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RE: future of flamenco
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Stu
Posts: 2529
Joined: Jan. 30 2007
From: London (the South of it), England
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 RE: future of flamenco (in reply to mark indigo)
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quote:
It has been a constant source of dismay to me since getting totally hooked on flamenco that so many flamenco artists seem to want to dabble in the most corny/cheesy/schmaltzy soft pappy pop music
Me too. I guess that's the definition of selling out?
I mean surely that's the only reason serious flamenco artist dip into that world of pop/mainstream. To make some serious corn.
But maybe they just wanna relax and play some light hearted stuff, who knows where people are in their lives and what they need at any given moment.
But also, famous, serious flamenco artists might not be as up tight as you or when it comes to this sort of thing. I often think as non Spanish aficionados, we like to think that all our favorite artists wouldn't dream of committing such a crime and have such strong principles that they would not follow the pop dollars. But I don't think that's the case. Sadly.
I'm my 20s and early 30s, I used to think selling out was the most heinous crime, but since having children and getting older totally get it. I still think it's pretty gross though. 
And this pop fusion (and most pop) I find an unpleasant assault on my delicate ears.
I guess the fear it induces in guys that like us, is that Rosalia et al will somehow dilute and damage the flamenco we like.
But also yeah that's a good point. Some pop flamenco will draw in new ears to hopefully discover the real stuff! 😀
...But then do we even want That?! 😫
We want a thriving niche genre, but also need more lovers of it to bring their money so it can keep thriving....ok but not too many of you please, and don't thrive too much...cos then it could go mainstream....😂 stay underground! Oh but don't die,..etc etc
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Date Sep. 3 2022 11:13:49
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: future of flamenco (in reply to Neil)
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quote:
I have the opposite opinion regarding the likes of Rosario La Tremendita, Rocio Marquez etc. I think they are vital in keeping flamenco alive....We need new flamenco, urban flamenco, fusion flamenco, indie flamenco, dance flamenco, avant garde flamenco, experimental flamenco or whatever other labels they come up with.
Do you really think the "pop" music performed by the likes of the above named, as well as Rogrigo y Gabriela and others, represent a "new" form of flamenco? Are we going to grace these renditions of "pop" with new palos in an attempt to give them the appearance of legitimacy? Will so-called "urban" flamenco become a palo?
And just what is "urban" flamenco, to use one of your examples? Is it "rap" performed in Spanish? Does it conform to the rules governing compas? Or is compas discarded in this new, wonderful world of "pop" music "keeping flamenco alive"? "Indie" flamenco? "fusion" flamenco? Several years ago someone posted on the Foro a video of an attempt at "fusing" hip hop and flamenco. It was god-awful.
I doubt that even the popsters we have mentioned actually believe they are "keeping flamenco alive." They are directing their talent to an audience that cares little to nothing about flamenco. You may know a few young people who discovered real flamenco via "pop" music, but I would wager it is a very small number in the universe you are describing. Flamenco has always been there for young people to discover and appreciate without being filtered through popsters. If they favor the popsters, that is an indication of where real flamenco is heading, essentially toward a very small band of aficionados.
There is an old saying that you can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. To call the latest in pop music, and even some flamenco artists' attempts at fusing with it, necessary to "keeping flamenco alive," is analogous. There comes a point where it is totally off the reservation, and at that point it is ludicrous to say that all these new forms of what is essentially pop "lead back to flamenco puro."
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Sep. 3 2022 14:00:38
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Neil
Posts: 78
Joined: Oct. 29 2018
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RE: future of flamenco (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
Do you really think the "pop" music performed by the likes of the above named, as well as Rogrigo y Gabriela and others, represent a "new" form of flamenco? Are we going to grace these renditions of "pop" with new palos in an attempt to give them the appearance of legitimacy? Will so-called "urban" flamenco become a palo?
And just what is "urban" flamenco, to use one of your examples? Is it "rap" performed in Spanish? Does it conform to the rules governing compas? Or is compas discarded in this new, wonderful world of "pop" music "keeping flamenco alive"? "Indie" flamenco? "fusion" flamenco? Several years ago someone posted on the Foro a video of an attempt at "fusing" hip hop and flamenco. It was god-awful.
I doubt that even the popsters we have mentioned actually believe they are "keeping flamenco alive." They are directing their talent to an audience that cares little to nothing about flamenco. You may know a few young people who discovered real flamenco via "pop" music, but I would wager it is a very small number in the universe you are describing. Flamenco has always been there for young people to discover and appreciate without being filtered through popsters. If they favor the popsters, that is an indication of where real flamenco is heading, essentially toward a very small band of aficionados.
There is an old saying that you can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. To call the latest in pop music, and even some flamenco artists' attempts at fusing with it, necessary to "keeping flamenco alive," is analogous. There comes a point where it is totally off the reservation, and at that point it is ludicrous to say that all these new forms of what is essentially pop "lead back to flamenco puro."
Hi Bill
Both Rosario La Tremendita and Rocio Marquez are recognised flamenco artists here in Spain, they are not regarded as pop. La Tremendita grew up in a flamenco household in Triana and has been performing with top artists since she was a kid. Marquez the same in Huelva. And they have both been recording for over a decade and are well-known names (La Tremendita won a Latin Grammy about 10 years ago). All of their work has flamenco at its core. However, they have both experimented and/or collaborated with other artists/genres and have attracted a younger fan base. La Tremendita is also a bassist and percussionist and brings a lot of jazz into her work.
And no, there are no new palos required.
The labels "Indie," "urban" etc. are just referring to when an artist from another genre uses flamenco in their work. An example of "Indie" would be the veteran Granada band Los Planetas, who have dabbled with flamenco (collaborating with Enrique Morente etc.) "Urban" would be artists like Queralt Lahoz or Califato 3/4 who are mixing flamenco into their urban sounds. The recent Rocío Márquez/Bronquio album is probably the best example of an urban/flamenco collaboration.
Then there are artists like Dani Llamas and Cristian de Moret who are producing electric guitar records built around flamenco that appeal to younger rock fans. Or Raúl Cantizano who just loves to play around with the flamenco guitar and his box of effects.
Of course, lots of it will sound god awful to you (lots of it does to me), my point is that it is a growing scene and is getting younger folk hooked into flamenco sounds. And it is exposing them to more traditional flamenco artists. That's what I mean when I say its leads back to traditional flamenco (it is the root after all). You say you doubt it has any impact but it is just what I see, hear, read and experience from living and working here, going to gigs/flamenco shows, hanging out with friends/work colleagues etc.
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Date Sep. 3 2022 15:24:26
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Ricardo
Posts: 14806
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: future of flamenco (in reply to mark indigo)
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quote:
It has been a constant source of dismay to me since getting totally hooked on flamenco that so many flamenco artists seem to want to dabble in the most corny/cheesy/schmaltzy soft pappy pop music, but hey, it's their culture, they can do what they like with it.
This is taste issues again. Although I think the main concern Morante has is not that there are these experiments, but rather, there are not the heavy hitters to balance things out as before. They have called these artists “flamenquito” for decades now and it no longer has the negative connotation, its more a cute thing or a complimentary thing. I feel that history repeats itself in this regard. Flamenco is traditional and still is part of the gypsy life, to a certain extent. And the general population is not privy to the family traditions generally so we can’t really say how flamenco is doing in that regard. Cellphone videos of gypsy weddings do show some things are disappearing, and the camaronero flamenco is still influential vs great grandma’s old cante.
Back in the 1920s when flamenco was becoming a thing thanks to vinyl etc, the heavy hitters were making a living from singing and that had to be in the big cities obviously. They were inspired by one and other to expand the fandango musically, and some people were impressed by that and others were purists and were NOT. Some don’t consider it “flamenco” and called it “opera flamenco”, due to the focus on the fandango forms. In the past, it seems the libre cantes, or expressive and ornate singing, was reserved for the Cantes Levantes, malagueñas, Granaina, cantes mineros etc, and these songs somehow became associated with payo singing rather than gitano, however, collectively, all these were part of heavy cante. But the fandango started following the pattern of long and ornate Melodies and for whatever strange reason, was thought to be hurting the genre (in a similar way as these fusions). Most of these singers were later viewed as great masters, Vallejo, Marchena, Pinto, later decades inspired by them you see Valderrama, Porrina, Farina etc. Post Camaron you have people like Arcangel, Poveda, etc. Now, all along there were those that don’t respect that stuff, and prefer quite simply the cantes basicos (Solea siguiriya buleria para escuchar Tiento tango, tonas and all those). The flamenco opera thing is the inspiration for the 1922 contest by the so called intellectuals, as if to reignite the passion for the cantes basicos. To the pros up in madrid or whatever that was a joke… and the implication of the event itself was that flamenco was “dying” some how. 50 years later we see the same exact sentiments from the artists in Rito y Geografia where they lament the popularity of Rumba, and of course the interviewers have a prejudice against those opera flamenco styles by their questions reveal the same bias toward gitanos and cantes basicos. Everyone there flatly admits flamenco of old was better and now mostly gone. Except for the young guys, Morante and Camaron. And we know what comes AFTER rito is all the crazy fusion.
So this trend is nothing new, although I admit the advent of internet has changed things drastically. But it is, as I often say, a double edge sword where we can get a lot of Autotune ragaeton flamenco garbage, side by side with the original wax cylinders of the oldest cantes ever now extinct. Anyone can reignite those old cantes and perhaps are doing it and we don’t know. I met the 15 year old kid in Sanlucar that only likes old cante and plays very well for it, and had no clue what Tauromagia was. Flamenco has always been for a smaller elite group of aficionados and artists, and that is ok.
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CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Sep. 3 2022 17:24:58
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kitarist
Posts: 1715
Joined: Dec. 4 2012
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RE: future of flamenco (in reply to Neil)
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quote:
that it is a growing scene and is getting younger folk hooked into flamenco sounds.
Not at all; the (overall, statistically speaking) flow is in the other direction - lots of people who don't care about flamenco (or music, really!) will start to expect that the schmalzy pop she sings is what flamenco should sound like, and devour the genre ecosystem with their numbers and dollars.
There was an analogous process that happened with Argentine tango in the 2000s, with the same wishful thinking arguments to provide an excuse (and the same insults and false dichotomies) and the result being what I describe above.
Keep in mind before answering with anecdotes that, necessarily, this type of argument that you make is about statistical properties, not cherry-picked outliers. Also, these processes are bigger than a particular genre and some had played out already in various genre ecosystems outside flamenco, though don't confuse them for "natural" processes - this is the aggregate effect of individual humans wanting dollars AND status as serious musicians which is why they drag 'flamenco' [or 'tango', or...] with them to their new musical lows beloved by millions - it did NOT have to be like that and was not inevitable; that 's just the excuse because it was the easiest way to go, but there have always been other ways - they are just harder and slower - to develop a culture without killing that which made people's hearts stir in the first place.
But really, Bill summarized all the main points of significance so well above; go and read his post again, carefully, please, before replying with vague insults or more anecdotes.
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Konstantin
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Date Sep. 3 2022 17:35:10
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Neil
Posts: 78
Joined: Oct. 29 2018
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RE: future of flamenco (in reply to kitarist)
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quote:
Yeah yeah, this is a very reasonable interpretation of what was said about that. Also, opinion is one thing, but you provided a justification for said opinion (which makes it different from a simple taste issue that Ricardo mentioned). Some of us responded to your justification with counter-observations and counter-arguments, with pointing out some (but not all) logical fallacies in your justification, as well as with reference to actual empirical evidence from an analogous process already having played out in other genres; in short, we addressed your justification. In contrast, you did not address the substance of any of what was presented to you that did not agree with your justification; just essentially reiterated your original anecdotal arguments in more detail. That's not a 'discussion' in my book, and it has not been a symmetrical process (you never addressed what you were presented with; we did) or one of pure stated opinions/tastes.
It's pretty simple. What was presented was not convincing and did not tally with my own experience.
I'm not arguing about the merits of the music itself, so taste is not the issue, I'm talking about the growing influence of flamenco on the music scene here (and not just pop) and how it is having a positive impact on the younger generation re flamenco etc.
To me, it is tangible because I see it in every day life, which heavily revolves around music, and also in the Spanish media, music press etc. No one on here presented anything to change my mind or convince me otherwise. Instead, I was told I lack data.
I refer back to the Rocío Márquez quote from her interview a couple of weeks ago: "Los códigos del flamenco se están incorporando a la música urbana y eso lo acerca a los jóvenes." This echoes what I see happening and is coming from an artist at the heart of the industry.
Anyway, we are in danger of going round in circles here, so I should probably bow out!
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Date Sep. 3 2022 23:19:28
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Piwin
Posts: 3559
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
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RE: future of flamenco (in reply to kitarist)
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quote:
I like to see it as two rails, which have to go hand in hand in order to open the way.
I.e. the best way forward is for traditionalists and experimentalists to bond over their shared addiction to cocaine. ^^
Dunno whether the pop fusion stuff leads people back to more traditional flamenco. Could be. I honestly don't know. We could probably ask a similar question here about how many people enjoy cante. I'd imagine the overwhelming majority of us started by liking solo guitarra, i.e. something peripheral to the genre. For some, that then led to an interest in and enjoyment of cante. But for others the primary interest is still the same as it was in the beginning, and cante is just something you have to put up with, not something you'd go out of your way to listen to.
In the meantime, what I get out of those pop-fusion artists is that 1. there are strong cultural pressures on the genre, and 2. the culture is still strong enough that people are trying to bridge the gap instead of just abandoning the genre entirely.
Maybe worth distinguishing the "detached" musical point of view and the larger cultural point of view? Dunno. For instance, the "revival" of Breton music in the 70s, spearheaded by artists like Alan Stivell, involved quite a bit of modernization. It's probably fair to say that "what Breton music is supposed to sound like" changed quite a bit during that process. But next to that, we call it a "revival" for a reason. Culturally it is what allowed the music to keep playing such an important role in local culture, and to keep on being an important component of Breton identity. It's not what it used to be, but it kept its distinctiveness, and kept its role as a cultural identifier. I could imagine something similar happening with Andalusia and flamenco. In the larger scheme of things, the survival of that kind of regional identity is probably more important than the preservation of a specific iteration of a musical genre.
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
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Date Sep. 4 2022 3:11:47
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Ricardo
Posts: 14806
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: future of flamenco (in reply to Neil)
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quote:
I'm not arguing about the merits of the music itself, so taste is not the issue, I'm talking about the growing influence of flamenco on the music scene here (and not just pop) and how it is having a positive impact on the younger generation re flamenco etc.
Assuming you have an equal appreciation and love and respect for traditional flamenco as most of the rest here, and simply see that there is plenty of room for these off shoot genres you listed (what we “need” was your words), then the only positive impact on the young there could possibly be would be an exposure to and for the more traditional material they might have not been aware of. Otherwise the impact would be neither positive nor negative. Most of the time, tastes change a bit with deeper knowledge…it doesn’t mean you don’t have to stop liking something when you realize the specifics of why it is inferior, but at least you can contextualize it. People that really understand cante inevitably gravitate back in time and end up in the “golden era” and unfortunately, some of the newer attempts become intolerable. There is nothing wrong with that as long as we have recordings. What I see is the off shoot experiments, in terms of evolution, don’t breed true. They are evolutionary dead ends, one and all, failed mutations. However, occasionally, strong artistic personalities manage to make a mark with some novel thing and it gets picked up, usually it is a specific song or two. But that is a far cry from developing a full new genre.
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Sep. 4 2022 16:37:49
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Neil
Posts: 78
Joined: Oct. 29 2018
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RE: future of flamenco (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
Assuming you have an equal appreciation and love and respect for traditional flamenco as most of the rest here, and simply see that there is plenty of room for these off shoot genres you listed (what we “need” was your words), then the only positive impact on the young there could possibly be would be an exposure to and for the more traditional material they might have not been aware of. Otherwise the impact would be neither positive nor negative. Most of the time, tastes change a bit with deeper knowledge…it doesn’t mean you don’t have to stop liking something when you realize the specifics of why it is inferior, but at least you can contextualize it. People that really understand cante inevitably gravitate back in time and end up in the “golden era” and unfortunately, some of the newer attempts become intolerable. There is nothing wrong with that as long as we have recordings. What I see is the off shoot experiments, in terms of evolution, don’t breed true. They are evolutionary dead ends, one and all, failed mutations. However, occasionally, strong artistic personalities manage to make a mark with some novel thing and it gets picked up, usually it is a specific song or two. But that is a far cry from developing a full new genre.
Yes, personally, I mainly listen to and play traditional flamenco. But I enjoy the offshoots (some more than others) and they are big part of the scene here now, so its impossible to ignore them.
A example of what I'm talking about in terms of young people getting more exposure is the "Monkey Week" festival in Sevilla this November. This is an urban/indie festival specifically aimed at a younger crowd. One of the headliners this year is Perrate and five of the top 10 acts are flamenco or flamenco fusion artists. So artists who play the flamenco festival circuit are now getting booked for events like this in greater frequency. I don't see it really as a new genre as it so varied - it's more collaborations, experimentation and fusion that is creating more of a crossover between artists and audiences. But again, I'm conscious of going round in circles with the debate here.
On a tangent, Perrate himself has become more experimental recently and has talked about researching the golden age to find fresh ideas for today. He even experimented with lowering his vocal tone by an octave after reading chaconas and other works from the 17th-century, which were the inspiration for his latest album. But in stark contrast, he then chose to work with Rosalia's former producer (Raul Refree) on the record. He said he was convinced because Refree heard the demo and said "This has to smell like wood. We have to make a record that smells like wood." The result is a really interesting record.
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Date Sep. 4 2022 18:00:08
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Fluknu
Posts: 151
Joined: Jan. 11 2021
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RE: future of flamenco (in reply to Neil)
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For me this process is seen everywhere in our culture, nowadays. It certainly already happened in the past, as Ricardo mentionned it, but the "normalisation" , "commercialisation" "marketisation" of our days is so quick and fierce by it's technological means, that it leaves every movement it visits totally depleted and wondering what happened. I saw this with the "mindfulness meditation movement". or Here in Switzerland a guy comercialised "Yoga Paddle". Doing Yoga on a paddle :)
It's not all bad, as some people will then dig and dig...like alchemists. But honnestly, on the short run, I'm quite pessimistic. I think that we are surounded by a culture which gives us glimpses of everything from everywhere, but so shallow! No one ever goes deep into the subject. Actually our attention span has gotten shorter and everything is made for quick distraction.
So the near future for me, is idiocracy everywhere, going deeper in the gutter.
If we survive our own stupidity, the technological means we have, and the knowledge that we have from all around the world, we will probably do amazing things and musicaly, things of major interest could emerge.
In the meantime, I stick to the bearer of the flame in each genre, make frequent dips in the new things coming up (have to go on alternative sources to find artists in that field) and that's about it.
That said, I listenned to really good music in the 80's. But what no one knows, is that I secretely enjoyed an album of "Sandra"...Yeah! I said it! Out of the closet.
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Date Sep. 4 2022 19:05:53
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