An introduction by M. Maeda

There was a time when the demarcations of style represented a subjective discontent and objective tendency, but it is now unclear if that phenomenon was determined by peculiarities of the latter 20th century. We may be witnessing the repetition of an earlier time. Genre's ubiquity becomes its demise. Sadly we lack the mental clarity to reconstruct the cause, the severity, or the target of this self-destruction, and so our only joy is to solemnly archive the bits and pieces we can salvage. At the present moment these incoherent styles do not seem to evolve beyond the template that generated them, nor do they seek to. They do not recount the present history of people's self-understanding of their position in culture, i.e. they have no meaning. The self-reflective development of a style through history may be impossible now - any attempt to achieve this ideal without a radical change in the conviction of society is unlikely. The project [Liquid Blonde] is perhaps trying to appeal to some ancient authority which held the whole of music to an objective criteria. This seems like a romantic lament of the decline of taste - a perrenial complaint of the moderns. The cycle of grief will stagnate if this denial does not resolve into acceptance. It is not for me to say the appropriate response the the 21st century and its botched art-forms. Unless music and its reception are taken seriously, they will continue to have a meager capacity to effect us, growing ever more distant to the memory of their potential and ever closer to a primitive need-fulfillment. I am not convinced of any recent attempts to bring music or its reception towards the light. Sincerely, M. Maeda