Here is an excerpt from the review for your edification:
This is why there will never be another Days of Future Passed. Beauty, it would seem, is fast shuffling of this mortal coil. In this incredibly shrinking world of Twitter, Blackberry, and faceless friendships on Facebook, there is little time to stop and smell the roses, because many of us haven’t ventured outside the environs of the Internet since last April. Even what is sold as music currently is conveniently sequenced into repetitive digital sound-bytes – white noise on purple iPods – that leaves little room for considering the distinctive production and compositional prowess required to develop conceptual music in an album format. Why bother with an album when one can purchase greatest hits at .99 cents a download from Amazon or iTunes? If you have the time between tweets, chirps, and other fowl noises, I shall endeavor to explain it to you.
Enjoy!
12 comments:
To begin, "Nights In White Satin" is an incredible song. I'll slip out of my "Prog is Lame" turtleneck to admit it's a genuinely moving piece of music. The melody is completely indelible, the vocal is perfect, and the lyrics work perfectly with the song. To top it all off, the whole thing is kitschy as fuck. The arrangement is fairly tasteful for the most part, but it does lapse into some gloriously dated flourishes, and that bit of poetry at the end is priceless. It has literally made me hold my sides laughing. It's so humorless and over-the-top that I'm incapable of it. One piece of advice, though, if anyone is downloading it off soulseek, do not just download the first thing that comes up when you type in "nights in white satin." You may end up with the Chris Hughes version, which is draw-a-hot-bath-and-open-up-a-couple-veins bad.
I'm not going to respond to the actual review part, because I'd be out of my element. I'm a dilettante at best in the genres I actually actively enjoy and listen to, so god knows my opinion on prog is moot.
What I take issue with is the whole introductory segment where you claim that there's no beautiful music anymore, or hasn't been since the 70s. Fuck that. For specific examples, try Neutral Milk Hotel's "Two Headed Boy - Part Two", The Flaming Lips' "Do You Realise???", and R.E.M.'s "Camera", all of which have honestly maid me cry. For less weepy examples, I refer you to My Bloody valentine's "To Here Knows When", The Smiths' "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side" (or Morrissey's solo "Everyday is Like Sunday"), and Camera Obscura's "Eighties Fan". Beauty is one of the most subjective words in the English language, but any of those meet my criteria for "beautiful". They don't intergrate baroque chord structures (that I'm aware of), but they make the little hairs on my arm stand up (like "Nights in White Satin"), so I'll dfine them as beautiful.
I suppose that none of my "beautiful despite being from 1980, when apparently there was no such thing as beautful music" songs were a product of the "Walmartian musical meat-grinder" (You're sure an insightful dissident, have you thought about joining those Wall Street protests?). There's this thing happening these days where artists put out releases on independent labels. They've shortened it to "indie rock." It has kind of a following in, like, England or some shit like that. I guess that kind of doesn't fit into the "new music is bad and corporate" narrative. Which is why it doesn't exist. k?
You also whine about rock music not being innovative. I hear you, if we're only referring to, like, Buckcherry and Staind. It really gets my goat when prog fans conflate "innovative" with "in a weird time signature" or "has a fkute solo". those things are innovative in a rock context, but so is the creation of any new genre. In the rock sphere, the genres of shoegaze, twee pop, noise rock, and harcore have all sprung up since The Golden Age of Rock 'N Rool, The Nineteen-Seventies. Shoegaze is probably the only one gthat constitutes a new genere from basically whole cloth, but if I named arcane subgenres, I bet I could hit fifty different ones. So yes, despite not having lyrics in ye olde english or long moog intros, music has been fairly innovative during the last, say, three decades.
Finally, I'd say that if you dig string arrangements, you really ought to give a listen to Mike Elizondo's scoring of Kanye West's "Gone". You'll be getting the best song of the last decade, to boot. Bonus.
p.s. I can't think of a single Beatles song I think is beautiful. I love the Fab Four, but I wouldn't define any of my favorite Beatles songs as beautiful. "Happiness Is A Warm Gun", "She Said She Said", "Here Comes The Sun", "I'm Down", "Back In The USSR", "I'm So Tired", "Hey Jude", "A hard day's Night", "I Want You", "Stawberry Fields Forever"... catchy, brilliantly arranged, but beautiful... I don't know. "Pet Sounds" was beautiful to the last second, but I always found The Beatles had more of an instant-gratification thing going on. Furthermore, I should mention that there's been a lot of innovation outside of rock. You know, hip hop, dance, electronic, ambient, so on and so forth. Or are those not real genres?
"I can't think of a single Beatles song I think is beautiful."
How unfortunate for you. You must have some inner ear malady as yet gone undiagnosed. We can start off with "Yesterday" and "Eleanor Rigby" for two. "Here, There and Everywhere", "In My Life", "She's Leaving Home", "I Will", "Mother Nature's Son", "Blackbird", "Here Comes the Sun", "Because", "Let It Be"...the list is quite extensive. Are you sure you've actually listened to the albums?
What I take issue with is the whole introductory segment where you claim that there's no beautiful music anymore, or hasn't been since the 70s. Fuck that. For specific examples, try Neutral Milk Hotel's "Two Headed Boy - Part Two", The Flaming Lips' "Do You Realise???", and R.E.M.'s "Camera"...
I absolutely love 'In the Aeroplane Over the Sea' by NMH. I own it and listen often ("Oh Comely" being my favorite); in fact, I have it listed in one of my Greatest Acoustic Rock Albums articles (although of the albums listed, I can't say that is beautiful from a comparative standpoint - great, but not beautiful). I suppose I could tone down the rhetoric to say that much that is beautiful has up and left the music world, and I think I can say that without equivocation. There is certainly a dearth of what I would consider "beautiful" currently, and certainly not on a level of the late 60s/early 70s. Sufjan Stevens ('Michigan' and 'Illinoise'), and the Decemberists ('The Crane Wife', 'The Hazards of Love') has also come out with some great albums.
Kanye West's "Gone".
Wait...you're serious? Some violin flourishes that could just have easily been tape looped like the direct thievery of Otis Redding's voice? I've had bowel movements with more feeling. For examples of musical artistry with the use of classical instrumentation integrated into rock, and not canned hip-hop with doggerel verse (and West is a legend in his own mind, but not here), I refer back to The Beatles "Eleanor Rigby', with its double octet influenced directly by Bernard Herrmann, with secondary influences by Vivaldi and Stockhausen, or Procol Harum's live version of "Conquistador" with the Edmonton Symphony. These are truly great examples of composition and ability. Kanye is a joke. If I am around in another 30 or 40 years (god willing), get back to me on him and see if anyone listens to him, or buys albums from him.
Furthermore, I should mention that there's been a lot of innovation outside of rock. You know, hip hop, dance, electronic, ambient, so on and so forth. Or are those not real genres?
Those are other genres outside of rock. Which is what I've maintained all along (although there is certainly an 'ambient'connection to rock, with bands like King Crimson, early Floyd, Mike Oldfield, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Can, Brian Eno, etc.). But once you've heard Tangerine Dream, Erik Satie or John Cage (or Phillip Glass, for that matter), there comes a point where noise is...noise, even if it's loud noise like NiN.
I'll start with Kanye. I attributed the string arrangement to Mike Elizondo, when in fact it was Jon Brion. I hope that doesn't hurt my credibility too much. And, honestly, I wouldn't stand by "Gone" as great intergration of symphonic flourishes into the pop form, since I'm fairly ignorant of orchestral arrangements. I'd defend it as a very well-done addition to what is already an amazing song, but that's pretty subjective. I was mostly trying to bait you into saying something ignorant and stupid about hip hop. I see I succeeded. I've said my peace about middle-aged white men who have condescending attitudes towards hip hop, so no point repeating myself.
On The Beatles, I may eat my words, since "Here, There and Everywhere" and "In My Life" are both, umm, beautiful. Much as I love "here Comes The Sun", though, it's not necessarily what I'd see as a beautiful song. Otherwise, though, you've pretty much given me a laundry list of Beatles songs I find overrated, and pedestrian. "Let it Be", "Elanor Rigby", "Blackbird", and the dreadful brain-drain that is "Yesterday" are beyond my ears. It's subjective, and I'm no authority on the group, but they contain none of the elements I love about the Beatles. Oh, and "Something" counts, too. But there's no Beatles song I can name in the same "Beauty" realm as, say, "God Only Knows".
I'm glad to hear you're a NMH fan. It took me some effort to really see eye to eye with some of Jeff Mangum's more questionable songwriting tics, but they're one of the most rewarding listener-band relationships I've developed. If, by some chance, you haven't heard it, make sure to hear "Naomi". It's one of my favorite songs ever. But while I'm glad to hear you'll be "toning down the rhetoric", I still think I could basically neutralize your whokle argument with the shear volume of beautiful post-1980 songs I could name. I'm not the biggest fan of The Decemberists or Sufjan Stevens (I should really play "Illinois" more, but I don't), but as long as you're doing the legwork for me...
Also, I'll say I prefer loud, noisy music to elegant music, so I can't say a downturn in beautiful music would be such a bad thing.
Fuck it, I couldn't resist defending Knaye. yeah, he's an asshole, but so was Bob Dylan. As far as his verses being "doggerel", that's a matter of taste. Considering the man has given us the side-splittingly horrible line "I sent dis bitch a pitcher of ma dick", I think he's on a roll, lyrically, on gone. "Direct thievery of Otis Redding's voice"? What are you, a fucking copyright lawyer? I thought it had been established that sampling can be a legitimate form of music by now. I'm fairly sure prog groups include quotes of, I don't know, Bach in their songs, and you're not down on that. If Kanye was claiming credit for the quality of Otis Redding's voice, yeah, that'd be just wrong, but he's crediting his sources, and he's also building on it. Furthermore, i don't even really give a shit, becuase it's a good song. If you have a beef with that song, you have a beef with me.
I see I succeeded. I've said my peace about middle-aged white men who have condescending attitudes towards hip hop, so no point repeating myself.
Succeeded? Whatever. My disdain for trash is well known. And this coming from a neophyte who admittedly hasn't the slightest clue regarding orchestral arrangements, as well as referring to the classically-influenced "Eleanor Rigby" as "pedestrian". But then, given your questionable preferences, I suppose it won't much matter to you that the composition is listed in several classical music reference books as an outstanding example of a classical "art song" (ie., lieder, chanson, canzoni) of the type Schubert,Schumann and later Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten were acclaimed.
As I inferred, it probably will sail right over your head, but it matters to me, and it matters to folks who actually study music.
I'm fairly sure prog groups include quotes of, I don't know, Bach in their songs, and you're not down on that.
It's one thing to play a Bach piece, or to refer to it within the context of a composition (playing it) as bands like Genesis, Procol Harum or Jethro Tull have. This requires talent. Musical talent. It is another thing altogether to merely steal a sample - an actual piece of another person's recording - and live off someone else's talent like a grave robbing ghoul. You want legitimacy for hip-hop? You won't get it here. I prefer my musicians to actually play an instrument - the more virtuoso the performance, the better.
Even back in the 17th and 18th century, musical virtuosos and compositional geniuses rose to the top. That is why Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are still held in awe. Shit might float, but eventually it is scooped out of the pool and thrown in the trash.
"Direct thievery of Otis Redding's voice"? What are you, a fucking copyright lawyer? I thought it had been established that sampling can be a legitimate form of music by now.
After checking on the recording, Kanye did get permission to use samples from Redding's musical executors/publishers. And he has to pay for the privilege. That wasn't the case for another piece Kanyes ripped off...
http://newsone.com/entertainment/thegrio3/kanye-west-syl-johnson-joy-different-strokes/
...see you in court, Kanye!
It's rather like the direct theft of the David Bowie/Queen song "Under Pressure" by another of your favorite artists, Vanilla Ice (I'm sure you still have his posters on the walls). Ice lost millions, and is currently following Flavor Flav in a failing career as reality TV star.
If you have a beef with that song, you have a beef with me.
Fraudulent, over-hyped, vacuous, garbled and intellectually arrested. Or as you said quite eloquently:
"Considering the man has given us the side-splittingly horrible line 'I sent dis bitch a pitcher of ma dick...'"
Damning with your own faint praise. Perfect. But no need to worry, you and your ilk will continue to throw money at impostors and poseurs. They're laughing all the way to the bank. I'll stick with all the classical, jazz, blues, r&b, rock and bluegrass albums and CDs I own. I was listening to Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli on "Djangology" earlier, and now I'm putting on Johnny Cash's "At Folsom Prison". Later, it will be Elvis Costello's "My Aim is True" for another article I am sure you will despise. C'est la vie!
To begin, I'm pretty familiar with both "My Aim is True" and "At Folsom Prison". I like, if not love, both albums.
As far as the whole musicianship argument for musical quotes being OK adn sampling not, that's lost on me because I'm not a musician, and just get nothing from virtuosity. I'm into the ends, means are whatever. As for "Ice Ice baby", shut the fuck up, bringing that up as an example of hip hop is just trolling. There's a very real difference between just taking a hook from another song and re-using it ("Ice Ice Baby", "U Can't Touch This", etc.) and recontextualizing a sample to create a new hook. i don't know how to make that any clearer. as far as the inherent superiority of playing music with instruments to sampling other music or found sound, that's just elitist.
Anyway, if there's one thing the world learned from the great Beat Happening, it's that you can make unbelievably good music with instruments without actually knowing how to play. (Download "Ponytail" and "Crashing Through" for proof.)
Needless to say, i genuionely don't give a fuck about musical talent, I just listen to music as an aim in and of itself. If you want to view it from a musician's perpective, that's fine, just don't act like you have any authority to talk about a Kanye West song.
As far as my view on The Beatles, I mostly just really hate "Yesterday". I don't have a huge problem with "Elanor Rigby", just that I feel like it's been overhyped to death and is kind of a weak link on "Revolver". Honestly, though, I have little ground to stand on, it's just personal preference.
I really don't care about any legal minutae, that wasn't what my argument was centered around, so that's sort of a moot point.
"Fraudulent, over-hyped, vacuous, garbled and intellectually arrested." Eh? Evidently you do have beef with that song. Over-hyped? Why not. Kanye's on TV an awful lot. Vacuous? I wouldn't say so. Intellectually arrested? That I take offense to. If the implication is that Kanye or his fans are unintellegent, or less intellegent than you, fuck you. I consider myself reasonably whip-smart. Anyway, I'm something of an amateur literary buff, I could quote you passages from "Lolita" or "The Picture of Dorian Gray", do you really want me to rant about the total absence of literary merit from lyrics by The Moody Blues (or jethro Tull, or Pink Floyd)? I have a problem with people who think that because prog lyrics use a bunch of formal tics assocaited with classical literature and hip hop lyrics use a lot of swear words and slang signifiers prog lyrics are more literary intellegent. My position is clear. Fuck. That. Bob Dylan could write lyrics, Kanye West can write lyrics, Roger Waters fucking couldn't (No pot shot at Pink Floyd, I like most of their stuff). So don't throw around "intellectually arrested" because music is simplistic. What a dumb argument.
I feel like elaborating on the point about sampling vs quoting. If a cover version is identical to the original, I kind of refuse to give it credit, my reasoning should be self-evident. But if a cover makes a significant change ("All Along The Watchtower", Black Flag's "Louie Louie", Glenn Gould's Goldberg variations on bach, whioch is my go-to classical recording for when I'm in that sort of mood), it's legitimate, maybe better than its sopurce material. Same with quotes. If a band just rips off another composition without giving due credit, yeah, fuck that, but if they can find a place for it where it enhenced both there song and the original composition, I'm all for that. Sampling has the same rules. I`d gladly argue that Kanye uses the Otis sample tastefully, and actually sheds some new light on it, not unlike a good cover version. If it involves less skill than learning a Bach composition on guitar, that`s irrelevant to me, I`m not a musician, I`m strictly a fan and a listener. Anyway, let`s give the guys from The moody Blues a sampler and a drum machine and see if they can come up with something anywahere near as good.
as far as the inherent superiority of playing music with instruments to sampling other music or found sound, that's just elitist.
Nonsense. It is like the difference from an actual guitarist playing at a live venue, and some slacker couch potato playing "Guitar Hero" on his mom's sofa. There is a pronounced difference. I appreciate one and denigrate the other.
Needless to say, i genuionely don't give a fuck about musical talent, I just listen to music as an aim in and of itself. If you want to view it from a musician's perpective, that's fine, just don't act like you have any authority to talk about a Kanye West song.
Seeing as you don't care about musical talent, then you are listening to the appropriate genre. It must be Kismet.
Anyway, I'm something of an amateur literary buff, I could quote you passages from "Lolita" or "The Picture of Dorian Gray", do you really want me to rant about the total absence of literary merit from lyrics by The Moody Blues (or jethro Tull, or Pink Floyd)?
As a writer and a voracious reader, I know the difference between what could be considered "good" poetry or "bad poetry. As far as the Moody Blues, they do often resort to banal pleasantries, while at other times they really hit their mark. Floyd? Have you listened to "Animals"? There is some excellent allusive and allegorical poetry there, particularly on the song "Dogs". As far as Tull, you haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about. Ian Anderson is one of the best lyricists in rock. I refer you to "Thick as a Brick", "A Passion Play" or "Baker Street Muse" on "the Minstrel in the Gallery" album. Excellent style, sly and satiric wit - and he actually uses grammatically correct English and appropriate syntax, metre and rhyme (which, in and of itself, sets Tull apart from most rock bands).
If you prefer a genre where the preponderance of lyrics devolves into guttural slang, misogynistic bitch-slapping, crude rhyme, unclever obscenities and endless references to money, alcohol, drugs, dicks, dubs and various other accoutrements of the gangsta style - then hey, listen away. Or go dig up an album from an asinine big-haired band from the 80s like Mötley Crüe, whose only claim to literary fame is the use of the umlaut. Twice.
You refer to Nabokov and Wilde - perhaps there is some hope for you yet.
Anyway, let`s give the guys from The moody Blues a sampler and a drum machine and see if they can come up with something anywahere near as good.
But you see, that's just the thing. They don't need to sample. They don't need a drum machine. They can actually play their own instruments incredibly well! *GASP* They can actually sing! *LIKE, OMG!* And they still have songs that are played on radio and CDs purchased across the world 40 years after their release. And it's not just old fart curmudgeons like myself still listening and buying. I'm an avid concert-goer, and one can't help but notice a generational appreciation for good music. There were more young folks than old at the last Tull, Yes, Peter Gabriel and Pogues shows I attended. I was definitely in the minority at the Decemberist and Tool shows, but no one seemed to mind a parent in the house.
Really, Jet, you don't care about music at all. You've reiterated the point several times. Give it a rest before you break a blood vessel. This is a blog by a former bar-band musician who considers that even karaoke takes away jobs from real musicians. You'll get no sympathy here.
I reiterate the point beacuse it's a valid one. Hip hop is a legitimate form of music. Sampling can be as much a part of music as whatever instrument you care to name.
I'll back off from talking shit about prog lyrics, since that's an unwinnable argument, and totally subjective. But I will defend hip hop lyricism. Yeah, there are words like "bitch", "hoe", and "nigga" to contend with, and plenty of references to wealth and, to an extent, gang culture. But there's misogyny, drugs, and promiscuity in Stones lyrics, and I like the Stones. Furthermore, hip hop lyrics can and do feature arcane cultural references, ingenious wordplay and a glut of craftiness and wit. Allegory? No. Thematic richness? Not that I know of. But for a purely aesthetic appreciation of language, Nabokov is the only author in the Western canon who has written something as flat-out enjoyable and breathtakingly verbose as "Protect Ya Neck".
As for the sentence "
You refer to Nabokov and Wilde - perhaps there is some hope for you yet." Fuck, that's condescending. I'd venture to say I'm at least as well-read as you are, and as gifted a writer, so don't let my relative cultural with-it-ness and enjoyment of supposedly low culture let you think that my understanding of the English language isn't something to be reckoned with.
I also stand by my statement that I don't care about musical talent. If something is worthwhile, and can engage me emotionally or intellectually, or is just catchy, then I'll happily listen to and, in all likelihood, endorse it. Skill and effort on the artist's part don't influence my judgement. I like what I like.
The analogy between sampling and guitar hero or karaoke is absurdly flawed. Those things are party games, shit people do for fun, not to be creative. I've done both a few times, whatever, pretty lame. But I'll direct you to records like GZA's "Liquid Swords" or The Beastie Boys' "Paul's Boutique" if you want examples of samples that are arranged artfully, and constitute new songs entirely. Somehow I don't see those as comparable to Guitar Hero, which is a video game.
As for the assertion that I don't care about music? I think I do. I'm typing this shit right now. I listen to at least a couple hours of music a day. I seek out new music (ie. music I haven't heard, "new" or otherwise). I read music criticism, journalism and (over)analysis to find out about more music. I fret and daydream about music. I argue and debate about music. I wear t-shirts with band names on them. I scribble lines from songs in the margins of notebooks. I have all sorts of positive and negative memories invested in deifferent songs. So, yeah, I think I do care about music.
Also, I should bring up tape music and musique concrete, which utilize found sounds, field recordings and unconventional instruments. Are they not music?
I also stand by my statement that I don't care about musical talent...
...Skill and effort on the artist's part don't influence my judgement.
This is the fundamental difference in our viewpoints. This is why our opinions are irreconcilable. There's really nothing further to discuss.
Jet, I really enjoy your determination and you are a genuinely amusing writer. Come by and bitch whenever you'd like.
Also, I should bring up tape music and musique concrete, which utilize found sounds, field recordings and unconventional instruments. Are they not music?
If you consider a reproduction of a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup or a paint blot on a canvas as a piece of art, then by all means, musique concrete is music.
"This is the fundamental difference in our viewpoints. This is why our opinions are irreconcilable. There's really nothing further to discuss." That's kind of what I've been trying to coax out of you the whole time. A tacit acknowledgement that we both have different angles, and our arguments are but opinions. If I've convinced you to lay off the "new music is bad" rhetoric even a little bit, then I've done my job as an entrenched neophyte.
As for the art critique? I'm way beyond my scope, but I do think that the art theory behind dada and pop art is valid, so I'll take that as another fundamental difference in opinions.
And, just to be a troll, I'll bring up "Kid A" and "Remain in Light", two LPs that get more or less totemic love from rock fans (including myself) and incorporate generous dollops of sampling and disco/ early hip hop influence respectively.
And bitch I will.
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