Matmos was in town on Sunday night and put on a solid show that included everything from shining lasers and flashlights on a photoelectrically activated oscillator to projections of gay porn. J Lesser also performed with the band, though I think I was the only one in the audience who was excited about this. Lesser never seems to get enough respect.
In any case, considering Matmos is known for their adventures in electroacoustic music (e.g. sampling the sounds of rhinoplasty procedures, then digitally processing and editing them until somehow a really good song emerges), it was a little bizarre to hear songs by Alanis Morissette and Michael Jackson playing before the show started.
Then, near the end of opening act Leprechaun Catering's set, one of its members explained that they had been playing a mix CD that they put together with members of Matmos called "Our Most Hated Songs."
While it certainly put the pre-show into context and was superficially funny in a high school art student sort of way, it was also pretty annoying. If there's one thing that irks me, it's avant-garde musicians who have managed to delude themselves into thinking that all radio-friendly, mainstream music is garbage and that theirs is undeniably better.
In one of the first media classes I took in college, the quirky, "hip" professor devoted an entire lecture to how we acquire taste, specifically in relation to high and low culture. He played "Williams Mix" by John Cage and a track by the no-wave band Mars. He asked us what we thought of the latter, and when no one said anything, he finally pressured us, yelling "Come on, it's genius!"
Then he played an excerpt from "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies, and asked us what we thought of it. Again, no one said anything.
Then, out of nowhere, without raising his hand, this supreme douche sitting in the back shouted "It's crap!" All the sorority girls began to squirm as he elaborated his position: "It's complete garbage. That song never would have been recorded if there wasn't money to be made. It's not art, it's a fucking commercial."
Since he seemed pretty riled up, no one really challenged him. I might have, just for the fun of it, but at that point in my development I was also pretty pretentious about my taste, and having listened to the OHM compilation about a hundred times, I mostly agreed with him.
In any case, I now firmly disagree with him. While I don't particularly like the song "Sugar, Sugar," it's because I maintain it's actually not a very good pop song. Even though it's considered the prototypical example of bubblegum pop, I think the music is actually not catchy at all. The song's earworm factor relies more heavily on the repetitive lyrics. However, the lyrics are not elevated to level of Sublime Pop by the melody, which is lacking something.
All that being said, my belief is that regardless of the reason a song was written, whether by some Jandek-type reclusive genius who just wants to express himself or by the most commercial, morally bankrupt, artistically incompetent Clear Channel poster girl in it for the money and fame, a good song is a good song. Just because one makes more money, is more culturally ubiquitous, or adheres to traditional musical forms doesn't make it any worse. It's different, and should be judged solely based on whether it sounds good.
A "good song" is of course judged subjectively, but here are my logical criteria:
1) If music = good, and lyrics = good, song is great.
2) If music = good, but lyrics = bad, song is still good 99% of the time.
3) If music = just ok, but lyrics = good, then song is good.
4) If music = bad, but lyrics = good, song is just ok.
5) If music = bad, and lyrics = bad, song is bad.
Music = good when it is
a) melodic/harmonic/euphonic, or
b) works within a given genre, while simultaneously subverting/extending/expanding/experimenting with the genre.
E.g. I really like Kites because even though he does a lot of great screechy harsh noise stuff like Prurient and many others, he often merges it with surreal, acoustic folk. He's subverting the noise genre by focusing on its pastoral, meditative similarity to psychedelic folk, rather than having a pissing contest with all the other noise artists who only care about how loud they can amplify their feedback.
Lyrics = good when they are
a) surreal/vague/hazy/bizarre; or
b) clear/explicit/descriptive/narrative, but have some clever twist to them
So I'm as big a fan of Guided by Voices' stream-of-consciousness/free association lyrics and Gastr del Sol's elliptical portraits of the arbitrary supernatural as I am of Stephin Merritt's calculated running pomps through the field of linguistics (I'm trying to remember if Merritt uses spoonerisms...).
For me, though, the vast majority of songs I listen to are either instrumental, or have lyrics that are "just ok" or "bad" (i.e. dance music). In either case, the analysis is the same: as long as the music itself is good, then I consider the song good.
So.
In direct response to a supercilious, denigrating, anti-mainstream compilation by two avant-garde bands, I'd like to present it's antithesis.
Here are "Popular Songs I Legitimately Love (and Put in the Same Category as the Most Sublime Music of the 20th Century) That You Probably Hate."
Counting Crows - Angels of the Silences
Moment of Pop Bliss:
00:40.45 - The chorus alone makes up for Adam Duritz's haircut.
03:02.61 - The outro makes up for the band's name.
Dionne Farris - I Know
Moment of Pop Bliss:
00:56.23 - I think "I know" where you're heading with this.
01:56.67 - You're probably gonna...
02:19.93 - Yup, you're taking me to Pop Heaven.
Toad the Wet Sprocket - Come Down
Moment of Pop Bliss:
00:03.84 - The intro makes up for the band's name.
00:47.73 - The chorus puts this song in the same league as anything by The Beatles (not hyperbole).
02:16.25 - Come down from where? From far above the clouds, where you've brought me?
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4 comments:
I actually didn't process the Leprechaun Catering/Matmos mix cd as being nearly such a blanket statement as that; what really sort of annoyed me more was the rousing chorus of 'nooooooooo' from the crowd, most of whom almost certainly subscribe to the same theory that you've outlined here w.r.t. popular music (i.e. that it sucks). Now that I think about it more, I'm less sure of my original response, which is that LC were getting at much the same thing you're getting at here, but still, I didn't think it was all that annoying.
That said, I didn't actually get there in time to listen to selections from the "Now that's what I call (shitty) music!!!" compilation, and just got the discussion bit during the actual show. What I do think it sort of is is a bit of a cop-out--it's like, "we can't play anything that will actually get you in the mood for our show, so we'll play you songs you most likely hate in the name of 'art'". That part of it I thought was kind of lame.
Also, I totally own both Recovering the Satellites and Coil and at one point might have declared "A Murder of One" from the previous Counting Crows album as my favorite song.
Finally: the music blog world needs more people who are not afraid to say "fuck you" to the anti-pop culture "counter"-culture and call a good song a good song. I am totally guilty of dismissing artists on the basis of popular airplay myself, but I shouldn't, and even though I might disagree with you on certain things (I can't get into Phil Collins. Sorry), this kind of writing is much appreciated.
addendum: I have not listened to RtS in more than four years (the last time was, very memorably, in a car between Dallas and Austin at around 3:30am Saturday morning of spring break 2004). At any rate, in the interim, I completely forgot how good a song "Angels of the Silences" was.
Arriving at Reckless two Sundays ago with about 100 CDs and 50 DVDs in a box, I left half an hour later, my wallet flush with cash, and the box filled with about 30 unwanted CDs.
311, Stone Temple Pilots, and Tonic are all guaranteed to appear here.
hey guys, what's up with the presumptions?
"deluding themselves into thinking all radio friendly......and theirs is undeniably better." ?
then ben.... "we'll play you songs you'll most likely hate in the name of art" ?
why does the compilation have to be anti-popular music? why does it have to be an insult or act of elitism over the audience?
here's what really happened - i wanted to find out what songs people actually HATED, meaning gave them physically horrible feelings. it was wonderful to hear people chirp in. everyone's was different, and at least 60% of which were met by at least one person's "hey, that's a pretty good song." it led to us calling and texting nearly everyone we knew, and we soon had a HUGE pool of songs. we even had some submissions by semi-celebrities such as thurston moore and mathew barney. LC compiled the most voted selections and non-controversial (meaning if someone actually liked a song it was ruled out of the comp- reverse democracy) songs.
the songs were all from different eras and different genres of "pop". in my defense, i don't actually hate any songs and i had a hell of a time picking out a most hated song.
i guess it IS an art project, but one which is meant to entertain not annoy. i personally love the psychology of taste and hearing all of those songs playing in sequence actually made us all laugh hysterically. we actually listened to it over and over in the van.
i guess that one could see such a comp playing before a gig as clearly drawn hipster damage. but anti-hipsterism is kinda "double-hipster damage", as hipsters are the primary parties calling out hipsters on being hipsters. it's sort of second phase reactionary. maybe me calling you out is third phase!
i agree with all of your positions on great music. i love music. i listen to way more pop than john cage. i like your post, but watch who you're calling and elitist!
yours-
tom of leprechaun catering
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