ADAPT OR DIE
Sep 1, 2006 12:00 PM, Kylee Swenson Remix Editor
Finding the free time to read a book is not easy for some, particularly if you're burning the candle at both ends, juggling a day job and recording/performing music. I try to read a book once in a while to distract me from daily life and to feed my head with something aside from music. To that end, I finally read a novel that came out a few years ago, Life of Pi (Harvest, 2003), by Yann Martel. It's one of those books that students and book clubs have heated debates about. A teenage boy named Pi Patel travels on a ship headed for Canada from India with his zoo animal — owning family, only to end up sharing a life raft for 227 days with a Bengal tiger. There's a pretty big twist in the story, which I won't divulge. But it was pretty crazy reading about how a 16-year-old boy could manage to be so resourceful and cunning, adapting to such an intense, almost impossible situation. Most people we know will never come close to confronting that extreme level of survival. There's a lot to be learned from the story of Pi.
On a much less challenging level, everyone has to adapt in some way to survive. If music is your living, you have to adapt to the changing tides to survive, too. Otherwise, you'll have to fall back on something else. Maybe that's why some musicians end up changing professions, and some go with the flow. For example, a lot has changed since DJ Shadow released his debut album, Endtroducing…, 10 years ago. Whereas complex, instrumental collages were something to be awed by a decade ago, mainstream audiences are more than ever sold by a strong vocal hook. That's not lost on Shadow, so he figured out a way to stay true to his style and tastes without caving to the mainstream agenda. Thus, he approached his latest album, The Outsider, like he would be making a diverse mixtape for a friend — from quirky, blow-up-the-club hyphy tracks to introspective, home-alone cinematic moments.
Meanwhile, Jurassic 5, a longtime underground hip-hop group with little mainstream airplay, wasn't afraid to confess its aim to make it to the mainstream league. The fivesome built up its caché and bank account until it could afford to pull out the big guns, hiring producers such as Scott Storch and Salaam Remi. Ferry Corsten, also in this issue, adapts as he goes. Before people could write off Corsten as a trance DJ (after all, he started out as a producer first), he created an album that would dispel notions of moldy trance and make a fresh mutation of the genre infused with house, hip-hop, electro, techno and breaks.
In light of Pi's story or other life-threatening situations, I guess it's pretty petty to talk about survival in terms of making music to nod your head to. But even though you're not in imminent danger of being eaten by sharks or tigers — or dying from thirst, hunger or exposure to the elements — you still have to adapt in life. Keep doing exactly what you're doing, and you may just bob around in your own creativity until you fade away. So, as with all things in life, keep your wits about you.
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