Songs Of The Days: Weeks 3 & 4

Apologies for the late summation of Week 3. I've been busy at work and with adding some new stuff for the blog that should appear in time for February. Fingers crossed!

Week 3

Jan 16: Zappa/Mothers/Beefheart - Muffin Man (Bongo Fury, 1975) 

Jan 17: Ringo Starr – I’m The Greatest (Ringo, 1973)

  

Jan 18: Jamie Woon - TMRW (Mirrorwriting, 2011)

Jan 19: Bill Evans & Jim Hall - Romain (Undercurrent, 1962)

Jan 20: Laura Marling - Goodbye England (Covered In Snow) (I Speak Because I Can, 2010)

Jan 21: Stevie Ray Vaughn - Dirty Pool (Texas Flood, 1983)

Jan 22: Soft Cell – Tainted Love (Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, 1981)

Week 4

Jan 23: David Bowie - Young Americans (Young Americans, 1975)

Jan 24: Frank Sinatra - Ring-a-Ding-Ding! (Ring-a-Ding-Ding!, 1961)

Jan 25: Gordon Lightfoot - The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald (Summertime Dream, 1976)

Jan 26: Leonard Cohen – The Future (Live In London, 2009)

Jan 27: Donald Fagen - I.G.Y. (The Nightfly, 1982)

Jan 28: Mouse On The Keys - Double Bind (An Anxious Object, 2009) (not available on Spotify)

Jan 29: Talking Heads - This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) (Stop Making Sense, 1984)

Cheers all. Keep an eye out for some updates on February 1st.

Week 4: Destroyer – Kaputt (2011)

Modern music’s greatest vice is a desire to resurrect and mimic past triumphs. This has been true, to an extent, of every decade since pop music’s ascendance in the 1950’s, but I believe that the temptation now is even greater than it ever has been. In an era where, for the first time in decades, albums selling less than 20,000 copies can land in the Top 10, the music industry is probably more desperate than ever to revisit the years where a novelty song like the truly onerous “Disco Duck” could go Platinum (meaning it shipped 2 million copies and that I have to have another drink).

Aside from efforts to catch lightning twice and revisit past glories, some artists prefer to travel back in time simply to emulate their personal musical heroes. Rock musicians have been taking cues from old blues musicians since the early 60s, with two albums in particular (At Newport 1960 by Muddy Waters and King Of The Delta Blues Singers by Robert Johnson) serving as cultural touchstones for early English rockers, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin in particular. Similarly, The Beatles were heavily influenced by Elvis (“Run For Your Life” quotes “Baby, Let’s Play House”), Chuck Berry, and Roy Orbison (“Please Please Me” was influenced by “Only The Lonely”, as well as a Bing Crosby line), among many other 50’s musicians. Beyond nods and acknowledgements, these past songs and artists served as simple inspiration; a foundation for their own advancements.

Aside from the melodic and stylistic influences noted above, musicians and producers often turn to the past for its simple sound. That lo-fi, crackling atmosphere of old blues, rock, and jazz music is almost fetishized by some modern critics and artists, and considered almost essential to the very idea of ‘good music’. One of my professors in college marked this as an increasingly desperate effort to make the music sound ‘authentic’.

The best way to understand authenticity is to look at the increasing disparity between recorded music and live performances. Though producers and artists alike have been altering sound during the recording process since the 50s (as I discussed last week), the early/mid 70s and 80s saw an explosion in the influence and power of the studio. Music began to take on textures utterly alien to those that came a few years prior, with artists like David Bowie, Yes, and Rush doing things that would have simply been impossible without recent breakthroughs in music tech. Some of it was brilliant, some of it… wasn’t, and as the 70s gave way to the mid-80s, the glean of production grew even more blinding.

Week 3: Kanye West - 808s And Heartbreak (2008)

Week 3: Kanye West – 808s And Heartbreak

Bet you didn’t see this one coming, huh?

Three entries in and I’ve already spent quite a bit of time discussing what I see as the biggest problem in modern-day pop. That issue, as I’m sure you can guess, is the lack of emotional depth. Aside from the bubblegum instincts that have been an omnipresent threat to music since at least the 1960s ("Yummy Yummy Yummy" is worse than anything even Katy Perry has ever done, and that was released in ’68), music producers nowadays have access to two tools that allow them to minimize the human element in their songs to a level smaller than anything before. Those two tools are the genre of hip-hop and Auto-Tune.

First, let me assure you that I’m not calling hip-hop soulless. Far from it in fact; in terms of emotional honesty and accessibility, I see hip-hop as the strongest successor to blues music the modern era has. Like blues music, hip-hop was born in the streets, often (though not always) in areas of extreme poverty, such as The Bronx. Both genres are also extremely simple in terms of equipment; much like how the blues requires nothing more than a singer and an acoustic guitar (sometimes even less), all hip-hop needs is a rapper and a good beat, which is often taken from another song. Both genres can be approached by virtually anyone, while most others require much more in terms of equipment and/or virtuosity.

Unlike the blues, however, hip-hop, at least nowadays, has a strong emphasis on production. While the pinnacle of blues is often held to be the music of Robert Johnson, which sounds like it was recorded in a broom closet with a reel-to-reel player, hip-hop relishes technology, using the latest in synthesizers and drum machines to create something that almost, but not quite, sounds real. After all, electronics are far easier to control than real instruments. For a producer focused entirely on generating a certain sound or beat, keyboards and computers are much easier to use in teasing out the necessary sound.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you like any hip-hop made in the past 20 years not made by The Roots, chances are that most, if not all of the music used in the songs was either sampled or artificially generated. The problem in my mind is that this tendency to artificiality in hip-hop leads producers to go too far and turn to a method to perfect the few human elements in their songs: the hook and the rapper. This is the process that calls for Auto-Tune.

Songs Of The Days; Week 2

Jan 9: Johnny Cash - I Hung My Head (American IV, 2002)

Jan 10: Violent Femmes - Country Death Song (Hallowed Ground, 1984)

Jan 11: Mike G - Everything That's Yours (Radical, 2010) (not available on Spotify)

Jan 12: Scott Walker - The Old Man's Back Again (Scott 4, 1969)

Jan 13: Little Willie John - All Around The World (single, 1955)

Jan 14: The Who - A Quick One, While He's Away (Live At Leeds, 1970)

Jan 15: Big Star - Watch The Sunrise (#1 Record, 1972)

Week 2: The Weeknd - Echoes Of Silence (2011)

I’m not one to really care about positive messages in music. I don’t feel that art of any kind has a need to reinforce moral commandments or teach people about how to live their life. Art is certainly capable of doing it, but I don’t see it as essential. Plenty of brilliant music (and plenty of brilliant art, for that matter) has been made as an exploration of strongly negative images and ideas, some even portraying these immoral activities/characters in a neutral light, without any real judgment, and I don’t see anything wrong with that.

Of course, this is provided that the art in question has some kind of nuance or talent behind it. There’s a stark difference between the casual, virulent racism of the first half of American History X and the empty, shock-for-the-sake-of-it horror of Human Centipede. The first explores what’s going on from several angles, showing how such attitudes can be created, justified, and eventually broken down, while the second involves a mad scientist sewing mouths to asses for… science I suppose.

American History X is a clearly defensible example, mainly because it goes out of its way to critique the casual racism of its main character. It shows something virulent in order to examine and eradicate it, like a doctor finding a tumor in order to extract it. Things fall into a greyer area with movies like Requiem For A Dream. Critics, pundits, and even fans can work themselves into a tizzy trying to decide whether the closing scene of Marion’s degradation is a justified example of showing the horrors that people are reduced to performing in seek of a fix or simple pornography, and thus horrifying for other, more meta reasons. It’s a question of how we should see art: should Marion’s rape be seen in context of the narrative, or in context of the people making the scene? Is it a scene from a film or simple misogyny?

Songs Of The Days; Week 1

I've been a tad remiss in remarking on it, but I'm operating a Twitter account in conjunction with this blog, taking time to highlight a song a day using first an opaque clue and then a YouTube video. To enforce that connection, and provide something of a convenience to anyone who would like it, I'll be summarizing each week of songs on Sundays.

So let's get to it.
---
Jan 1 - Prefab Sprout - Here On The Eerie (Swoon, 1984)

Jan 2 - Morphine - You Look Like Rain (Good, 1992)

Jan 3 - TV On The Radio - DLZ (Dear Science, 2008)

Jan 4 - Leonard Cohen - Famous Blue Raincoat (Songs Of Love And Hate, 1971)

Jan 5 - The Eagles - Hotel California (Hotel California, 1976)

Jan 6 - Townes Van Zandt - Pancho & Lefty (Live From The Old Quarter, 1977)

Jan 7 - TLC - No Scrubs (FanMail, 1999)

Jan 8 - K.Flay - Less Than Zero (I Stopped Caring In '96, 2011) (not available on Spotify)

Cheers all.

Week 1: Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can (2010)

Of the many things that seem to fall by the wayside in mainstream pop, lyrics seem to be the first to go. I don’t think I can remember the last time a song in the Top 10 had lyrics worth even a second glance, and many of them don’t even deserve the first one. I doubt even LMFAO’s staunchest defenders would be able to call the lyrics to sub-par dreck like “I’m Sexy And I Know It” interesting. Personally, I wouldn’t even call them lyrics. It’s more a song-length slogan for narcissistic clubbing, the polar opposite of something The Weeknd would come up with.

In fact, that kind of airheaded hedonism, where drinking, club-going, and casual sex are portrayed as the apex of human existence, seems to have been the flavor of the week for the past few years. While you’ll occasionally get a glimpse at the next morning’s hangover from artists like the aforementioned Weeknd, K.Flay, or The xx if you pay attention, that kind of negativity only barely manages to show up on the Billboard charts. Indeed, that kind of honesty now appears entirely alien to pop music in general, which is surprising considering a shallow look into pop history reveals that songs like Gilbert O’Sullivan’s ode to suicide, “Alone Again (Naturally)”, managed to rank as the fifth-most popular song of the 1970s (according to Casey Kasem). In my memory, only “Someone Like You” has had such direct emotional content reach the Top 10 over the past several years, though as it reminds me of a less bitter, more musically virtuosic “You Oughta Know”, and is thus not a song I hold particularly dear.

One of my goals in writing this blog is to show that no single trend, technique, or style rules over modern music as a whole. While pop music lives in a rose-colored world of tequila and one-night stands, other artists have a less sunny outlook. This doesn’t mean a glorification of pessimism or depression; the music I speak of is simply more mature. More honest, at least to my ears.

Welcome, Welcome - Introduction to the Next 52 Weeks

It’s easy to think this is a dark time for music. Last year, Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister” topped the Billboard Rock Charts, leading the BBC to declare 2011 the worst year for rock in history. Katy Perry matched Michael Jackson’s record for number #1 singles off a single album (five, if you were wondering) through the soulless dance music of Teenage Dream. Worse still, LMFAO proved hopes for a kind future empty through their mere existence, and managed to make Right Said Fred seem positively talented in hindsight.

All of the above is true, but we shouldn’t take that as a sign that music, as a vital artform, is dead. Music is the 21^st century’s most powerful art form; a medium that produces more interesting, thought provoking pieces that anything else in the modern era. Nothing else comes close, largely because music is extremely easy to distribute and relatively easy to produce, especially in comparison to film or television. Even a student film can cost thousands of dollars, while the means to play and record a song rarely exceed a few hundred for amateurs.

Pop music may be an empty husk coated in mascara and cheap perfume, but what was once considered underground music, something once relegated to college radio stations and worn cassettes passed from friend to friend, is now a few clicks of the mouse away. If you can get past the prickly pretentiousness, music forums offer a wealth of obscure albums that only barely exist in the real world.

And yet, I’m still biased against modern music. Even though I have more albums from the last decade than any other, I still listen to classic rock stations at work and wax on (endlessly, I’m told) about how everything nowadays is simply shit. A lot of it can be blamed on the disposable swill of modern radio pop (which I do honestly believe is worse now than it ever has been and will take an in-depth look at in due time) but that doesn’t excuse me continuing to claim the superiority of the past over the present. Brilliance still shines through, and my generation is blessed in that we don’t even need to look that hard for it.

And so I started this blog as a twofold New Year’s resolution: to immerse myself more in the present day and to actually carry through on the threat I’ve made to my friends for years of actually putting my pretention on the page. Over the coarse of the next year, I’m going to write about music. The center of this will be a weekly write up of an album from the last ten years (give or take) that I believe is, and will continue to be recognized as, historically or artistically significant. A lot of this will be grounded in efforts at giving the albums cultural context, and offering what I believe will be interesting observations. I’ll also be writing about other subjects as they occur to me. I don’t want to limit myself too much, but I don’t want to promise more than a post a week either.

Further, I’d like to offer a few disclaimers. At no point do I want to hear people talking about how music doesn’t have to be ‘good’, it just has to be ‘fun’. While fun music (which is generally either or novelty) has its place (the dance floor and comedy, respectively), that place is not here. I’m discussing music, after all. This is not to say that good music can not also be fun (The Black Keys’ ‘El Camino’ is a fine example of something that is precisely that) but a song made purely for humor can never be considered good music, and the first person that brings up Jonathan Coulton gets a knife in the eye.

On a similar note, poptimists are welcome to come in and state their views, but must also accept that I will verbally eviscerate them for their stupidity. Let me say, unequivocally, that the central argument of the poptimist movement (that pop music is so well crafted and so well liked that it’s just plain mean to insult it) is fucking retarded, and you people should be ashamed to hold that opinion. It’s like comparing furniture to sculpture. The obvious caveat here is that some pop music is, in fact, quite good, which I’m obviously not going to deny. But poptimism doesn’t defend the kind of pop that you can probably guess that I like. No, poptimism is the reason why Beyonce gets put on Top 10 lists by venerable music critics (well that and gratuitous payola). It’s bullshit, and I’ll save my tirade about it for a series of posts in the future.

What else? I swear a lot so be mindful of that. In spite of my bombastic, pretentious (I do love that word, don’t I?) prose, I am perfectly to discuss and issues or complaints you may have about this blog and its content. I’ll be reading the comments closely so feel free to post. I won’t bite. Hell, I probably won’t even cravenly delete posts.

The first album discussion will be uploaded this weekend, which is when you should generally expect them.

Cheers all.