David Byrne's excellent article in this month's Wired reminds us of what music is, and he posits (at least) six viable economic models for musicians in the post-CD music landscape, which he rightly acknowledges is coming.
He reminds us of something we've lost sight of what it is that we're doing when we're making and listening to music.
First, a definition of terms. What is it we're talking about here? What exactly is being bought and sold? In the past, music was something you heard and experienced — it was as much a social event as a purely musical one. Before recording technology existed, you could not separate music from its social context. Epic songs and ballads, troubadours, courtly entertainments, church music, shamanic chants, pub sing-alongs, ceremonial music, military music, dance music — it was pretty much all tied to specific social functions. It was communal and often utilitarian. You couldn't take it home, copy it, sell it as a commodity (except as sheet music, but that's not music), or even hear it again. Music was an experience, intimately married to your life. You could pay to hear music, but after you did, it was over, gone — a memory.
Technology changed all that in the 20th century. Music — or its recorded artifact, at least — became a product, a thing that could be bought, sold, traded, and replayed endlessly in any context. This upended the economics of music, but our human instincts remained intact. I spend plenty of time with buds in my ears listening to recorded music, but I still get out to stand in a crowd with an audience. I sing to myself, and, yes, I play an instrument (not always well).
We'll always want to use music as part of our social fabric: to congregate at concerts and in bars, even if the sound sucks; to pass music from hand to hand (or via the Internet) as a form of social currency; to build temples where only "our kind of people" can hear music (opera houses and symphony halls); to want to know more about our favorite bards — their love lives, their clothes, their political beliefs. This betrays an eternal urge to have a larger context beyond a piece of plastic. One might say this urge is part of our genetic makeup.
All this is what we talk about when we talk about music.
All of it.
Notice that none of this has anything to do with record labels.
Don't lament digital music. Don't lament music downloads. Don't lament the demise of the record company. Not one little bit. If you're doing so, please don't think you're doing it to "save" music or to save musicians. Music isn't going anywhere and neither are the people who make it.
Let's stop fetishizing economic models that privilege large multinational corporations and start envisioning how digital economies--economies where distribution costs approach zero as the number of downloads increases--might change the way we collaborate and do business around music, text, and graphic art. As Brian Eno notes in the article, the only thing record companies provide is capital.
The only thing record companies provide is capital. Remember that and you'll feel a whole lot less threatened by piratebay.org.
My daughter Kira and I were hanging out last night, doing what has become our post Christmas feast ritual: working and playing on our laptops. At one point she laughed out loud, which is her way of motioning for me to come over and read what she'd found. She shared this cartoon from the very smart web-comic Cat and Girl.
Notice the text on the scooter's rear in the last panel. When I read this, I realized that Dorothy (the author of Cat and Girl) had given me a crucial piece to the difficult art problem I'm wrestling with. Though she's careful not to explicitly state it, the artist could be accused of suggesting that Pynchon's work is interactive. It's certainly the case that my experience of reading Thomas Pynchon's work is one of interactivity, not unlike what I've experienced at the best concerts I've attended. Just as music can lead the audience and the musicians into a space in which they're negotiating and, in a sense, co-creating their experience of the performance, there's a sense in which writing can do the same thing, despite the fact that the writer may have written the words days, weeks, months, or even years earlier.
Now understand that I don't mean to say that the writer experiences this interactivity directly, in real time, as the reader reads their writing. Not at all (though I don't discount the possibility of it). I do believe, however, that certain writers are able to create texts that encourage readers to interact with the texts in ways in which the allow the reader to co-create their experience of the text, Under such a theory of reading, the writer is no longer strictly "responsible" for the reader's experience (as some very naive theories of reader response theory would posit), but the reader takes on a larger responsibility for the experience and becomes aware of the interactivity and that the writer's words are manifesting in the reader's experience. I also believe (and here's the part that ties back to last week's post) that those texts which perform this textual interactivity most reliably tend to play with signification in ways that defer--rather than gratify--our attempts at ascribing meaning to them. They resonate with plural meanings and in doing so move the reader into a space in which resonance with the reader's lived experience in the present moment is possible, though not guaranteed.
As I've noted elsewhere, Pynchon's novels, especially V and Gravity's Rainbow, have been an extremely important books for me, and this is so precisely because they were able to enact this interactivity and that I was able to experience them (in some sense) as texts that were manifesting in my world as I was reading them.
Understand, that I don't think this type of reading is likely to occur with every reader who comes along. On the contrary, my first reading of Gravity's Rainbow was a fairly typical, even pedestrian, experience. I enjoyed it--enough that I ended up rereading it less than a year after first completing it--but it didn't jolt me into the interactive space I'm describing.
I'm going to end this post with an assertion that attempts to answer some of the questions I posed in my first post on this topic: Texts that frustrate our attempts at making meaning can jar us into states of mind that, under certain conditions, bring the texts to life for the reader. I also assert that some writers consciously fashion their texts to achieve this, though not to the exclusion of other, more traditional ends.
I'm aware that this is a very risky and infinitely problematic assertion to make and that it posits an non-rationalist framework and aesthetic. So be it.
To what end this experience? If I'm right about this, why do these writers bother?
I shared this with a friend the other day, and, as I was writing her about it, I realized that I'd never heard a finer anti-war song. It's the perfect anti-war song for this cultural moment.
I saw Tracy Grammer perform in Corvallis back in 2005 when this song had been just released. This is not difficult music. Transparent and extremely well written. Tracy Grammer's voice has a purity that I've rarely experienced in a recording let alone live. The sound quality of this Youtube video leaves a bit to be desired, but you can get a sense of how great her voice is.
Hey Ho
by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer
performed by Tracy Grammer
tv’s on, the favorite son is
watchin how the west was won
daddy, please, a plastic gun
get brother one for twice the fun
little camo helmet-heads
makin brave and playin dead
missiles made of gingerbread
dollars on the dime
chorus
hey ho, so it goes, the point of sale, the puppet show
the merchant kings of war and woe have turned their hands to labor
sound out the trumpet noise, the cannons bark and jump for joy
someone’s dread and darlin boy has fallen on his saber
another world across the sea
home for little busy bees
sweatin in some factory
hurry, please, more of these
action dolls with laser sights
robot planes that shoot at night
faster, kid, and get it right
they’re rollin down the line
hey ho...
these days the spin machine
is always on the silver screen
secret plots and submarines
foreign fiends and magazines
wave the flag, watch the news
tell us we can count on you
mom and dad are marchin too
children, step in time
hey ho...
bring your kids and coddled pets
bouncin babes in bassinets
we’ll play a game with tanks and jets
better yet – bayonets!
marchin bands and color guards
funerals in your own backyard
don’t forget your credit card –
johnny, hold the line
Problems with Difficult Art and Difficult Music (Dreams Walking in Broad Daylight...)
This is a topic I've been avoiding writing about for sometime precisely because it's so important, and yet so difficult, an issue for me personally. What are the boundaries between popular culture and serious art? What happens when artists try and straddle the two? Does a popular artist have a responsibility to be "accessible" to a mainstream audience, or do they have a right to "narrowcast" their message? As a way of beginning a conversation about this issue, I'd like to contrast two versions of a song that has consumed quite a bit of my attention. The Talking Head's "Burning Down the House." First, a highly accessible version, concert footage taken from their 1984 full-length film, Stop Making Sense.
Clearly a great band in peak form, having great fun flexing their musical muscles in front of a few thousand of their closest friends. When it's performed the piece seems utterly accessible.
But now let's take a look at those lyrics:
Burning Down the House
Watch out you might get what you're after
Cool babies strange but not a stranger
I'm an or di na ry guy
Burning down the house
Hold tight wait 'til the party's over
Hold tight we're in for nasty weather
There has got to be a way
Burning down the house
Here's your ticket pack your bag; time for jumping overboard
Transportation is here
Close enough but not too far, baby you know where you are
Fighting fire with fire
All wet hey you might need a raincoat
Shakedown dreams walking in broad daylight
Three hun dred six ty five de grees
Burning down the house
It was once upon a place sometimes I listen to myself
Gonna come in first place
People on their way to work say baby what do you expect?
Gonna burst into flame
My house s'out of the ordinary
That's right don't want to hurt nobody
Some things sure can sweep me off my feet
Burning down the house
No visible means of support and you have not seen nothing yet
Everything's stuck together
I don't know what you expect starring into the tv set
Fighting fire with fire
Setting aside the possibility that Byrne's suffering from what I call The Horse with No Name syndrome (in honor of what I consider some of the worst lyrics in pop music history) based upon his excellent track record with other fine songs like" Listening Wind" and "Life During Wartime," one has to ask whether or not he's being intentionally obscure.
I remember a day when I was in an art appreciation class as an undergraduate and the professor was showing slides of the Baroque period. He proclaimed to the class that all paintings depicting women on swings were about sex. Period. And I remember thinking that if he was to be believed (and he probably was), that it might be handy to remember that and to acquire a few more visual vocabulary words.
What vocabulary does one need in order to understand the Head's piece? Houses, parties, cool babies, fire, transportation, luggage, etc., all collide in the piece, and, while we're hard at work trying to answer the questions it poses, just how does one burn down one's house when one is all wet and needing a raincoat? Everything unrelated, resisting our comprehension. Perhaps the original video released for MTV will tell us more?
Well yes and no. While potentially resolving some symbols (the house in question clearly could be meant to represent Bryne's persona), the video introduces more signifiers (the ballroom, child as monkey on one's back, etc.) that collide with those that the song's lyrics introduce, and in turn collide with one another without ever giving us a sense of what they might or even probably signify. And what the hell is one to make of those white lines going up Bryne's nose and mouth at the end? Is this really a not-so-subtle allusion to a drug experience? That might resolve the "fighting fire with fire" motif that's repeated so often.
Then again, maybe not....
So, despite hints, clues, cues, and leads as to what the song/video might mean, one never gets comfortable in any "reading" of the work. Is it deferral of meaning that's really intended here? If so, to what end this deferral?
And what do we make of popularity of such an obscure lyric and video? I was a frequent MTV watcher at the time this came out, and as I recall the video was on heavy, heavy rotation. Is the point to make visible the obscurity and rub our noses in it by virtue of its sheer popularity?
As you can see, I may have more questions than answers, but I think it's important for us to wrestle with these issues. Though the examples I picked are from the '80s (and seemingly ancient history), it would be easy to come up with some contemporary examples of the same phenomenon.
What's gained by this free wheeling signification game?
World of Warcraft and one of my favorite songs, all in one YouTube video?
Yes, it's pop, but who could hate a song with the lines:
Code Monkey get up, get coffee
Code Monkey go to job.
Code Monkey have boring meeting with boring manager, Rob.
Rob say Code Monkey very diligent, but his output stink.
His code not functional or elegant, what do Code Monkey think?
Code Monkey think maybe manager want to write goddamn login page himself
Code Monkey not saying outloud.
Code Monkey not crazy, just proud.
All available, by the way, under a Creative Commons license. Coincidence? I think not.
And the signifieds butt heads with the signifiers,
and we all fall down slack-jawed to marvel at words!
When across the sky sheet the impossible birds,
in a steady, illiterate movement homewards.
Now that I (hopefully) have your attention....
I was introduced to Joanna Newsom's music by David D. who gave me a CD mix with Peach, Plum, Pear on it. I enjoyed the track so much that Amy gifted me with The Milk-Eyed Mender, the album on which Peach, Plum, Pear was released, for Christmas. Without David, I doubt that this aging hippie could find any new music worth listening to, but this time David's gone above and beyond the call of duty.
I'm listening to The Milk-Eyed Mender this morning, and I'm near speechless (can't you tell?) listening to the gorgeous lyrics and unusual blend of blues, harpsichord, harp, and Appalachian vocals.
Let me underscore this. Notwithstanding Tracy Grammer and Dave Carter, Newsom's lyrics are the finest I've had the pleasure of hearing in years. The finest.
The finest.
If, like me, you're longing for a spark for your musical palate, if your tastes are firmly plant in Indie roots, if you enjoy well-crafted lyrics that endlessly offer up more than it would be fair for you to expect of them, then Newsom's just what you're looking for.
This Side of the Blue
by Joanna Newsom
Svetlana sucks lemons across from me,
and I am progressing abominably.
And I do not know my own way to the sea
but the saltiest sea knows its own way to me.
The city that turns, turns protracted and slow
and I find myself toeing th' embarcadero
and I find myself knowing the things that I knew
which is all that you can know on this side of the blue
And Jaime has eyes black and shiny as boots
and they march at you, two-by-two (re - loo - re - loo);
when she looks at you, you know she's nowhere near through:
it's the kindest heart beating this side of the blue.
And the signifieds butt heads with the signifiers,
and we all fall down slack-jawed to marvel at words!
When across the sky sheet the impossible birds,
in a steady, illiterate movement homewards.
And Gabriel stands beneath forest and moon.
See them rattle & boo, see them shake, see them loom.
See him fashion a cap from a page of Camus;
see him navigate deftly this side of the blue.
And the rest of our lives will the moments accrue
when the shape of their goneness will flare up anew.
when we do what we have to do (re - loo - re -loo),
which is all you can do on this side of the blue.
Amarok: A Great Open Source Project and a Good Cause
My favorite music player and one of my favorite open source projects, Amarok, is having a fund raiser during the month of "Roktober." They need donations for their servers and to fund continued development of what is a truly great player.
I know that a few of you are KDE/Linux users, which means that you (like me) are undoubtably using Amarok. If you pony up with a donation of at least $10 US, then you're eligible for the iPod Giveaway.
Of course there have been progressive voices who have spoken thoughtfully about 9/11. None perhaps has spoken as eloquently as this genius poet/lyricist, Ani Difranco.
I listened to "Self Evident" again a couple weeks ago. It had been several years since I had last heard it; too long. As much as I would never want a work of art this powerful to get stale through familiarity, I'm not sure that this piece could ever lose its fierceness. The experience of listening to it again was positively sublime.
Difranco not only "gets it," she deftly negotiates the poetic and the political. She's searing and tender, impeccably alternating between the two.. She kicks ass. She respects the dead. She speaks of a redemption that all can share in, no matter what continent they might inhabit, be they among the living or dead among the rubble. She knows, she sees, she's not fooled by Amerika. She's afraid of neither fear, nor terror, nor the blue-blood violence that our so-called leaders unleash upon the world: dark, besotted fools.
Download it. She's providing it for free. (Prophets nearly always do.)
It's so worth the time you'll spend waiting for it to wend its way into your music collection.
Random music from my amaroK playlist, which, by the way, beats anything I've seen on either Windows or Mac. The KDE desktop environment is just too cool.
