Generally speaking, the more complex the music is, the easier it is to sidestep actual analysis by simply performing lengthy descriptions. This is more journalism than critique, and its pointlessness is well expressed by the quote at the top of this post. This is why I tend towards discussing the music in relation to other pieces; I’m attempting to avoid the flowery pitfall that Pitchfork so often enjoys wallowing in.
Simple music, in contrast, is often virtually impossible to approach in any significant, intriguing way. Most reviews of such albums tend towards reference overdosing; they drop names like a Hollywood starlet looking for a job, building a net of bands, albums, and songs that, in theory, refer to, quote, and take inspiration from each other. Such networks form neat little timelines and genres, but, again, can be stymied by music that deliberately acts as a regression to a prior generation of music.
Generally, music arises from reaction, especially in the pop forum. If we take as our pop music starting point the vocal jazz and ballads of the 50s, we can start a (radically simplified) biblical line of heritage:
- vocal jazz (vocal melody over everything else) begets
- rock ‘n’ roll (raw emotion and rhythm over melody) begets
- jam bands (rejecting classic song structure and length) begets
- psychedelic rock (rejecting traditional instrumentation and recording styles) begets
- AOR/classic rock (revival of blues rock with a more basic aesthetic)
- progressive rock (an exaggeration of psychedelic rock that minimized emotional content) begets
- punk (complete rejection of prog and psychedelica in favor of the raw emotional roots of the blues) begets
- New Wave (in-between of punk and psychadelica) begets
- disco (melismatic/shallow emotion, artificial instrumentation) begets
- pop R&B (ditto from above but slicker and better presented) begets (sort of)
- 80s rock (nonsense) begets (in a way)
- boy bands and plastic pop (similar to disco but with more of an emphasis on performance and presentation due to MTV culture) begets
- Grunge (complete rejection of the past decade, much like punk; stripped down aesthetic, shades of first-wave metal and rock ‘n’ roll) begets
- Post-grunge (shallow ‘emo’ lyrics, turgid blather) begets
- …contemporary R&B? (hold on….)
It’s around the late-80s that all that starts to fall apart, and that’s mainly because of how ubiquitous MTV had become by that point.
Coupled with an ever growing variety of radio stations (thanks to record companies losing money and thus their payola-born deathgrip on the industry) and indie labels (see prior parenthetical), MTV represented a new medium of music. Generally speaking, the more mediums you have the more messages you’re going to receive, so music enthusiasts were suddenly given access to three or four different streams of pop music at a time. Maybe it’s just an issue of recency, but the 80s seem to me to be the birth of the current pop multiplicity that has so crippled the industry.
The more forms of pop we have, the more divided the audience is. The more divided the audience is, the more divided the highly targeted resources of record companies and radio stations are. This reduces the amount of music being performed in any one genre, with the exception of rap and hip-hop. This exceptional case is due to the relatively low production values associated with rap music; much like how synthesizers and vocal manipulation created the flash in the pan of disco, the fact that a rap song can have a minimum of two people behind it is a massive strength, and has allowed rap to corner a huge demographic through mass production alone. That rap has survived so long is a testament to the tremendous talents working in that genre, which I really will have to start talking about at some point.
More to the point, this multiplicity in the pop scene has muddled the ability of artists to react with the self-righteous fury seen in grunge and punk. Both of those genres had the advantage of having five or so years of absolute shit pop charts in their rear view mirrors, and were able to channel their revulsion at what had come before into something much purer. We don’t have the luxury of that kind of clarity of vision these days; the pop charts have been so fragmented that it’s difficult to form one cohesive statement or method that can express one’s grievances. Were that possible I could have written one little post and moved on with my life. No such luck, I’m afraid; we’re stuck with each other until this year pulls me out of my sordid little grief hole.
In the current environment, musicians seem to be turning more toward echoing the past, something I discussed before in the context of Destroyer. While Destroyer chose to do this through elaboration of his pop to match the New Wave and New Romantic movements of the late-70s and early-80s, other bands have chosen to do the exact opposite, creating what critics, in their infinite wisdom, labeled garage rock revival.
I’m using that name only for familiarity’s sake; there are certainly similarities between bands assigned that genre like The White Stripes, The Strokes, The Black Keys, and this week’s artist, Spoon, but I hardly think a desire to revive classic garage rock anthems is one of those things. The trend that jumps out at me is one that is shared by Cake, The Presidents Of The United States Of America, Morphine, and Beck: simplicity.
As Spoon is my chosen topic, let’s use them to ground this discussion (at least one of the above will appear again eventually, promise). The urge of simplicity was also the guiding idea behind punk and (to a somewhat lesser extent) grunge, and I chose to see the reduced music of these bands as a branch of the rebellion Cobain, Vedder, and Cornell brought into the public.
The main difference Spoon exhibits from grunge and the more explicitly punk music of The White Stripes is reservation. Not only does Britt Daniel sing in a reserved manner reminiscent of the New Romantic/art pop movement, the songs in general are often focused more on rhythm than melody. Note that I'm using the word 'rhythm' instead of 'percussion'; in that last linked song, "The Underdog" the fact that the drums are quite sparse doesn't change the fact that the song seems dead set on tumbling forward. It's this tight pacing that gives Spoon's music its characteristic sound; see the first minute-and-a-half of "Black Like Me" for another example. Not a note out of place, not a moment wasted.
This rhythmic emphasis is itself a regression; drummer Jim Eno has described the music as rock ‘n’ roll and indeed, with a bit of imagination, they could be reasonably slotted into that pigeonhole. It's a bit of a tight fit though; Spoon’s sound is undoubtedly modern, and even a quick listen to this album would let you place them as at least post-Cars (“The Ghost Of You Lingers” has a pretty direct debt to other ambient pop songs like “Moving In Stereo”, in my opinion). The layering is too complex, the sounds too clean, to ever be misconstrued as a piece of classic rock. This is music of its time, or at least of its generation, and that makes it difficult to attach to the very 'of its time' sound of classic rock 'n' roll.
This rhythmic emphasis is itself a regression; drummer Jim Eno has described the music as rock ‘n’ roll and indeed, with a bit of imagination, they could be reasonably slotted into that pigeonhole. It's a bit of a tight fit though; Spoon’s sound is undoubtedly modern, and even a quick listen to this album would let you place them as at least post-Cars (“The Ghost Of You Lingers” has a pretty direct debt to other ambient pop songs like “Moving In Stereo”, in my opinion). The layering is too complex, the sounds too clean, to ever be misconstrued as a piece of classic rock. This is music of its time, or at least of its generation, and that makes it difficult to attach to the very 'of its time' sound of classic rock 'n' roll.
That emotional detachment I mentioned was also shared by the wing of Britpop led by Blur, Pulp (generally, anyway; "Common People" is a bit of an exception, and even then only in the last half or so), and The Stones Roses (the bizarro-Oases, essentially), which shared the reserved, often sarcastic vocal sound with Daniel (the bands were contemporaries, though Spoon only began seeing success in the late-90s, a few years after Britpop commercially peaked with Morning Glory). Blur, at least, could trace that vocal style to the unadorned vocals of Ray Davies from The Kinks, with whom they also shared an almost anthropological approach to songwriting.
Spoon have certainly never concerned themselves with that kind of song. Like their US contemporaries mentioned above, Spoon’s lyrics are often thematically related, but don’t hold any real narrative or emotional content. They’re generally memorable more for clever sounding one-liners (“Famous sounding words make your head feel light” from “Don’t You Evah” or “She’d never been to Texas/Never heard from King Kong” from “Eddie’s Raga”) Which is perfectly fine; this is all part and parcel to Spoon’s emphasis on the rhythm of their songs over everything else (not to belabor the point, but one of the songs is even called “Rhythm & Soul”).
One of the most striking things about their music is how staccato it is. Aside from their use of horns (another resemblance to Cake) there are very few long notes in their songs, which fuels the focused sound of their songs. Spoon’s music in general is so focused, driven, and stripped down that it reminds me of old James Brown funk bits; these songs are on a nice quick simmer, bubbling away.
Resorting to analogies is generally a poor sign, but I’ll press on regardless. Also of note is how uncluttered Spoon’s music is. There doesn’t appear to be much in the way of overdubs on any of these tracks, aside from the additional percussion bits (handclaps, bells, etc). This is another callback to earlier, pre-Beatles rock music; the production isn’t terribly ornate and the songwriting is crisp enough that it isn’t necessary. Nothing on this album calls for the bombast of, say, an Arcade Fire track; the reservation of these songs is aided by the reservation in the production. No histrionics here.
…Which is the likely reason for Spoon’s utter lack of impact on the pop scene. Although they’re far from obscure (they scored the (atypical) Will Farrell film Stranger Than Fiction for example), Spoon is not the kind of band you’re likely to hear the name of common company. Though they’re entered the charts (several times), they haven’t managed to break through into the greater pop culture scene.
Again, pop being the clusterfuck it currently is, you need to yell at the top of your lungs to get noticed, and that simply isn’t Spoon’s style. The band has clearly made their choice about how they want to sound and will likely stick to their guns for years to come, much like Jack White has done with his various, post-Stripes projects or The Black Keys have with their recent albums. One can only hope that this kind of simplicity will somehow manage to catch on. I’m sure it would help in weeding out the interesting songwriters from the ones who need the London Philharmonic to get any kind of point across.
Cheers.
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