mean, let's be honest, Taake is less offensive.
ReplyDeleteoh, and jcak told me to tell you that the use of the word "leitmotif" is hereby banned from this blog due to the wagnerian overtones that were smashed into his head in college.
No! "Leitmotif" is perfectly acceptable! Wagner does not own that word!
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