The Ultimate Pop Music Death Battle: Old Vs. New
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Artist:
It has probably been a month or so since I've listened to a piece of music that was created less than 10 years ago (with the exception of the excellent cuts other MOGgers have posted, and the emo that leaks out from under Miss Ivylander's bedroom door....). Kinda bothers me, to be honest. It's not intentional. I adhere to no particular manifesto or rigid system of judgment. I used to, once upon a time. Hated strings, hated brass, harbored suspicions about keyboards. Guitars and drums were my twin ideologies. As I say, that was long ago.
Nowadays I like to think I'm open to anything. Many of us around this site pride ourselves on our capacious - not to say omnivorous - ears. (Sorry, give me a second. I'm trying to wrap my brain around the idea of omnivorous ears. OK, back.) I don't have anything in principle against The Hot New Acts Of Today. They just, for some reason, end up not being art of my world. Maybe that's my problem, not theirs.
Of course, pop music has always been about disposibility. Pop songs were, for many years in the early era, hothouse flowers by design. The idea of their having a shelf life beyond the current season was...peculiar. They were all about now, about defining for young people what it was like to be alive at that very second. Perfectly aligned with the adolescent sense that the moment I am living in now is magical and unique, and no one has truly, fully lived until now. That's why Merseybeat used to transport me, and I'm certain that the latest Bring Me The Horizon CD does the same for my daughter. This is entirely reasonable. Maybe pop music should, on the profoundest level, be beyond critical appraisal. Songs more than a year old ought to be, by definition, vehicles for memory, nothing more.
I might have argued that seriously as a 16-year-old, and there's still something to it. But one grows old. One's perspective changes. What that may mean, at its worst, is a fetishizing of the old, nostalgia at its most fulsome. "That song reminds me of my college girlfriend," or "I listened to that album the first time I got stoned." or "They were my first concert," or whatever. The least interesting reasons to be engaged in a piece of music, because you're not really listening, you're using it as a mnemonic, a self-definition tool. (As, it might be argued, younger listeners do when they fetishize the new.)
I want to listen to music for what it is, not what it signifies. And all music is created equal, and it's either interesting or not, right? So why is my listening menu not more democratically split between old and new? I wish I knew.
Take the song I hope youre listening to. Never heard it until a week ago, though I am certainly acquainted with Hank Ballard's classic cuts like "Work With Me Annie," "Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go" and the original "The Twist." I don't think this cut moves me because it's old, but because that deep and profoundly, joyously lewd groove is totally killer. Because the innuendo is actually clever. Because the guy can bloody sing, and the backing vocals are subtly perfect. Because it is a throwaway thing, but so beautifully crafted. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm just a nostalgist. Or maybe the people who are making records today just need to do a better job, or somebody needs to introduce me to some of the people who are...
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Comments (29)
I know what you are talking about and I think part of it comes from falling in love with music from a certain era and I think it happens to just about all of us. I have always loved hearing a new band here and there, but there are certain sounds that will never grow old with me. Like you said, if it makes you happy then it can not be half bad. I will say this though, there are certain bands you will always remember hearing for the first time, and many of those for me were not popular at the time I heard them. I think that is the "classic" sound you are talking about, and even as trends change going back to those old favorites always is something we will do as music lovers.
There are certainly tunes from my youth that'll forever stay in my soul, but I find that I purposefully seek out the new. Many friends my age, or thereabouts, think that much of my taste in music is weird. They don't see the appeal of Laurie Anderson or Ali Farka Toure for example. Perhaps I take it to an extreme, I don't mean to. For instance, I don't always put my wallet or keys in the same pocket (I've always had that absence of habit). That sometimes presents a problem for me and I invariably find those items on my person somewhere; I need fewer pockets I guess.
Choice cut, sir, thanks for posting it. The guitar-man clearly studied his Ike Turner...
Who knows why a piece of music can speak to someone who it was most decidedly *NOT* created for, but WHO CARES, maybe that's why I'm spinning this cut for the third time already. Your point about pop music is well-taken, and I agree: it may be the most IMPORTANT aspect of the genre, since anyone who doesn't already get a given tune is AUTOMATICALLY not qualified to even attempt to pass judgement on it, it's what binds doo-wop, heavy metal, hip hop, and shitty 80s synth pop together. I'm just glad we can appreciate it in "the future." Who knows if we're getting it right ... LONG LIVE POP MUSIC.
Damn I want to go to the Festival In The Desert!
I've tried to stop ruminating on the things you have so eloquently ruminated on but can't. I never arrive at an answer. On the one hand a producer friend in his 50s (now retired) recently said "I can't keep up with new music - I just can't try." He's going backwards all the time, into the 30s and 40s. On the other there's my almost 14-year old, who has suddenly added (once more) Toumani Diabate to her diet of weird Japanese anime pop. She has no idea what the current (or any) Top Ten is, which she generally loathes as "terrible" - what will be her reference points later on, out of step with her Linkin Park and N'Dubz loving peers? I try to hear the "old" tunes like this as a young person would, divorced of the context with which those of us who grew up in or near this time hear it. Does it sound "old", "primitive", "dad's music"? If so, why is there a 22 year old guy in my office besotted with The Beatles? I've got the flu - excuse these ramblings.
Great song btw - that easy swinging groove is so listenable.
Astute essay, ivy. And ultimately, who can resist the twang, sting and wail? Only the senseless. But the chestnuts that still taste great are just a part of my diet. I crave the new. I revere the old. Of course, as ever, YMMV.
rawk, there is much to what you say. There's nothing better than having one of those struck-by-lightning moments with an artist or a kind of music you've never heard before. I just wish it would happen more often...
Dabeef, that's a truly excellent clip. And I say we all need more pockets....
Mully, this Hank Ballard collection (another refugee from Cody's vaults) has been a non-stop source of revelation to me. As you say - or strongly imply - anybody who doesn't see this as being just as pop as Beyonce or Girls Aloud or Fleet Foxes might just be missing the whole point of pop.
Jonh, so glad you introduced the word "context" and wish I'd thought to use it. Pop will always live in at least two contexts, the personal and the social. The personal is, to me, the more interesting, because it leads to a deeper listening and understanding - both of music and oneself. And that means more real pleasure...
Mike, your old/new, yin/yang meter is fully functioning. Better than mine, at any rate...
A great little essay, Bill, and a great track too. Though I could try and argue that "new" could include new-to-me, or new releases by old artists, it would be disingenuous. My tastes are more hidebound than yours, more tightly tied to the sounds of my youth, but in the end I don't worry about it too much. Music is here to be enjoyed, so whatever floats your boat...despite the old man feelings I get of "how can anyone LISTEN to that crap?"
Man, what an excellent post. I've come to the conclusion that I like just about everything, but for different reasons and at different times.
Sometimes I marvel at the intricacies of modern pop song production or the simplicity and power of just about any loud guitar rock. Other times, I feel like, what I'm hearing has already been done, and done better.
One thing is for sure, my palette is expanding. I, too, was scared of horn sections and I still have a problem with "shiny" 80's keyboard sounds or the big,clean echoey rock production of the 80's. I also have a problem with words. I will not even get to a lyric if the music doesn't do it for me.
I try to trust my ears and understand what someone is trying to put across, but, like you say, once you've heard a lot, it is difficult.
I want that new,new feeling Rawk gets, but at this point I have to go far and wide to find it. I also have a comfort zone between '65-'75 where my youth was spent.
I am humbled by the amount of music that's out there and I want to hear all of it..I don't wanna miss a chance to hear the perfect beat.
Can popular music be timeless and of its time at the same time..yup, I think so. This Hank Ballard tune is one proof of that.
ivylander, I love Hank Ballard's voice, and that guitarist is outasite. Your essay had me saying to myself that Mike Nichols sentence, "I know eXACTly what you mean!" to your views on topics such as pop as timeless ephemera.
Even though our favorite trusteds' tastes can occasionally mystify us, there must still be some general mathematical rules, dealing mostly with pitch and rhythm probably, that help describe humanity's shared musical tastes.
The older I get, the more my soul's long term storage unit becomes filled up with music and other kinds of beauty, and the desperate omniverous hunger of my youth becomes slowly sated. As a teenager I'd hear popular university-educated folk singers and blues-rock singers doing anemic versions of songs that the underclass had created from their oppressed lives, and I learned to seek out the original vital stuff. Each discovery would widen my empire, expanding in all directions like the Blob, leading to overload. Acquisition has to slow down if I want to listen to what I already have at regular intervals. Future music is the first genre to fall by the wayside for me, just as mankind's future in general is scarier to contemplate than the past.
here is my humble opinion. we--our inclinations, perspectives, language-- are defined ongoingly by every single stimulus we pick up for as long as we live. so, i think, to listen to music for what it is means to perceive, interpret and imagine it using our internal tools that have been forged unavoidably by those stimuli, by our own experiences. thus, i suppose it isn't that you prefer old songs, or that i prefer draggy songs, but that you, i, and everyone else is perennially attracted to certain stimuli; the same things that makes us prefer certain movies, food, etc., and we do not necessarily know what they all are.
"harbored suspicions about keyboards" - funny. "They were all about now, about defining for young people what it was like to be alive at that very second." - lovely. excellent post, Bill. (;
ps- i forgot about pop music. {: yes, by its very definition, it is generation-bound. that's how it works.
poe sez:
"you, i, and everyone else is perennially attracted to certain stimuli; the same things that makes us prefer certain movies, food, etc., and we do not necessarily know what they all are."
Science is trying to fix all that
I found the linked article because I was looking for the origin of the Duke Ellngton quote:
There are simply two kinds of music,good music and the other kind
I jumped to the science thing from this Suzanne Vega piece in the NYT Measure for Measure Blog:
http://measureformeasure.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/whats-a-melody-for/
Why I am a footnoting a MOG comment..oy vey. I have problems.
If you do happen to click over to the Times Suzanne Vega post, be sure to check the comments.
Cody, God is in the footnotes. However, before I tackle the 123 comments to Vega's fine essay, let me recommend Daniel J. Levitin's book "This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession." (2006).
I do have that one Spike..I got miles of quotes out of it,too, though I find it somewhat difficult to comprehend..I've also been reading the Oliver Sachs, Musicopihia book and Denis Dutton-The Art Instinct. Instinct is right up my alley 'cause it argues that music (and all art) are part of the evolutionary process..essential for human survival. I couldn't agree more.
Yes, ultimately I believe that it boils down to brain wiring and although generally wired the same, we fortunately have subtle differences that enrich the journey. Now maybe someone can introduce that "Smell-a-Music" device so that we can more intimately link the much more primitive sense of smell to the audio experience.
ivylander: Check out this current, new yet old, release that reminds me of that Motown sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udPZwivhERY
That Saadiq record is real nice..cool vid too. His attention to detail in crafting the sound is a beautiful thing.
Even although they were very young men when they made the records, it's probably a given that "Birth of the Cool" era Miles, or Robert Johnson's raw delta blues are exploring areas of human experience that cannot really be understood until the listener is that bit older; took me a few years to appreciate them fully.
Like you, these days I find that virtually everything I choose to play is over twenty years old. in fact, it's disturbing just how often I play something, think "That was released quite recently", then check and find it came out in 1981. Very little that I've heard recently seems to be pushing the aural boundaries in a direction I would seek to follow, the Kasai Allstars being an honourable exception.
In the court where i practice, there is now a very clear generational gap between the Beatles/Stones/Dylan generation and the younglings. Of course, my tastes are so far from the mainstream that my contribution is only to lob in the name of Albanian 1930s clarinettist Jonuzi Me Shoket or Vietnamese bamboo flute player Ba Que out of sheer devilment.
When I was around more music biz folks, I was always amazed by the older folks who continued to follow all the new music..it is for the young after all.
The new generation, with their ability to touch millenia in a mouse click, may end up different..nah..they'll end up liking Birth Of The Cool and Robert Johnson.
I can add but little to the thought-provoking post and comments, although I am the unofficial oldest geezer on the block. Hank's tune was brilliant; r&b from the start had both guitar and honking sax as lead instruments. I still buy and listen to new music, but had distinctly nasty things to say about the plastic and souless top 7 country acts (based on touring revenue). I'd like to think my ears are still open, and am profoundly greatful to MOG and learned folk like Baudo for introducing me to new music. We all have the ability to discern the difference between good music and the other kind, per the peerless Duke Ellington.
Sorry not to have responded to all the terrific comments that have piled up. (With the new MOG, I can no longer post comments from my work computer. And last night I was out of pocket. So, my apologies....)
Cody, you don't like everything - just the quality stuff. You remind me that the great thing about music is the absurdly obvious point that it's made by people, and songs are always the stories of their makers. To shut out an entire musical genre is, in a way, like dismissing an entire nationality. I first heard that Ellington quote as a teenager, and it has stayed with me. I wanna get to that Suzanne Vega piece - I've read other things of hers, and she's pretty great.
DM, your clear-eyed candor is as welcome as always. And I agree with you that without enjoyment music is pointless. I just like making sure there are no potential pleasure sources I'm denying myself...
Spike, I think your description of your music appreciation odyssey is more articulate and interesting than mine. And I will copyright the phrase "timeless ephemera." Just watch me.
poe, I would paraphrase what you are saying, much more prosaically, this way: We gravitate toward the sound that seems to us to most accurately reflect what the world (as we understand it) is.
Dabeef, that video is first-rate. Wasn't he one of the Tony Toni Tone! (or however it's spelled) guys? I liked them a whole lot back in the day....
Baudolino, I feel ya. In my job, I've recently heard thirty-ish bankers (of which I am neither) talk in detail about the Dead reunion concerts. Don't they get it?
Bob, to your comment I can only add an amen....
From Wiki -- [Raphael] "Saadiq began his professional career as the lead vocalist and bassplayer in the rhythm and blues and dance trio Tony! Toni! Toné!. He used the name Raphael Wiggins while in Tony! Toni! Toné!, where he was joined by his brother Dwayne Wiggins, and his cousin Timothy Christian. He adopted the name of Raphael Saadiq in the mid-1990s."
And on a similar note, sometimes smells remind me of music passages or music passages envoke various smells. It doesn't happen often, but when it does it's glorious.
Bill, um, yeah. that is pretty much it. this is why i prefer reading your posts to mine. ;d
Cody, i was going to say before that pop music and good music are two different things but can be the same song. (;
Dabeef, this smell-music connection sounds very cool. You should consider writing about it.
poe, I like it better when you say it. I took all the poetry out of it, though not on purpose....
Well. I've chewed over a lot of the same thoughts. We love the music and we're also human beings in the soup of life. The body and the soul are not separable. The artistic impulse and the person we are at any one time are not separable. We try to understand it, but eventually give in to the fact that, as others here have said, if it sounds good it is good. I'll suppress my feelings of guilt for disliking the pabulum and crap that passes for popular music today. In that regard, I sin boldly and trust God more. Still, I'll give good new stuff a fair listen and grow. I do enjoy being a codger for the amusement of the kids. I hope they recall and emulate me when they are older. I must say, there were things I didn't comprehend when I was young that I now know were great musical milestones. Looking back so much when we are older does not deny the fact that we often were so narrowminded when younger. (I'll back off that to say that I personally did not dismiss the old music out of hand, but just did not listen to it. Even though the music of my parents' generation was much more different from mine than mine is from my children's.)
I recall r&r artists saying they expected to be popular for only a short time and they're surprised by longeveity. But I had trouble with that and more so now. I rebel against the idea that just because something is no longer popular with hoi poloi that is no longer exists or that getting personal gratification out of it on its own terms is impossible. How come what we call "classical" music was disposable, often literally, and we still love much of it today?
At any rate, if the creation of a work came from a true artistic impulse and was executed with real talent, then it will appeal to someone on its own terms long after it is not popular. I like that and I know other Moggers like that too. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
I do love the philosophic musing, although I can't help but interject some more music into the discussion. Here's a tune released 10/2008 (Car Alarm album) from a group that's been around for about 15 years. Before I saw the video it made me think of ball playing, Friday night partying, grooving with good friends, you know joyful things. Sorry Ivylander, no smells on this one, but it's infectious. It's interesting gererally that hearing just the audio of a piece can be a totally different perceptual experience than an audio/video combination.
Spike1, agreed, agreed and agreed - especially the part about the young being more narrow-minded than they probably realized. What I said about fetishizing the new was aying something similar (if in a more roundabout way).
Dabeef, you really bring it, don't you, man? First-rate video. It's good to have you as a fellow MOGger.....
Well, I do like the mantra of one of my childhood friends, "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing." Just to insert something that's old by even our standards yet is eternal in my mind go to my first post.
http://mog.com/Dabeef/blog/1264672
Fisty once had a post or maybe a comment..he has so many it's hard to track down, where he took umbrage with somebody calling something, almost anything, bad.
Even though I listen to a lot, I find it tough to pass judgement. I know what I like and I like to think it's a pretty broad spectrum (including numerous cheesy 70's tunes I heard first on the radio), but I still feel like there's a new sound out there I need to find.
My ideal would be to have the open (and I think golden) ears of a fistula or a Spike (both with a 1 and without), but I'm not there yet.