Afrikaansweek Update Dag 5 & 6

As I hoped – by day 5 I had moved out of the slump and started to enjoy Kurt Darren again. (I say again, but I think this might be the most that I have liked his music) Through knowing the songs and knowing what to expect, I have been able to appreciate the finer details : the second vocals; the casio-generated melody lines; the slight changes in dynamics…

Day 5 and 6 forced me to explain my experiment to a few people. This made me think about the reason behind the experiment, the success of it, what I have learned from it and the future. (Those of you who have been following the reports from day one would have noticed that the focus of the experiment has moved from Afrikaans music in general (i.e. those 9 cd’s) to being focused on Kurt Darren alone)

Thus far I have summed it up as follows :

The Reason

The reason behind the experiment (except self punishment) is to expose myself to Kurt Darren to such an extent that I can judge his music in an unbiased manner.

The Level of Success

At this stage I can safely deem the experiment successful. I have been able to shake off all (at least most of) the bias formed by years of loathing sokkie music and being a musician myself. The latter has proved helpful in assessing the music, quality and level of production.

The Outcome

As mentioned earlier, Kurt can sing. He can sing pretty damn good. Furthermore, a lot of time and money went into the making of the cd’s. A lot more than you can appreciate while you try to find a path through a crowd of sokkie-gangers. The melodies, beside the main melody line, are nice. They are well thought through, complement the songs and fall easily on the ear.

I also started thinking about the whole sokkie scene. Who else makes music that you can easily langarm to? Nicolas Louw. And? Who else? Yes, there are the few other songs that get hijacked and are morphed into dance hits, but very few artists really cater for that market.

The Future

Despite fears of never being able to enjoy a sokkie again, I am enjoying the music a bit more now. I am, however, now looking forward immensely to listening to other music. I think that I might still listen to some of Kurt’s hits occasionally, and will definitely fight the good fight, but I need a break now!

This is now the last time that I do an update whilst listening to Kurt, and I feel strangely nostalgic. I think I’ll create a page for it, so that it will always stay close to us. Let me know if you ever feel like trying a similar experiment, and I’ll join you!

I leave you with the music video of “IO Meisie”. It might not be my favourite Kurt song, but from 2′37” he sings a line that struck me. Give it a listen and tell me that it’s not awesome. I dare you.