Friday, August 26, 2005

Mainstream / avant garde

For whatever reason, I've been delving into a lot of "exotica" (or "easy listening") music lately. I stumbled across a network (you can get to it by checking out this site and its many links) that seems to have taken up the task of digitizing numerous out-of-print LPs (unavailable on CD), and making those recordings available via the web.

It's amazing, when you think about it, the sort of aesthetic transformations these albums go through. When they were created, they were as commercial and square as all get-out. Balding middle-aged arrangers trying to capitalize on the hipster scene. Now they are hip in their own right (at least with a certain crowd).

Taste is such an interesting, contingent phenomenon.

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