Of all the characteristics that make pop music memorable, two stand out as being especially significant: a well-defined sound and a distinguishable melody. Of the two, melody is seemingly the more important; however, the sound (recording technique, production choices, instrumentation, etc.) provides the 'context' for the melody, and contributes to the overall quality of the piece.
It may not be possible to define the characteristics of great melodies, other than to say that they tend to survive the vagaries of public taste. As anyone could observe, some melodies endure, while the majority fall into obscurity. However, 'sound' is easier to pinpoint. Recording techniques are analyzable, orchestration and scoring may be broken down, influences determined, and so forth.
Take, for example, the garage rock sound that existed for only about two to three years (1965-67). The best garage groups had a handful of memorable songs. However, there were hundreds, or even thousands more garage rock bands that are also remembered, not so much for their compositions, but for their sound, which today many people still find noteworthy. The fact remains that without any truly memorable melodies to their names, most of these groups will remain obscure to all but the most die-hard enthusiasts. Yet, for being exemplars of a distinctive rock sound, they will never be completely forgotten.
It is a common complaint about the pop music of recent years that songwriters no longer have the sense for a good melody that their predecessors had. While I would tend to agree with this, it is with the awareness that the passage of time is the true judge of good melody, not the opinion of contemporaries. The more justifiable charge one could make is that pop music performers are not creating a distinctive sound for their music.
Actually, it is not a case for blame entirely. Through technology, we have tamed the sound of the rock combo. It used to be that sound, especially in live performance (but also to a degree in the studio) was hit-or-miss. There were just too many things that could go wrong. Also, PA systems were inadequate, monitoring was primitive or non-existent, and the science of amplifying instruments was not developed. However, live music could occasionally be electrifying, because it was solely up to the individual players to get their performance across to the audience by means of their instrument and whatever primitive amplification they had.
Now, we have the technical ability to make live performance more consistent. Performers themselves certainly can't be blamed for wanting things to be better. It is no pleasure to have to play and sing out of tune because you can't hear yourself, for example. Touring is hard enough as it is; it isn't too much to ask to have the sound of your performance under control. Audiences aren't complaining either as, having paid a high price for admission, they at least get to hear sounds that are presentable and listenable.
Listenable, yes. Interesting, less so. Part of the reason is that live sound is homogenized, as it is being managed. Every sound is mediated, by means of instrument microphones, guitar direct boxes, soundboards, and so forth. A second reason has to do with musical culture (which I have discussed in other essays). A certain abandon is missing from even the best records and live performances. You go to a concert, and, as good as it may be, you always pretty much know what's going to happen next. Lastly, the notion that a band should be "greater than the sum of its parts" has been somewhat forgotten. If you want to hear interesting interplay between instrumental parts, spontaneity, and a developed melodic sense in the instrumental accompaniment, as a general rule you have to go back to an earlier musical era.
I have very briefly outlined the technical practices that force a certain tameness on our music (though I haven't addressed some of the techniques used in commercial pop music: the pitch-correction used on vocals and other manipulations that give the very biggest artists their uniformity and polish). However, there are cultural forces at work too. All of our music is currently branded (in the marketing sense), much of it overtly and crassly; the rest is branded nonetheless, as 'niche' music, or 'independent', or whatever soothing label one may choose. Since brands are meant to reinforce certain ideas we carry around about ourselves, and do not, as a rule, risk surprising us with things we may find strange or unpleasant, it is not surprising that the sound of pop music has also become more uniform.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
Social Class And Family Music
I feel uneasy bringing up the topic of social class at all. To assign anyone to a particular class seems so alien to our time, to our unspoken aspirations to liberated classlessness. It might be seen as reductionist to try to describe the attributes of social classes -- to say that a person is from a certain class (in our country at least) is to do violence to that person's individuality, even to deny his or her humanity, in the eyes of some.
Yet so long as the class we're talking about is more or less an abstraction, and if we are at a physical or historical remove from the parties being described, we have less trouble with speaking of social class as a determining force in people's lives. The "working class" of pre-1939 Europe, or the "landless peasantry" of pre-communist China, colonial India, or of Central and South America in very recent or contemporary times are objects of impassioned allegiance with many people in America and in other affluent democracies. The above-named groups, to our minds, have definite characteristics; they can be thought of almost as individuals with their own personalities, thinking and acting in a certain ways which can be charted and predicted. It seems to me also that we have ascribed a great deal of virtue to the class groups mentioned above, as well as to the working classes in many other places around the world.
We read a statement such as "The urban working class in pre-Revolutionary Russia was almost as virulently anti-Semitic as the rural peasantry" (I am not actually quoting, though I could well be), and might be inclined to accept it uncritically, but if we were asked to take in the proposition that "In our times, the American working and lower-middle class is suffering from the effects of weakened family bonds, as well as from high consumer expectations frustrated by reduced spending power", we might well be offended.
Actually, I shouldn't say whether you would be offended or not. But I do know that honest discourse about social class and how it influences people's choices is very rare. I find this baffling, though not surprising in that we don't conceive of ourselves in terms of where we would be ordered in a class system -- the very notion of a class system itself probably seems arcane or irrelevant to most people.
Again, I share your distaste for even broaching the subject. But my interest in the connection between how the middle class (especially the upper-middle class) views itself and the phenomenon of family music is too great.
You may be aware that within the family music genre there is a division between the kind that is viewed as highly commercialized (The Wiggles, Disney, Barney) and another kind that has arisen at least partly in reaction to and even in protest against the first kind: 'independent' kid music: Dan Zanes, They Might Be Giants, Justin Roberts, and many others (the list is constantly lengthening); at any rate the latter category tends to be more home-grown, quirkier, less produced, etc.
The self-aware, conscientious subset of the middle class (which may be wealthier and better educated than the middle class as a whole) has embraced this latter-day flowering of independent family music. But I am struck by how sentimental so much of this independent kid music is, both musically and lyrically -- every bit as much as its 'unhip' counterpart. This is surprising, because the audience for this music is skeptical about institutions and authority figures, and is highly discriminating in how it goes about life in general -- it instinctively rejects the inauthentic or artificial in almost all arenas of life.
But in the music and lyrics of indy kid performers, maybe people are just looking for an appealing reflection of themselves: celebrations of looking for bottlecaps, your favorite childhood dog, sitting on front stoops, going to the thriftshop (this last activity is exclusively engaged in by upper-middle class, when it is done as a diversion). There are no dark corners, no misgivings, no regrets sung about in indy kid music (I am emphatically not referring to 'unhappy' childhoods, only to normal feelings experienced by children). I find this frustrating, because even placid-seeming childhoods are chock full of these things (the joyous experiences of childhood, which I would agree strongly deserve celebration in song, are, on the other hand, often written and sung about with a self-satisfaction that can be off-putting). It just doesn't ring true to me (the irony and the pop-culture throw-aways I hear in some of the music also seems somewhat glib). The indy kid music audience is very demanding about most other things in life: schools, pediatricians, food ingredients, toys, TV viewing (if that is even allowed at all). But I would have expected such people to want music that was a little more challenging (which does not necessarily mean louder or more dissonant).
One theme running through family music (this theme is certainly found in indy kid music as well) is that there may be much wrong with the world, but there is much to celebrate in ourselves. I would not go so far as to call this attitude a smug one, but I'm not sure how much the rest of the world sees things in this way. Or maybe it does, and I am wrong: some of the most prominent indy kid performers are getting mass exposure, and their popularity could prove broader and deeper than anyone would have thought. But the following is either an unscientific, unprovable generalization or a truism: children outside the warm confines of the comfortable, secure segment of the middle-class have not been much affected by indy kid music. Indy kid music (though some of it will certainly stand up to the test of time) speaks mainly to the upper middle-class world-view. And though I am uncomfortable admitting it, I find this view to be unconscionably restricted.(this essay is taken from friendlyblobs.com/news)
Yet so long as the class we're talking about is more or less an abstraction, and if we are at a physical or historical remove from the parties being described, we have less trouble with speaking of social class as a determining force in people's lives. The "working class" of pre-1939 Europe, or the "landless peasantry" of pre-communist China, colonial India, or of Central and South America in very recent or contemporary times are objects of impassioned allegiance with many people in America and in other affluent democracies. The above-named groups, to our minds, have definite characteristics; they can be thought of almost as individuals with their own personalities, thinking and acting in a certain ways which can be charted and predicted. It seems to me also that we have ascribed a great deal of virtue to the class groups mentioned above, as well as to the working classes in many other places around the world.
We read a statement such as "The urban working class in pre-Revolutionary Russia was almost as virulently anti-Semitic as the rural peasantry" (I am not actually quoting, though I could well be), and might be inclined to accept it uncritically, but if we were asked to take in the proposition that "In our times, the American working and lower-middle class is suffering from the effects of weakened family bonds, as well as from high consumer expectations frustrated by reduced spending power", we might well be offended.
Actually, I shouldn't say whether you would be offended or not. But I do know that honest discourse about social class and how it influences people's choices is very rare. I find this baffling, though not surprising in that we don't conceive of ourselves in terms of where we would be ordered in a class system -- the very notion of a class system itself probably seems arcane or irrelevant to most people.
Again, I share your distaste for even broaching the subject. But my interest in the connection between how the middle class (especially the upper-middle class) views itself and the phenomenon of family music is too great.
You may be aware that within the family music genre there is a division between the kind that is viewed as highly commercialized (The Wiggles, Disney, Barney) and another kind that has arisen at least partly in reaction to and even in protest against the first kind: 'independent' kid music: Dan Zanes, They Might Be Giants, Justin Roberts, and many others (the list is constantly lengthening); at any rate the latter category tends to be more home-grown, quirkier, less produced, etc.
The self-aware, conscientious subset of the middle class (which may be wealthier and better educated than the middle class as a whole) has embraced this latter-day flowering of independent family music. But I am struck by how sentimental so much of this independent kid music is, both musically and lyrically -- every bit as much as its 'unhip' counterpart. This is surprising, because the audience for this music is skeptical about institutions and authority figures, and is highly discriminating in how it goes about life in general -- it instinctively rejects the inauthentic or artificial in almost all arenas of life.
But in the music and lyrics of indy kid performers, maybe people are just looking for an appealing reflection of themselves: celebrations of looking for bottlecaps, your favorite childhood dog, sitting on front stoops, going to the thriftshop (this last activity is exclusively engaged in by upper-middle class, when it is done as a diversion). There are no dark corners, no misgivings, no regrets sung about in indy kid music (I am emphatically not referring to 'unhappy' childhoods, only to normal feelings experienced by children). I find this frustrating, because even placid-seeming childhoods are chock full of these things (the joyous experiences of childhood, which I would agree strongly deserve celebration in song, are, on the other hand, often written and sung about with a self-satisfaction that can be off-putting). It just doesn't ring true to me (the irony and the pop-culture throw-aways I hear in some of the music also seems somewhat glib). The indy kid music audience is very demanding about most other things in life: schools, pediatricians, food ingredients, toys, TV viewing (if that is even allowed at all). But I would have expected such people to want music that was a little more challenging (which does not necessarily mean louder or more dissonant).
One theme running through family music (this theme is certainly found in indy kid music as well) is that there may be much wrong with the world, but there is much to celebrate in ourselves. I would not go so far as to call this attitude a smug one, but I'm not sure how much the rest of the world sees things in this way. Or maybe it does, and I am wrong: some of the most prominent indy kid performers are getting mass exposure, and their popularity could prove broader and deeper than anyone would have thought. But the following is either an unscientific, unprovable generalization or a truism: children outside the warm confines of the comfortable, secure segment of the middle-class have not been much affected by indy kid music. Indy kid music (though some of it will certainly stand up to the test of time) speaks mainly to the upper middle-class world-view. And though I am uncomfortable admitting it, I find this view to be unconscionably restricted.(this essay is taken from friendlyblobs.com/news)
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Vocal Persuasiveness: A Survey
One trait of great pop vocalists (this, to me, is in fact their one true measure of greatness) is the ability to convince their audience that they have actually experienced what they sing about. This is often termed 'sincerity', 'soulfulness', and the like (though these terms somehow don't seem adequate). And though it does often happen that great singers "live the songs that they sing", many mediocre vocalists also have eventful personal lives, frustrating any correlation between life and art. To make matters even more confusing, the physical virtuosity of a singer's voice may distract from an inauthentic performance; by the same token, the inability to hit certain notes or to maintain a pitch is not always the sign of authenticity that it is on occasion claimed to be.
Since it is probably impossible to pinpoint what goes into making emotionally authentic vocal talent, it would be difficult to explain the common artistic traits of Hank Williams and George Jones, Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding, and others like them. What I will suggest is that the main problem that faces pop singers (apart from the physical challenges that singing inherently poses) is not so much one of vocalizing, but of acting. Great pop singers are gifted naturalistic actors, at least in musical performance terms. They create a vocal persona that is unmistakable (this persona may have common traits with the private personality of the singer, but is not interchangeable with it). They have a point of view that one would have difficulty describing in words, yet is fully elaborated and ever-present. For example, Sinatra could consistently portray a sense of personal failure and an inescapable feeling of apartness. He accomplished this (as do all great singers I can think of) by doing less with his voice, not more. When, in his later work, he began to lose his sense of restraint, his performances became less authentic. The genius of country singer George Jones lay in his ability to admit, as it were, to an inability to control events. At the height of his powers, he conveyed a dignified sense of injury as well as any other American singer, in any style of music.
The work of Sinatra and George Jones endures, in part, because in real life, one can not abide apartness, failure, and powerlessness. The accomplishment of these two singers was to have what amounted (in my opinion) to the artistic courage to embrace these experiences, so unwanted in day-to-day life, and yet omnipresent. In their artistic personae, they did not shy away from commonplace or otherwise undesirable experience, and we can't help but be arrested by that tendency.
To my mind, the self-abnegating tendencies evident in so many great pop vocal performances are much harder to find nowadays than formerly. The reasons for this are cultural, in my opinion. Self-abnegation is itself a notion that is completely alien to our contemporary mindset. As a corollary, true emotional vulnerability in pop vocal performance is also absent, again, for cultural reasons. What we value now is virtuosity and professionalism in pop singers.
But if singers are more consistently able than they have ever been, I think we have nonetheless lost out. To listen to radio stations such as WFUV in New York, and WPKN, based out of Philadelphia, is to expose oneself to a string of technically very competent performers who, for all that, are completely lacking in a distinguishing vocal personality. We once had singers who could live up to the well-worn phrase 'larger than life'. Many of our singers of today, at least on record or in live performance, seem a good deal smaller than it.
One does not wish to single out any individual singers, in light of what I have said above. However, some examples may prove illustrative.
As a physical instrument, Elvis Costello's voice is unequalled in contemporary popular music. Yet, I wish Lucinda Williams had chosen a duet partner other than him on her most recent album, on the song 'Jailhouse Tears'. The words in his part of the duet were simply not credible. Apart from the mannered quality of his singing, his musical point of view was that of someone who merely would wish to be the character in the song, rather than fully embodying that character. His part stands in somewhat awkward contrast to Lucinda Williams' performance, which in contrast to Elvis Costello's, was effortlessly convincing.
A few years back, a collection of duets with bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley was released under the title "Clinch Mountain Country". Instrumentally, the album is impossible to fault (as is so often the case with bluegrass on record). But it becomes a bit off-putting after a while to hear singer after singer strain for the authenticity that in Ralph Stanley is inborn. Dwight Yoakum, for example, is a very fine singer, with an obvious love of country music history. But his duet on this album he tried much harder than he had to; the twang comes off as a bit precious, however well-intentioned. So many roots-music singers seem to feel they must do what they feel is expected of them, rather than obey their own inner voice, if they are in possession of one.
You turn on the radio and tune it in to WFUV. The announcer states that Singer X has just released her 6th studio album. Though the previous five albums had gone unnoticed, as far as you were concerned, you lend your ear to the piece from Singer X's album that is about to be played.
When the piece comes on, you concede at the outset that Singer X has a voice that you would have to be quite churlish to show any objection to. It is polished, with the requisite bluesy inflections that are the sine qua non of the family of performers Singer X exemplifies. It does not come as a surprise that the underlying theme of the song is difficulty sustaining a satisfying romantic relationship. You notice that the melodic and harmonic sensibility, as well as the instrumental backing of Singer X bear a great deal of similarity to Singer W and Singer Y, whose songs you heard the day before, also while listening to WFUV.
While acknowledging that Singer X must have had a great deal of ambition and conviction in order to get to the point in her career where WFUV would make it a priority to broadcast her music, you nonetheless find it a bit hard to focus your full attention to her song, having been so much exposed to other singers with a nearly identical approach to lyric writing and musical composition. And though you feel ungenerous to harbor such thoughts, you must concede that though the song's subject is an intensely personal experience, the voice itself is, strangely, lacking in feeling. Finally, you acknowledge that while Singer X is, without question, quite talented, you will not feel inclined to explore her recorded output any further.
In our society, we have become far too intrusive ever to allow talent to develop by chance. In the case of popular music singers and musicians of all kinds (and possibly in the other arts as well), we have sought to take command of talent, develop and train it, set it on a course for success. The notion that talent might develop on its own, and might, through isolation, take on a supremely interesting form is one that is alien to contemporary thinking. As a result, we have a popular music culture that, however active it may be, is lacking in the vibrancy that it had formerly.
Since it is probably impossible to pinpoint what goes into making emotionally authentic vocal talent, it would be difficult to explain the common artistic traits of Hank Williams and George Jones, Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding, and others like them. What I will suggest is that the main problem that faces pop singers (apart from the physical challenges that singing inherently poses) is not so much one of vocalizing, but of acting. Great pop singers are gifted naturalistic actors, at least in musical performance terms. They create a vocal persona that is unmistakable (this persona may have common traits with the private personality of the singer, but is not interchangeable with it). They have a point of view that one would have difficulty describing in words, yet is fully elaborated and ever-present. For example, Sinatra could consistently portray a sense of personal failure and an inescapable feeling of apartness. He accomplished this (as do all great singers I can think of) by doing less with his voice, not more. When, in his later work, he began to lose his sense of restraint, his performances became less authentic. The genius of country singer George Jones lay in his ability to admit, as it were, to an inability to control events. At the height of his powers, he conveyed a dignified sense of injury as well as any other American singer, in any style of music.
The work of Sinatra and George Jones endures, in part, because in real life, one can not abide apartness, failure, and powerlessness. The accomplishment of these two singers was to have what amounted (in my opinion) to the artistic courage to embrace these experiences, so unwanted in day-to-day life, and yet omnipresent. In their artistic personae, they did not shy away from commonplace or otherwise undesirable experience, and we can't help but be arrested by that tendency.
To my mind, the self-abnegating tendencies evident in so many great pop vocal performances are much harder to find nowadays than formerly. The reasons for this are cultural, in my opinion. Self-abnegation is itself a notion that is completely alien to our contemporary mindset. As a corollary, true emotional vulnerability in pop vocal performance is also absent, again, for cultural reasons. What we value now is virtuosity and professionalism in pop singers.
But if singers are more consistently able than they have ever been, I think we have nonetheless lost out. To listen to radio stations such as WFUV in New York, and WPKN, based out of Philadelphia, is to expose oneself to a string of technically very competent performers who, for all that, are completely lacking in a distinguishing vocal personality. We once had singers who could live up to the well-worn phrase 'larger than life'. Many of our singers of today, at least on record or in live performance, seem a good deal smaller than it.
One does not wish to single out any individual singers, in light of what I have said above. However, some examples may prove illustrative.
As a physical instrument, Elvis Costello's voice is unequalled in contemporary popular music. Yet, I wish Lucinda Williams had chosen a duet partner other than him on her most recent album, on the song 'Jailhouse Tears'. The words in his part of the duet were simply not credible. Apart from the mannered quality of his singing, his musical point of view was that of someone who merely would wish to be the character in the song, rather than fully embodying that character. His part stands in somewhat awkward contrast to Lucinda Williams' performance, which in contrast to Elvis Costello's, was effortlessly convincing.
A few years back, a collection of duets with bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley was released under the title "Clinch Mountain Country". Instrumentally, the album is impossible to fault (as is so often the case with bluegrass on record). But it becomes a bit off-putting after a while to hear singer after singer strain for the authenticity that in Ralph Stanley is inborn. Dwight Yoakum, for example, is a very fine singer, with an obvious love of country music history. But his duet on this album he tried much harder than he had to; the twang comes off as a bit precious, however well-intentioned. So many roots-music singers seem to feel they must do what they feel is expected of them, rather than obey their own inner voice, if they are in possession of one.
You turn on the radio and tune it in to WFUV. The announcer states that Singer X has just released her 6th studio album. Though the previous five albums had gone unnoticed, as far as you were concerned, you lend your ear to the piece from Singer X's album that is about to be played.
When the piece comes on, you concede at the outset that Singer X has a voice that you would have to be quite churlish to show any objection to. It is polished, with the requisite bluesy inflections that are the sine qua non of the family of performers Singer X exemplifies. It does not come as a surprise that the underlying theme of the song is difficulty sustaining a satisfying romantic relationship. You notice that the melodic and harmonic sensibility, as well as the instrumental backing of Singer X bear a great deal of similarity to Singer W and Singer Y, whose songs you heard the day before, also while listening to WFUV.
While acknowledging that Singer X must have had a great deal of ambition and conviction in order to get to the point in her career where WFUV would make it a priority to broadcast her music, you nonetheless find it a bit hard to focus your full attention to her song, having been so much exposed to other singers with a nearly identical approach to lyric writing and musical composition. And though you feel ungenerous to harbor such thoughts, you must concede that though the song's subject is an intensely personal experience, the voice itself is, strangely, lacking in feeling. Finally, you acknowledge that while Singer X is, without question, quite talented, you will not feel inclined to explore her recorded output any further.
In our society, we have become far too intrusive ever to allow talent to develop by chance. In the case of popular music singers and musicians of all kinds (and possibly in the other arts as well), we have sought to take command of talent, develop and train it, set it on a course for success. The notion that talent might develop on its own, and might, through isolation, take on a supremely interesting form is one that is alien to contemporary thinking. As a result, we have a popular music culture that, however active it may be, is lacking in the vibrancy that it had formerly.
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