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January 16, 2019 6:15 PM   Subscribe

Catalog number STUMM433 is a Mute Records box set of John Cage's 4'33" interpreted in sixty different ways by sixty different artists, including New Order, Einstürzende Neubauten, The Afghan Wigs, Goldfrapp, Moby, and Depeche Mode, totaling roughly six hours of music. Each recording will be paired with a video; here is Laibach's (NSFW).

4'33" is one of the most famous (or notorious) music compositions of the twentieth century, and there are innumerable performances on YouTube ranging from virtuosic and reverential to harsh (previously) and comical (previously). The John Cage Trust also provides an app, available for both iPhone and Android. Recommended supplemental reading is idiopath's essay on the process involved in asking the question, "Is this art?"
posted by ardgedee (41 comments total) 29 users marked this as a favorite
 
I assume Depeche Mode will submit the original music video for "Enjoy the Silence" sans audio.
posted by prinado at 7:16 PM on January 16, 2019 [17 favorites]


Maestro Cage gets a fair degree of snickerish response to his works and he was certainly on or beyond the experimental line, but I had the fortune to see several of his concerts when he did a residency at the New England Conservatory and each show was just fun and interesting, he had such a pleasant sense of humor and fine musicianship and awareness of the limits of art and just all around showmanship.
posted by sammyo at 8:05 PM on January 16, 2019 [9 favorites]


"My remix of 4'33"" is the knock-knock joke of music.
posted by rhizome at 8:15 PM on January 16, 2019 [6 favorites]


That Laibach performance is pretty contemplative and interesting, in the way any performance of 4'33" should be. The way they did the performance emphasizes the nature in which this piece forces you to recognize sounds you ordinarily would not pay attention to. The soundscape they chose is one I found interesting, too.

A lot of people poke fun at this particular piece of work, but no two performances of it have ever been alike, and all of them end up being much more than the audience was expecting going into it.

I like the way this box set is a charity release and I think the charities they chose are thoughtful and appropriate.

I look forward to seeing more of these performances. Great stuff, thanks for posting!
posted by hippybear at 8:15 PM on January 16, 2019 [15 favorites]


That video is the most Laibach thing I've seen/heard since the last one (Lonely Goatherd probably). Mute promoting the boxset with sixty different videos from artists of that sort of calibre is amazing!
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 8:16 PM on January 16, 2019 [1 favorite]


Each recording will be paired with a video...

If you're not there, it really doesn't work that well without the video.
posted by LeLiLo at 8:18 PM on January 16, 2019 [3 favorites]



posted by not_on_display at 8:23 PM on January 16, 2019 [17 favorites]


Did Weird Al ever cover 4’33”? I’d pay to see a video of that.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:29 PM on January 16, 2019


I don't think Weird Al does parodies of novelty songs.
posted by demiurge at 8:33 PM on January 16, 2019 [10 favorites]


Did Simon & Garfunkel contribute?
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 8:37 PM on January 16, 2019 [5 favorites]


The big news about this box set for me is it features the first recording by The Normal since 1978’s “Warm Leatherette.”
posted by stannate at 8:54 PM on January 16, 2019 [3 favorites]


I don't think Weird Al does parodies of novelty songs.
If you mean ‘novelty’ in the sense of 4’33” being an entirely novel approach to the very basis of music in the concert hall, then your comment is ignorant and dismissive. If you mean that 4’33” is a comedic or parodic version of music, then your comment is... oh wait, it’s ignorant and dismissive.

The entire reasoning behind the piece is that music permits and even requires the audience - as demonstrated here, the composition is what happens in and around the performance space, the listener actively engaged in the act of listening. It is a radically inclusive vision of what is possible in art music, a complete and profound rupture from the elitism of the classical music world. What 4’33” is absolutely not is four minutes and thirty three seconds of nothing: instead, it’s four minutes and thirty three seconds of understanding the world as it is sounded, of total engagement with your environment. It is in the spirit of Cage’s playful, Zen koan works, sure, but it is very much not disposable.

So please, keep your own silence if you’re just here to mock.
posted by prismatic7 at 8:54 PM on January 16, 2019 [17 favorites]


it features the first recording by The Normal since 1978’s “Warm Leatherette.”

Not strictly true, but a welcome appearance nonetheless!

Did Simon & Garfunkel contribute?

Ha ha, but yes. Only they go by Gimon & Sarfunkel and also it's Kid606.

Joking aside, I second everything prismatic7 said.
posted by rhizome at 9:12 PM on January 16, 2019 [1 favorite]


"My remix of 4'33"" is the knock-knock joke of music.

I got some wires crossed as I read this and it turned into a dark existential joke. I stand on someone's stoop, knuckles extended, but I don't knock. I am frozen. After 4 minutes and 33 seconds I go away, because no one ever said "Who's there?"
posted by aws17576 at 9:59 PM on January 16, 2019 [16 favorites]


Adam Neely's annotated performance of 4'33" helped me understand and appreciate the composition, and the intention behind it.

It's really no different from the spaces between songs in a formal live performance setting. I recall a Bill Frisell show where, after a glorious run of songs, he smiled and asked our patience as he silently tweaked his gear. For those few minutes, the audience sat motionless...just as mesmerized by the quiet ambience as the amplified sounds. It was our own impromptu 4'33" (until Bill looked up, squinted out to the audience, and in his Frisellian manner asked.."it's so quiet...are you all....OK?")
posted by prinado at 10:20 PM on January 16, 2019 [5 favorites]


Now I'm trying to imagine how Weird Al could parody 4'33". The best I can think of is as a double act, where the straight man keeps trying to perform it like the artiste he knows he is, and the fool keeps interrupting to complain he doesn't get it. By the end their argument will have been a tutorial on the common viewpoints and reactions of the piece, and the audience both laughs and learns.
posted by traveler_ at 10:20 PM on January 16, 2019 [3 favorites]


Very Duchamp, that clip.
posted by ouke at 12:19 AM on January 17, 2019 [1 favorite]


then your comment is... oh wait, it’s ignorant and dismissive.

It's dismissive, but not ignorant. I know what people say about the piece, but I still see it as a joke. A set time for people to listen to the ambient noise? To reflect on the sounds around them? Sure. But to treat it as a composed and played piece of music is comedic to me. The video above of two people not playing instruments while a clock counts down is very funny.
posted by demiurge at 12:57 AM on January 17, 2019 [8 favorites]


While I don't at all agree with the seeming dismissive tone of the statement on 4'33" being a novelty song, I also don't think calling it a novelty is entirely off base. It is basically a one off concept that followed like explorations of reductionism in painting, like Rauscheberg's White Paintings of the previous year, 1951. Cage's 4'33" at that point in art history was virtually an inevitable outcome of the ideas being explored at the time.

If Cage hadn't done it someone else almost assuredly would have, to of course somewhat different effect regarding length and the "how" of its performance, but with the same underlying basis of thought involved. That it was Cage who composed the piece is no surprise since he was an important part of the artistic community of the era and that it was his composition certainly gave the piece more immediate notice and standing as a signal work.

None of this is meant to deny Cage's importance to the reception of the piece or deny that his doing it both added to the importance of its legacy and was how it came to be at that precise moment instead of later when the effect would have been diminished due to the importance of "seeing" the importance of the concept in music at that point in time. In essence, it's only Cage who could do the piece "right" to secure its place in art/music history as such a signal event.

At the same time though, like so many explorations in concept, it is an artistic cul-de-sac. A concept that has force and importance when presented at the right moment, but where there is minimal gain in following the idea any further as it largely exhausts the idea in its expression. Someone else following the piece with, say, a 7'44" does nothing to expand the idea and other artists, such as the album and videos provide, covering the piece is still mostly just working to further extend what was already evident in the original. That isn't to say there is no value in that, just that once the path was laid out, further exploration of it isn't really mapping out much new ground.

Some, like Reid's autotune one, are indeed amusing and do have something to say in their own right, but the debt to the original can't be overcome. It's still Cage's concept in variation, you can go round and round with it, leading new audiences to the concept but in the end it is one that fulfills its essence in its initial expression. That's fine, great even, but it limits it to something akin to a novelty piece, if one can accept the term as a non-pejorative. Other artists can pay homage to Cage, for good reason, but to add to art/music history they have to find different paths of expression, they have to make sounds, or they're just creating echoes.

This isn't something unique to Cage's piece, it's something that ran through the arts in the latter half of the last century and is still being worked through today. Art as concept, concept as fulfillment, fulfillment as cul-de-sac, art for art's sake. The audience for such things, and I count myself among them, is increasingly isolated from the larger world for delving so deeply into concepts of art itself and alone. That's invigorating and even thrilling at times for those who've invested in the history and ideas of art, but it is a series of paths that lead further and further away from the rest of civilization.

That isn't all there is to modern art by any stretch, but it is perhaps too important a part of what is acclaimed as important by those deeply invested in the art world. 4'33" is a hugely important work, but it also is one that marks the increasing isolation of great art from much of the public's terrain.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:01 AM on January 17, 2019 [9 favorites]


I should follow up and say that there are many good novelty songs that I like very much. Funny songs aren't automatically bad art.
posted by demiurge at 1:10 AM on January 17, 2019 [4 favorites]


Too much AutoTune on these tracks, the vinyl release is much “warmer”.
posted by wenestvedt at 3:21 AM on January 17, 2019 [5 favorites]


ouke: It's supposed to be a reference to Duchamp, hence the "Readymade" in the video's title / opening shot
posted by talos at 3:38 AM on January 17, 2019


I clicked on the video and the YouTube 'buffering' icon just twirled endlessly and now I'm not sure whether that was actually what I was supposed to see.
posted by memebake at 3:49 AM on January 17, 2019 [10 favorites]


This is your reminder that 4' 33" is also 273 seconds, -273 being absolute zero Celsius (=0 degrees Kelvin). (I didn't know that till this year.)
posted by musofire at 5:17 AM on January 17, 2019 [4 favorites]


> I had the fortune to see several of his concerts when he did a residency at the New England Conservatory and each show was just fun and interesting, he had such a pleasant sense of humor and fine musicianship and awareness of the limits of art and just all around showmanship.

I was there too! At one concert I sat a couple rows in front of Cage and happened to be gazing around the auditorium just at the moment that the performers had disrupted a long period of extremely quiet activity with an extremely loud WHAM!, and the entire audience jumped up in alarm, and I saw Cage to laugh with delight.
posted by ardgedee at 5:49 AM on January 17, 2019 [1 favorite]


I clicked on the video and the YouTube 'buffering' icon just twirled endlessly and now I'm not sure whether that was actually what I was supposed to see.

They ripped that off from the videogame adaptation of Waiting For Godot.
posted by acb at 5:50 AM on January 17, 2019 [4 favorites]


And I still wish I had made time to attend his Norton Lectures (recordings from some of the lectures), which were going on that same Spring. Not sure what I would have made of them (here's an account in the NYT), but it would have been memorable.
posted by ardgedee at 5:52 AM on January 17, 2019


4'33" isn't a dead end piece.

As it mucks with the margins and context of performance vs. non performance, it's a direct precedent for Fluxus happenings and Viennese Actionism and performance art generally.

It's an essential part of the lineage for sound art and audio installation.

In music it's a direct parent of Wandelweisser (likely the most interesting thing to happen in 1990's experimental music, and in turn an influence for Onkyo and EAI generally).
posted by idiopath at 6:15 AM on January 17, 2019 [2 favorites]


(also I'm flattered to see an old comment linked in the fpp, perhaps some day I'll get off my figurative ass and turn that late night anxiety ramble into an essay)
posted by idiopath at 6:19 AM on January 17, 2019


Huh huh, Mute.
posted by whuppy at 8:34 AM on January 17, 2019


4'33" isn't a dead end piece.

As it mucks with the margins and context of performance vs. non performance, it's a direct precedent for Fluxus happenings and Viennese Actionism and performance art generally.


Of course it is an important piece in the history of art, as you say, acting as precedent for much that came after. That was part of the point of my admittedly over-extended spiel. 4'33" in itself is a fully realized concept. It need not and really can not be followed any further along the same line.

As a key piece in Cage's body of work, however, its importance is not exhausted as being one part of that larger whole. 4'33"'s significance in that sense lies as much in the enacting of the piece in a context which allowed it to take on a shaped importance anyone else would not have been able to provide.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:39 AM on January 17, 2019 [1 favorite]


4'33" in itself is a fully realized concept. It need not and really can not be followed any further along the same line.

See also: ready-mades. Marcel Duchamp putting a urinal on exhibition was art. Someone else putting a random object isn't, unless they're saying something entirely different.
posted by acb at 8:45 AM on January 17, 2019 [2 favorites]


Back in 1976 I got to meet Mr Cage after a performance of Atlas Eclipticalis (spelling). It was in San Jose... There were boos during the piece. He told me that he was finally tired of all the boos. He said that he has been around long enough that people should know what to expect and should now have some respect for his work. I was happy to have heard the piece and to spend almost an hour talking with him about all kinds of stuff. Getting to meet a childhood hero is quite wonderful. The man did so much to wake us up.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:12 AM on January 17, 2019 [4 favorites]


4'33" in itself is a fully realized concept. It need not and really can not be followed any further along the same line.

I heard/read a story once about Brian Eno doing an experiment about music and the outside world, where he recorded like a half-hour of audio outside his window in order to see if he could "learn" it like you would learn a song and its lyrics. As the story goes, he could. I think this all is a direct descendant of this piece.
posted by rhizome at 12:09 PM on January 17, 2019 [1 favorite]


I heard/read a story once about Brian Eno doing an experiment about music and the outside world, where he recorded like a half-hour of audio outside his window in order to see if he could "learn" it like you would learn a song and its lyrics. As the story goes, he could.

There was (IIRC) a psychology experiment, in which a few minutes of motorway noise were recorded and played repeatedly on a loop to volunteers. After a while, the volunteers began picking out patterns in them.
posted by acb at 1:16 PM on January 17, 2019 [1 favorite]


Obligatory six-feet-nine-inches joke. After laughter, please continue.
posted by Hogshead at 1:29 PM on January 17, 2019


Seriously, though, that Laibach video is amazing, and I'm going to tell you why. But watch it first, then come back.

Playing a chess match with/against a naked woman is a reference to this picture (or sequence of pictures) (warning: nudity). That's Marcel Duchamp playing chess against Eve Babitz in 1964.

Duchamp abandoned art in the late 1920s to become a professional chess player. He was not great at it (a master but never a grandmaster), but his obsession with it took up most of the rest of his life.

Four years after the Babitz photo, in 1968, Duchamp played a game of chess against John Cage on the stage of the Ryerson theatre in Toronto, on a unique chessboard that Cage had had built for the occasion. Each square contained a photovoltaic cell, triggered by the movement of the pieces, which in turn activated or deactivated notes, sounds and musicians, creating music. Duchamp, aged eighty, beat Cage in half an hour. The concert/match is described here.

And that is what the Laibach video is about.
posted by Hogshead at 2:28 PM on January 17, 2019 [6 favorites]


4'33" has always, in its weird way, reminded me of Yoko. Apparently the two crossed paths in the mid-sixties pre -Lennon. Total absurdity.
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 4:09 PM on January 17, 2019


Yoko Ono was involved in the Fluxus avant-garde art movement before becoming Mrs. John Lennon.
posted by acb at 4:13 PM on January 17, 2019 [2 favorites]


Maestro Cage gets a fair degree of snickerish response to his works

Cage himself was often Zenlike and good-natured about people seeing humor in his work. When he performed Water Walk on the game show I've Got a Secret, the host asked him if it was all right if any members of the audience laughed. He said, "Of course, I consider laughter preferable to tears."
posted by jonp72 at 8:00 PM on January 17, 2019 [4 favorites]


I had honestly thought Mute would release another 4'33" video before this thread closed. I'm keeping track, but at this point it doesn't look like they will.
posted by hippybear at 10:23 PM on February 14, 2019


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