Linking Philadelphia soul and the Philadelphia Orchestra

I am completely unqualified to write about this topic, let's get that out of the way now.  However, a potential connection between the Philly soul sound of the 70's and the sound of the Philadelphia Orchestra from the same era feels significant, and it's not something that I can recall reading about in any standard music history accounts.   

The Philadelphia International Records label was founded by Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff in 1971.  It was an alternative of sorts (not sure whether it was termed as such at the time) to the Muscle Shoals brand of gritty, blues-heavy soul.  The Philly sound was lush, smooth, with complex orchestration and rich string accompaniments.  Songs by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Lou Rawls, and Patti LaBelle became massive hits.  The O'Jays built an incredible discography, and for my money, stand out as one of the most underrated bands of all time.  One can draw a direct line between the Philly groups and the disco music that came to define the 70's.  

Somehow, all this great music went underappreciated by the industry at large.  Gamble and Huff won their first Grammy in the late 80's -- for Simply Red's cover of "If You Don't Know Me By Now".  Today, the Philly sound is rightly revered for the high quality of the music as well as the many innovations made by its creators.  

At the same time, the Philadelphia Orchestra had reached its peak under Eugene Ormandy, who served as its musical director from 1936-1980.  They made hundreds of recordings together during that time.  The orchestra's sound was wholly distinctive, due to its heavy, dramatic string sonority.  Ormandy was disliked by classical music critics, for reasons that look embarrassing through modern eyes.  He was a tremendous conductor in virtually all sub-fields of orchestral music.  Was the Philadelphia Orchestra's sound considered too kitschy, unworthy to be considered amongst the high art of other leading orchestras?  The likes of Karajan and Szell were steely traditionalists, proudly carrying the mantle of careful precision and skillful musicianship in the classical music world.  The industry marketed their recordings far more aggressively than they did for Ormandy's.  The whole "controversy" just feels silly now.  Many major orchestras of that era could reach a godlike tier on most nights, and Philadelphia was just as great as any of them.      

Philly soul and Philly classical were peaking in the same city at the same time, and their string heavy characteristics sounds were mirror images of each other.  This simply can't be a coincidence.  And yet I can't find any references to a specific connection between the two, or rock/soul criticism that makes the comparison.  

Thom Bell was the main orchestrator and arranger for Philadelphia international.  He gave a number of interviews throughout the years.  His RnR HOF page notes that he was influenced by Beethoven and Burt Bacharach.  He was classically trained and aspired to be a concert pianist.  By his own admission, classical music was his life growing up and he knew virtually nothing about pop music through his late teens.  Musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra played the string arrangements on the soul records he worked on.  It is inconceivable that he wasn't seeped in the sound of the Philadelphia orchestra by the time he began working with Gamble and Huff. However, I can't find any explicit statement by Huff, Gamble, or Bell about their classical influences.  They never claimed to be influenced by Ormandy and the wholly unique Philly classical sound.  

The closest thing I could find is Bell's "cheese steak" story.  According to him, it's not just that Philly has the best cheese steak sandwiches anywhere in America.  More than that, any mom and pop sandwich shop makes a better cheese steak than any restaurant in any city in American could hope to do.  Because the cheese steaks, according to Bell, are embedded in the Philadelphia culture in a way that no other city could duplicate.  And that's the origin of the Philly sound.  It's not taken from a specific time and place, passed linearly from artist A to B.  It was sewn into the fabric of the city.  One must look at the whole to appreciate the constituent parts.  And that whole obviously includes the Philadelphia Orchestra.  

Bruckner Symphony no. 6 DUEL -- Klemperer/New Philharmonia vs von Karajan/Berliner Philharmoniker

I am extremely proud of my ranking of Sibelius Fifth Symphonies, but it was an exhausting post to write.  I had planned to turn it into a semi-regular series of posts -- next up was Bruckner's Seventh Symphony -- but right now, the investment feels too daunting.   So here's a more manageable alternative: a classical DUEL between two radically different interpretations of a work. 

As artists, Klemperer and Karajan are about as far apart as you can get, beyond their status as legends of the "standard German repertoire". Klemperer: steely tempos, stoic execution, and a transparent sonority in which every line is audible. Karajan: sweeping gestures, a flowing approach, and lush string textures that tend to swamp everything else.

Klemperer’s idiosyncrasies can sometimes tread close to the edge of a precipice -- in this instance, I'm referring to his tendency to take fast movements slowly (or at least slower than usual), and slow movements relatively briskly. The first movement unfolds at something close to a funeral-march pace, threatening to collapse under its own weight, yet somehow never doing so. He sustains a gritty, unyielding tension for nearly seventeen minutes—astonishingly, about two minutes longer than his account of the Adagio. And yet, the famously unsentimental Klemperer still finds a lyrical thread running through it all.

I’ve often found Bruckner’s adagios to be overlong (sacrilege, I know), but here Klemperer threads the needle, keeping things moving at a serene, unforced pace. Then, as is his wont, apparently because he couldn't help himself, he gives in to his contrary self and he stretches the scherzo past nine minutes, stripping it of the explosive urgency most conductors bring to Bruckner’s dance movements. It feels like a misfire—though not one that derails the symphony as a whole. After all, Bruckner did mark it “nicht schnell—langsam.” Perhaps Klemperer knew something that we (amateur listeners and professional conductors both) don't.

In the finale, he draws out the symphony’s more pastoral qualities, bringing the woodwinds to the fore. By the end, you could be forgiven for forgetting that you’re listening to Bruckner—until the final coda snaps you back into full, bracing Brucknerian reality.

Karajan, by contrast, launches the symphony full of FIRE, charging headlong into the opening, raging into the blinding light. This was, I believe, his only recording of the Sixth (and one he apparently never performed live), and in 1979 he had the Berlin Philharmonic under absolute control. The playing is disciplined, the strings are locked in to producing the sweeping, cascading sonorities he favored.

The adagio is slow indeed -- nineteen minutes, four slower than Klemperer -- but is beautifully paced.  In Karajan’s hands, it becomes perhaps Bruckner’s most “romantic” slow movement in the modern definition of the word: the love theme to an 80's movie about doomed, starcrossed lovers. The scherzo is nothing short of triumphant, easily surpassing Klemperer in terms of sheer excitement and drive.

But then, in the finale, Karajan does something unexpected: he slows things down, almost channeling Klemperer. Presumably he’s aiming for heightened drama, but without Klemperer’s transparency, all we hear are broad waves of sound, simply the volume rising and falling repeatedly.  Each time the orchestra fades out all too often, some of the piece's momentum vanishes, and it never really returns.  At first, I found the final coda to be needlessly overwhelming, with the brass too dominant, though I’ve now come to appreciate its impact.

Both interpretations are well worth hearing. But for me, Klemperer remains a kind of supergenius, operating on a wavelength the rest of us can only dimly perceive. Even when he’s not at his absolute best, I’ll take a mostly “on” Klemperer over just about anyone else in this repertoire.

90's nostalgia

I had a yen to hear Sonic Youth’s "Total Trash", which quickly spiraled into a YouTube-assembled playlist of late ’80s/early ’90s indie rock—Pixies, Blur, PJ Harvey, Galaxie 500, and more. What can you say, the algorithm knows what it’s doing. It starts with my search (Sonic Youth), pulls in the obvious contemporaries (Pixies), and then folds in the British acts it knows I like. It’s a formula that’s pretty much guaranteed to keep me listening.

It’s 2026, and I still haven’t heard a Pixies album, back to front, in my life. ’80s and ’90s American indie rock is a real blind spot in my listening—I grew up hearing about it, reading about it, but never really listened to it beyond the tracks that made it onto alternative radio. There are plenty of gaps in anyone’s musical life, of course, but this one stands out given my other listening habits.

So the algorithms keep assuming this was my thing, even though it never was. As a result, I’ve probably heard more Pixies songs in their post-reunion lifespan than I did during their original run. Still, I’ve heard enough to say what everyone already knows: this band was at least five years ahead of their time. Good thing they eventually put their differences aside and cash in, finally getting the chance to make the money their imitators enjoyed."

The mythology of the ’90s is now every bit as strong as the mythology of the ’60s once was. Bands get defined by that era, and it sticks with them no matter what they do afterward. Jefferson Airplane and The Kinks, for example, are forever labeled as ’60s bands, even though both were actually more commercially successful in the ’80s.

As for Kim Deal, the Pixies will always be her ultimate legacy, even though she had more commercial success outside of the Pixies, and was a bigger individual star when she led her own band.   This remains true even though she has spent much of her adult life trying to move beyond the Pixies. After falling out with Black Francis over creative and personal differences, she formed the Breeders and released Last Splash, which sold over a million copies and far outperformed anything the Pixies did commercially. She released music only sporadically after that, eventually rejoining the Pixies for their to tour the world many times over, before stepping away again when new recordings began.  Good for her for cashing in when the opportunity was there—she earned it. But the Pixies will always define her legacy, even if the "Cannonball" single remains her true commercial (MTV, sales) and creative peak.

Similarly, Gorillaz have somehow recorded as many albums as Blur (nine) and have sold at least ten times as many copies.  But Damon Albarn will always be the frontman of Blur first and foremost.  

Sonic Youth’s trajectory is wild, and becomes more fascinating and debatable with the passing years. "Daydream Nation": every track is a revelation, each one is an anthem for a generation. It’s even in the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress. Then "Goo": much in the spirit of "Daydream Nation", but filtered through major-label oversight. The "Kool Thing" single threw in everything but the kitchen sink in a bid for something resembling a commercial breakthrough. That track has everything -- wild noise freakouts, the Chuck D cameo, a singable chorus, an eye-catching video with Kim Gordon in leather, cats galore, and metric tons of sparkle and tinfoil. In some alternate, freakier universe, this is the album that breaks bigger than "Nevermind".

And then, just two years later, they’re putting out "100%" and "Sugar Kane", and they're sounding like an ordinary grunge-esque band—albeit one with stranger guitar tunings.

Various, "Tresor 4 -- Solid"

As I alluded to a few weeks ago, I could keep this blog going indefinitely by revisiting and reevaluating CD's from the 90's.

For instance, take the series of compilations released by Tresor.  I own numbers 2 through 8, with the exception of number 6.  It's safe to say that Tresor II and 3 are the most well-regarded, most influential, and probably were the biggest sellers of the series. They were released at the height of the Berlin-Detroit alliance (hence the name of II), where all roads in techno seemed to lead to those two cities.  The Berlin wall had come down just a few years earlier.  The club scene in Berlin was taking off, synergy between European and American techno artists was never higher.  

At the time, I listened to Tresor 3 more than any of the others.  I would have put Tresor II slightly below it, although any argument claiming it as the best of the series would be difficult to refute.  But each compilation went into heavy rotation on my stereo when they were released.  With the exception of Tresor 4.  I have no idea why.  In fact, I can't even remember where and when I bought it.  It was possibly years after the Tresor 2000 compilation, many years after it was originally released.  And I never particularly took to it.  Tresor 5, on the other hand?  At the time, I felt it symbolized muscular, slamming mid-90's techno at its best.  Tresor 2000?  Pounding, cavernous minimal techno long before it became synonymous with Berlin culture. 

But now?  Those compilations are a bit bland.  As part of a DJ set they would probably still slam, but as individual tracks on a 70-minute disc?  Too monotone, lacking in hooks (Tresor 2000 in particular).  What about Tresor 4, the one I would have designated as the runt of the litter.  Hearing it now, it's simply outstanding.  It's packed with classics ("Relish", "Der Klang der Familie", "Think Quick"), with more variations in mood and tempo than the average Tresor comp, which makes for more engaging home listening.  And the second disc!  I'd nearly forgotten that there was one.  The second disc is an excellent mix CD featuring many of the artists on the first disc.  It's sloppy in places, but the vision and momentum is there, it's safe to say that this disc never "loses the floor".  

Why did I ignore this compilation for so many years?  I really have no idea.  Maybe I felt it was unnecessary because I already had so many other records and discs by some of the artists (e.g. Maurizio, Vainqueur)?    

Bob Marley, "Legend"

I have been thinking a lot about a new format for this blog.  The correct choice seems to be taking the entire thing to a video format on YT or a social media platform.  Would this be in addition to, or instead of the written blog?  I'm not sure.  I feel that writing is more suitable for longer think-pieces and collated musings (which is what I tend to do) and shorter snippets where you can comment without necessarily having to say anything profound.  However, video is more immediate and relatable.  

Either way, I could churn out reviews and thoughts of catalog music indefinitely.  That's why I love the Pitchfork Sunday Review so much.  Long form pieces on classic albums with a modern reviewer's perspective.  Eric Harvey's piece on Bob Marley's "Legend" is outstanding -- the best of these PF reviews that I have come across.  It's an extensively researched piece, and I learned so much.  Harvey persuasively argues that "Legend" recast Marley's legacy as a photogenic, radio-friendly crossover star, rather than a militaristic rebel.  In turn, the album flipped the entire popular narrative of reggae music on its head.  In the 70's rock and punk bands would borrow (or steal) from reggae when they wanted to sound dangerous and threatening, in part as a reaction to anodyne FM soft rock.  After "Legend", reggae became the music of sunshine and good vibes for a newfound audience of middle class white listeners who bought the album in the millions.       

I don't believe there's a sensible counter-argument to this.  Marley released thirteen studio albums, and "Legend" doesn't come close to covering all the facets of his music.  David Robinson, the Island record executive who compiled the tracks on "Legend", admitted as much, namely, that they saw a mass marketing opportunity amongst an untapped white listenership.  Is it really such a problem though?  Harvey would say yes, seeing as "Legend" sanitizes Marley in a way that he certainly never would have chosen for himself if he were alive.  However, Greatest Hits compilations always target the casual fan, most of whom buy music sparingly and rarely delve deeply into an artist's catalogue.  More serious listeners can always use the GH compilation as a gateway into buying the individual albums, which was precisely Harvey's experience vis a vis "Legend".  Was Marley wronged moreso than hundreds of other artists whose music has been packaged and repackaged countless times?   Greatest hits collections come with loads of statistical anomalies.  Many of the top RIAA certified albums are compilations, and many of those were double albums (that count as two units).  I believe that "Legend" is the second biggest selling GH album of all time -- albums sold, not units sold -- behind only the Eagles juggernaut GH album.  To paraphase an old saying, 18 million Bob Marley fans can't be wrong.  "Legend" is still a steady seller, confirming its cross-generational appeal.    

My own experience in Jamaica as a foreigner is not meant to be taken as representative.  However, as a personal note, when I was in Jamaica in 1992 as part of a school program, the sellers in the market were only too happy to push any and all sorts of Marley merchandise onto us enthusiastic teenagers.  In Jamaica, a national hero like Marley is a once in a generation public figure, in a sense he belonged to everyone.  When it comes to profiting from his name, capitalism can't simply be split among racial lines.   

Beach House are still amazing

I will never catch up with contemporary music ever again, I am checked out on that front. I'm too far behind even with the music released by my all-time favourite acts, so there's zero chance of getting up to speed on recent releases in general.  Case in point, I intended to post a triple review of three new albums by three of my all-time favourite artists -- Moderat's "MORE D4TA", Spiritualized's "Everything Was Beautiful", and Beach House's "Once Twice Melody".  Each of them had produced at least one Album of the Year by my rankings.  Time passed, and I needed to add another album to the list -- "everything is alive" by Slowdive (their previous comeback record was my #2 of that year, and was in my top ten for the 2010's).  Time passed again.  That was in the summer of 2022.  I still haven't heard any of those albums in full.

Yet once in a while, I still fall down the rabbit hole like I have this week, playing Youtube videos from the "Once Twice Melody" tour on repeat.  When this album first came out, I thought I'd had it with Beach House.  They had more or less stopped evolving.  By "Teen Dream" they'd reached an inflection point, from then on, it wouldn't be enough to sound like star-crossed kids recording twee noodlings in their bedrooms, they needed to morph into a full-fledged, wall of sound-obsessed, immaculately produced band.  And with "Bloom", they did.  

Then they had a brief struggle with stylistic schizophrenia.  They stepped back into the shadows with (the still excellent) "Depression Cherry", and simultaneously recorded the more upbeat "Thank Your Lucky Stars" (a good idea on paper, but the songs weren't really there).  After struggling with the eternal question of whether to retreat further into moody dreampop or burst forth as a commercial indie pop juggernaut, the decision was made: we can do both.  This gave rise to "7", which stayed true to their trusted formulas but sonically, they sounded bolder and richer than ever before, their collaboration with Sonic Boom.  The apex had been reached, the only thing left was to officially become the dream pop AC/DC and milk the same signature style for decades to come.  To me, that seemed to be the marketing strategy behind "Once Twice Melody", so I figured this was the moment I could take a time out from this band.

In a sense, "Once Twice Melody" plays out as expected.  Beach House really only have one tempo -- one that they can slightly boost for the more radio-ready songs, or drag out for the slower ballads, but isn't every Beach House songs kind of a semi-ballad?  They have one instrumental palate -- guitar, keyboards, and drums, and the effects boxes and presets barely change.   Each song drifts along within roughly the same airy, hazy moodscape.  They have perfected the show closing epic with its breathtaking coda, every album has to have one now ("Irene", "Dive", "Over and Over").  

But despite all the signs that Beach House are content to churn out the same content from now until forever, I can still get completely lost in their music.  Victoria Legrand's voice isn't as bright and powerful as it once was, but everything they do on stage is still mesmerizing.  On any given day, their music is more life-affirming than anything else out there.  Everyone has their personal ranking, but "Once Twice Melody" more than holds its own with the best albums in their catalogue.  They have been in a godlike tier for well over a decade, and that's a rare thing.    

     

Israel Philharmonic presents "Little Tchaikovsky", cond. Lahav Shani

Every year, the Vienna Philharmonic presents a New Year's Day concert of light music based around Strauss-family waltzes and polkas.  These concerts are legendary and are broadcast worldwide, reaching a viewership around 50 million people annually.   

This was essentially an unadvertised concert that didn't appear on their published schedule, with tickets sold to under-35's at a discount price.  The presumed goal was to capture a younger audience and turn them into more regular concert goers, present a different side of classical music other than the stuffy reputation that it usually gets, and bring a special holiday-type atmosphere to the concert hall in a manner that's worked so well in Vienna and elsewhere.  The results were a slam dunk success.  

The Nutcracker ballet is already a holiday classic around the world, and Tchaikovsky ballets basically transcend classical music (even people who think they don't know about classical music will recognize many of the melodies), so the theme makes plenty of sense.  This was far and away the best performance I've seen from Lahav Shani.  He might fancy himself a late Romantic/20th century specialist, but he's incendiary with "lighter" music, not only as a conductor but as an educator/entertainer.  He spoke with the crowd between pieces, and invited audience members to watch part of the performance on stage to "fulfill a dream" (which turned into an unexpected deluge of upwards of 50 people).  He came across more cool and approachable than he could ever be while conducting Stravinsky or Bruckner.  In a cute moment during the extended pizzicato during the third movement of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, he simply took a break from conducting and grabbed seat in the audience.  It drew waves of laughter, but many conductors wouldn't be willing to take themselves down a peg and display such a sense of humour.

The programme was brilliantly sequenced, beginning with three selections from the Nutcracker ballet -- Waltz of the Flowers, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies, and Dance of the Reed Flutes, each one delightful, each one recognizable to all.  This was followed by a selection from Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No. 1, arranged for string orchestra, and a performance of the first movement of the Violin Concerto featuring soloist Michael Shaham, a young violinist making his debut with the orchestra.  The start was a bit rocky, but he pulled it together by the end.  Finally, following the aforementioned rush to the stage, the full orchestra performed the third and fourth movements of the Fourth Symphony.  The third movement was a lively delight, and the final movement was sufficiently fiery to get across the overall mood of the piece.  One unannounced encore later, and the concert was over in a trim 75 minutes (no intermission) and not a single person left without a smile on their face.      

Another year without a list

I used to obsess over my year-end lists, but now, I don't miss them in the least.  Non-listmaking friends and online acquaintances used to claim that lists were simply not their preferred method of judging the music they listened to.  I thought it was a giant cop-out.  If you love music, then you should stick your neck out for the stuff you've been championing all year long.  Well, I get it now.  Lists are really nothing more than a snapshot of where your head is at, a timely and in-time review of the year/decade as you saw it at the time.  In that sense, lists are essential.  But if you don't make those lists, then you can still document your thoughts in other ways.  On a blog, or on social media, and so on.  

Resident Advisor published a their best music of the past quarter-century.  My tastes are too outdated, so I didn't recognize most of the tracks on the tracks lists, even by the artists I'm familiar with.  It looked more like an artist representation list than a tracks list, with an outsized attempt to feature lesser-known tracks by well-known artists.  The albums list was more of my thing, perhaps the last major contemporary list that I'll truly be able to relate to.   I have still never heard the DJ Sprinkles album at #2 in full but I can't argue with its impact.  Burial's "Untrue" at #1 indeed felt inevitable.  

On the contemporary side, Philip Sherburne wrote about the top 30 electronic albums of 2025 for Pitchfork.  I haven't heard anything on it, but damn, Sherburne always makes everything seem so compelling.  There is truly not enough time to listen to all the music I love.  That Los Thuthanaka album really comes across as a must-hear.  

I have been deep into techno nostalgia -- the em:t discography, the Round One to Round Five compilation, the still mind-blowing In Order to Dance 5 compilation on R&S.   I could never write about contemporary music again, and churn out steady content based on reviews and recollections of old compilations, much like I did for the Spacemen 3 tribute CD.  On some days, I convince myself I should migrate to an all-nostalgia review format, possibly through video channels instead of through writing.  

Various, "A Tribute To Spacemen 3" (Rocket Girl)

I don't know why I have never written about this album before, seeing as it influenced my buying habits for years afterward.  If memory serves, this was my introduction to Bardo Pond and Low.  I had heard the names of both bands prior to this but had never heard their music.  I had never heard or heard of Flowchart or Transient Waves.  I spent considerable time tracking down nearly everything released by Flowchart, and Transient Waves' second, self-titled album is a long time favourite of mine, a psych-ambient masterpiece if there ever was one.  

Bowery Electric's "Things'll Never Be the Same" finds them hurtling headlong into their "Lushlife" phase, as the hazy "Beat"-like intro segues into the trip-hop influenced main section of the song.  The general idea is to create a shoegaze-like headspace without relying on a bank of guitars, and it succeeds.  As the opening track on the compilation, it sends a clear message -- this won't be a note for note pastiche of the source material.  

Asteroid #4's take on "Losing Touch With My Mind" transforms the original from a bludgeoning grind of guitars and feedback into a space-rock epic, full of windswept atmospherics and apathetic vocals that work perfectly in this context.  It wouldn't be right to say that these versions improve on the originals, rather, they've been updated and remodeled in a 90's post rock context.  That's exactly what you want from a tribute album -- fresh takes on older ideas.  Incidentally, Asteroid #4 are one of the few bands on this compilation whose albums I didn’t end up buying—mainly because I could never find them.

Mogwai's "Honey" is presented in the vein of their debut album, in particular, "Summer" is an accurate reference point with it's use of glockenspiel and quiet/loud contrasts.  I would have loved for them to take on a track that lends more to a maximalist approach, like "Walking With Jesus", but what we got is still fairly good.

Flowchart makes a lateral move with "Ode To Street Hassle", taking one of S3's weakest songs, tacking on a drum machine, and keeping more or less the same mood and feel.  It's one of the weaker tracks on the album, although I would still end up buying nearly everything Flowchart released and playing the daylights out of it.  Same for Accelera Deck's "I Believe It", although I never really connected to their version and never bought any more of their music. 

Arab Strap renders "Revolution" nearly unrecognizable by slowing the tempo and replacing the urgency of the lyrics by Aidan Moffat's incomprehensible mumbling.  Then they bring it all together in the end with a furious, wailing guitar outro and a jittery pseudo-dance beat fed through an amphetamine-laced drum machine.  But that's Arab Strap for you, it's all very much on brand.  

Shit gets taken to a new level on the next track, Bardo Pond's crushing version of "Call The Doctor".  Obscure trivia time: in 2002-3, noted pro wrestling asshole and trainee abuser Bill DeMott was getting a minor push in WWE.  His gimmick was that of a grumpy, veteran ass-kicking and he was using some kind of "doctor" nickname that I can't recall.  Well, somebody in the WWE's music department must have been looking for inspiration for a new theme song for DeMott, searched for "call the doctor" on file sharing services or wherever one would search for obscure music in 2002 pre-youtube, pre-streaming, stumbled across this Bardo Pond track, and figured what the hell, let's rip off this band that nobody's ever heard of.  That's the only explanation that makes sense, because these tracks couldn't be any more similar.  

Bardo Pond, "Call The Doctor"

Bill DeMott's theme, "No More Laughing"

Frontier's "Hey Man" is yet another space-rock masterpiece, quite similar to Asteroid #4 but even more into the outer reaches of the stratosphere.  The album makes another U-turn by following that with Low's "Lord, Can You Hear Me?", certainly the most Low-like S3 track and an excellent choice for them to cover.  

Amp’s "So Hot" is the most purely gorgeous track on the compilation, retaining all the lightness of the original while adding subtle, ethereal touches that make it feel almost folk-like and magical.  Amp were arguably the most underrated act in the Bristol post-rock scene, I never heard a bad note from them throughout their vast catalog.  And they're still active!

Piano Magic understood that "How Does It Feel" is, above all, about "feel"—the more you try to do with it, the worse it gets. So they let the track pulse and breathe and drift toward its understated conclusion. It’s exactly what the song needs, and it makes for a fine tribute to the original.

There's only one song from "Recurring" on this compilation, and it's Transient Waves' version of "Billy Whizz".  A bit of a tangent -- the Jason songs on "Recurring" all have horrible titles.  Thankfully he'd get much better in Spiritualized.  Transient Waves were a lovely band and this is an ambient rock lullaby, the perfect track to end the compilation with.  

This album was a huge influence on me, serving as a virtual "who's who" of Spacemen 3 disciples.  This is where the shoegaze-adjacent, psych-drenched post-rockers came to play and to carry on the Spacemen 3 tradition.  It blew my mind some twenty years ago and is still and powerful listen today.  Does anyone still remember it?  The recent shoegaze revival has more or less pushed this style of music into irrelevance. It now comes across as weak and wimpy, too self-absorbed—much like the criticisms leveled at the first wave of shoegazers, which was a major reason they fell out of favor by the mid-’90s.

One Shot with Ed Sheeran

Of course it’s an advertisement for his upcoming world tour, and yes, he surely got a boatload of money from Netflix for doing it. But set the cynicism aside—One Shot is ridiculously fun to watch: a fresh, challenging, and genuinely unique take on the “no camera cuts” concept. They brought in the team behind Adolescence to execute the vision and the logistics, and Sheeran absolutely delivers under what is, when you think about it, enormous pressure and uncertainty.

Even though he had multiple attempts (three full takes were filmed), so many things could have gone wrong. It takes a special performer to stay fully engaged, think fast on his feet, and not get flustered. Sure, plenty of moments were staged, but there are also interactions with the public that are clearly real and off-script. Then again, if you’re going to attempt something like this, who better than the musician who commands a stadium for two-plus hours solo night after night? The key word being “solo.”

The songs are great, the settings are wonderfully unconventional, Sheeran nails the persona (part affable megastar, part Pied Piper), the camerawork is exceptional, and I’m not sure anyone else of his generation could pull off this kind of “concert film”—although I’m sure some will try.

Milli Vanilli -- Grammy revenge

In 1991, Milli Vanilli became the first and still only act to be stripped of a Best New Artist Grammy.  Now, more than three decades later, Fab Morvan has been nominated for Best Audiobook and may finally get the last laugh by winning that elusive Grammy.  It would make for a fascinating acceptance speech if it makes TV (which it probably won't).  

Never mind the fact that Rob and Fab themselves took all of the punishment (everyone involved with making their record from their manager on down received zero flack) for doing the same crimes that several other top dance acts were guilty of (Technotronic, C&C Music Factory, Black Box, and many others used studio ringers).  The Grammys have never had an abundance of credibility when it comes to the Best New Artist award.  

Looking over the past few decades of winners and nominees, the first thing you notice is a distinct lack of, let's call them, the biggest selling, most successful, generation-spanning artists of all time.  The first Best New Artist award was given in 1960.  Since then (i.e. excluding artists such as Elvis Presley who got an earlier start), the reputedly biggest selling artists ever are Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Elton John, Queen, Madonna, Led Zeppelin, Rihanna, Pink Floyd, Eminem, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Ed Sheeran and AC/DC.  Out of those fifteen acts, only two won the award (Beatles and Mariah Carey), and four others were nominated (Elton, Zep, Taylor, and Ed Sheeran).  And no, neither Destiny's Child or The Jackson 5 were nominated.  If the purpose of the award is to identify the next wave of blockbuster acts, then it has failed.

It took several years for the Grammys to figure out what this award was supposed to represent.  Nominations in the 60's were a veritable mish mash of jazz artists, folk groups, comedians (Bob Newhart won in 1961), singer/actors, blue-eyed soul acts, novelty acts and the occasional welcome surprise (Miriam Makeba nominated in 1961!).  From 1960-1965, I couldn't tell you a thing about half of the nominees.  Over the next fifteen years, most of the nominees were major hitmakers of their day, with legitimate claims to long-lasting stardom.  And almost every act was white.  Most years had one token black nominee, with the exception of 1975, which had two (Graham Central Station and Johnny Bristol).  But they had to expand the nomination group from five to six in order to do it.  Natalie Cole in 1976 was the only African-American winner of the award during that time period.  The next person of colour to win was Sade in 1986.  

After some thirty years of white/rock/blue-eyed soul/lounge singer dominance, 1990 was the most diverse group of nominees in the award's history to that point: Milli Vanilli, Neneh Cherry, Indigo Girls, Tone Loc, and Soul II Soul.  Part of the resentment toward Milli Vanilli was based on the perception that their popularity was more likely to be a fad, as opposed to the other four more serious, career-oriented artists.  It's almost as if people believed that justice was done when their award was revoked because they didn't deserve to win it anyway.  I like the other four artists very much, but their time in the upper reaches of the charts didn't last beyond 1995 or so.   In 1990, Milli Vanilli were unquestionably the hottest act of the bunch.  This can't be disputed -- they had five US top five hits from their debut album, including three #1's.  There have been far more indefensible choices since then:

1992.  As a direct reaction to the Milli Vanilli scandal, Marc Cohn won over Boys II Men, C+C Music Factory, Color Me Badd, and Seal.  Even at the time, it was widely known that C+C Music Factory (and many similar dance-oriented acts of the day) were lip synching as well and using ringers in the studio.  At least Marc Cohn was a friendly white act who could be trusted not to engage in that.  Or something.  No offense to Marc Cohn and his perfectly acceptable MOR hit "Walking In Memphis", but this was a horrible choice.  

2011.  Esperanza Spalding won over Justin Bieber, Drake, Florence and the Machine, and Mumford and Sons.  From 1997-2011, female artists and female-fronted acts won the Best New Artist award in twelve of the fifteen years.   Maybe it was a given that a female artist would win, given the voter's tendencies.  Male artists won for the next four years, but since 2016, only one male artist has gone home with the award.  A remarkable run of dominance for female acts.  But Spalding beat four acts that would rack up several dozen #1 songs and albums between them, and tour stadiums around the world multiple times over.  Strange. 

2014.  A travesty so unforgivable that they should lecture on it in university ethics classes.  Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, a flash in the pan rap act led by a demented anti-Semite, won the Best New Artist award over James Blake, Kendrick Lamar, Kacey Musgraves, and Ed Sheeran. This was indefensible at the time and looks about a billion times worse in the years since.  Any time a smiley white rapper scores a hit song out of nowhere, don't worry, Grammy comes running!  I'm feeling nauseous just writing about this.   

LFO, "Advance" (1996)

Hard to believe that this album is nearly 30 years old.  At the time, it felt wholly out of place.  Although released on Warp, "Advance" couldn't have been further removed from the "Artifical Intelligence" style of bedroom techno that had dominated the label in the previous few years.  It was too sobering and grounded for the rave scene, and not propulsive or hedonistic enough for the trance scene.  At least half of its tracks aren't suited for the clubs at all, and most DJ's would have been hard-pressed to meld even the more "conventional" kick drum heavy tracks like "Shut Down" and "Kombat Drinking".  Not coincidentally, those were the tracks that Gez Varley worked on.  Most of the album is an extended production reel for Mark Bell's future career as the knob twiddler for A-list electronic acts like Bjork and Depeche Mode. And those tracks still sound as if they were beamed in from an unexplored future world.  Nothing sounds like "Advance", even now.  

"Jason Vorhees" simmers with nervous energy due to its crashing percussive beats and mind-melting filters, but is layered over a serene ambient drifting background.  "Them" lays out a low-tempo squelching funk plastered over lost in the forest, horror movie sound effects.  I'm hard pressed to think of any near equivalent to either track.  DItto for "Tied Up", a sort of headbanger's techno-funk that ascends into a kind of electronic shoegaze paradise, full of breathy sounds and high pitched whistling and god knows what else (this was the single, by the way, and was remixed by Spiritualized into a nine-minute drone-fest).  "Shove Piggy Shove" is perhaps the lone throwback to LFO's bleepy roots, with a cavernous, speaker-rattling bass line to match.

But for me, the album centres around the title track and "Loch Ness".  The former is simply the most heart-stopping, dramatic, crystal shards of sound collapsing on one's head, fist-pumping mindfuck in 90's techno, bar none.  At 105 or so BPM, yet it's not danceable in the least in the context of a conventional techno set.  It starts out quietly with the whispered word "advance" and grows into a monumental cascade of droning and caterwauling.  The kick drum rains hammerfist blows into your chest, the bass causes the entire room to shake uncontrollably.  "Loch Ness" has an undeniable build of a different kind, tricking you into a false sense of security with its tranquil opening synth washes, before exploding into a chorus of electronic birdsong, yet another bass timbre to collapse one's chest, and accompanied by a militaristic snare drum workout.  There is no way to characterize any of this, it's a genre truly unto itself.

"Advance" is probably Mark Bell's masterpiece, the best advertisement for what  he could offer as a producer in the following years.  He was a talent that was truly taken from us too soon.  

BBC Music ranks the top 12 classical pieces that bridged the pop culture divide

 It's always nice to see a list that covers a subject that hasn't been overdone.  Other than Percy Grainger's "Country Gardens" -- the only piece on the list that I wasn't familiar with, it must be a Brit-centric thing -- each of these pieces has been featured, immortalized, and run full circle into parody.  These are truly famous pieces that have spanned oceans and crossed borders, and there's really not too much to argue about here.  One could argue for "Tubular Bells" if one wished to stretch the definitions into classical-adjacent forms, but even that's not a huge stretch considering the ELP version of "Fanfare for the Common Man" that is linked in the article.  There's also a good case for the Dr. Who theme if we branch into experimental music from post-WWII composers.  But if we just stick to tonal composers working with conventional instruments and ensembles, this is as good a list of the "most famous" classical works in pop culture over the past few decades. 

I grew up learning about classical music subliminally through Hanna-Barbara cartoons.  I was pleased to see that the connection to animated series hasn’t entirely disappeared—see the links to Bluey and SpongeBob SquarePants, two cartoons even my own kids enjoy.  Wagner and Strauss are indelibly tied to Apocalypse Now and 2001, respectively, to the point that mentioning the movie titles likely evokes those pieces of music more readily than any specific line or actor from the films

Shlomo Artzi, live at Park Raanana

Twelve years ago, I saw Shlomo Artzi in concert for the first time and was blown away.  At the time I wrote that "I'm not sure I've ever seen an artist connect with his audience as well as Shlomo Artzi connected with the crowd in Ashdod".  The connection was "almost telepathic", operating on a deeper, more personal, more empathetic level than just about any other artist I've seen -- in any country, singing in any language.  

Remarkably, twelve years later, it's all still true.  Artzi is nearing his 76th birthday and still commands the stage like no other.  He can still unite multiple generations of Israelis, appeal to the secular and the religious, and create memorable moments through an almost unimaginable personal connection with an amphitheatre full of thousands.  Coldplay go to great lengths to manufacture these connections with their fans through their goofy kiss cams and light-up bracelets and choreographed singalongs and B-stages and C-stages that bring them close to their audience.  But it always comes across as nerdy millionaire pandering to the simple plebes.  I can't even blame them -- bridging the divide between stage and audience is difficult, especially in a stadium.  Not every performer strives for it, and that's OK too.  Shlomo Artzi does it effortlessly, through his personal stories both sad and humorous, impassioned words about the soldiers and hostages, and through his impeccable timing and synchronization with his band, always knowing when to raise and lower the energy in the room.  

He spoke about attending shivas for soldiers and about the hostages and said "I don't know what's happening right now in the USA -- probably many of you know better than me" -- a reference to the Trump-Netanyahu meetings taking place that day.  It was an off-hand remark, meant to segue into a broader wish for peace.  But inevitably, it led to a large number of people reaching for their mobile phones, hoping for a major news update.  And moments later, a screenshot from the nightly news—viewed on a concertgoer’s phone—was projected onto the stage’s big screens, essentially a screenshot of a screenshot.  The headline read "hostages to be returned in three days", an impassioned roar rose from the crowd, and Artzi abruptly stopped speaking and admired the photo.  He may have mumbled something like "how about that ..." his words trailing off.  Like I said, the man has impeccable timing.  Time seemed to stand still for about half a minute.  Even when Artzi is at a temporary loss of words, he can still forge a genuine connection.   

The pacification of music criticism

Kelefa Sanneh hit a home run with his excellent piece in the New Yorker, covering the decline of music criticism from acerbic, witty truth telling to the placid, homogenized landscape that we have today.  

Additional context comes by way of a video by Dave Hurwitz, and even though he's talking about the classical music industry (his specialty), the sentiment is applicable to other genres as well. In short, as magazine readership began to decline rapidly, publishers and editors became reluctant to risk alienating a shrinking pool of potential advertisers with negative reviews.  The magazines continued on their death spiral, and review culture never recovered.  

In particular, Sanneh makes a fascinating connection that I'd never considered before.  As rockism fell into disfavour -- in no small part due to Sanneh's endless debated piece in the NYT --  and poptimism rose to fill the void, negativity in music reviews also waned.  He writes, "poptimism intimated that critics shoudl not just take pop music seriously but celebrate it ...".  This new culture of positivity was also spurred by the explosion of blogs and online mags, where countless writers competed to be seen as tastemakers with a keen ear for discovering and popularizing new music through glowing reviews, mp3 blogs, etc.  

Sanneh highlights the online presence of Anthony Fantano and Rick Beato, as two examples of influencers (each with millions of followers) who aren't afraid to regularly dole out negative criticism.  It's important to note that Fantano and Beato are independent and not beholden to an editorial direction influenced by outside funding.   It's hardly a surprise that "old school" criticism lives on through outlets such as theirs.  

Sanneh makes just one misstep.  Toward the end of the piece, he explains that twenty years ago, he wrote negative reviews regularly, whereas now feels less compelled to do so.  This is in part because when reviewing an album that he doesn't take to immediately, "why commit that judgement to print, when, instead, I could wait to see whether it will grow on me, as awkward -seeming albums sometimes do?" I believe he's trying to restore some nobility to the art of writing reviews, seeking honour in this new era of criticism where very little is actually criticized.  But for me, this sentiment runs counter to a fundamental consequence of good criticism.  The critic's skill and expertise give them the vision to recognize a record's greatness and its potential long-term impact long before the general public catches on.  This is a key motivation behind my writing -- opining on the music I like and don't like, putting a time stamp on my thoughts, and hoping to be proven right in the long run.  And even if I'm wrong, or change my mind, or what have you, there's always a learning experience in the process.  In contrast, biding one's time and letting their opinion be continuously re-shaped by the shifting consensus isn’t leading the critical charge—it’s following it. It’s almost glorified gossip-column hackery: scanning what others are saying to gauge public sentiment, then presenting the safe, majority-approved opinion.

Dr. Guiseppe and Mr. Sinopoli

I have taken to Sinopoli's recordings as somewhat of a guilty pleasure.  His style certainly isn't for everyone.   Most people value instrumental clarity and individual sonorities when listening to classical music.  Sinopoli didn't care about any of that, he approached the orchestra as if it was a gigantic, people-powered modular synth, with separate components only existing to mold the overall sound.  I wrote about his marvelous, semi-shoegaze-y Bruckner 7th -- a piece that benefits (in my view) from a a cathedral-like, blurry sonority.   

The problem with Sinopoli is that he would apply the "treatment" to just about anything and everything.  The results were entirely hit and miss.  And yet, even when I know that it's a miss (based on critic's reviews) I still can't help but listen.  

For example, take the widely panned Elgar Symphonies 1 and 2, with the Philharmonia.  The consensus is that the 2nd symphony in particular is dreadfully, drudgingly slow, a recording to be avoided at all costs.   But I just had to hear it for myself.  And I discovered, indeed, that the slow tempos completely kill the piece.  Nevertheless, as an experiment in Elgar, it's oddly fascinating.

On the other hand, Sinopoli's version of the Brahms German Requiem with the Czech Philharmonic works surprisingly well.  It runs completely opposite to the stoic treatment of Klemperer, often thought of as the reference recording.  It may not be for everyone, but if you ever wished for a psychedelic mind trip version of the German Requiem, then Sinopoli's recording may be for you.

Sometimes the Jekyll/Hyde dichotomy occurs on the same disc, like with the pairing of Mahler's 8th and 10th symphonies with the Philharmonia.   The Mahler 8 presents a grandiose, sweaty, wall of sound that is entirely appropriate for a piece in which more excess is always better.  However, the Mahler 10 (Adagio only), runs for an interminable 33 minutes (!!) and is very nearly unrecognizable compared to any competing recording.  It comes across like one of those time stretched recordings where every note blends into the next and the dynamics are flattened out into a sprawling void of nothing.  I have no idea what to make of  

I'll continue on this mini-quest to subject myself to the odd but daring stylings of this maverick conductor ...

Oasis 2025 -- 90's comfort food

The Oasis reunion is finally happening and it already feels bigger than any other "reunion" tour in recent years.  In his review of their kick-off concert in Cardiff, The Independent's Mark Beaumont half-heartedly tries being cynical about it, with a slight few backhanded compliments thrown in, but in the end it didn't matter.  He gives them a five star review.   

Yes, both Gallagher's have been touring these same songs with their own bands for years.  Last year at this time, Liam had a solo Definitely Maybe 30th anniversary tour, appearing in arena around the UK.  How is it, just one year later, that he can appear in stadiums singing the exact same songs, headlining the 90's nostalgia tour to end them all?  Much like the Smashing Pumpkins reunion, or the fifty Fleetwood Mac reunions where somebody left and then came back, having the original members on stage working together is far more than a technicality.  If it was only about hearing the songs, then Oasis cover bands could competently headline stadiums.  

It’s clear to me now that the '90s occupy a cultural space much like the '60s did during the '90s themselves.  In the late 80's/early 90's, many iconic classic rock acts from the previous generation were back together and making headlines.  Dylan became a cultural darling again.  The Who and the Rolling Stones did reunion tours that earned a gajillion dollars.  The Beatles released their "Anthology" series. Johnny Cash made a wholly unexpected comeback.   The Velvet Underground put aside their differences for five minutes and reunited.  Neil Young was recast as the godfather of grunge after losing his way for most of the 80's.  And so on.  There was a prevailing sense that the '60s were still the pinnacle of musical culture, and that nothing could ever surpass them.  All the controversies of the 60's that had seeped their way into the Western (mainly American) consciousness were mostly swept under the rug.  Civil rights?  The turmoil of 1968?  Vietnam?  Those were yesterday's problems, thoroughly left behind us, and we were left with the unequaled brilliance of the greatest bands of the rock era.  Those who came of age during the 60's scoffed at the idea of "my" 90's music being relevant enough to be remembered even in five years' time, let alone thirty.

And now, I believe the 90's are mostly viewed through rose-coloured glasses by people who weren't there or have hazy memories of it.  The decade of happy-go-lucky "Friends".  The end of the Cold War followed by world peace breaking out (Jesus Jones promised me that it happened!)  Singing along to Oasis songs with all one's friends.  When one needs to get away from the turmoil in the world today, one can always count on 90's TV, movies, and music to take you back to a time when there were few worries in the world save for Y2K angst.  In the 90's, the POTUS could get his dick sucked in the Oval Office and not get MeToo'ed into oblivion!  And people loved him for this, he left office with the highest approval ratings of any President in decades.  Viewed from the quagmire that is 2025, clearly the 90's were a utopia.  

Of course, that's not how it really was.  But Oasis, and the current Oasis reunion represent the apex of the 90's comfort food culture.  There probably isn't another band (at least not in the UK) that allows you to suspend reality and daydream about the imagined perfection of the 90's.  In the US, Oasis were just one of many heavy-rotation MTV bands of the day.  "What's the Story Morning Glory" was just the 10th biggest selling album of 1996 in the US.  It's the third biggest seller of all time in the UK.  And that gives them a healing power than few other bands can match.  What about their Britpop peers?  Please.  Blur: too kooky, standoff-ishly clever.  Pulp: despite a remarkable comeback this year with a #1 UK album, their songs are all about stressful affairs, scandalous trysts, a constant reminder of the uncertainty of the times.  Suede: too weird, too fancy, not anthemic enough.  All of them are wildly successful.  None of them had a hope of symbolizing the carefree hope and grandeur like Oasis can.      

 

It took me eight years to "get" Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk"

I had never heard of this album until it was featured in Melody Maker's "Unknown Pleasures" book in 1995.  A few more years passed before I heard a note of music from it, via the Fleetwood Mac Greatest Hits compilation.  After that, more than a decade passed until I heard the full album.  I bought the 2CD reissue, wrote a post about it, and all these years later I mostly agree with everything I wrote.  Nevertheless, I didn't particularly like "Tusk".  I would dig it out once in a while and subject myself to it for the sake of investigating it's merits because there's little doubt that it's notable album in rock history by one of rock's all-time great bands.  I had read the essays, heard about the revisionist histories, knew about its critical resuscitation but still couldn't find much to like about it.

You see, when I was growing up and became "aware" of the FM radio rotation, just about every track from "Rumours" was regularly played on the radio -- some five years after it was first released.  In the 80's, both "Mirage" and "Tango In the Night" were massive hit albums that ensured Fleetwood Mac's position as radio (and music video!) stalwarts through the end of the decade.  "Tusk", on the other hand, might as well have never existed.  The songs weren't on the radio, nobody talked about it, and nobody seemed to own it.  

"Tusk" rode the post-"Rumours" momentum wave and sold millions of copies (it is a double album, so each sale counted as two copies).  Why exactly did it become invisible for the bulk of the next twenty years?  There was no "Rumours hangover" -- nobody rejected "Tusk" because they were tired of FM's dominance.  Tracks from "Rumours" remained on the radio for years, so clearly the public wanted more Fleetwood Mac.  Michael Jackson didn't experience a "Thriller hangover", huge albums are regularly followed by more huge albums.  In "Unknown Pleasures", Simon Reynolds puts most of the blame at Lindsey Buckingham's feet, suggesting that his wonton experiments sabotaged "Tusk"'s commercial prospects.  He's certainly correct on this point.  But he also paints Buckingham as a charlatan looking to remain relevant for the punk and new wave crowd, and failing.  This does not seem to be reflected in then-contemporary reviews.  

In Stephen Holden's marvelous review for Rolling Stone (December 13, 1979), he calls Buckingham the "artistic lynchpin" of "Tusk", with his compositions being the glue that provides a semblance of cohesion to the album. With remarkable insight, he notes that the era of the multi-million dollar audiophile megaproduction must be reaching its end, while at the same time standing slack-jawed about how wonderful it all sounds.  Robert Christgau also praised "Tusk" (assigning it a B+ grade) and Buckingham's songs in particular.  Contemporary critics recognized that Buckingham wasn't the problem, rather, he was the standout.  With audiences, it was obviously a different story.

Listening to it now, I finally understand what Holden wrote about more than four decades ago. On "Tusk",  Buckingham draws inspiration from post punk and transforms it in a way that only he can.  He practically invents a new genre for himself, linking crude noisemaking with state-of-the-art studio technology, combining his signature gossamer guitars with lo-fi country-tonk.   Stevie Nicks is top form as well.  While "Sara" is the most well-known, each of the five songs she contributed is excellent.   The weak link, unfortunately is McVie.  With the exception of "Think About Me", none of her songs come close to the spark she brought to "Rumours".  "Over and Over" is pleasant enough, but it's a continuation of "Rumours", i.e. exactly the sound of a "Rumours 2" that Buckingham sought so desperately to avoid.  

The running order does nobody any favours.  It's a disjointed patchwork of competing ideologies between the three songwriters.  The mood shifts with every song and the album never gets a chance to establish any kind of rhythm.    This would be less of a problem in the CD/mp3 age, because you could easily program a new track order.  But with LP's, listeners were just as likely to get frustrated and not bother to flip the record over.  They should have given each of them an entire album side to do as they wished, but that might have made it feel less like a Fleetwood Mac album and more like three new solo albums by its main composers. 

Is "Tusk" better than "Rumours", as some seem to suggest (even Mick Fleetwood claims it's his favourite FM album)?  Let's not be ridiculous.  But it's a very rewarding album and a fascinating experiment from a band that wasn't known for doing wild experiments during the post-Buckingham/Nicks era.   

Mandle Cheung and Mahler 2

Along comes another rich guy with Mahlerian dreams of grandeur who lives out his fantasies by paying a princely sum to conduct a leading orchestra.  We've seen this before with Gilbert Kaplan.  Now it's Mandle Cheung "hiring" the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for his own personal vanity project.  Are we supposed to care? 

OK, enough with the cynicism.  Like Kaplan, Cheung is a patron of the arts whose goal is to promote classical music to the widest possible audience.  In this case, Cheung is paying for the orchestra, the concert hall, and for the promotion of the concert.  It's true that one could argue that he could do all that and also hire a professional conductor instead of placing himself at the centre of the performance.  However, Mahler performances these days are all too common.  This performance is different because the conductor is the outsider, he's the draw just as much as the music.  

I love Mahler 2 just as much as the next classical music fan, I saw Bradley Cooper whip up a sweat soaked frenzy in "Maestro", but I know I have no business conducting this work no matter how much I might dream about it.   People have the right to be skeptical and to make jokes.  But why smirk about a supposed loss of artistic credibility?   "It must be about the money" ... of course it's about the money!  No orchestra can survive without arts grants and philanthropy.  There's a place for upholding authenticity and also a place for shameless moneymaking strictly for entertainment purposes.  I don't think there's any shame in aspiring to the former while also proudly admitting to the latter.  Modern orchestras are both supremely talented and enviably versatile, they can manage both.   

Would modern arts critics scoff at Haydn for working most of his career as the personal composer of a Hungarian noble?  Would the music have been better if he had not done it all "for the money" he received from wealthy patrons?  Would a modern day Haydn have to be a struggling and starving artist to remain authentic?  

I searched online for reviews of Cheung's performance last night.  As of this posting, I couldn't find any major media outlets who covered the concert.  I could only find a few message board posts.  Cheung was well practiced and energetic, but didn't succeed in leading the orchestra to the highs that the music demands.  Hey, that's what they said about Kaplan too.  This type of thing isn't unique to classical music either.  Sometimes celebrities dabble in pro wrestling, and the expectations are on a parallel scale compared to two pros having a match.  If it draws a crowd, then it works.  If celebrity involvement becomes a weekly thing, then the audience will likely get bored and turn away from the product.    There's also place for this alternate form of classical music entertainment.  

Update:   Shortly after posting this, the Globe and Mail posted a glowing review of Cheung's concert.  

Brian Wilson RIP

Here is the first line of Brian Wilson's obit in the NYT: 

Brian Wilson, who as the leader and chief songwriter of the Beach Boys became rock’s poet laureate of surf-and-sun innocence, but also an embodiment of damaged genius through his struggles with mental illness and drugs, has died.

Continuing on, the article presents a balanced picture of his considerable fame and talents, as well as repeated references to his personal struggles and failings.  In contrast, in their obit for Sly Stone, published just three days earlier, the star is depicted as a trailblazer who also happened to be a little bit eccentric.  The dysfunction of his final five decades is largely brushed off as merely unusual behavior from a man who was also a recluse.  I have nothing against Sly Stone.  Both Wilson and Stone are legends.  But let's be un-PC for a moment.  Wilson went crazy, but reconstituted his life and had a remarkable final act from the 90's onward.  Stone went crazy and remained crazy, becoming at best considered to be half-myth, half-punchline from the early 80's until the end of his life.  Why then, in this pair of obits, are Brian Wilson's drug use and psychological problems placed front and centre in defining him as a person, whereas the same issues are nearly buried in the case of Sly Stone?  

CNN's obituary is just as bad: 

Wilson’s life was marked just as much by struggles with substance abuse and mental illness as it was by repeated comebacks, remarkable talent and timeless songs that still echo across the country, decades after their release.  [emphasis mine]

The Guardian doesn't even wait for the main text, they lay it out in the subheader:   

Musician, who suffered from mental health problems, wrote and produced the 1966 album Pet Sounds – seen by many as the greatest album of all time. 

Apparently none of these "trusted" news sources has a problem with stigmatizing mental illness when a rich white person is involved.  

I'm actually not trying to make a point about race.  My main point concerns the extraordinary inflexibility of the mainstream media and their tendency to cling to entrenched narratives.  For nearly two decades, the story of Brian Wilson was that of a guy who burned himself out and fell under the spell of a corrupt psychotherapist.  It wasn't a secret.  People joked about it.  Barenaked Ladies wrote a song about it.  But gradually, Wilson wrote himself a new reality.  The release of "Pet Sounds" on CD was essential in introducing the album to a new generation of fans who mainly knew the Beach Boys for their surfing songs.  I was one of those fans.  "Pet Sounds" rejoined the discussions of the greatest albums ever made.  Wilson broke free of Dr. Landy, released new music, got married.  Then he took things up a level when he completed "Smile" in 2004.  

It's easy to forget what a huge deal the release of "Smile" was, especially since it isn't really listened to much anymore and has already become something of a forgotten classic.  It was nothing less than a rite of passage for Beach Boys devotees (i.e. nearly everyone), and if you weren't there at the time, it may be hard to fully grasp the collective, unrestrained excitement of multiple generations of fans and critics finally getting to experience his album -- in some approximate form reflective of the original concept from 1967.   The most mythical uncompleted album of the rock era was finally here.  And then, having finally heard "Smile" following the decades of hype, it was reshelved.  Think about a wedding, graduation, or some other big life event.  You look forward to it for what feels like forever, documenting every moment as it unfolds. But once it's over, there's such a sense of relief that you tuck the photo album away on a high shelf and rarely feel the urge to revisit it.  That's life.  But when "Smile" was on top, it was glorious.  The album and the subsequent world tour were fitting victory laps for Wilson -- redemption at last for the past and current boy genius.  

That should be the Brian Wilson story -- those remarkable final acts.  Not the drugs, the obesity, the abuse he took from his father, the estrangement from his friends, family, and bandmates.  Getting back to entrenched narratives and the incompetence of the press -- it wasn't always this way.  When Ray Charles died, I don't recall obits that emphasized his drug use and promiscuity (twelve children with ten different women).  The focus was on the music, and post-recovery, post-80's persona (soul music legend, soft drink pitchman, TV staple).  When Miles Davis died in 1991, the NYT wrote that he "defined cool" and made no mention of his very seedy past.  Whether that was a fair take or not is besides the point.  The media used to know how to focus on the art, to look past the turmoil and emphasize the happy ending.  That was the narrative of every episode of "VH1: Behind the Music" , it's a story they used to know how to tell, when they wanted to tell it.  

Brian Wilson lived an incredible life.  He wrote some of the most memorable, yet complex pop songs ever.  In the words of Timothy White in "The Nearest, Faraway Place", Wilson invented California.  He'll be sorely missed by three (four?) generations of fans and musical peers.  His legacy will continue to inspire for years to come.