On “noise music”

So K-pop fandom can be a slightly strange place at times: not only is there a lot of new language, or new meanings for existing words, that you have to learn if you want to understand online discourse; there are also some really weird ideas that proliferate through the space. Quite often, these gain traction because people don’t know their (music) history in the slightest and are merely repeating ideas or text they’ve read and like.

One such strange idea is that 4th Generation K-pop groups make “noise music” and that it sucks compared to whatever 3rd gen groups and older had going on. I can understand a point being made that some of the up-and-comers produce tracks that are superficially similar, that there is a trendy sound being released by groups like Stray Kids, The Boyz, Ateez, and others.

But this is not what “noise music” is, not even slightly, and it’s a strange label to apply to any kind of pop music in the first place. Here’s what Wiki has to say about the term. Summarising: its origins are in modernism, futurism and Dada, early 20th C, Italy (and others). Its derivatives are Industrial, Dark Ambient, No Wave, Witch House, Glitch.

“It may incorporate live machine sounds, non-musical vocal techniques, physically manipulated audio media, processed sound recordings, field recording, computer-generated noise, stochastic process, and other randomly produced electronic signals”

“More generally noise music may contain aspects such as improvisation, extended technique, cacophony and indeterminacy. In many instances, conventional use of melody, harmony, rhythm or pulse is dispensed with.”

“Contemporary noise music is often associated with extreme volume and distortion. Notable genres that exploit such techniques include noise rock and no wave, industrial music, Japanoise, and postdigital music such as glitch. In the domain of experimental rock, examples include Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, and Sonic Youth.”

Stockhausen, Whitehouse, Coil, Merzbow, Cabaret Voltaire, Psychic TV, NON, La Monte Young. “it is John Cage’s composition 4’33”, in which an audience sits through four and a half minutes of “silence” (Cage 1973), that represents the beginning of noise music proper.”

“Like much of modern and contemporary art, noise music takes characteristics of the perceived negative traits of noise mentioned below and uses them in aesthetic and imaginative ways.”

The Mothers of Invention, The Velvet Underground (Warhol), The Beatles (Stockhausen). Merzbow: Schwitters + Lou Reed in Japan.

So don’t be coming at me with the term “noise” when the kids are making their tracks a bit louder and more distorted. It’s a whole art movement.

TL;DR: if idol groups want to engage with 100+ years worth of a musical and art movement, that would be amazing and I’d want to hear it. But fans equating music they don’t like with an art form they know nothing about is where I go a bit 😡😠🤬