Saturday 4 August 2007

On subjectivity

I often wonder why people express dislike of a band. Then I catch myself doing it.

The idea that a band may be "good" or "bad" is somehow inherent in how our musical tastes grow and I am as guilty of the next man (or woman) of eloquantly destroying the efforts of some poor person in the advancement of my own image.

Yet what is "bad" music?

I am often reminded of this question of subjectivity when talking to friends who "can't stand" this or "absolutley hate" that.

I have a friend who "hates" Micvhel Stipe's voice. My partner simply detests the sound of a breakbeat rhythm. Other people I know cannot abide unaccompanied folk songs.

But what does it mean, to "not like" a sound?

In the same way that understanding of the brain has been furthered by examining dysfunctional or damaged brains, I would like to examine this question by looking at those moments when you begin to like music you formerly disliked. Has that happened to you?

Well it does to me. Regularly.

Examples? Take Queen. I liked Queen's first couple of singles and gradually went off them. Not hate exactly but I found Freddy's antics too much for my dainty sensibilities.

Oh, and I get a little browned off when an artist's death suddenly aggrandises their work in a fit of guilt from the public at their posthumous disrespect.

Roll forward the movie 25 years and I am sitting in a theatre with my wife and children watching "We will rock you". I realise five things during the performance -
1) Many of the songs were great
2) The guitar playing was fantastic
3) Freddy could REALLY sing
4) Most importantly there was humour, irony even, in the songs. So no, I don't have to take "We will rock you" literally as a lyric.
5) They are born of a love of "old" rock and roll.

So what did I dislike all along? Not that Freddy was gay, I hope. Homophobic? Not me. So what then? The sheer popularity, I suspect. That would explain why I loved "seven seas of Rye" and liked "Killer Queen" but hated "Bohemian Rhapsody". I just couldn't bear to be one of the crowd!

And what was it like to suddenly like them again? Well, I started listening in the right way.

Same thing for Abba. I broke up with a girl, lapsed into a state of self-pity and looked for pop songs that adequately captured THAT feeling. As of that moment (Summer 1980) it was Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart and Abba's The WInner Takes It All.

Suddenly I started listening.

What else? Lots. Take Bach. For years I thought Bach dry, even dull.

Suddenly, after my friend died, I needed solace in something profound, philosophical. Something deep and serene yet with dignity. Dignity but understanding.

Suddenly, I heard the violin partitas differently, there was all of life, expressed in a solo violin.

Suddenly I heard the Art of The Fugue and several of the pieces captured perfectly the complex feelings I was experiencing.

I listened the way the music was singing.

So, what does it tell me? It reminds me of something I believe St Augustine said "Everything understood is good".

Recently I heard the first couple of tracks from the new White Stripes album. I had no idea who it was playing but I KNEW whoever it was was
a) a master of the idiom
b) just playing with that idiom, for fun!!
c) so capable of doing just whatever he wished that he was making music for pleasure....
And how many bands could you accuse of that? Not Interpol or The Editors, for a start.

So, when I think something is "rubbish", I am just not listening the way that music is "meant" to be heard. And by that I don't mean how the artist intended. Just, the way one has to listen IN ORDER TO enjoy it!

After all, who loses out when a person doesn't enjoy a song? Not the singer, that's for sure.

Justice Vs. Simian Mobile Disco

When both albums came out on the same day, there was inevitably going to be comparison between the two 2007 offerings from these errant Dance/rock crossover acts, and in truth early on it looked like a bad day for Simian.

First of all there was the simple street cred issue.

Justice were two quiet Parisians, Dance through and through, delivering dark and dirty sounds more in keeping with the HM industry. Their single "D.A.N.C.E." is irresistable too. Real classic pop but with a delicious post-modern fractured sound. But their record leads further into dark recesses, very deep sounds and yes, pretty impressive music for a couple of Dance guys.

Simian, on the other hand, with their obvious vocal lines, seemed to pale by comparison.

In fact, at first listen, it seemed true what was said in Plan B (for a change), that Simian had only piggybacked from Rock to dance off the back of a Justice mix, and came over like awkward interlopers at some orgy (to paraphrase Leonard Cohen). Well, perhaps that wasn't quite what Plan B said, but something of that ilk, and for the first week or two it seemed true. Didn't even feel like listening further. Simian quite dull, crude, obvious. Justice dark and mysterious, interesting and quixotic.

Well, it happened that one day I was driving along the M25 and the traffic stopped. For readers outside the South East corner of the UK, this is not a particularly uncommon event, but one which affords a real close listen of an album. And, as it turns out, if you listen a) 'through' the vocal tracks (i.e. try ignoring them for 40 minutes) and b) at high volume, the Simian album shines through as a Kraftwerkian masterpiece.

Tracks vary from club ironics to straightline electronic pop. Even, toward the end of the record, some full-blown Warp-style electronica.

In fact, if you can stomach or even, after a while get used to the vocal tracks, this record could be a real find for Warp fans, even if a little high tempo, as there are touches of genius in the mix.

And the synth sounds are more varied than Justice.

Far more top-end sounds, less squelching generally and some lovely tones, discovered or made I don't know but deployed in a delicious stew of hard-hitting but very rerwarding and melodic electronic dance.

As for Justice... well the repeated playings I'd given the thing in that time began to undermine the pleasure. In fact Justice started to sound like a 70's concept album from a cross between Magma, Magnum and Donna Summer (God, this is harsh... I must be overstating, mustn't I?).

Reading reviews around the magazine industry I have come to this conclusion:- the Rock music press just don't 'get' Simian. Reviews in all the non-Dance mags were lukewarm and seemed to me overinfluenced by the obvious vocal tracks. Only the Dance press really 'got' the thing, with IDJ giving a dance album of the summer nomination, not bad for an album that came second on day one.

But what of Justice?

Okay, here's a 'track by track' for Justice - "Cross" (no comment on the title, except it is not a cross so much as a footnote).

1. Genesis - portentous synths, like the intro to some prog opera.

2. Let there be light - it's really turning into a concept album - all you hear is growling synnth basslines with not much else. Brooding, like erm... you know... flames licking up the mountain etc etc Think Rock Wakeman's Journey to the Centre of the Earth, or ELP's Brain Salad Surgery!!

3. (Do the) D.A.N.C.E. - fantastic kids' sing-song leads into a classic dance keyboard melody, with chanting and a decent rhythm. The production seems deliberately flawed, with the stitches showing everywhere. Cheerful stuff though, with lots of nostalgic piano and just a little (even more nostalgic) Genesis-sounding Mellotron right at the end (there is a Genesis theme developing here).

4. NewJack - fragmented with bubbling submerged sections mixing in with above the floor rhythms.... ends up being burbling trivia.

5. Decent beat, dark mumblings and synth gurglings. Sounds like the very music is on drugs. Not for home listening. Not for listening at all, in my case.

6. More dark synth beats, squelching bass and semi-orchestral synth stabs of chord... pretty fantastic at high volume, dull at any other. Best I imagine heard very late on a Saturday night, somewhere dark and public.

7. Synth pop that starts out like ELO then a little popcorn (remember them?), quite traditional, a sort of Mouse's Marching Band track, The Dancerock "Golliwog's Cakewalk", if you like.

8. A freaky cheeky naughty, junky, spoilt, throaty, babygirl rhythmic rap - holds back a little just when you think it should take off... then it comes in, but it's the heavy slamming bass synth rhythm again... there's too little light and shade on this record really. Bits of it are great and other parts not that great. This track is the peak for me. Really great fun and kind of infectious. Not bad at all.

The rest? Well this is an album I defy you to listen to all in one sitting. In fact, it's a bit oppressive. Like sitting in a soft-top on a dark wet night in a car park. Eventually you just get a feeling of claustrophobia.

For me, it has to be Simian Mobile Disco, coming from behind, but eventually romping it by 20 lengths. The Simian album will stay in my car for months.
 
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