{"id":284,"date":"2007-09-17T11:27:51","date_gmt":"2007-09-17T18:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/posts\/2007\/emp-not-electronic-friendly\/"},"modified":"2007-09-17T11:27:51","modified_gmt":"2007-09-17T18:27:51","slug":"emp-not-electronic-friendly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/posts\/2007\/emp-not-electronic-friendly\/","title":{"rendered":"EMP: Not Electronic-Friendly"},"content":{"rendered":"

I went to the Experience Music Project<\/a> for the third time yesterday. The first time I loved the exhibit about the history of alternative music (or so I recall that’s what it was about — in particular I remember a special mini-section about the Minnesota music scene which I found awesome and validated my love for bands like Babes in Toyland<\/a> [the original bassist went to my high school]). But the first time I went was in 1998 and my musical interests have changed a lot since then.<\/p>\n

Despite looking all cool and futuristic<\/a>, the museum is pretty stuck-in-the-past.<\/p>\n

Okay, I take that back. When it comes to hip-hop music, the museum is surprisingly progressive. It actually acknowledges hip-hop as a valid music style and even has a featured exhibit called Yes Yes Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all: The First Decade of Hip-Hop<\/i><\/a>. It’s cool. Hip-hop artists and history is also featured prominently in the Sound and Vision: Artists Tell Their Stories<\/i><\/a> permanent exhibit.<\/p>\n

But when it comes to electronic music, there is nothing. The most electronic artist I could find featured was Afrika Bambaataa<\/a>. There were a few things about DJing but it was all in the context of how that’s related to hip-hop and whatnot.<\/p>\n

So while I want to say, “The EMP doesn’t have electronic music because it’s mostly just a rock ‘n’ roll museum,” the inclusion of all the hip-hop stuff (which is awesome, don’t get me wrong!!) shows that the museum wants to be more than just rock ‘n’ roll.<\/p>\n

I guess there are two explanations for why there is such a blatant lack of electronic representation: one innocent reason and one more sinister.<\/p>\n

Innocent: Electronic music could be considered even more recent than hip-hop music. A lot of the ideology behind electronic music and the DJ culture around it comes directly from hip-hop.<\/p>\n

Sinister: Electronic isn’t considered “genuine” enough or “valid” enough as a musical genre. Maybe the curators think that it’s too trendy and isn’t going to last?<\/p>\n

Most likely, the truth lies somewhere between those two explanations. But it’s still unfortunate. Imagine the Sound Lab<\/a> with some more interesting keyboards and turntables and computers used for mixing electronic music. That would be awesome.<\/p>\n

Or instead of the Guitar Gallery<\/a>, how awesome would a gallery of the history of electronic instruments be??? Last weekend my friend Justin performed in the Seattle premier of Turangal\u00c3\u00aela<\/i><\/a>. There was a very interesting instrument called ondes Martenot<\/a>. I would love to see and learn more about proto-electronic instruments like this and the EMP with its Frank Gehry<\/a> design and attached Science Fiction Museum seems like the perfect place.<\/p>\n

Perhaps in a few years something will change. I do intend to send this feedback to the EMP and will of course post an update if I hear anything back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went to the Experience Music Project for the third time yesterday. The first time I loved the exhibit about the history of alternative music (or so I recall that’s what it was about — in particular I remember a special mini-section about the Minnesota music scene which I found awesome and validated my love … Continue reading EMP: Not Electronic-Friendly<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,27],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}