The analogy that struck me was fonts. If your classic rock drum sound is something like Baskerville or Times New Roman, then the drums in the Belgian stuff or early Eurohouse or The KLF is perhaps equivalent to Arial or Lucida Console or something of that ilk: streamlined, almost-naturalistic, with a hint of futurity and this-is-the-modern-world. But like your classic rock drum sound, the beat/font doesn’t really draw attention to itself, it’s functional--rhythm as division of time. Pure information. Of course rock drum sound hasn’t always been like that--think of psychedelia’s effects-laden beats: the billowing, phased drum-rolls on The Small Faces’ "Itchycoo Park" being equivalent perhaps to the trippy typography on all those Fillmore Ballroom posters for bands like Sopwith Camel and Jefferson Airplane, woogly and pendulous to the point of illegibility.

not to be a dick but the "trippy" "typography" is actually Lettering. Typography is the use of set, systemic letterforms (aka typefaces/"fonts"). Lettering is what was done on the old psychedelic posters, non-systemic unique letterforms drawn individually.
- anonymous (guest) 8-20-2004 10:38 pm

The correction is worth making, thanks. If he'd said "trippy lettering" the analogy would still be good, though, right? Ornate drum-rolls of psychedelia (handmade--like those letters--with echo-enhancements) vs rhythm synthesizers, comparable to mechanical fonts (pure information)?
- tom moody 8-20-2004 11:09 pm