(fyi to OCRemix artists: the fact that nobody understands your work doesn't make you an artist)
fyi, all artists who have submitted to OCR do not necessarily share the same philosophy about music and remixing.
I've said it before, and I guess I might as well say it again: OCR is a community of people, just like this one. Anyone can join and submit. There is no all-encompassing creed that must be agreed upon and accepted in order to post there. I know this because all the crap I hear about the site, such as that alluded to in this thread, is nothing I have ever personally encountered. That means we can't
all be bad.
...which is unsurprising since they're 1) nerds and 2) "musicians", a lethal combination of narcissistic inferiority complexes.
As both a nerd and musician (or is it "musician"?), I suppose I'm obligated to take offense to this. :p
The perception that academic and critical interest in art somehow necessitates pretentiousness is unfortunately common. People in general get so incredibly defensive when facing criticism of their perceptions of music, it's almost funny. The problem is that those not educated in music philosophically put all their eggs into one basket.
One of the common perceptions I challenge is the matter of "composer x sounds like composer y". Usually, there's an easy way to prove them wrong. Just like authors, composers imbue their work (both consciously and unconsciously) with stylistic tendencies unique to their personal musical "persona" if I can be afforded to call it that. But even when challenged with this, the defendant immediately cries "subjective!" and falls back on the merits of their personal freedom of choice. Suddenly whether one composer sounds like another composer becomes an entirely subjective matter.
As long as person A believes "well, I think it sounds like this, therefore it's true", person B is pretentious and has a complex if he posits a challenge. The natural sciences possess the luxury of immunity to this sort of nonsense, but those of us who practice art seriously must accept the uninformed ramblings of even the most artistically handicapped individual or be chastised for our arrogance.
I don't begrudge anyone their views on music. In fact, I wish healthy and critical discussion of music was a more common element of the public consciousness. I think it would be invaluable as a tool of teaching in our schools. But more often than not, such discussion is limited to whether or not something is liked or not.
What bothers me most is that many people treat their enjoyment of particular music as a personal possession. That is, they seem to appreciate it more for how it augments their own personal image rather than on the merits of the music itself or the composer who constructed it.
So, let me ask a question to those of you who try to hunt down remixes of specific pieces of music: why do you want remixes?
I would guess that the reason you do it is because you want to hear a different interpretation of the original, because you feel that the original is quality source material for a new interpretation.
If, however, you're not looking for a new interpretation, then why isn't the original good enough? You just want a transcription with better or different synth? If that's the case, I've got great news for you: that's easy to do. It's easy to take existing material and republish it.
I'll end with another question, a very open-ended question: what do
you want from remixes? What do you want to hear? What specific styles, specific pieces of music, specific instruments, etc.? If you have criticism of the music you've heard thus far, then you must therefore be capable of explaining your criticism.
