Review:

on 2011-11-05 CharlesMartel Said:

Some music critic in the NME with a real problem with elistist snobbery has tagged this sort of music with the genre intelligent dance music or IDM for short. Right away, that gets up my nose in a big way. Like there is a thing called unintelligent dance music? Or perhaps there is the even worse dumb f*****g moronic dance music? But then, if elitist music snobs ever wanted a band on which they could fix their affections and an album which they could hold up as an exemplar of how clever they are, then they could do no worse than Boards of Canada's "Music Has a Right to Children".

Now I am as much, and perhaps more, a loather of mainstream pap, invented by record company executives and manufactured in their studios with the sole intention of boosting shareholder profits. Occasionally, something might come through that process which has retained some degree of artistic integrity, but most of the time it just has dollar signs stamped all over it. But at the opposite end of the musical spectrum is stuff like "Music Has a Right to Children". I hesitate to use the term music to describe this because I remain uncertain as to whether this is actually music.

You see, I think the elitist NME types like this because it is so far away from any recognisable musical form that it barely qualifies as music at all. As I have said in other reviews, music has three features which distinguish it from noise - tempo, rhythm and melody. Set aside the fact that the human brain will attempt to impose order on disorder so that it can process it (that's why when you stare at clouds long enough you can see rabbits and dragons and whatever). If you listen to "Music Has a Right to Children" for long enough (if you can stand to that is), you will begin to identify some sort of pattern to the individual notes and conclude thereby that there is some sort of melody there. And if there's melody, then there must be music, right?

Well no, actually, I have always thought of ambient music as a kind of wounded beached whale, struggling in a lumbering incoherent fashion to shuffle back to the water. This does nothing to change my mind. What this album comprises is a collection of sounds which are otherwise unconnected and have been brought together with the intention of assembly into a coherent musical form. It is rather like a giant Meccano set lying on the floor. As it lies there it is just pieces of perforated metal. If you are clever, you can turn it into a robot or an aeroplane or a building. If you are a dumbass you just let it lie there and imagine what it might look like if you knew how to assemble it. Boards of Canada would therefore qualify as musical dumbasses, listening wistfully to a series of noises and wondering what they might sound like if they knew how to put them together properly.

And people actually buy this stuff? Sorry, but I cannot see the appeal.
Rating: 1/10