From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Feb 08 2004 - 20:17:18 GMT
Steve and all music lovers:
My friend Todd thinks that the most popular, award-winning music is pretty
much the definition of excellence. My friend Tom holds the opposite view
just as passionately. He says that grammy winning pop stars are, by
definition, total crap. I think they both make a good point because the
relationship between musical excellence and commercial success is
complicated. The Takacs Quartet, for example, won a Grammy Award and a
Gramophone in 2002 for their Beethoven Cycle, yet they sold less than 10,000
records and I seriously doubt that any MOQer has ever heard of them. (The
only reason I even noticed such a thing is that my brother-in-law, Edward
Dusinberre, plays violin with them.)
Steve said:
The modern great's greatness may be measured by their dynamic contributions
to the art of making music and also making popular culture, since modern
popular
composer's music cannot be separated from their larger cultural impact. (I
don't think we are seeing anything new in Britney Spears, but we did in
Madonna in the 80's though Madonna's influence was cultural rather than
musical.)
dmb says:
Yep. I think Modonna started a trend that has now, sadly, become the
standard. This trend puts style and marketing above musical talent. She and
Britney and a dozen other female vocalists have become rich and famous not
because of their musical genius or artistic innovators, but merely as
masturbatory fantasies. Christina, Shania, Faith, LeAnn, Lil Kim, etc, etc.
Its all about the wood, boys. I mean, compare that crowd with, say, Janis
Joplin or Aretha Franklin. I'm not saying the songs themselves are always
horrible, just that music itself has taken a back seat to sexy dancing and
erotic lyrics. Think of Janet and Justin at the superbowl, for example. They
sang a stale piece of crap, but how many records will be sold because the
world saw a single breast? I imagine the stunt will put several hundred
thousand dollars into Janet's pocket. (I've even heard that there is a
German vocalist who gets totally naked by the end of her show.) But then
I've also heard Richard Thompson's version of "Ooops, I Did it Again", a
song made popular by Britney. He did it in the trubador style of the middle
ages, which was both fascinating and hilarious.
Steve said:
The importance of an understanding of context in modern music is a part
of the postmodern movement which is a logical progression if you can
see how static quality goes stale. I think you may be selling short
the dynamism of modern music. Despite the beauty of the mathematical
sophistication of Bach, that mode ran its course. It lost its dynamism.
dmb says:
Hmm. Well, there are contemporary composers who work in the classical form
without being stale, but I get the point. Its true that the great innovators
have always stood upon the sholders of those who came before, but I also
think there is something different going on in this postmodern era. Now we
have a situation where there is a great deal of self-consciousness about
references to the musical past, as in the way today's hip-hoppers and
rappers sample hits from previous decades. It seems to me that postmodernism
does this sort of thing across the board in popular culture. I saw The
Handsome Family, one of my favorite bands, on Friday night. As one reviewer
put it, "they walk a fine line between tribute and parody". There's a
self-conscous irony in their music and lyrics. They express radical,
sophisticated and counter-cultural attitudes in the most unlikely genre,
country music. Its like anti-Hick music done in the style of hick music. The
Gourds are like that too. As one person put it, their's is "music for the
unwashed and well read". And then there is the Mekons, a punk band. These
were a bunch of art-school types who did not play any musical instruments at
all when they began. And when the members started to get good with their
instruments, they decided to switch so that the drummer picked up a guitar,
etc. Their wish to maintain a raw, unpolished sound led them to practice
incompetence as an art form. And there is the "Zen Country" musician Jimmy
Dale Gilmore. Imagine if Woody Guthrie was a mystic or if the Buddha was
from Texas and you'll have at least a vague idea of what Jimmmy does. Maybe
its hard to see what I'm getting at without having heard this music. And
maybe it would help if I explained that these kinds of bands have another
thing in common. They all seem to reject BOTH popularity AND sophistication
as a measure of musical success. They have an ironic sense of humor about
that. Of course, none of this makes much sense outside the context of
popular musical history, but in that context its nothing sort of brilliant.
And my favorite thing about these kinds of bands is that they have all
managed to remain mortal like the rest of us. They aren't rich or powerful.
They aren't sex symbols or high profile celebrities. They're just very
bright, funny and nice people. I've meet them all. After Friday night's show
I bought the Handsome Family's newest CD while flirting shamelessly with
Renny Sparks, the band's lyricist. (Because in my book smart is sexay and
she is one very clever woman.) She wrote some sweet nothings and sighed her
name and then I talked politics with Brett Sparks, the band's other half.
The chances of having this kind of relationship with the superstars in
almost zero and personally, I find that unapprochable god-like status to be
alienating and phony, while these alternative country bands make me feel
sane and at home in the world. Yep. My church is a smokey bar.
Thanks,
dmb
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