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Since watching this the other day I’ve heard two examples of “middle eastern” music in media I’ve been watching and I can’t unhear the use of Indian instruments among other things. Same thing happened when I learned what Bulgarian women’s choir sounded like. People really just throw together random shit, don’t they?
Thoughts on BF2’s MEC theme?
The intro to me sounds more like actual middle eastern music than the rest, but I also don’t recognize the specific instruments used. The rest of it seems to have some bluesy slide guitar and some of the orchestral strings playing the harmonic minor mode that’s showcased a lot in the video. So some pretty classic orientalist tropes, which makes sense. It’s a neat song. I hadn’t heard it before. Looks like it was written by 3 Swedish men? It doesn’t seem like they have any training in middle eastern music, but it’s hard to find info on them.
Wow, impressive analysis. I think I could’ve named ‘guitar, maybe’ and that’s it.
Yeah, not too surprising it’s tropey. The Battlefield Franchise has always been pretty ‘Good Guys vs Russia Iran Chinabad’… Although not to the extent of Call Of Duty - they’re so deep in propaganda they literally had a level called ‘Highway Of Death’ where they simply reversed it so Russia committed it rather than America…
Yeah, Swedish is likely - the old (and current to a lesser extent) battlefield games were all Swedish developers. EA Sarl, iirc.
Solid tune though, tropey as it may be. Battlefields most recent game doesn’t even have a soundtrack - it’s just ambient futuristic droning noises in all the loading screens. Pretty sad really, because the Battlefield soundtracks have always been top notch.
Real neat video. it came up in my feed the other day and I was hoping it would surface again so I could watch it. Thanks!
Super interesting when he got into stuff like vocal differences between Iranian and Arabic singing or examples of middle-eastern modes. Hopefully I can find more actual music from across the middle east to learn and experience its breadth.
Also it was really cool for me personally, as I’ve spent a lot of time listening to folk music across the region from like Kazakhstan to the Balkans on the north side of the Black Sea, to hear the examples of traditional music from Anatolia or Northern Iran and sort of have a gestalt moment where I could start to see how it all fit together in a sonic geography.
Read Edward Said. Orientalism is a good book.
Okay listen. I’m sure this guy has a lot of valid points and I’m probably going to listen to this later. But I clicked on a random point and his Iranness is really shining through when he talks about how people are trying to achieve a “Persian” sound. That has literally only happened in Prince of Persia. Islamic Persian history has been fully subsumed into the wider middle eastern/central asian culture in pop culture dude. Nobody is trying to achieve Persian-ness, they’re trying to sound Turco-Arab-Persian.
I think that’s his overall point, everything from Egypt to literally India is melted into the orientalist pot.
They will use “Persia” as a buzzword for like, fancy bazaar Arabs, but not in any way consider what Persian culture is.
But that’s my point, I don’t think people actually use the buzzword “Persian”, I think the whole thing has been souped together enough that for most western pop culture “Persian” doesn’t exist independently as a concept, at least not really. I’m not arguing against the homogenization in pop culture, I’m just noting that the Iranian chose to name the homogeneous soup “Persian”.
If by “people”, do you mean the average everyday person in America? Then yeah I mean I can see what you’re saying, most people, in that sense, make no distinction between Middle Eastern identities.
But if you mean “people”, being the “people” producing hours long mixes on YouTube and Spotify, who are the ones making revisionist claims that the sounds people will hear are authentic to some ethnic identity, then I would like to offer a counterexample. Namely, there are channels with videos such as this one, which say things like,
And of course this is just one example, but there are tons of other examples out there of this, some of which belong to the YouTube channel I’ve shared.
In your original comment, you say that you went to a random point in the video and that your impression was that his “Iranness is really shining through”. Now, this is just my assumption, but to me this read like that you are saying that your impression of him was that he is being culturally snobbish about Persian music, and idk, that seems kind of problematic to me because ethnic identity, music, and people being educated about both those things on the internet are very intertwined, and I think it’s kind of shitty to characterize him this way without seeing the video first, especially when the content of the video seeks to give some education about Persian music, and it’s impact culturally. Maybe you could elaborate more about what you meant by that?
No, I did not mean to imply that he is a snob or that he’s racist or anything. I was just amused that I pressed a random point and he had named the western perception of the middle east as a homogeneous culture “Persian” That’s it. That’s the end of my point on that. And that related to that that I don’t think anyone else would name this homogeneous orientalist soup “Persian” unless they had a specific goal in mind or they had a connection to Persian culture. I didn’t mean to imply that he was a cultural supremacist, or that he was saying anything wrong. It’s just that I’ve never heard anyone refer to the generized and racist caricature of the middle east, north africa and central asia as “Persian” and the first time I do it’s an Iranian.
Yeah, I’ve seen it a couple of times online, like with these types of “vibes-based” music playlists, but otherwise you’re right, it’s hardly ever referred to as Persian, at least not in the video title; I imagine he probably has that impression due to whatever algorithm he has on YouTube/Other social media feeding him stuff like what I linked, but probably to an even greater degree, just because of how these algorithms function, but idk! Sorry for misunderstanding you!
IIRC from watching the video a couple days ago he has more examples than just Prince of Persia where western musicians will use “Persian” in either the generic titles of their bland background music, or use it interchangeable when describing the music and inspiration.
Although I guess the latter being used interchangeably might be your point? Or do you mean westerners literally do not think of or use the term Persia or Persian?
I mean that I don’t think the average America would think of “Persia” for the generic orientalist project here. I am not implying that he himself is not aware or cognizant of the difference. This is becoming a bigger deal than my one off little joke here was meant to be.
Turkish makam are distinct from Arabic maqam, which are distinct from the Persian dastgahs. There are similarities, but he’s an ethnomusicologist and it makes a difference in the music that’s produced. I don’t know enough about it to hear the difference myself, but he does give examples throughout the video. I believe vocal quality is a big differentiator if I’m remembering correctly from the video.
In terms of Prince of Persia, his entire point is that that music is rooted in Hollywood caricature, not in any relevant musical traditions.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
