The McCartney jukebox

The Toronto Star gave a scathing review to Paul McCartney's December 7, 1989 concert at Skydome, part of his 1989-1990 world tour.  The closing line was something along the lines of "McCartney has turned himself into a jukebox, and nobody wants to see that".  It specifically referred to McCartney relying so heavily on Beatles songs to fill out the setlist, something he'd been hesitant to do while leading Wings and in his solo career to that point.

Peter Howell was the Star's rock critic, and he was only expressing what would have been common critical sentiment at the time.  McCartney had been a chart fixture through the mid-80's, but his 1989 album "Flowers in the Dirt" didn't yield any top ten hits.  In terms of pop success, it was the biggest failure of his career, and in fact he'd go thirty years between appearances in the top ten (from "Spies Like Us" in 1985 to "FourFiveSeconds" in 2015, an incredible achievement really and an even better bit of music trivia).  To bounce back from that failure, he turned to a different kind of populism and started trading on past glories more than he ever had before.  To the general critical establishment of the day, it meant he was clearly washed up.  Suddenly the co-lead of the greatest and most influential band of all time was no different that any other oldies act, "reuniting" without most of the original members to make a few bucks off of the wealthy boomers who would pay a premium to hear the same hits from twenty years played over and over.

In McCartney's appearance on the Late Late Show with James Corden, he figuratively becomes the jukebox in a Liverpool pub.  Patrons make requests in the jukebox, and he plays them as part of a cleverly staged "surprise" gig.  The twenty minute "Carpool Karaoke" clip has gone viral with good reason.  In 2018, only the most sour and cynical souls could fail to be moved by Corden talking about his father and grandfather playing "Let It Be" when he was a boy, or Paul playing "When I'm Sixty Four" on the piano in the home he lived in as a teenager, or three generations of fans losing their minds seeing him play down at the local Liverpool pub.

How did this happen?  When did the "authenticity" requirement die off?  As music gradually loses its cultural impact and becomes just another form of streamable entertainment, more of a premium is placed on the undownloadable live experience.  Concert ticket prices have skyrocketed in the last fifteen years, at least in part to make up for lost income from record sales.  More and more people don't want to feel challenged by live music anymore, they simply want to have a good time singing along to the songs they know.  The hugely successful Pixies reunion may have been the official nail in the coffin (even with new post-reunion albums) that made profiteering palatable even to indie fans who grew up on bands who prided themselves on prioritizing their vision over their courting of a mass audience. 

This is much more fun that the older way of doing things.

Joy Division: Old and new

I was watching a live performance of "Unknown Pleasures" played by Deerhoof with Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu on vocals and it struck me -- when exactly did interpretations of Joy Division's by newer artists become more interesting than listening to Joy Division themselves?  Don't get me wrong, the original recordings are still unassailable and essential.  But somewhere along the way, the fallout from Joy Division's immense influence on at least two generations of musicians became more exciting than listening to "Closer" for the 10000th time.

Having a small back catalogue has a lot to do with it.  JD only recorded two official albums and about 50 songs in total, and that's including the early Warsaw era songs and demos from the scrapped 1978 debut.  There are only so many times you can comb over the same small pool of recordings before allowing them to breathe and live on via other artists.  Listening to JD lacks new surprises, which happens with plenty of artists whose music I can imagine without needing to play the recordings.  This doesn't always happen with legendary bands who had short careers, for instance, I don't feel the need to hear anyone attempt a Velvet Underground cover ever again.  The Velvets explored more ground creatively, featured a few vocalists with very different styles, and they were further ahead of their time than just about any band ever was.   There's a lot more to chew on.  JD evolved quickly during the short time they had and the future directions were obviously there (e.g. "Heart and Soul", not to mention everything New Order did).  It's past time to hear more bands' take on their material -- aren't JD a bit "under-covered" for a band of their stature anyway?   
  
Something changed post-Factory when New Order moved to London Records and received the full re-release/re-packaging treatment, finally getting their careers and discographies on a solid financial (and archival) footing.  Fans who grew up idolizing them became music writers, and they went from being indie cult darlings on the level of the Jam to appearing on the shortlists of the best all-time British groups.  Is "Love Will Tear Us Apart" the greatest single ever, as this list from NME from 2002 attests?  Regardless, it would have been inconceivable to see this in a major music publication even ten years earlier.  

That idolization eventually played itself out.  JD worship in 2018 is like Beatles worship in 2008.  It's amazing to think that the Beatles and JD played their last notes together only ten years apart because their music seems like separated by one or two generations.  Even in 2000, when the Beatles' "1" was the top selling album, it felt like everything that needed to be said about them had been said.  We're nearly a decade on from that in the JD timeline, and it's been 23 years since the release of the retrospective compilation, "Permanent".  Is it any wonder that we're all so burned out?

It's possible that I reverse my opinion when I get around to Peter Hook's JD autobiography, which I bought some time ago but haven't yet begun reading ...