"... On the surface, pop music seems be all about self-expression and individuality — but all hit songs, regardless of genre, sound like the decade in which they were produced. There are unbreakable rules to be followed, and a message in the uniformity by which these songs are engineered: the sounds in songs need to be just novel enough to mark the moment, they need to sound expensive enough to be distinguished, and any approach that works instantly profilerates across the pop charts. If one were to cut away all the speech, the structures, and leave nothing but those sounds, maybe you’d be able to hear what’s really going on with all of this unavoidably popular music. One thing suggested by pop music is that recordings and music are the exact same thing. From the beginnings of jazz, the rise of Popular music as a meaningful category is inextricable from the technology of recording, but a recording isn’t music until it’s played. ‘Plexure’ is an overview of the first decade of remix culture going mainstream, where sounds became so plastic and malleable that only transformed noises seemed real. ..."
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