The Decade In Pop

Tom Ewing's essay for Pitchfork is one of the best pieces of criticism that site has ever published. Unlike most "review"-style articles on P4K (including year-end lists), he doesn't attempt to fool the reader into thinking that a year or decade can be neatly summed up into simple "year X was the year of Y" proclamations, as if pop (or any other type of music) could be conveniently summarized into such catchy little policy statements. Ewing isn't afraid to leave a bunch of open questions on the table. His role as a critic, like that of any good teacher, is to cull what he feels to be the most relevant information, set the context as best he can, and suggest his opinion on the matter. Then it is up to us, the students, to run with his arguments and build on his ideas. And this essay is as full of ideas as any of its kind. It's fantastic work -- I wouldn't even know where to begin with such a wide-ranging assignment like "The Decade In Pop".

I do find some serious faults with the piece, the most glaring being the complete omission of race from any part of the discussion. The way in which white artists have been trying to cross over to black markets (and vice versa) is intricately woven into the very fabric of American pop music -- more than just the elephant in the room, Ewing has overstepped a giant blue whale in avoiding any and all discussion of this topic, which is fairly unforgivable considering that 90% of his essay deals with American artists. This is unfortunate, but not so unexpected, because British misunderstandings of American multiculturalism is the single biggest difference in the perspectives of American and British music critics. In other words, I expect a British critic to ignore this stuff, because he doesn't understand it, whereas it would be impossible for an American critic to ignore the stuff.

Ewing writes about the convergence of the pop, R&B, and hip-hop scenes but somehow manages to dodge the issue of which ethno-cultural groups were affiliated with those genres for most of their histories. Surely this had to warrant a mention in regards to one of Justin Timberlake's many guest collaborations? The "Class of '99" was really no different than any other loosely associated bunch of superstar artists from any other period in pop history -- they were white kids who took traditionally "black" forms of music and mass-sold it to a predominantly "white" audience. If New Kids on the Block were a concerted attempt to create a "White New Edition", then 'N Sync were ... a "White Blackstreet"?

For my money, the real "anything's possible" pop moment was the release of 'N Sync's "Pop", produced by trance megastar Brian Transeau aka BT. At the time, I thought that if trance artists were producing boy bands and scoring big hits, then there couldn't be any other kind of cross-genre collaboration that could surprise me. The funny thing was, hardly anybody batted an eye at the time, pretty much because nobody in the pop sphere had any idea who BT was. His style wasn't so different from what the Neptunes were doing at the time, and they were certainly both influenced by the same sorts of electronic-leaning artists, but the Neptunes were crossing over from the hip-hop world, whereas BT was crossing over from what might as well have been Mars. Even so, the Neptunes didn't become megastars in their own right until 2002 or so, but they did have a all-star base of production credits to keep them working with the biggest acts in the business for a long time to come. Whereas "Pop" was a bit of a dud in 'N Sync's career and they essentially split up not long after, so it was hardly the kind of breakthrough success that BT could have built his career upon. Maybe, if BT had worked with them just a few months later, when producers themselves were becoming household names, then he would have had a more memorable career as a pop producer.

And for my money, the genre convergence became complete following Justin Timberlake's (yeah, him again!) guest spot on Snoop Dogg's "Signs", from 2004. That sort of collab is commonplace these days, but in 2004, it was a bit mindblowing. The pretty boy lead singer from an all-white boy band teaming up with a gangsta rap icon? Even eighteen months earlier, that partnership would have been completely unthinkable (for a laugh, can you imagine, say, Jordan Knight guesting on "Doggystyle"?).

Techno actually had a good decade in the charts. From Timbaland throwing the electronica kitchen sink onto Missy Elliott's albums (and don't forget about "My Love"), to the Neptune's minimalist glitch-funk productions, to Kanye West's "808's and Hearbreak", techno was sort of the secret weapon for the pop producer. Y'know, they've already heard it all from rock and hip-hop, so let's throw something at them that they haven't heard, e.g. a rave siren! Timba's "The Way I Are" was a smash hit, and L'il Jon's screaming and cheapo 90's raver effects relegated Usher to a near afterthought on his own record. How could there ever have been any doubt that Eurobeat and rave would be the electronic genres of the 90's that would produce the most chart successes? Remember when people honestly thought that the Chemical Brothers and Prodigy were going to be rock stars??

Pet Shop Boys Live at BBC, and RIP Ellie Greenwich

This one-hour special, containing near-complete clips of PSB TV performances interspersed with contemporary comments by the duo, is easily the best music-related airplane viewing I've ever seen (the second best would be ... well, no comparative examples come to mind, actually, but the PSB collection was quite good on its own and is well worth seeing even if you're not stuck on an airplane for 7.5 hours). I didn't know that their current look (knee-length black coats) was recycled from the start of their career. The interviews added some curious, minute details to the clips (what, you were expecting less arcane ruminations from Neil Tennant?) and I certainly wouldn't have noticed Tennant's trembling hands without being prompted, so cheers for his trainspotter's sense of detail. Their live gear setup for 1994's "Liberation" was nothing more than an ancient laptop. Whether Chris Lowe was doing anything "live" with that computer is irrelevant to me, but can you think of an earlier laptop "performance" than this one? Was this the first laptop gig of consequence in the history of music?

I am baffled at the relative lack of attention that has been given to the death of one of the greatest songwriters of the 1960's, Ellie Greenwich. Her Spector-resume was the most impressive of any songwriter he regularly worked with ("Be My Baby", "Da Doo Ron Ron", "River Deep Mountain High", "Then He Kissed Me", to name just four). And she co-wrote "Leader of the Pack"! And discovered Neil Diamond! What a career ... and I assume this story doesn't get much play because she was predominantly a songwriter, with far less name-recognition and visibility than that of the acts she worked with.

Here is one of my favourite Youtube clips.

Blur, live at Hyde Park, July 3, 2009

I always struggled to define my relationship with Blur. I searched for definitions, and they were the band I liked the most without ever really loving. They effortlessly churned out one amazing song after another, they were versatile, they had longevity, and they were great live (for a long time, their 1996 Toronto gig at the then-Warehouse was one of my top five favourite concerts ever). They were a great great band, but there was one problem -- they didn't truly matter to me. Ever loved somebody without being IN love? Yeah.

I wasn't clamouring for a Blur reunion. I didn't miss them when they were gone, and besides, "Think Tank" was unforgivable tripe which at that time served to profoundly justify all of my nagging suspicions about not committing myself to this band. They'd screwed up, they simply weren't worth it after all. So I couldn't get excited about the reunion, even though I privately knew that the concerts would surely turn out to be great.

Almost everything in this set feels fresh because I haven't heard most of these songs in years. This is what helps make "She's So High" such a welcome opener. Even though it's far from the best moment on "Leisure" (that would be "Sing"), it's naivete and simplicity make for a memorable comeback singalong tune, and of course the best is yet to come.

This set is heavy on "Parklife" tunes (eight of them), which is understandable for a held in a huge outdoor venue in July (and nearly 15 years to the day after their famous "Parklife"-era Glastonbury performance that launched their career to another level). If it was up to me, I would have stacked up those songs in the middle of the set, because the mid-set "Tender"/"Country House" section feels a lot more like the triumphant end to the gig than the somewhat obvious and perfunctory "Parklife"/"End of a Century"/"To the End"/"This Is a Low" four-song run that they actually chose, although I can understand "This Is A Low" as the main set-closer. "Tender" is arguably the highlight of the gig, and not just because is it one of the few truly sexy moments of the concert (and in Blur's oeuvre in general). This extended, nine-minute version gets a spectacular reaction from an emotional crowd that sings along with every word, which surely sends a bit of an f-you to the people who dismissed this song in 1999, claiming that it was unnecessarily long, or indulgent, or nothing more than sludgy, rewarmed Spiritualized. It simply has to be Blur's most underrated single, what else could it possibly be (maybe "End of a Century"? I think a lot of people would say "Coffee and TV" but they couldn't be more wrong (it's one of their plainest songs, any one of a million indie-rock bands could have written it). And who would have thought that "Country House" could sound so glorious in 2009? Wasn't it the throwaway Blur-by-numbers track that didn't really need to exist after the band succeeded in their goal to beat out Oasis' "Roll With It" for the #1 spot on the British singles charts?

In the long run, it was probably inevitable that Blur's critical reputation would be rehabilitated. Americans just needed time to forget about all of the quirky things they hate about British music scenes and scenesters (e.g. the moptop hairdos circa "Leisure", goofy stuff like the "Country House" video). Once those memories faded, people were left with nothing but the music to judge them by, at which point it becomes clearer that Blur rocked harder (and weirder) than most critics gave them credit for. Weird stuff doesn't always work in a festival-like setting, so this set leans toward rockier renditions, no doubt thanks to Graham Coxon's well-known distaste for some of Blur's poppier side. "Chemical World" and "Beetlebum" deserve special mention for being particularly fierce. And of course, "Advert".

After all the bounce-along hits, Blur close the second encore (and the show) with "The Universal". It's their most epic, dramatic, and emotionally wrenching single, and the fact that they return to it for their final bow is one of those things that make me almost love them all over again.

RIP Les Paul

I don't even know where to begin with this one, and judging from the writing I've seen over the past two days, it doesn't look as if anyone else knows where to begin either. Les Paul basically invented the electric guitar and multitrack recording, so virtually all music that was recorded over the past fifty years bears his fingerprints. Now go, write 500 words summarizing exactly that. Jeez. It's like eulogizing Gutenberg or something.

Les Paul also had the temerity to live so darned long. He outlived so many other rock and roll pioneers -- so many of whom were given the full-on legend treatment after their deaths -- that it's become more difficult to properly contextualize the passing of other music greats without resorting to greater and greater (and more colourful) hyperbole. Then Les Paul goes ahead and dies and the load has long since been shot. There simply aren't enough never-before-heard praises that are left to be sung.

John Hughes RIP, Bimble RIP

With the last two days, plus Michael Jackson's death last month, the 80's as a whole are all but dead as well.

John Hughes was the Tycoon of Teen for the 80's, his movies defined the decade for anyone who lived through the time and was born after 1968. He made Molly Ringwald. John Candy was at his best when working with Hughes. "Planes Trains and Automobiles" is one of the funniest movies ever made, and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" might be the most rewatchable movie of all time. He even made the careers of musicians -- the biggest hits in the careers of OMD and Simple Minds were songs recorded for Hughes' movies ("If You Leave" and "Don't You Forget About Me", respectively). His film soundtracks were practically period pieces, hell, throw those things in a time capsule and let Hughes guide future generations through the 80's if they dare. Where else, other than a John Hughes film, could you have heard the Star Wars Theme, "Oh Yeah" (a starmaking turn for the otherwise esoteric Yello), and the Dream Academy covering the Smiths (that's the "Ferris Bueller" soundtrack, which was never even officially released! Can you believe that??) One might argue that Cameron Crowe's soundtracks defined the 90's better than Hughes did for the 80's, although I wouldn't be the one to argue that.

I don't spend much time on ILM anymore, and rarely interact with people off the board these days, but I was shocked and horribly saddened by the sudden death of longtime poster Bimble (I won't print his real name here). He was a connaisseur of all things 80's, and was arguably the most excitable and enthusiastic poster ever to have graced the boards. His style could be overbearing sometimes, and I know that got on a lot of people's nerves. I never minded any of that though, I just laughed when I'd check ILM and discover that a drunken Bimble had revived seven different Chameleons threads at 3 AM. Even though I only knew him from the boards, but this is hitting me hard for some reason, probably because he was a guy straight out of my generation -- he was about the same age as me, he grew up listening to Joy Division, Cocteaus, etc. (and never grew out of those listening habits), and never got tired of posting about how his favourite music was SO BEAUTIFUL. He was the kind of guy with whom I would have been swapping cassette tapes in high school. I'll miss him very much, and send my condolences to his close friends and family.

Random stuff ...

As anyone who regularly reads this site would know, I'm not the sort of person who callously nitpicks reviews and reviewers, but:

1. Full disclosure: I haven't heard the new Fiery Furnaces album, and I don't consider myself a fan of the band.

2. It's fairly well known that the reviewer is a huge mark for Fiery Furnaces

3. Knowing #2, this website gave the reviewer a platform for fawning over one of his favourite bands. Now hang on a minute, I'm certainly not saying that critics shouldn't be assigned reviews by bands they like. Naturally, you'd expect that a band's fans would excel at describing what makes that band's music so great, and you'd also expect that a critic (who also happens to be a big fan) would excel at communicating this in a balanced and sober way without having the review come off as a piece of fan fiction. There are a million good reviews of this sort, for example, check out this review of Depeche Mode's most recent album. But there's nothing ressembling actual criticism in this FF piece, it's all "nakedly emotional" this and "brilliantly crafted" that, the boring old knee-jerk "this album doesn't sound like the band's past work ... it's because they made a progression" intro meme (Band Makes Progression From Their Last Album -- Film at 11 ... such hard-hitting, insightful music criticism), one OTT compliment after another, strained attempts to canonize the band's work through desparate comparisons to the best work of Bob Dylan and Elton John, and downright batshit claims such as "Eleanor's vocal cadences are as distinct and unmistakable as anyone in contemporary pop this side of Snoop Dogg and Lil' Wayne" (shielding the band's uber-indie scenester rep behind sacred contemporary chart icons -- "look you guys, don't hate on this album, I like rap music too!").

4. In light of #3, the album earns 7.8/10. People (rightfully) complain about readers paying too much attention to number/letter/star grades in music reviews, at the the expense of reading what the critic actually had to say about the album. Here, we have the reviewer going out of his way to say great things about the album, only to have a completely unremarkable 7.8 attached to it, which just reeks of the editorial stench of "some people might ridicule us if we give yet another good grade to yet another album of college kid indie wankery, especially considering to whom we assigned this review, and besides, we only bust out the 9.4's for up-and-coming bands because we might want to take credit for breaking those bands six months after the fact. Except that we certainly don't want people to think that we're hating on FF because that sort of band is our bread and butter, so let's compromise -- 7.8/10."

The story behind the "true" inventor of the iPod has been getting some play (hat tip to RA), and it's worth a read as long as you ignore certain gaps in the logic (e.g. Apple shielded themselves from a patent infringement suit by "admitting" that a third party (NOT Apple themselves) invented the iPod ... huh?) but you hardly expect the tabloid-y Daily Mail to legally and factually precise in a story such as this. Especially when the story claims that Kramer is one step away from the poor house but still makes a point of shilling his latest super-duper-gonna-change-the-fabric-of-the-universe invention. But hey, that 30-year old drawing (if real and not some sort of garbage-y fake) does look a heck of a lot like a real iPod ...

Read this interview with DJ Poontz, you'll thank me later. You might dismiss this as high school toilet humour that completely fails in its supposed purpose (i.e. to make you want to hear his music), and I wouldn't argue too strenuously against that viewpoint. But I'd rather read more interviews like these than any more theoretical eyesores like the lauded Kode 9 interview from the Wire, whose micro-detailed, analytical trip through the tiniest minutiae seems to just suck all the fun out of music making and music listening. (I have never understood the appeal of this sort of theoretical treatment, or why genres like dubstep and grime are magnets for that sort of thinking and writing).

Moritz von Oswald Trio, "Vertical Ascent", or "Why does he always have to sound like TV Victor these days?" Also: Juan and Luke!

This is another new release that simply isn't resonating with me ... I love the idea of three techno mavens picking up guitars and exotic percussion instruments and going all jazz/dub on us, but there's just nothing going on here, it's all style and atmosphere with none of the risk taking that makes for quality improvised music. I feel as though I'm supposed to be impressed and find myself lost in sound just because the album was mastered in an echo chamber or something.

Speaking of men, myths, and legends, I heard Juan Atkins spin this past weekend. After a bit of a wimpy patch at the start, he turned on the slamming Detroit goodness and just didn't stop. He hit the classics patch around 4:30 AM ("Strings of Life"/"No UFOs"/"I Feel Love"/some Basic Channel stuff) and I was completely worn out ...

On the same note, Planetary Assault Systems' "Temporary Suspension" is slamming my ass against the wall right now. This stuff is nearly indistinguishable from Luke Slater's mid-90's PAS work, and I love how he dabbles in e.g. electro-pop just for kicks ("I Can Complete You") but always finds a way to return to the PAS material, which simply never seems to age.

Musik In Berlin

Yeah, yeah, Berlin is changing all the time, but the biggest changes these days aren't with the buildings, but with the people. The city is jam packed with tourists -- I think there were even more tourists in the city this month than there were during the World Cup in 2006 -- and Berlin's newly mainstream appeal means everything in the city is a lot more expensive than it used to be. Beer prices are about a Euro more, on average, than three years ago, new CDs are consistently in the 15-20 Euro range, and I found fewer crazy good bargain bin deals at my usual stops (e.g. Dense, Neurotitan). Dense has moved from its old home on Danziger Strasse and is now on Petersburger Strasse, however, some things don't change -- you still have to look carefully to find it, because the name of the store only appears in faded lettering on one of the windows. It blends in with the surrounding shops and I walked right by it twice before finally noticing it. Just like old times. Even armed with an address, you still have to search for shops tucked away behind buildings and down creepy alleys.

After getting rejected from entry to Berghain, we moved on to plan B, which was Pan/Tone live at the new Tresor club (it's a couple of years old, but I've never been to the new location so it was new for me). I didn't think they could possibly replicate the feel of the old club in a new location, but they somehow did it. First off, ignore the huge brick monstrosity of a building that houses the club, just head inside. Upstairs, you'll find the half-dancefloor, half-bar section that houses the Globus floor. Now, this section can hardly be called edgy (particularly the bar section with its plain, student pub atmosphere), but that was always the case for the Globus section of the club. Downstairs, you have to pass through a long, dark, cold corridor with blank grey stone walls, and as you walk, the sense of fear and mystery grows as the thundering hard techno music grows louder and more ominous. The empty old wooden shells of safety deposit boxes have made the move from the old club, as have the steel grills and the merchandise alcove. For me, The music had too many elements of 1991-era hardcore/rave for me on this night, but the atmosphere was fantastic. The DJ's on the Globus floor were better, and Pan/Tone just killed it with his punishing live set.

On the weekend I was there, the parties were great but not "Berlin great". The best may have been the Vakant 5yr anniversary (Onur Ozer, Jeremy P. Caulfeld, many more), but none of us really wanted to trek out to Rechenzentrum so we didn't seriously consider going. OTOH, the schedule for the next weekend was just insane. On my weekend there were no real dream lineups, but the week after featured a handful of them, beginning with the various Red Bull Music Academy events (including a Moderat gig on the day I left Berlin ... damn), but the Friday party at Watergate was the stuff of legend, with various Perlon stars plus Villalobos, Baby Ford, and a live performance by Isolee. WHOA. It was a great week for concerts, and if I'd gotten my shit together I could have seen Leonard Cohen, NIN, Suzanne Vega, Nouvelle Vague, Ron Carter ... and didn't see any of them. We wanted to see La Roux, but it sold out. However, I did see a great performance of Jewish music in a charming, lovingly dilapidated ballroom that dates back to 1913, chilled until 6AM listening to techno on the riverside rafts of Club der Visionnaire, and finally saw "Berlin Calling" starring Paul Kalkbrenner. It's Berlin, you can't do everything, or even 0.00001% of everything.

A few random musical happenings in Bulgaria

1. Samael, Sepultura, Kreator, and Lordi all played in Sofia this year. Within a few weeks of each other. In wintertime, of course (did you really have to ask)? Dream Theater are playing in July. With metal, it's business as usual in Eastern Europe.

2. Everyone who wasn't singing along with the Czech folk songs in the Czech pub in Nessebar was grinning like an idiot.

3. Our conference boat trip was mostly soundtracked by classic early 90's Eurodance. Haddaway's "Life", people! Wow!

4. The couple who salsa danced to "Hotel California" in the Irish pub in Sofia.

5. In the same Irish pub, I had a premonition (sometime around the 4th U2 song played in the first hour after I arrived there) that they'd play Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U" and it would close the bar down, for all intents and purposes. And how about that, this is exactly what happened.

Michael Jackson RIP

I'm typing this in Nessebar, Bulgaria, participating in a bubble of science that exists within its own bubble in this beautiful little vacation spot where people go to bake on the beach, wander among centuries-old ruins, and generally feel cut off from the world. I suppose this is how they feel at Glastonbury (minus the occasional mud and rain), where everything happening out "there" is somehow not real, or is happening in some parallel universe. Nobody is talking about the death of the biggest pop star the world has ever seen, even though BBC news is on the TV in the hotel lobby. Nobody was paying attention to it.

I heard about Michael Jackson's cardiac arrest before I went to bed last night. So I knew what to expect when I woke up this morning, which certainly diminished the shock factor. All of this is simultaneously the most and least surprising celebrity death that I can remember. Surprising because his death was sudden, he was so young, and because most people (and this is one of the few times that "most people" can be stated literally, as in "most people in the world", without hyperbole) can't remember a time when Michael Jackson wasn't a phenomenon nearly on par with many major world religions. But it's also not surprising because he's been wasting away, very much in the public eye, for decades. There's the weirdo stuff we know about (the plastic surgeries, the air filters he and his kids wore in public), the stuff we don't (who knows what sort of pills and drugs he took over the years to cure his ailments both real and imagined), and it all sums up to a picture of a profoundly unhealthy man.

I honestly have no idea if Michael Jackson was a child molester or not (the courts say no), but no matter what bad stuff he was accused of, I always thought back to a comment made by his close friend Elizabeth Taylor. She claimed they had a lot in common and truly understood each other because they both knew what it was like to have never had a childhood. He didn't have what 99.9999% of people take completely for granted -- whether you were happy or miserable, whether you were beat up everyday or had everything handed to you, we all had the chance to grow up. I always felt sorry for Michael Jackson. It doesn't excuse anything he may or may not have done (or said), but I always tried to remember Elizabeth Taylor's comment and to understand him just a little bit better.

That's why I felt good about the way that his critical reputation has been rehabilitated over the past several years. During much of the 90's, it was hard to get away from "Michael Jackson, fading popstar and batshit personality" and to remember "Michael Jackson, superstar and creator of some of the finest pop music ever made". After he went into seclusion following his trial (of course, he moved to Bahrain, so this was not something accidental), the well of eccentric Michael Jackson stories dried up, and the only thing left was to talk about the music. Plus, a new generation of pop stars emerged (Britney, Justin, Usher) who grew up idolizing him, weren't afraid to show it (in their music, in interviews, and in their videos) and honestly didn't seem to give a crap about what kind of person he was. Their brains seemed permanently dialed in to the image of the man-child they watched on MTV and whose moves they imitated in their basements every day. Michael Jackson's music becoming cool again might be the best example you can find about art trumping life (att: Phil Spector), and although we might be conflicted about that as human beings, as music fans it's comforting to know that Michael Jackson's status as a creative genius and certifiable music legend will be forever safe.