The one genre I haven’t really discussed much is the horribly broad, entirely non-descriptive ‘alternative’. This has mainly been due to a lack of energy; unpacking the alternative genre is like breaking down the meaning and history of ‘rock’ as a genre name, except even vaguer. Rock has at least a few, albeit slim hand-holds for identification (electric guitar, strong percussion, long hair, etc). Alternative, much like indie, has little cohesion at all.
The easiest way to define the alternative scene is with the word ‘eccentricity’. Alternative music often has a wide range of influences, both in sound and lyric, which makes sense considering it began developing in the 80s, later reaching its crystallization point with the Pixies and the Northwest grunge scene. Alternative, by and large, is music made by music nerds and music lovers, combined with a somewhat infuriating need to impress the listener.
That drive to impress, shock, or otherwise astonish one’s audience is what leads alternative bands to erect something of a wall between their basic songs and the presented product. One of the clearest examples of this is Nirvana’s “Rape Me” which, structurally speaking, is a nearly perfect/archetypal piece of rock music. The lyrics are another story, obviously, as is the distortion-heavy production and Cobain’s screamed vocals (particularly at the end). This is the wall so characteristic of the alternative scene; it seems born of a strong desire to both distinguish oneself from the competition and to distance oneself from the audience.
It could also be seen as an example of how the scene attempted to distance itself from the classically composed Tin Pan Alley sounds of pop and R&B. Alternative singers rarely qualify as even halfway-competent when judged by traditional standards; much like classic blues singers, they simply don’t match the cookie-cutter model of singing, and this gives the best alternative songs enormous personality. Forced to accommodate their less than brilliant lead singers while also presenting some measure of variety on their albums, the songwriters and performers of an alternative band are forced into creativity. Hard times breed creativity, it seems.
Most great songs are built from the foundation of the singer chosen to perform it. Even if the singer is simply performing a cover song, a good band or producer will tailor the piece specifically for that person, and the singer will generally bring their own style to the piece. This is how we can distinguish, for example, Bobby Darin’s version of “Mack The Knife” from the ones done by other jazz crooners like Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra; each has their own distinctive style, and each had talented arrangers and backing bands that could put a new spin on even the oldest of jazz standards. The ability to own a song by sheer force of personality is what made cover artists like Elvis and Sinatra so legendary, and the complete lack of original personality is what makes Buble so terribly forgettable. Even worse are the committee-born pop artists who, with the miracle of technology, are brought in line to a chosen song, rather than the other way around. You might as well simply have the computer sing the thing if you’re going to do that.
While I could go into a lengthy talk about the precursors to stylized vocals, how about we eschew all that typical bullshit? The Moon & Antarctica has a lot to dig into, so let’s keep my typical prologue a bit short.
In spite of being their major label debut, the only marker of the money backing Modest Mouse’s 2000 album is thick, deeply-layered production, which is generally used to make that wall so typical of alternative music a few layers thicker. While their previous album, The Lonesome Crowded West, was similarly difficult to approach, it also relied much more on distortion to achieve that standoffish effect. The more elaborate production techniques available to them for this album seems to have given Modest Mouse freedom in their distancing techniques.
Keeping things varied are the lighter, less elaborately produced songs. While early examples of this more minimal style are more foreboding than anything else, the tracks immediately after the most elaborate and impressive song, “The Stars Are Projectors”, are practically pop songs in comparison. Even “I Came As A Rat”, a distortion-heavy rock song, feels comparatively light compared to the thick production of earlier songs.
Those lighter, poppier songs are a representation of the roots that alternative music tends to obscure with its bag of tricks. “3rd Planet” could have been played as mellow as “Lives”, and “The Cold Part” could have been spared the heavy echo and overdubbing that gives it such a foreboding texture. Ditto with the choral backing vocals of “Perfect Disguise”, a song which, under different direction, could have just as easily become an alt-country song considering its lyrics.
However, like all great alternative music, these off-putting, alienating effects are done to serve a purpose. Isaac Brock, the band’s singer and primary songwriter, is well known for his sardonic, asocial lyrics, and the production on his voice is often used to make him sound more remote, fitting with the album title, with monotone achieving the same effect on songs like “Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes”. Similarly, the most sincere and heartfelt lyrics on the album (on “Lives” and, in certain places, “Life Like Weeds”) are presented free and clear.
These are not simple tools of alienation, but are clear stylistic choices, much like other quote-in-quote “difficult” albums covered on this blog, and, that being the case, one may be tempted to ask what makes this one my chosen example of the alternative genre. It’s a fair question.
I mentioned my other defining characteristic of alternative music earlier: a wide range of clearly audible influences. Part of this is complex, idiosyncratic composition, the gold standard being the Talking Heads’ magnum opus, Remain In Light. That album managed, with impressive aplomb, the balancing act that Graceland so utterly failed, managing to incorporate clear African influences in a way that doesn’t sound derivative or hokey. Graceland sounds like a white guy made it; Remain In Light often sounds like it fell out of the clear blue sky.
Though The Moon & Antarctica doesn’t easily lend itself to such historical analyses, the element of complexity is obvious. The clearest predecessor I can pick out is Television, an influence I suspect would be even more apparent without Modest Mouse’s typical production style, which is far noisier than anything Tom Verlaine ever attempted. Talking Heads is another possible influence, but it’s impossible to be anything other than speculative about this.
Personally, I hold that ability to conceal one’s influences in high esteem. The ability to sound original is preciously rare in any era, and that is one thing alternative music can often achieve, thanks to its use of a production style which would have been impossible to achieve with typical pre-80s equipment, as well as the sheer breadth of knowledge these bands typically possess. The abilities of my generation, as well as the one prior to it, to consume the past are truly staggering.
With all this positive talk of stylization and heavy production, you may be wondering what exactly it is that I hold against the vacuous, plasticine pop I so often bring up, demonize, and refuse to link to. Ignoring the argument that making something beautiful with technology is often easier than making it deliberately ugly in an interesting manner, I’d argue that the difference is one of intent. While pop makes such alterations a habit, alternative music is so broad and varied that it barely resembles a genre in the first place.
That variation, while making it a pain in the ass to describe, categorize, or analyze, also makes it a lot more human than the galvanized pop scene. Heavy production can be used to reduce the human errors that make music fun to listen to, or it can be used to enhance and add to those idiosyncrasies. It’s that variation that keeps music interesting; no one wants to listen to the same thing over and over, at least not in my dream world.
Cheers. See you next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment