Respect Your Elders
I was walking along the road today, minding my own business, when I saw this.
Damn you, Singapore Design Festival publicity team!! How dare you diss Kraftwerk, my all-time favourite electronic musicians!! How could you be so callous as to equate their Man-Machine and The Mix-era images with mindless conformity!! How could you bring yourself to imply, by association, that they are lacking in "design"?!? Don't you know that they have put more thought into their image than you have into your publicity campaign?? Are you aware that their 1978 Man-Machine album sleeve, for all its "conformity", was based on the constructionist art of El Lissitzky?? How much more "design" can you get than THAT, huh?? Well I'll tell you how much more. Kraftwerk are so "design" that even their MUSIC is designed...their elegant, minimalist compositions are so tight and precise that they don't have a single excess note, beat or rest. And how about this: while most bands are happy to record original-sounding pieces of music in professional studios, Kraftwerk's music was so ahead of its time that they had to BUILD their own studio (Kling Klang studio in Düsseldorf), and DESIGN it such that the whole thing could be brought out for their performances!! I kid you not!!
Do you know that Kraftwerk have had more influence on the music in this universe than your puny little poster will ever have on anything?? Has anyone told you how much historical gravitas the group has, its members having been born in postwar Germany, reflecting the hope and anxiety of their generation in their carefully-DESIGNED concept albums?? I did not extend my stay in New York City this year and fork out S$500 for accommodation, flight changing and ticket fees just to watch a bunch of "conformists"; I paid to watch people who INVENTED the template for all their slobbering successors to conform to. In other words, Kraftwerk weren't just "creating the edge" as your festival hopes to do--they PUSHED the edge so far that modern music has never looked back. Now, BOW IN RESPECT TO THEM AND APOLOGISE!!
And so I carried on walking, minding my own business.
Damn you, Singapore Design Festival publicity team!! How dare you diss Kraftwerk, my all-time favourite electronic musicians!! How could you be so callous as to equate their Man-Machine and The Mix-era images with mindless conformity!! How could you bring yourself to imply, by association, that they are lacking in "design"?!? Don't you know that they have put more thought into their image than you have into your publicity campaign?? Are you aware that their 1978 Man-Machine album sleeve, for all its "conformity", was based on the constructionist art of El Lissitzky?? How much more "design" can you get than THAT, huh?? Well I'll tell you how much more. Kraftwerk are so "design" that even their MUSIC is designed...their elegant, minimalist compositions are so tight and precise that they don't have a single excess note, beat or rest. And how about this: while most bands are happy to record original-sounding pieces of music in professional studios, Kraftwerk's music was so ahead of its time that they had to BUILD their own studio (Kling Klang studio in Düsseldorf), and DESIGN it such that the whole thing could be brought out for their performances!! I kid you not!!
Do you know that Kraftwerk have had more influence on the music in this universe than your puny little poster will ever have on anything?? Has anyone told you how much historical gravitas the group has, its members having been born in postwar Germany, reflecting the hope and anxiety of their generation in their carefully-DESIGNED concept albums?? I did not extend my stay in New York City this year and fork out S$500 for accommodation, flight changing and ticket fees just to watch a bunch of "conformists"; I paid to watch people who INVENTED the template for all their slobbering successors to conform to. In other words, Kraftwerk weren't just "creating the edge" as your festival hopes to do--they PUSHED the edge so far that modern music has never looked back. Now, BOW IN RESPECT TO THEM AND APOLOGISE!!
And so I carried on walking, minding my own business.
posted by The Empty Signifier @ 11/08/2005 11:24:00 pm
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