Can't be influential without spawning copycats?

[Guest skibby]

Has anyone else notice the trend where in one breath, reviewers and 'celebrities with opinions' both ridicule Aphex Twin's copycats, while praising Mr. James for being influential?

 

And why don't they seem to catch themselves doing that? Are they literally all stupid or are they reading some sort of script?

 

What's the harm in people repeating things that are worth parroting? That's what DNA does init.

 

(edit, theres very few who are anywhere close to being aphex copycats anyway.)

[logakght]

It's all in being first. There can only be one Aphex Twin because Aphex Twin created/popularized his own style. Also with Autechre and similar people.

[Guest skibby]

aphex is my favourite living musician, lets sort that. however, there's very few intervals or rhythms in there that are not present in other music. but as a whole of course there is a signature sound.

 

to say that aphex leads the way is accurate, but to burn the bridge behind him is just stupid, for lack of a better way to express it.

 

its all a code, a language. i mean what im saying is pretty much unsaid before on this forum (citation needed) but im using english words that i am forced to borrow otherwise nobody would understand it.

 

so for people to be influenced by good ideas and not implement them if they are useful is fucking retarded.

[Guest escmode]

I'd agree with this completely. If you consider yourself to still be learning the craft, than similar to when studying fine art (as I did) you will learn so much more from studying and imitating the greats. It's only temporary though. If you keep working at it, it's almost impossible for your own unique voice not to eventually shine through.

[ZoeB]

Good artists copy, great artists steal. Mix and match, and develop your own taste. You can see this in what James does too, being influenced by Brian Eno and Larry Heard amongst others. He always puts his own spin on it, though.

[Guest escmode]

.... being influenced by Brian Eno and Larry Heard amongst others.

The Larry Heard tribute track he did is one of my favs... too short though.

[Guest skibby]

see, I havent even heard of Larry Heard. in fact, I never heard Drexciya until last year and when I did I thought they ripped off Aphex so hard, until I looked at the year.

 

its great to praise Aphex for his style, or even for carrying a torch that already existed before him.

 

but hasn't anyone noticed a whole lot of bashing going on against the so called Aphex Twin imitators? It's really ugly that people raise him up and beat down others as if they are some sort of beard of termites.

 

I am fine with more music sounding like Aphex, it might make the grocery store less apt to give me a panic attack.

[Brisbot]

 

 

And why don't they seem to catch themselves doing that? Are they literally all stupid or are they reading some sort of script?

There's definitely some kind of script thing going on. Otherwise all of these critics wouldn't be "influencing" each other and harping each other's rhetoric.

[pissflaps]

Indeed, Aphex's sound, or definitely traces of it can be found in records that are older, and as time passed he shaped that characteristic sound into something unique. As mentioned above and in other threads, I see it as some sort of language. Richard, Tom and all these guys in Rephlex, can talk a similar language or dialects of it. Unreleased tracks by Squarepusher like the famous acid one in that Rome 2002 Rephlex video, were mistaked by a lot of people here as an AFX track, so sometimes its difficult to draw the line even between 2 pioneers like Richard and Tom. Im talking about this one:

 

 

EVERYONE assumed this was Aphex Twin, and then years later Tom reveals it's just an unreleased tune by him. It would be cool to see a completely anonymous record released by all these guys and try to figure out who is who. Anyway, as I was saying, it has become some sort of language and few can get away with it. All these guys, Wisp, EOD, Monolith, Steinvord... can do it, but then there's the endless list of guys that just don't have that special talent to come up with tracks that feel natural. Influenced or not, these guys can come up with tracks that sound natural, because they got that nice talent for it. As also mentioned in another thread, every year it gets harder and harder to enter into completely new territory, or new enough that it's considered groundbreaking. All these possible combinations to explore keep getting more and more thin, it gets shrinking. I sometimes ask myself what Richard would be doing had he been born in early to mid 90's, were as a teen you probably already had internet and access to worldwide music, and you would have started with a computer like probably all the youngest Rephlex guys did or about any guy that's grown up with the internet. Everyone has got access to incredible music software for free these days, entire studios in a computer. I wonder to what extent Richard would have gotten infuenced by contemporary music, if he would be into dubstep and whatnot. Richard admited he copied techniques from jungle producers back in the day, nicked some of their stuff, then implemented it into his music and no one would ever know, because there was no internet and everyone was in complete isolation, it was just local, small scenes. We'll never know how it would have went. Maybe he would have been a good producer, an excellent one, but would have he reached legendary status? Had he been born in early to mid 90's, would his music be as groundbreaking by today's standards?

[Uros]

Hmm, so if I put it slightly simplified how would RDJ be influenced by the acts he has influenced? Quite funny circle ‘cause you could also ask how these other artists would sound. But yes I got it what you tried to say. There’s no doubt that Aphex has played a big part in electronic music and of course been influential to loads of artists, showed some new directions you might say. So the current style palette would be at least slightly different from what it is now. What that would exactly be is quite impossible to say. Hell, even so ‘’main stream’’ artist like Skrillex is fan of Aphex so his influence goes into territories which aren’t necessarily the most obvious ones (eh, Radiohead). Would it even be the electronic field where he would go in the first place. Maybe he would go to modern classical and become a conductor for some symphony orchestra, who knows. Have there been any new and fresh styles of music in the past two decades? I really can’t tell since I don’t really follow such things. Maybe he would be influenced by those or then just choose the jungle scene with its progenies and current acts as he did back in the days.

 

When it comes to ‘’copycats’’ I’m also quite pissed of the negative tone of the word. If I read in a review etc. with the line ‘’Aphex copycat’’ for me it is a recommendation to check it out. I just happen to love that kind of stuff and can’t get enough of it. So they have been influenced by the Aphex stuff but as it has been said also Richard the Great has nicked some ideas from others. It’s just natural that one influences the other who takes some elements from the stuff he likes. Otherwise the freshest thing you heard was two wooden sticks hit together. All this is of course purely IMO.

[Gordon]

Strongly agree with anyone who has mentioned anything related to modern art. Look at the early works of people like pollock or lichtenstein, fraught with influences of Picasso. Picasso had a massive massive influence on the on the art world. everyone was copying it

 

rdj deserves a magnitude of credit for the sound he has created throughout his career but what is the point in relying on one man to bring his original sounds to the masses especially if so many people enjoy it? it becomes a prototype, it is an archetype for others to take their own bits and bobs from and amalgamate it into to their own interpretation. It's just human nature. How would techno of become a form in itself without people getting influenced by each other? Jungle? would never of taken off if people didnt copy each other.

 

I'm not a fan of the stigma that goes along with attempting an rdj take on a piece of music, it will never be the same, it will be its own thing, it may stink of rdj but thats just the legacy of rdj , but it could be really good and that is all that matters i think

[ZoeB]

It's pretty difficult to avoid being influenced by artists you like, and by the tools you use to do your job. Both encourage a certain way of approaching things. I think probably the biggest influence on techno was people like Ralph Dyck, Kakehashi, Nakamura, Matsuoka, Oue and Hoshiai.

[anigbrowl]

Has anyone else notice the trend where in one breath, reviewers and 'celebrities with opinions' both ridicule Aphex Twin's copycats, while praising Mr. James for being influential?

 

And why don't they seem to catch themselves doing that? Are they literally all stupid or are they reading some sort of script?

 

Some years ago a lightbulb went on over my head when I realized that the more assuredly people pass judgments on others, the more they're telling you about themselves.

 

As far as art critics are concerned, relatively few of them have ever put up works of their own ('I don't want to compromise my critical distance from the work I review,' being the most amusing excuse I have heard so far). This was something I respected about Roger Ebert - he's one of the very few film critics to have ever worked in film production, and although the few films he was involved with are pretty direit gave him a much deeper insight into the construction of a film.

[MassfreeKid]

I think real artists are inspired by themselves exclusively and copycats are inspired by other artists. Sometimes, you start out as a copycat and evolve into an artist because you have found your own voice over time. Sometimes, you start out as an artist and evolve into a copycat because you have no original inspiration left.

[fenton]

He's obviously influenced heavily by so many people, whole genres even, that he is a copycat but yeh totes obvious when it's afx twinz behind the knobs as he certainly has his own take on things that absolutely no one else can forge, only imitate.

 

 

Personally I wouldn't bother ever trying to make a tune that was going for his vibe what's the point m8.

[sun drugs]

I think he had a lot of contemporaries who also borrow from the same influences. 80/90's electro is still having massive influence over techno, probably more then rdj will ever have imo. Labels like weme are putting out stunning new music constantly, many of the artists probably have learnt from afxs music but they dont have the same focus. They all achieve different things with their music.

 

 

I can only imagine the thrill it would have been for rephlex to put out the translusion/drexciya stuff. They are obviously a huge influence on afx. Criminally underrated, making non dancefloor techno before most.

 

In saying this afx has many copy cats. The big trend at the moment is the tuss-y funky synth stuff. sounds like old boogie in 2014. Its a good sound but i dont listen to anyone else because syro + tuss is the best. The room for development is hardly there whereas within other areas of techno, jungle and faster almost breakcore, i feel like there is plenty of room for growth and there are many labels pushing some great new artists