If Britney Spears married John Cage, would we have had another Lennon-Ono thing?
The world may never know...
Am I the only one who thinks that, for a guy everyone uses as the poster child for experimentalism, John Cage is kind of boring? I mean, I've heard some stuff that was reasonable (his aleotoric music is indeed badass) and his scores are amazing to look at, but he does a lot of stuff that just doesn't sound that interesting (read: music for prepared piano).
I really enjoy his aleatoric music, it actually sounds fantastic to me. I only have one CD of his Prepared Piano music, and it's not his famous Sonata's and Interludes. I'll agree, they ARE a little hit and miss- stuff like 'And The Earth Shall Bear Again' and 'Totem Ancestor' are absolutley fantastic, but stuff like 'The Perilous Night' doesn't make it for me.
I do, however, have another CD of his called 'Hommage A Satie', with pieces that are reminiscent / dedicated to Satie. That's filled with very good music- 'Cheap Imitation', which is an Aleatoric reworking of 'Socrate', is very cool, and 'In A Landscape' is beautiful while 'Suite For Toy Piano' is really funny. (Though my CD, for some reason, performs it on a grand piano...rediculous..)
Also-John Cage has been somewhat absorbed into classical music. 4'33 has been done by everybody and their halfblind grandmother. Prepared Piano can even be found in lot's of 'mainstream' Jazz records. The only ones the public has problems with are things like "0'00" and the much more complicated aleatoric pieces.