PART I: Definition

regress:
c.1375 (n.), “act of going back,” from L. regressus “a return,” from regress-, pp. stem of regredi “to go back,” from re- “back” + gradi “to step, walk” (see grade). The verb meaning “to move backward” is recorded from 1823; the psychological sense of “to return to an earlier stage of life” is attested from 1926. Regressive is recorded from 1634; in ref. to taxation, it is attested from 1889. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Regressive best describes a tendency to return. In common parlance, regressive has also come to embody the tendency to return to a prior state, or to become more simplistic, or more crude. Regressive music – a voluntary return to a more crude musical expressive gesture – is a rational response to wholesale regressive social, economic, environmental, and aesthetic trends that are themselves returns to more crude social acts. Regressive music also returns things back to the “marketplace of idiocy” where they originated, unwanted, crumpled, and grotesquely disfigured. The regressive critique does not encompass regressive physical or intellectual conditions over which individuals have no control. The regressive critique is one of willful stupidity. Yes, you must interpret that last sentence both ways.

PART II: The Pretext for Regressive Music

Standpoint: Regressive musicians reject war; the police state; ethnic, national, and other chauvinisms; hegemony; hypocrisy; dumb movies, music, and other media; inefficient transportation systems based on cars; sellouts; voluntary idiocy; and decadence. Regressive musicians reject the expropriation and pollution of environments required for the livelihood of other (i.e., non-human) living beings.

Form of Resistance: Due to the overwhelming prevalence of what regressive musicians reject, they no doubt despair. Like many activists, they despair humanity’s willful avoidance of positive social change. Unlike many other activists, and for various reasons (including laziness), they choose a passive form of resistance. But regressive musicians opt for a distinctive form of passive resistance, with a systematic code of conduct, with both aesthetic and social implications. With dismay they observe how a majority of human beings passively receive and voluntarily reiterate the imbecilic platitudes of degenerate ideologies. Regressive musicians vow to do exactly the same thing, albeit in music. Knowing the futility of trying to enlighten the willfully brainwashed masses, regressive musicians earnestly join them in their idiotic endeavors, reiterating the same poor quality ideas.

Process of Regressive Resistance: A biological metaphor is useful in illustrating. While some organisms (for example, slime moulds) use only one orifice for both eating and excreting, regressive musicians have complete digestive tracts (i.e., the kind that starts with a mouth and ends with an anus in a separate location). But rather than process the garbage they are fed and then deposit it in a new location (and in a form that is extensively modified compared to the original) they vomit it back onto the world unprocessed. It is both an ingestion (because of the ubiquity and contagiousness of idiocy, we cannot help but ingest it), a rejection (because it is vomited back out), and a reflection (because what comes out is a minimally processed version of what was ingested).

Implications: Regressive music is the act of vomiting the world back onto itself. In so doing regressive musicians become liberated, and help to liberate the world around them – purged of the rubbish foisted upon them, they are not only freed from the shackles of dominant ideologies, but they litter the world with ugly putrefactions of its own slickly packaged commodities. The world will not tolerate an abundance of hideous distortions of itself for long. If the world starts producing less of this crap, so will regressive musicians produce less of theirs. Regressive music is a fully rational response to an irrational environment; a trivial art for a trivial people; or an art without intelligence for idiots without any art.

PART III: The Artifact and its Construction

Regressive music is a sub-genre of popular music, especially with consideration to ‘popular music’ as defined in the Anglo-U.S. sphere of influence.

Regressive music is similar to mass-marketed popular music in that is shallow and idiotic. However, whereas mass-marketed popular music is produced with great effort and marketing expenditure, regressive music is made with little effort and even less marketing expenditure: regressive music achieves harmony of content and form.

The personnel of regressive music comprise a ‘band’. There are no preconditions for the number of band members, or the instruments they play. The only condition is that one member takes the role of “titler”, and another “conductor”. The titler creates the song titles. The conductor is the principal vocalist and directs the songs (“Now it’s time for the chorus”, “Drum solo here”, etc.). The other band members are not to pay any attention to the conductor’s instruction unless they want to.

Melodies and arrangements are not to be pre-decided. The musicians are to play their instruments badly and at random. Or, as badly as possible and as randomly as possible – it will be different for each person. Some regressive musicians will do it well, others won’t.

All regressive compositions must have the following structural components: verse, chorus, and solos. The chorus is usually the title of the song repeated four times. Bridges are optional. Note again that all structural components must be announced within the song. (“Okay, now: dropping coins solo!” etc.)

Songs must be written and recorded simultaneously.

In English-language regressive music, the words “fuck” and “shit” are not to be used. However, as an exception, “fuck” can be used if it is said twice in quick succession (“fuck fuck” or “fuck di fuck”), but not three times. Vulgar slang terms for genitalia are fine if they are used as people’s names. Such terms should be spelled with a capital first letter, and have at least one letter replaced by another (or others) with the equivalent sound. However, overall, naughty words are to be avoided: there are more important ways to shock people.

The use of cheap and broken equipment is encouraged; elitism based on financial resources is discouraged.

Although regressive music contains an element of social commentary, performers are not to employ familiar conventions of satire; inner essentialism is to supercede didacticism. The point is explained as follows:

Regressive music is not, in a conventional sense, satire. In the case of regressive music, ‘regression’ refers not only to its comment on and/or reflection of nihilistic societal trends (the race to the bottom; toward stupidity, cruelty, militarism, etc.), but also an endeavour to illuminate the essence of the matter at hand – in this case archetypes in mass media.

Satire often conforms to familiar conventions. These conventions themselves become archetypes in mass media. Therefore, to the greatest extent possible, regressive music must not employ such conventions: regressive music must not employ direct parody or other familiar techniques for instructing audiences on a subject’s folly. Rather, vis-à-vis archetypes in mass media, regressive music ignores the particular; it strives toward the dumb essence. And by approaching the essential, regressive music avoids didacticism. There is no direct commentary: there is merely essence.

[As an example of regressive music’s essentialism, take les dupobs’ sonic literary work Sawtooth Humples. In this sonic literary work, there is no specific satire. This work is a conflation of two archetypes in mass media: the nation-founding myth, and paternalism. Concerning these two archetypes, conventional satire might select specific targets. Examples (among myriad other examples) could be, respectively, Gordon Lightfoot’s Canadian Railroad Trilogy and Abba’s Does Your Mother Know. But Sawtooth Humples indicates no specific target; its subject is the essence.]

Just as abstract painting strives toward the inner necessity of subjects portrayed, regressive music strives toward the inner necessity of archetypes in mass media. The search for what is genuine and essential is nothing new. What is new is the media employed: not paint, bronze, poetry, or even music – one of the principal media of regressive music is archetypes in mass media. Archetypes is the medium. (Please note that the subject in this case is not conventionally plural, and therefore agrees with the verb.)

PART IV: The Economy of Regressive Music

Regressive musicians understand the banality of consumerism, and express their rejection of it by manufacturing the ultimate non-commodity: because regressive music is so bad, no one should want to buy it. Nevertheless, regressive musicians are permitted – as artists – to make a living from earnings derived from their art. But they are not to live decadent lifestyles: when they earn superfluous income, they are to give it away for good works (for example, buying everyone in their apartment block a subscription to Le Monde diplomatique). This is a work in progress.