That aphex twin is trash… it’s not even music. Somebody mixed a bunch of tracks on some computer software and then called it a song. This generally characterizes what happened to music in the early eighties. The advent of these new recording technologies. Now anybody can be a ‘musician’. Then you’ve got the explosion in the music industry… easily accessible means to produce and distribute music in the free market. Anybody can step into a producer’s office with a demo tape and cut a record deal. Finally, the consumer public, being musically illiterate, will by anything that is marketed. Now every fifteen minutes some new group appears selling the same crap… only it’s a little different this time. There’s a rapper involved, so it’s not just house music rave techno whatever whatever, it’s house music rave techno hip-hop. Thirty minutes later something else comes on the radio and is popular for a week. This time there’s some distorted guitar. So we have house music rave techno hip-hop metal.
Your animosity toward this kind of modern music is warranted, Magnus, but you have no comprehension of jazz (contemporary or fusion) or progressive rock. It is precisely the unpredictability of these genres that is one of the most important elements. Breaking from conventional forms and patterns in song writing. Structuring songs differently, composing songs with many separate parts instead or using the mundane melody/chorus format used all the time in mainstream, commercial music.
By the way, Hammer played with Mahavishnu Orchestra on several albums. Don’t know if you knew that, but I found it ironic nonetheless.
Watch Billy on the skins. This dude is a better drummer with one hand than any drummer you’ll ever find on the radio or in an orchestra pit.