The Tom has been getting into scraps with people on the internet. Don't blame him. Fightin' on the Internet is often a lot of fun! I'd have played too, but I was apparently busy reading comics. Anyway. There's this guy on the Internet, right, who is of the opinion that Aqua are more culturally relevant than Radiohead. I know, right?
I'm not going to get into this whole silly Radiohead/Aqua argument, because it's fucking silly, and I figure the guy simply fancies himself an iconoclast hipster, but it does make me wonder if some people really are of the opinion that music cannot communicate without words. Even sillier is the thought that musicianship and songcraft are not artful. And again, we're back to Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion etc. To what degree does music need lyrics to deliver a message? In an effort to communicate, do you need to bludgeon the listener with narrative or sloganeering? Do lyrics need clever subtext; is there something so dismally mundane about simple lyrics to accompany music that people need to sneer at it?
Meh. I'm very busy today and just blogging on the fly, but it is something that irks me. So often I've heard people say instrumental music is dull and meaningless, and I want to hammer those people in the face. Likewise, I can understand not digging Radiohead (or other bands) lyrically, but, as the Tom says, "one of my pet hates is journalists and academics who talk about pop music without talking about the music, as if lyrics are all that exists", and it's a sentiment I share entirely.
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5 comments:
See, the main thing about that is, Aqua is recursive. They are just one exhibit in the huge and expanding cultural hall of mirrors. Their only true hit is basically the sound of post-World War II western culture eating itself. And that has a place. You could even call it great.
Radiohead, though I do think they are over-rated (even as they sit at #17 on my cumulative LastFM chart), made new culture instead of consuming and regurgitating old. It is the sound of post-post-modern culture spitting out its own tail and wriggling forward a few inches (before returning to sucking on the pacifier of ironic kitsch and pastiche).
It's not just apples versus oranges, it's going in circles versus going to new places.
And yeah, I know nothing is truly new anymore (gee, thanks, extended centuries of academia and cultural development), but the Musician is just as dead as the Author, so if it's new to a listener's ears it counts as new. And I'm pretty sure 'Paranoid Android' was really new in the ears of people our age, back in the mid-90's.
Hi there,
I think the Radiohead issue is infinitely simpler even than either of you are trying to make it:
The genius of Radiohead lies in their ability to market their mainstream music as underground art. They are the Starbucks of the underground. They target music lovers who have never been able to get their heads around truly underground sounds and provide them with the opportunity to categorise themselves with the cool crowd. In analogy to this, people go into Starbucks and pay three pounds for a ‘latte’ so that they can feel middle-class. Now they drink ‘caffe latte’ instead of ‘milky coffee from down the cafe’. Both Radiohead and Starbucks are aspirational. The reason for their success is clever marketing. Art has as little to do with Radiohead as it has to do with Starbucks.
Sebastiaan Elsenburg.
http://ridinghoodmusic.com/aqua-yes-radiohead-no/
Sebastiaan (alhtough now changing his argument), has an interesting point there.
After all, we've long been told that marketing=dishonesty=bad, whereas art=honesty=good.
And Radiohead are very well marketed, so surely radiohead=bad?
He's right, Radiohead are marketed well, he's right they represent aspirations and ideals for their fans. Where he's wrong is that first assumption: marketing=bad.
The fact is, something that is worthwhile can be cleverly marketed. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Tom is right. To say that marketing and subsequent mass popularity = "Radiohead bad!" is to be knee-jerk anti-consumerist and yet paradoxically elitist and classist.
Why shouldn't the proles enjoy Radiohead and Starbucks? Should they forever be denied and told "No! You are authentic and working class! Filthy luchre has poisoned your pure goodness! Go back to your simple ways, before marketing poisons and confuses you further" -- really? What a simplistic worldview, not to mention one at least 25 years out of date.
I never took the time to say this, but both Pete and Tom are SO RIGHT about words and music. Music is a language too, a language separate from words. Unfortunately few music journalists seem able to speak it. I guess I might say because music education is so poor, but then you don't need a musical education to experience the joy of Chopin or Battles.
For me, good music can save poor words (or no words), while even the best words cannot save bad music. I feel Bob Dylan is so terribly, terribly over-rated, for example. Musically, I have never heard anything of note in what he does. He is a poet and has been lauded by tastemakers as a musician because of his poetry. That is incorrect and frustrating.
There is a poetry to good lyrics, and music that suits the lyrics can elevate both to some pretty transcendent places. Instrumental music speaks in a way verbal language simply can never do, though. It is thoughts and feelings transformed directly to sound, whereas words must first be coded by the brain.
Imagine someone setting words and a vocal melody to Debussy's Claire de Lune. What would be the result? I'll tell you what: it's Kate Bush's 1993 b-side You Want Alchemy, which is a pretty rubbish song, even when you imagine all the dated post-80's production stripped away.
"I think the Radiohead issue is infinitely simpler even than either of you are trying to make it"
Yes, the issue is very simple. Pop music is exactly what it says; "popular music". I think to denigrate the significance of a band like Radiohead, who bring more to the mainstream musically than many of their peers, is remarkably narrow-minded. Now, I love me so Radiohead, but I'm aware of their position in terms of art vs. brand, and I see no shame in it. See also my previous post, re: image and authenticity. It's impossible to find a band that isn't selling a brand.
Again; hipster-iconoclast syndrome. It's a silly look anyway, and you're not wearing it well.
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