Is this the music of the future?
A colleague of mine, who is into music almost as much as me, invited me to watch his friend play a gig recently. As per him she played “electronica” which is not my favourite label, but I’ll give anything a try!
Well, this gig certainly was an experience. My colleague’s friend basically sat on stage, alone, creating twiddly, twirping tunes, with a sort of dance beat behind them, with Game Boys. Yes, old-fashioned Game Boys are now being used as musical instruments. It’s called Chiptune and is definitely not my cup of tea. The girl we’d gone to see was one of the better acts, as at least she had tried to create something musical; other “artists” seemed determined to show us how clever they could be with their old games consoles, regardless of whether it sounded good. And often it didn’t. One duo sounded like they were banging on biodiesel storage tanks for their entire half hour set. I pretended I had an important phone call to take and nipped outside for the last fifteen minutes…
I used to say I would go and see any music played live – from thrash metal to classical – but I think I’ll have to make Chiptune music the exception to this rule. What made the whole experience worse was watching the gig with my colleague and his friend, the performer, who obviously loved every minute, tapping their feet and nodding their heads along with often non-existent beats. I began to think this was all some elaborate practical joke!
I was never into games consoles as a kid, and have never got into the more modern versions as I got older, so maybe that’s why this kind of music doesn’t appeal to me. I’m all for musicians using computers to enhance their music, both in the studio and on stage, but when the computer, or in this case the Game Boy, becomes the focus, then something has gone wrong somewhere…
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