I grew up on '60s and '70s WDR electronic music; it was super important for me in my teens, not only musically, but also as a gateway to my interest in computers, signal processing and European history.
They mention in the article a bit about the political push against experimental music in the 1930s, but it's interesting to consider that the re-surfacing of such music was also very political: the West were very happy to broadcast free and progressive music across the wall. I definitely have a feeling that experimental music has become a lot more niche since relations softened, the extra funding and promotion has dried up a bit, and now the world of that music has moved almost entirely to the back rooms of various universities.
I think some of this has to do with the people making experimental music. All the noise artists I know would be pretty averse to the idea of government grants to work on their music, it's just against their whole ethos.
I get you, though I do think of the noise scene as having a somewhat separate lineage to the more academically focused dialectic of the WDR and places like IRCAM which still operates.
I can see both sides of the argument about publicly funding music but for me the big differentiator is that something which is publicly funded will inevitably be publicly debated, and I think that critical attention can be very important in creating cohesive schools of thought in art that can have enough appeal to make a difference.
> All the noise artists I know would be pretty averse to the idea of government grants to work on their music, it's just against their whole ethos.
I'm sure their government isn't buying their music but simply letting them put something on the table while they spend their life making music. I would totally love the same applied to other forms of art, except of course those that already have a market.
Yes, it was a way for western powers to show their support of free speech and liberal values. Now that the communist block is gone, there is less incentive to support the arts and claim cultural victory.
Actually, communism controls our own movie industry. Take the famous case of the remake of Red Dawn where they changed the antagonist from China to North Korea. That was done at the TOP levels, communist pressure on Obama, who then exerted pressure on the studio. On behalf of Xi.
John Cena learning Chinese so he could apologize for supporting pro-democracy protests in Taiwan is another one. Our bland culture is partly designed by communism.
> That was done at the TOP levels, communist pressure on Obama, who then exerted pressure on the studio. On behalf of Xi.
Source? All I can find is https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/05/18/407619652/... a producer named Peter Shiao claiming that "Chinese diplomats asked him to arrange a conversation with the makers of Red Dawn" but by then they "were already erasing references to China in post-production." Which seems to suggest they were persuaded by some other means, but doesn't tell us how.
Probably not some shadowy conspiracy. There was a lot of pandering to China from the studios back then because they held onto the hope that the market in China would open up to them more. But it never really materialized.
You don't need a conspiracy theory here when there is a far simpler explanation:
China has 1B potential viewers/customers that hollywood wants as an audience to grow and increase profit, so they'll do their best not to anger the chinese government. As a consequence movies avoid showing China in a bad light and they avoid topic that could get movies censored or forbidden in China.
Publicly funded radio and TV in Germany was a mishmash of entertainment, education, news reporting but also music production. Entire symphony orchestras and Jazz bands were part of the state-run stations. Private broadcasting didn't exist, maybe wasn't allowed then.
Not surprised to hear about electronic music being funded as well, the public networks had a reputation of being somewhat elitist and high brow.
Just a small correction. They are not state-run but run by a sort of public trust. There are meticulous mechanisms that are intended to keep the public broadcasting system independent of government influence. These work to some degree, and are just ridiculous boongoggles in other cases. E.g. to be independent, they are not funded by taxes, but have their own non-government agency (GEZ) that collects broadcast fees. Nowadays every household has to pay, but even a couple of years ago you could opt out if you didn't have a TV or radio. The GEZ had a special squad of investigators to check if you owned a TV or radio.
All in all it works fairly well, but it is somewhat elitist and panders to a strange bouquet of special interests that strangely mirror the composition of its "neutral" governing body.
All in all though, German radio is pretty good and public television isn't dominated by ads and has high quality content, especially if you are into more high-brow cultural productions. And the news are excellent.
I admire two things here: the hardware aesthetic, which is just beautiful, and the pioneering spirit, which is extremely daring.
That said, I've got a bone to pick with the standard narratives in electronic music history. They dwell on the origins like here but gloss over what I believe to be a cambrian Explosion brought about by DAWs/plugins from the 2000s. I get that it's 'history,' but this explosion deserves far more attention and analysis.
> They dwell on the origins like here but gloss over what I believe to be a cambrian Explosion brought about by DAWs/plugins from the 2000s
That's a bit like saying history about CSS1 is irrelevant because now we have CSS3, they're just different parts of the same history.
Same with electronic music from hardware and electronic music from software. They're a part of the same history, just different parts.
Of course, the latter probably wouldn't exists without the former, most music software emulates what we already were doing in hardware after all, albeit a lot more flexible.
It's also way more fresh, even I as a youngster (~30y) can remember that, compared to all this initial hardware innovation where I wasn't even around to experience.
That said, I'm sure there are plenty of articles about the history of DAWs and plugins, is there not? If there isn't, sounds like the world is waiting for someone like you to put it together :) I for one would read it for sure.
It is certainly not irrelevant, and it certainly is at the basis of most DAW/vst stuff. But, there are still a lot of new ideas around. And you do find some historical articles [1]. No books I know of, though; I wish I could write one :)
I suspect the high complexity and decentralization of the community's evolution leave scholars disoriented. It is the same story for the music being made (with these same tools) itself; the genres exploded around 2000, and most popular music histories speak more of the Beatles than the last 25 years.
And a final point: these new tools (and again, the resulting music itself) are sometimes brushed aside as 'low brow' in academic electronic music circles.
I don't think there's much that's particularly innovative in the technooloy and working metaphors of the DAW/VST stuff. It's 95% emulations of a conventional pop/rock music studio from the 60s/70s/80s.
Musically there's been quite a bit of innovation, but nothing like the incredible step from pre-war music that was 100% acoustic and hand-written, to post-war electronic music that was synthesized from scratch, assembled from found sounds, and sometimes computer generated.
Computer music - in the sense of music made using code tools, not software as an emulation of hardware - is still under-explored. There's been plenty of it in academia, but most of it isn't that interesting. The only real stand-out piece I can think of is the THX Deep Sound.
I think there will be an explosion of code-generated music eventually - with or without AI - that also has emotional and visceral impact. So far most code music feels shiny, slippery, and weightless to me, in comparison to mainstream pop and traditional acoustic music. It lacks the finely controlled detail and depth of both.
Not really. I’ve been around music tech before and after that point. I would say the explosion was cheaper and more accessible music making equipment whether that was on a computer, cheaper hardware or the secondhand market.
The more recent news in October on the studio since this page was produced is the city of Cologne continues to take an interest in preservation going as far to take ownership and plan to promote and use the space for education and culture centre.
I once visited the remains of the studio in that cellar in Köln-Ossendorf as part of an excursion at university. I felt it was quite sad how it was just parked there, you wouldn't have assumed its historical importance.
The Herbert Weimart (inventor of the first vocoder?) referred to in this article. It immediately makes me think of the pioneering electronic music artist Herbert. I bet it isn't coincidence.
In the immortal words of Hugh Greene, responsible for WDR’s predecessor organisation NWDR until three years before the founding of the Electronic Music studio here:
> We are going to use this organisation to change the way the rest of the country thinks. We want them to see stuff they don’t like. We don’t really care if they complain.
Granted, it’s what he said about the BBC, but he did it in Germany too, to a level of success that deserves greater recognition.
Well not directly from taxes, but still public money. It's great to see it that not all of it is spent on entertainment for old people ("Musikantenstadl") and sports.
Kind of validates how well public funding works for art and culture.
Not saying I agree or disagree with your conclusion (I'm undecided), but I disagree with your reasoning. The question whether the Rundfunkbeitrag is good is partly philosophical ("what is the role of the state?") and partly practical ("does the state provide better media than private enterprise?"), and I don't think this example sheds light on either aspect.
I wouldn't say Musikantenstadl is just for old people. Perhaps 90% older viewers from what I can tell, but I can (personally!) guarantee that the figure isn't 100% ;)
Also, while I wouldn't watch it if it was the last thing running on the last TV working after the apocalypse, a large swath of the population really enjoy it who aren't an interesting advertising demographic and who may not have the tech and financial means to access it otherwise.
This is the system working: desirable content that couldn't be viably financed by the private sector.
>The way that they are pushing the leftist woke agenda...
Could you clarify exactly what 'the leftist woke agenda' is (in this case)? I see so many accusations, but very few people are able to explain what they mean.
I’m also interested in hearing this. It seems to be mostly code words for other right leaning folk. What they actually mean they never say out loud, because it’s usually bigotry against people of color and lgbtq folks.
Forcing all conservatives to pay for media made by an unelected clique with very different values is still not great.
I know we want to avoid ending up with super-polarized media like the US, but I don't believe this is the way. I don't know what the way is, since you also don't want to give airtime to the crazies, and I feel the market for sane conservative news shrinks by the minute.
While I agree with your statement of not giving states too much power over the news, it overlooks the special organizational structure and paints a false picture. The highest controlling body of the öffentliche-rechtliche is the Rundfunkrat which is structured so that it represents "a cross-section of society". It includes organisations like unions or churches.
The Rundfunkrat appoints the Intendant who in turn has autonomy when it comes to programming.
I'm not saying that there's nothing to criticize about the structure but it was especially created in this way to provide checks and balances and not giving politicians direct control over the news. When some tried that in the past it made the news [2].
I think a right wing government would have an easier time defunding and replacing it with its own propaganda channels instead of using it for propaganda.
I love how you pointed out this one conservative involvement and leave out the thousands of leftist involvements.
Also just quoting from the wikipedia article:
"Dies sind z. B. Gewerkschaften, Frauenverbände, Kirchen und Fraktionen."
"Vertreter von LGBT-Verbänden sind im Fernsehrat des..."
It might not fit into your left agenda but this is so far from reality.
Quoting the Wikipedia article you linked:
"Er kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass weder die Räte ihrem Anspruch, die Vielfalt der Gesellschaft zu repräsentieren, gerecht werden noch dass benachteiligte Gruppen ausreichend anzutreffen sind."
I replied specifically to a comment concerning the ability of an extreme right wing government to use them as a propaganda channel by pointing out that there are some checks and balances in place.
And you reply to that by saying the inclusion of women, churches, unions and LGBT-organisations is a left thing and insinuating I have a political agenda. And the last quote actually says it does not live up to being a cross-section of society because underprivileged groups are not adequately represented. Going by your logic that would mean they're not left after all, right?
But seriously, you're spreading some pretty radical opinions all over this thread, calling people names and calling for the jailing of entire groups of people. I'm not going to further interact with you. Have a good night :-)
Thanks for the links and the explanation, very interesting. I guess it's silly to go through the whole debate here, I'm sure reams of A4 have been written on this topic.
Could you link to the single strongest, most well-sourced example you can think of where the state media is biased/lying? I honestly want to find my blind spots. Please put effort into this, this is your chance to effect change.
I personally pay it, I'm german, it sometimes takes the last of my food budget for the month and I consume no radio, no tv, no news, no newspapers, nothing like that. Not very good
They mention in the article a bit about the political push against experimental music in the 1930s, but it's interesting to consider that the re-surfacing of such music was also very political: the West were very happy to broadcast free and progressive music across the wall. I definitely have a feeling that experimental music has become a lot more niche since relations softened, the extra funding and promotion has dried up a bit, and now the world of that music has moved almost entirely to the back rooms of various universities.