The latest installment in a series of increasingly quixotic attempts to nut out exactly why I think contemporary music is rubbish. Reader discretion is advised.
In recent years there's been a bit of noise about how the internet improves marketing to the 'long tail', niche markets where volumes of sales are ordinarily too low to cater to profitably. An example of a long tail success is Amazon, which can stock a far greater range of books than any 'real' bookshop, making it more economic to sell books with small audiences.
This is all well and good. In fact, it's excellent. However, when the same rationale is applied to music, I get uneasy.
Personally, it's great that people can access my music over the internet, and that with tools like LastFM, I even get to know about it. But while that's great for me, and for other musos, what does it mean about the music itself? Firstly, all this liberation means an avalanche of freely available music. We're pretty much drowning in it, with no way of telling what's good or what's not without listening to all of it. Say what you will, the old record companies did at least filter out no-hopers. With that barrier now gone, consumers have to do a lot of trawling to see what's not inept, or even worse, boring (ineptness can at least be interesting).
But this a comparatively minor problem compared to what the internet and other technology is doing to the way we create and consume music. To understand this, we have to look at the old way in which musical fashions developed. Traditionally music has been divided into movements, largely defined by geography and period. The canons of these movements are surprisingly small. Each of the major classical music movements (baroque, romantic, etc) only have perhaps a dozen exemplars. Though other composers did operate during those periods, they simply weren't good enough to be performed regularly, and have largely been ignored. It's much the same thing with Jazz and popluar music, although these movements are recent enough that the chaff hasn't yet been separated from the wheat. *
So traditionally there have only been small numbers of exemplars in any musical field. But now we're faced with all countries, all genres, available on the internet, at the same time. It's becoming impossible to keep up.
Technology fragments things even further. Where once there was a handful of radio stations and everyone was in sync with the changing musical fashions, there are now dozens of radio stations, thousands of internet radio stations, and millions of mp3 players all doing their own thing.
Up to this point, you may be thinking, 'So what? This is the democratisation of music. Our listening tastes are no longer being dictated by faceless suits in multi-national media corporations.' If you're into that sort of smash-capitalism mentality, that's good. But while it would be fair to say that labels have largely pushed swill on us, they did also push all the great bands too. (I'd be very surprised if there was a legitimate 'greatest band that never was', who never made it because a label wasn't interested.) If the labels do head south, it's going to be much harder for any new great bands (and I'm not talking Arctic Monkeys** here, I mean new Radioheads) to be recognised.
But the real snag of our predicament is that the new fragmentation of music denies the possibility of the development of popular musical movements, because nothing ever gains enough traction to become mainstream. Our musical heritage is nothing without movements. What good would grunge have been if it had stayed restricted to Seattle with its records only available on import? Who would care? What would rave have been if it was just a bunch of saddos still organising warehouse parties 20 years later, smug in the knowledge that they had kept it underground, and alive, just for their own personal edification? The mainstreaming of a movement may ultimately destroy it, as thickos and marketers jump on board, but without that mainstreaming musical movements never get written into our cultural ledger. And without wider recognition musical movements don't happen.
I used to rail against musical bands being utterly derivative and uncreative. I now see I can hardly blame them. There's not enough yoof-movement cohesion to give them any direction. The best they can do is cherry-pick whichever aspects of the popular music history that appeal to them most. It could be metal, it could 60s mod, it could be glam rock, 70s punk, it could be 90s punk. Even worse, it could be a combination of all them. But there's no vitality or distinctiveness about these bands, nothing that makes them worth listening to in 100 years' time.
Now, that's not to say that no decent music is being made, and if you are the sort who doesn't take interest in music beyond the level of a mindless consumer ritual (you know, buying the latest Brooke Fraser CD on a whim down at the Warehouse), you'll be as happy with the music of today as you ever were. But if you really care about music, and want its history to continue, it's hard to welcome this new, 'disintegrated' paradigm.
* Something that bugs me a lot is completism on the part of some music collectors, which resists separation of wheat from chaff. Obsessive music collectors will search out rarities in a particular genre, in the hope of finding lost gems. Such collectors inevitably lose sight of the fact that these lost gems were usually lost for a reason. I was once recommended a CD by Shuggie Otis, a so-called lost genius of psychedelic soul. It was quite good, and I even bought a copy. But quite good doesn't mean that good, and I haven't listened to it since. When I think about it, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Parliament, Stevie Wonder et al covered the same ground a lot better. The only reason I got suckered in by Shuggie Otis was the sense that I should be finding other stuff that wasn't the 'usual suspects', which is really just snobbery. Sometimes, in fact, I would say usually, the usual suspects are the only ones you need to worry about.
** Does anyone else think this is a stupid and foolish name for a band? At least 'MonkeyShuttle' sounds like it might be fun. Arctic Monkeys just sounds like they tacked two random words together and went 'hey wow, man, quirky'. Fuck off.
Posted by stuart at July 29, 2007 11:59 AMHere are some thoughts coming out of this. Thoughts rather than an argument, that is...
The question of things gaining the traction to become mainstream is pertinent: it's a moot point whether pluralism encourages the maintainance of the status quo.
The flipside is if the status quo undergoes its own transformation as a result. Not that this is the arts, but one of the reasons Marx's prophesies have singularly failed is that he failed to imagine any easing of the tensions in the Capitalist system. Along came trade unionism, wrought changes to the system, the pressure was eased, and the "inevitability" of revolution moved back (apologies for the crude reductiveness of that summary).
This is obviously tangential to the arts, but the traction you're describing might vary according to whether it's "revolutionary" or "seeking an advantageous accomodation" (compare, say, Nirvana to REM).
Another thought: Reading HG Gadamer on aesthetics and classicism. His take on classicism is that "the classical is what survives". Since that's been misinterpreted before, I'll point out that it means that the survival determines whether something is classical, not the the classicism determines whether something survives. Note that he contrasts classicim not with "romanticism" but historicism. Obviously classicism is associated with the ancient Greek and Latin cultures (and this is where his line gets misinterpreted), but as a matter of judgement (rather than of genre), would we say that Ben Jonson's poems are *classics* and John Donne's are not? Well, we might not; the Enlightenment-period critics might've. The problem with the wheat and chaff metaphor is that values and tastes change, and yesterday's chaff is tomorrow's wheat.
As for Shuggie Otis, well, I'd suggest that what you got *was* the usual suspects, just by genre, not artist. He might be the lost genius of psychedelic soul, but the valuation of psychedelic soul, as much as of Stevie Wonder or Parliament, continues unabated there. What would be really archaeological (in pursuit of lost gems) would be saying "sod psychedelic soul, where's the lost genius of orchestral bluegrass?" Or something.
Another thought: developing off the wheat/chaff thing again, I was just thinking that actually what you rarely get is a sense of history; more often it's genealogy *called* history: "Scratch" and the like is a good example: the turntablism movement went through hip-hop history picking out that which "preceded" them. A lot of it might be utter shite, and it may push aside better stuff, because the better stuff didn't feature things that the later artist was able to improve on.
I'm not sure if that's meant to validate your point about Shuggie Otis, or the one about the blamelessness of utterly derivative and uncreative musical bands...
And another one: at some point it'd be interesting to look into the history of recording "folk" music (better recognised today by labels like "blues" and "country" - such stuff as is represented by Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music). A lot of that failed to flourish while being of a better standard than the commercial stuff designed to milk the public's diffident taste for it. - oh, leading to two other points: 1) that the genuine successes in finding lost gems there has led to people digging up any old shite in the hopes of emulating those successes. Compare the Harry Smith Anthology (good) with, say, "Nuggets" (credibility-rich, but shit). And 2) the preservation of pre-sound-recording folk music. The representation of flamenco in 'Carmen' compared to the real thing...
And another one: sometimes it's what you get exposed to - never underestimate the power of passivity. When I think about current rock bands and whether any of them are any good, I tend to go "Artic Monkeys? Franz Ferdinand?" or whatever and fail to remember, say, The White Stripes - who I think are actually doing something genuinely interesting and creative, even when I don't like it.
(Actually, now there's another point: I remember noticing The Strokes and The White Stripes around the same time, and for a long time I preferred the Strokes, while having no respect for them and 'nuff respect for the WS... I'd add to that though, that this respect thing might bear out now that the Strokes are not only pointless but shit, while actually enjoying the last few White Stripes albums.)
And one more thought: as that was all response and no reflection, please excuse all inconsistencies. Hope it helps with the nutting out of your thoughts, or failing that, makes you feel that you're not alone... ;)
Posted by: Andrew at July 30, 2007 5:01 PMHi Andy, thanks for your comments, they were very insightful.
Firstly, Marx. Good point. I can't imagine that the new paradigm can be as rich and interesting as the old one, but certainly new approaches can come out of it. If you think about how sheet music was the main method in which music was disseminated in the 19th Century, and musical notes themselves had primacy over the composer or even performers (since people would play - or try to play - the music themselves), I guess anything can happen.
What would be terrible is if the time came that you had people over and you'd just put on a random stream of music from the internet - random tunes to fill the air. You wouldn't care what you were listening to, because all of it would be of a decent enough quality, and all the acts would be pretty much anonymous - could come from anywhere, anywhen, that there was no point worrying about who they were or what they were about. Would you like a cab sav?
I don't quite agree with the comment that yesterday's chaff is tomorrow's wheat. It's true that writers/composers may decline in popularity, only to be rehabilitated later, but it's not like people are going to stop listening to Beethoven forever and take up with Eve de Castro Robinson! Similarly, no one would depose Marvin Gaye in favour of Shuggie Otis.
That said, the Shuggie Otis comment was an aside largely intended to express annoyance that I'd wasted money on a CD I never listen to. The main target in my sights was things like the Active reggae show of a Sunday. Among brilliant songs of unquestionable genius, there is often complete dreck. I dislike the idea that deservedly obscure music is elevated to the same level as quality music simply because a DJ is tired of playing the good stuff. I suppose there might be value in this in a kind of 'compare and contrast good with bad' way. But it'd be like Concert FM putting on some Salieri in order to show how much better Mozart was. I'd be happy just hearing Mozart, thanks.
Posted by: Stuart at July 31, 2007 9:47 PMAddtionally, here's an interesting article about Web 2.0 and economic rationalism that briefly touches a couple of points: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/31/william_davies_web20/.
See also the comment by Mike Moyle regarding finding library books - this is echoes to some degree what I was saying about ways in which people find music now.
Also, when I went out for lunch today I pondered whether the new system might actually promote live music over recorded music, insofar that recorded music would be devalued by mass dissemination, whereas live music would continue to have value as a social experience.
Posted by: Stuart at August 1, 2007 12:57 PMBowie said stuff to that effect a while back.
"Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity."
"You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring, because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left."
- Bowie in 2002.
Sucks to not be a rock star, then?
Re: the social thing, yeah, I don't think the volume of stuff is any concern whatsoever - my gut feeling is that at least 95% of people, faced with the contents of a record store, go straight to the top seller rack. I don't think that's going to change so much - most distribution media have some kind of ranking and shit going on. The rest of the stuff does not exist at all except for the tiny minority who actively seek out new music. What I do think is a concern is this loss of the social aspect - that the technology is atomising rather than unifying. Mind you, do a google on skweee or kuduro or kwaito or baile funk and you'll find plenty of individuals sitting in their rooms getting excited "together" about something that most of the West doesn't even know they don't care about.
Thinking about the state of music basically puts me in a bad mood.
Posted by: michael at August 1, 2007 3:52 PMHi Michael,
The 5% thing is a valid point, and something I've been reluctant to address because it shows up this angsting as pointless, and indeed makes any non-commercial music seem irrelevant as well!
Posted by: Stuart at August 2, 2007 8:40 PM