author: ClaytonLBr
date: march 25th 2024
topic: youtube, comment section
THE POLITICS OF SONGWRITING AND LISTENING TO MUSIC, A COMMENTARY.
Today, I noticed a comment while on youtube from a video by Alan Walker with a guy doing a 1 hour, 10 hour, 100 hour song challenge, where I originally commented and in the reply a person mentioned to me to do better. Or in his own words, “Let’s see if you do better,” not verbatim but we all know the drill, someone comments and another person states for the other person to be more than a comment. In this case though the comment is on a video of Alan Walker’s youtube channel. He’s super well known in the EDM industry but I personally have not known his music in any way other than by his name being thrown around for a number of years now. I’m not familiar with his songs on a personal level the way fans memorize songs and I do not know any of his best or well known hits by memory. Nor do I know his hits in any way because I don’t listen to his music. When I watched the video as mentioned above I wrote a comment that said, all the songs made were not any good to my ears (not verbatim). The commenter replying to my comment today challenged me to put my words into action and make a song that would be better. This is easier said than done of course because I know that even if I try to produce and release a song people will like the chances of listeners hearing my music is usually not possible because I’m not on a famous record label like Alan Walker or the person that appears in the video on Alan Walker’s channel. Therefore, the clout behind fame will always be the ultimate argument against me which leads me to think I would be wasting my time taking this challenge. Is the commenter secretly Alan himself, or is it actually a fan that just wants to stick up for Alan? Today, when I tried writing a reply I noticed my comment was not there after posting it. I was then confused and not sure why the comment disappeared. I wrote another comment unidentical to the first comment and again the comment disappeared after I refreshed the page. So I tried to do this a third time and for the third time after refreshing the page the comment disappears. I kept doing this multiple times to save images and make a post about it and show that the comment keeps disappearing every time I write it with a clock time stamp in the corner of the image each time. At first, this had me concerned that my youtube channel account had become hacked and someone was inside my account deleting my comment from within the login. I changed my password just to be sure but after I looked around at other comments and they were still there. The same comment section disappearing act happened on a page about a guy talking drums with me. I wasn’t saying anything mean and we were having a meaningful conversation about drums and drumming but when I tried to comment another reply the comment disappears. I went to a random video and tried posting a comment on a Behringer TD3 video and the comment did not disappear. What could be going on with these other videos I wonder? In the case of the original point of this conversation concerning the DJ comment could it be that this person or Alan himself or his people most likely running the page insist of making a point but without the reality of a proper reply by me? If it were that or something else I was still concerned with the safety of my account being that I was not harassing anyone or attacking anyone in such a way that was worthy of my comments being deleted so I submitted feedback of my issue about my comments and quite possibly A.I. detection removing my comments despite my words being nothing strange or out of the ordinary freedom of commenting on a video. In fact the comment itself was directly written to me in a such a way that I don’t see why I can’t comment back. I know there are some creepy people that will often stalk others and I was also concerned that someone who might know me unexpectedly would be stalking me online and hunting wherever I might post only to delete my comments by reporting what I write. This didn’t seem like a practical conclusion but I had to consider this as an option because I live around people that often appear to hunt me and stalk me in such a way that I feel like my privacy is being infringed on personally. Whatever the reason for why my comment would not post and retain I do not know in reality so I cannot directly state what I would think would be the exact reason for this cause and effect. I don’t make music like Alan Walker. He makes cliche EDM for pop music kids. His popularity is the kind that appeals to a younger generation looking for someone closer to their own age that makes music from a new generation perspective. He just happened to be the person at the time that was able to gain notoriety for the music that people were willing to listen to which is generally a mix of pop music and dance music for kids that want to believe they like electronica and techno music without actually listening to techno or electronica. Essentially, Alan Walker is a Dutch pop star and in the Nederlands/Holland that’s their version of pop music but when people hear it in America they always associate the music with differences compared to urban black rap music or americana southern and appalachian country music and of course the Los Angeles laid back sound of california. There are many styles of music and people in America but the diversity of music in America is far less by comparison. By adding in Dutchland dance this becomes quite easy to supplant as a cultural phenomenom for people looking for alternatives to the alternative. Compared to what I know as the many options of alternative music inside America and among Europe or The World, Alan Walker’s music is very close to American pop music. It is very much like a person from the Netherlands looking to be as famous as American Pop Star producer songwriters which is why he was so easily accepted in pop culture among EDM kids and online listeners compared to his predecessors (not limited to the netherlands).
I recently did a deep dive into the data of the most popular songs of each year according to billboard charts to learn a bit more about the blindspots of my own understanding and knowledge of the history of pop music in America. While doing this I am completely aware that Dance music culture is completely missing from the billboard top 100 every year. For that reason billboard and quite often times American music television in culture will replace genres of music, not just EDM, with the most closely related artist to any given genre to make it seem like there is diversity in pop music culture here in America. That’s why Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber, are associated with EDM as much as the real DJs of EDM. I didn’t look specifically for names in all the data I collected from wikipedia that I would trust is accurate but if I had to guess people like Paul Oakenfold, Fatboy Slim, and others are either limited to being one hit wonders or they are not on the list whatsoever. I do recall seeing The Chemical Brothers on the chart at one point in history. There was a time when I was younger and many groups or artists as DJ producers were so famous they were on the top list of Billboard. At this time in the late 1990s the music style of dance was an amalgamation juxtaposed between rock music, DJ turntables, electronic synthesizers and drum machines, sampling, movie soundtrack essence, and industrial. The scene of dance music that was most famous back then was often involved in the soundtracks of movies to create atmosphere only furthering the popularity and likelihood that people would buy the records of real Dance music artists. Because I grew up and was a teenager at that time I do love that kind of music of course. I love downtempo, and industrial electronic rock music, and many styles of music that a lot of kids don’t really care for or listen to–. Due to younger generations being more driven to perform and play music and older generations dying off and giving up on their dreams due to failure or the belief that they are now too old to be performers or succeed in ways they never could before the genres of music and styles producers create and make are far less inhibited and much more in-the-box creations, most likely from their bedroom and on their own. It feels like, or looks like, a lot of new school music producers don’t even play instruments in their real life and all they wanted to do was get clout and fame from copying a popular style of dubstep and doing so the quickest way possible, from a computer with a DAW with computer plugins, instead of buying real instruments, learning to play an instrument, or recording in a real music studio where music gets loud. Naturally, it’s of the younger generation to live to replace the older generation and of what the older generation left behind no one will know what bands and artists will be much of the inspiration that leads to new ideas because the most famous people are not necessarily going to always be the most inspirational for new musicians being that a lot of musicians or producers did grow up around parents that played music. Since we all know that no person listens to everything a lot of up-and-coming musicians are limited in their capacity to know all genres and styles of music culture. Unlike this very difficult landscape to envision and come from here in America where culture is quite diverse and styles are many, the Netherlands is very simple. Among the netherlands Trance music continues to be very popular and lives at the level of Pop Music by comparison of American radio. People in The Netherlands produce Trance music all the time and know that they have the opportunity to be on the radio if they get good enough at doing a style that keeps being played so there is a format for success within the Trance music and country of the Netherlands. Dutch House as in Trance Music by which it is called more often nowadays is also the style and country where the majority of all famous EDM producers come from including Alan Walker. Alan Walker is not an American success in Dutch Trance, he’s a Dutch guy that succeeded at being Dutch and doing what is overtly popular in The Netherlands. On a world comparison the Dutch are expertly known for their traditions of Dance music culture and their legacy of famous DJs. This is in contrast to a country like America where there are no famous Trance DJs, as in none, zero. The most famous DJs in America are either complete trash as in The Martinez Brothers or the individuals produce other genres of music as in Steve Aoki, Diplo, and whatever Skrillex’s real name is. Man I hope his name isn’t something mexican like Mario., just kidding that’s a joke only not really because I don’t know his name but I’ll be you do because you care about Dubstep like most nappy headed dubstep fans. British people started Dubstep, Americans finished. If a person were to look up a wikipedia page of all the EDM genres in the world the list is so damn confusing and exaggerated it almost seems like there’s not point making classic or traditional styles of dance music in the eyes of the younger generation(s). The new school producers like cutesy anime influenced hyper pop ballad excessively vocal as in verse chorus pop like anthems featuring lots of drops very few build ups and patterns that anyone can do yet all of them claim they are unique. Why would I believe that whatever I could do with a song would even matter to a bunch of kids chase pokemon in the real world through their phones, exclusively speak in a manner of slang that they consistently change and make up, and alienate anyone that knows anything about the history of dance music?
© 2024 music office blot, clayton brown
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