Last week Slate ran a dialogue called "Let Us Leave Our Musical Islands." I clicked on it thinking, "Hmm, this could be interesting." Then when I actually started reading it, I realized that what they really should have called the article was, "Let a Classical Critic Have a Chat with a Jazz Critic."
I will make no bones about it: I am a fan of "rock," or, more accurately, "popular music from roughly 1955 to the present." I have enjoyed classical music in bits and pieces all of my life. I have never particularly enjoyed jazz, although occasionally I have moments where I understand why other people would. That said, my understanding is that classical music essentially exhausted itself creatively somewhere around the 1920s/1930s, and that jazz exhausted itself creatively at some time in the mid-1970s. The two critics in this dialogue spend a whole lot of time wondering whether or not the jazz and classical scenes are "fringe" scenes in today's world. Well let me answer that question really quickly by saying "Yes."
The first critic's opening statement seems to me to be a bit of wishful thinking: "People tend to listen to various kinds of music over the course of the day: rock at the gym, jazz on the drive home, maybe a little Vivaldi while waiting at the dentist's office for the root canal." Not me. I pretty much listen to rock, rock, and more rock. If that's a musical island, then hey, I find my musical island pretty satisfying. I mean, does anybody really listen to music in the fashion that he's suggesting? He then goes on to basically say that, "Yeah, I'm hip and not one of those elitist guys you think I am, because even though I think classical music is 'real' music and rock is kind of boring, I can still appreciate certain rock acts, especially the ones that remind me of classical music, or the rock acts that classical people are finally 'OK' with after all these years of insulting rock." Here:
"I'm a freakish case in that I started paying serious attention to nonclassical music only in college. While all my friends were listening to Pink Floyd, I rocked out to Schubert and Brahms. Then, during a prolonged immersion in the classical avant-garde—at my college radio station, I subjected a minuscule audience to György Ligeti's Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes and John Cage's Imaginary Landscape No. 4 for 12 radios—friends instructed me to listen to Cecil Taylor and Sonic Youth, which is where my 'pop' collection started. For years I steered clear of hummable tunes and polished production; I bought into the punk-modernist notion that any band selling over a thousand or so CDs was worthless. By age 25, though, I'd expanded my horizons to accommodate the Beatles and Bob Dylan."
Well congratulations buddy, you worked your way up to the Beatles and Bob Dylan. Buy some ABBA and then we can talk. He name-drops Radiohead, Bjork, and Oasis, but somehow I'm not convinced that he really likes these bands, or rather, whether he likes them for the reasons I do: because of their personality.
My favorite musicians are the ones that I really feel are sharing themselves with me in their music. Perhaps I've so strongly grativated toward rock because of its emphasis on lyrics. Rock has a literary quality that classical and jazz really don't seem to have (although I'm sure some classical/jazz nut would argue with me on some grounds I can't anticipate). Rock also seems a lot more willing to be tasteless and ridiculous, which I like.
Also, my personal feeling is that in the late 1960s rock managed to absorb the best of both classical and jazz to essentially become the most relevant/exciting/effective mode of musical expression in that age, and that after this point, all the people who still consider classical or jazz to be interesting and progressive are pretty much walking down a blind alley. I love it when these guys start naming all these people like Steve Reich or John Cage or Osvaldo Golijov. Come on. The great "composers" of our time have been people like John Lennon and Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson, etc., etc. I mean, who are they kidding?
For me, the point of music is to reach as wide of an audience as possible without compromising itself as art. This is what I believe rock has done so well - at its best. As far as I can tell, proponents of contemporary jazz and classical music do not seem to share this artistic goal. In fact, I'm not quite sure what their goals are. I've always been wanting to meet the "Little Earl of jazz" or the "Little Earl of classical" - you know, the guy who had as much of a desire to get people interested in their genre the way that I like to think I try to get people interested in my genre. It always seems to me that jazz and classical fans don't really care whether I like their genre or not. It's like, "Either you get it or you don't." I actually want to help people enjoy their lives more by introducing them to music they haven't heard but might enjoy. That's a very important part of the process for me.
Ultimately, to say that my taste in music is "better" than other people's taste in music is to slide down a slippery slope. The most useful observation I could make is that for reasons that remain slightly mysterious to me, certain other people seem to share my taste in music and hopefully they will be interested in some of my thoughts on that music. To say any more than that is probably to invite ridicule.
Related: Notes On Music
The only jazz I ever listen to is John Coltrane, but I consider it as punk rock, not jazz. Just somebody expressing himself really purely.
ReplyDeleteCheck out Sun Ship! (hands down my favorite). I think the "Classic Quartet" -- Coltrane, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, and I forget the bass players name (Jimmy Garrison?) -- are on par with the Beatles as far as amazing bands go.
Or check out Nels Cline, a pretty good happy medium between jazz and noisy rock (favorite album: The Inkling).
What were some of Coltrane's big hits?
ReplyDeleteI think "jazz guys" (you know the kind I mean) are really into his early stuff, so his big hits were probably "Blue Train," "Giant Steps," and "My Favorite Things."
ReplyDeleteI like the stuff in the middle of his career, like A Love Supreme and Sun Ship. After his music started to get crazy, but before it got completely abrasive.
A Love Supreme is the one that's always on critics' top-ten lists. But I like Sun Ship better...
Anyway, I haven't listened to him much since college, I'm just singling him out as someone rock fans can get into.
I was joking about the "big hits."
ReplyDeleteI think I might have a taste for "white guy coffee house jazz." The only two jazz albums I've heard that I really like and listen to on a regular basis are Dave Brubeck's Time Out and Stan Getz' Getz/Gilberto. But that stuff is pretty close to pop music as far as I'm concerned.
I seriously think that some people just have a "jazz gene" and I simply don't have it. But we'll see what we can do about Coltrane. I've been getting bored with my other music so maybe we'll give this shit another whirl.
What do you say to the argument that rock died sometime in the late 80s/early 90s? Until someone comes along to disprove this theory I'm inclined to believe it's true. Radiohead and the White Stripes come closest, but does the success of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin tribute bands really mean that rock isn't dead?
ReplyDeleteElectronic music never broke out of its niche. Rap declined at the same time that rock did. Music as a cultural force is dead at the moment.
Another note--you won't like Jazz Little Earl because the interesting stuff is all pretty noisy and on the whole you just don't like noisy music. The same goes for contemporary classical.
The problem with a lot of classical and jazz fans is that they are completely focused on small technical issues in music. But so are a lot of rock fans.
Jason--I haven't listened to Sun Ship but I really like A Love Supreme, Giant Steps, and Ascension. I saw Rova, the San Francisco sax quartet, perform a live version with 9 extra people performing on everything from violin to laptop. Nels Cline was there on guitar. It was amazing.
From the one friend of mine who prefers classical to rock/pop music, it's the old argument of "the music only has 3 chords". And on that note, doesn't all rock/pop have nearly the same structure of verse/chorus, repeat, add bridge, final chorus, and done?
ReplyDeleteI don't think rock music is dead. I think it just went underground. Bands in the 60's and 70's could make music that was both artistic and appealed to the masses. I think now there's still a lot of neat bands that can still produce the artistic music, it's just that they don't/can't have the mainstream success like the used to. Maybe it's a result of the fragmentation of music into micro-genres ("oh this is straightedge hardcore, i'm more interested in east bay hardcore") or maybe it's just the result of MTV, but there's still plenty of good music being produced.
LE- I'm interested in your opinion that "the point of music is to reach as wide of an audience as possible without compromising itself as art." Just curious why you've got the qualifier of "as wide and audience as possible"? If someone makes a song that appeals to a certain group (e.g. the east bay hardcore kids) are they missing the point of making music then? Just curious.
And as for Jazz, I have zero interest in it, blech.
But according to LE, underground = dead. Call it fringe, cult, critically acclaimed but lacking in mainstream success, or whatever.
ReplyDeletezrbo--I've often denounced LE's insistence on the "as wide and audience as possible" clause but he's not budging. He doesn't really mean it when he says "the point of music is to reach as wide of an audience as possible without compromising itself as art." That would include Jazz and Classical and fringe music. What he means is that it must reach a certain percentage of the population of middle-class America. The argument does have a pretty good justification if you see the purpose of art as creating the grounds for mass social communication and understanding. I'd say that's a laudable goal, but if you reach 10 or 100 thousand people instead of 10 million, isn't that still a great accomplishment?
Another thing we're overlooking is that these genres are pretty vague. What does jazz, rock, or classical entail? It seems to me the main difference is what instruments you use. I'm of the opinion that guitar, bass, and drums just sound better than almost all stringed classical instruments or anything else other than piano. Violin playing may be technically impressive but it's just a whole lot of high pitched whining. Most rock bass parts are extremely simple but I prefer them. Why? They just sound better to me.
I sorta understand the purpose of the "as wide an audience as possible" clause (AWAAAP?). I suppose the purpose of art as a means for mass social communication/understanding is a good argument. Though there's something about that clause that seems vaguely elitist. Also, I didn't realize that underground = dead.
ReplyDeleteOn a completely unrelated note: when I use Google here at work it does this 'predictive searching' thing where as I'm typing it will bring up a drop down menu box that lists the most likely thing I'm searching for along with the number of results. I was typing in a question and I typed the word "is" followed by the space bar and the first thing at the top of the list is "is jennifer lopez pregant?" with over 3 million results. Weird.
"What do you say to the argument that rock died sometime in the late 80s/early 90s?"
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Rock is dead too, although I personally feel that it died around 1997 with the death of Britpop (which I consider the "last great movement" in rock), and not in the late 80s/early 90s as you say. I think it's still possible for there to be great "one-off" albums and songs every now and then that will compare with the best of the old stuff, but I don't think we'll be able to have a genuinely meaningful rock movement again, at least not in the way we did before. It's sort of like literature: you can still write a great book, but it won't really be part of a larger context the way it used to be. My point is, sure, rock critics who pretend that new rock is meaningful irritate me, but jazz and classical critics who pretend that new jazz and new classical is meaningful irritate me EVEN MORE!
And as far as my "the point of music is to reach as wide of an audience as possible without compromising itself as art" statement goes, I just want to stir some shit up a little bit and get people to think about music in moral terms. To me a good ratio of mass/cult taste would be about 80/20. Some of my absolute favorite music would not appeal to a mass audience, and I like having that portion of my collection to myself and a relative few, but for the most part, my favorite music has wide mass appeal. Of course, I don't choose my favorite music based on its "mass appealingness." But I really do think that mass appeal is part of what bonds me to so many of my favorite artists/albums. I have little patience for celebrating underground music for its own "undergroundedness." It's fine if some music starts out underground at first due to various cultural/financial circumstances, but in the end I think it should find its way to a larger audience or else I don't really respect/sympathize with the artists' goals.
"I'd say that's a laudable goal, but if you reach 10 or 100 thousand people instead of 10 million, isn't that still a great accomplishment?"
Yeah, it's fine, I guess, but it simply doesn't move me or stir me in quite the same way. Ultimately, people should listen to whatever music they find helps make them happy. My own personal goals are a bit weirder/more ambitious.
No thoughts on J-Lo?
ReplyDeleteI understand your argument LE, and like you said, you're goals are ambitious/weird.
I think you make too much of artist's goals. Many just got lucky. Or unlucky, as the case may be. Who knows what the Minutemen, Joy Division, or Mission of Burma could have done had circumstances been different back then. I think that's one of the more interesting topics in This Band Could Be Your Life(a highly recommended book if you like rock n roll stories). Some bands never wanted to be famous and actively worked to avoid it. Others wanted to be successful but just didn't have the support at the time they needed it and deaths or injuries brought an end to their careers before they could break out into a larger scene. They had the desire, but it wasn't in the cards.
ReplyDeleteWell it wasn't me if that's what you're getting at Zrbo.
ReplyDeleteSo I just, throw up a middle finger and let it linger
ReplyDeletelonger than the rumor that I was stickin it to Christina
Cause if I ever stuck it to any singer in showbiz
it'd be Jennifer Lopez, and Puffy you know this!
I'm sorry Puff, but I don't give a fuck if this chick was my own mother
I'd still fuck her with no rubber and cum inside her
and have a son and a new brother at the same time
and just say that it ain't mine, what's my name?
That's why they call me Slim Shady (I'm Back)
I'm Back (I'm Back) (SLIM SHADY!) I'm Back
- Eminem, "I'm Back"
LE, it's interesting that you picked 97 as the last time rock was good. People always think the music of the present sucks and point to 10 years ago as the last good time. In 97 everyone groaned at all the Nirvana wannabes that killed alternative music and looked back to the golden age of the late 80's when "punk" was still underground and uncorrupted. When the Pixies were starting out, Sonic Youth was in their prime, etc.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure in 2017 everyone will be nostalgic for right now, and with good reason. There's a lot of great music under the radar that will hopefully rise to the surface in hindsight. I know three of the best albums I've heard were released in the past three years (Lightness by Peter & The Wolf, Ys by Joanna Newsom, and I am a Bird Now by Antony and the Johnsons). I've also been blown away seeing some new bands play live, who just haven't made their breakthrough albums yet.
So don't worry, there's still life out there.
ps: I just thought of those scenes in "No Direction Home" and "Don't Look Back" where people are like, "Bob Dylan's a flash-in-the-pan," etc.
Actually in 1997 I remember all my friends being nostalgic for 1992 when "great" bands like Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden were still keeping the great rock 'n roll flame alive. The reason I pick 1997 is because Britpop was the last time where a group of similar bands with still-separate identities were spurring each other on artistically in front of a mass audience (in England at least). But in 1997 both Blur and Pulp made conscious decisions to drop out of the race, which then gave Oasis room to take its talent and, in Noel Gallagher's immortal words, "flush it right down the drug dealer's fucking toilet," all of which left Radiohead standing as the Last Great Rock Band, a title which, like Blur and Pulp before them, Radiohead wanted nothing to do with and quickly tossed off in every conceivable way it could. Ever since then, the "guitar-bass-drums" rock band really hasn't had anywhere else to go.
ReplyDeleteI'm not exactly "worried" or "not worried" that I don't like too much of the music that's out right now. I'm pretty happy downloading obscure older music until the end of time. But I guess it's a pretty artistically conservative position to take. I just don't believe in being charitable to music that's not very good just because it happens to be new.