Electronic Music, Digital Culture

For me, it is music—more than any other single thing—that makes life worth living. You may have already guessed this from my large collection of electronic-music-related links in the sidebar. Listening to music is often a sensual, visceral thing for me, like enjoying a particularly decadent slice of cheesecake. The right song at the right moment (usually something by Orbital, or maybe Beethoven) has been known to cure week-long funks I was otherwise sure would continue indefinitely. It’s the closest I get to calling something a reverent or spiritual experience (and I suspect my experiences are just as “transcendent” as any religious person's).

So, you might wonder why I don’t blog about music more often. Well, as someone smart once said, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture—it’s a really stupid thing to want to do.” One’s tastes in music are about as rational as one’s tastes in ice cream—and, besides, mine are decidedly outside the mainstream. Moreover, I have no interest in making Die Eigenheit more shamelessly self-indulgent than it already is.

Having said all that, I do find myself sometimes wondering, “What is Die Eigenheit about, if it isn’t my peculiarity, hmmm?” I can’t come up with a good answer to that question at the moment (though you might reasonably wonder why I didn’t call the blog “Meine Eigenheit”), so I hope you’ll allow me a little self-indulgence, here. I’d like to recommend that you check out one of my favorite web sites—the one that, for good reason, tops my list of music sites: Static Beats.

If you’re a music lover, but disdain electronic music, then I don’t begrudge you your preferences, but consider this: Does your exposure to it consist entirely of brief stints at the meat-market “techno” clubs, bombarded with the relentless thud-hiss-thud-hiss-thud-hiss that your annoying friends call “electronica” (retch!)? If so, I submit you are unfairly judging an art form by its worst representatives. It’s as if you condemned all of Rock and Roll on the basis of hearing only Poison or Whitney Houston. Give the Static Beats webcast a listen with an open mind and see if you’re not pleasantly surprised at the breadth and depth that genuinely artful electronic music has to offer. Take it from someone who has been a die-hard electronic music fan since the first time he learned about the letter W watching Sesame Street (I’m sorry I can’t provide a link to a video that would clarify the reference. You'll just have to trust that I'm actually making sense, here).

If you are a fan of electronic music then you really couldn’t ask for more. What you can count on from Static Beats is a steady stream of innovative artists on the forefront of the genre, mixed in with just the right amount of classics from the past. The site showcases so much good music that I’m almost scared not to listen to it, because of what I might miss. This has a bit of a downside, though, too, because discovering two or three new must have artists per week is way more than I have the money for. My Amazon Wish List is getting unwieldy as a result, and I’ve taken to forcing myself to listen less frequently nowadays.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it even half as much as I do!