but don't listen to it that often anymore. More often, I listen to stuff that takes those elements and uses them in the service of a more conventional composition.

well, that the point: fucked up experimental things, in electro, jazz or whatever are usually cool to discover, as a musician i often feel like ''waw, how do they do that, why, where does this come from, I have to try this evening''
it helps to see how far you could actually go.

but listening to this all day, for simple ''listening pleasure''... no way

drone music sounds like an ass farting bees breakcore sounds like nursery children in a kitchen

#sunnO)))

But "experimental" is not a very useful label, to me. Isn't all decent music rooted in experimentation of some kind? And doesn't all music stop being an experiment at some point if you decide to work on it and polish it and release it? I dunno; I'm sure this isn't the place for this conversation but I feel like the term is somehow a little insulting to everyone inside AND outside the category.

I totally agree with this. "Experimental" doesn't really indicate anything about the music. I never assume I'm about to hear radio-friendly pop when I see a track labelled as "experimental", but other than that, I never know what to expect. Maybe that's the point.

There are some musicians who feel that experimental music should be just that, an experiment. Like say, Brian Eno's ambient albums where he sets up some tape loops and lets them all playback at different times to see what happens. Music that has a hypothesis and then goes about testing that hypothesis. I like this idea, and would probably say that's what experimental music should really be if we were forced to give it a strict definition.

I personally dig a lot of noise/drone/experimental/avant-garde music, though I don't listen to it for the same reasons I listen to the Beach Boys, say, or chipmusic. It has it's place. I made ONLY noise music for six or seven months back in 2008. I collected far too many guitar pedals during that period of time. I still play around with the genre every now and then, but more in a droney way. I haven't ever tried doing chip-noise but maybe that would be a fun experiment.

I'm way into middle-era (early 2000's) Autechre, too, and some experimental music that isn't electronic, particularly some extreme metal stuff.

But "experimental" is not a very useful label, to me. Isn't all decent music rooted in experimentation of some kind? And doesn't all music stop being an experiment at some point if you decide to work on it and polish it and release it? I dunno; I'm sure this isn't the place for this conversation but I feel like the term is somehow a little insulting to everyone inside AND outside the category.

I regularly listen to experimental music with experimental rhythms, harmonies, and melodies, though.