John Gay, "The Beggar's Opera", realized by Benjamin Britten

Fourteen years after the last post in the series, finally, it's the ninth in a series of albums that I haven't heard in over twenty years, since the start of this blog in January 2020.  

I had read the text of the play but I knew that the phenomenon that was "The Beggar's Opera" is somewhat lost without the music to accompany the words, so I bought these discs to experience it in full.  I had the slightest clue about who Britten was, his importance to post-WWII British music, or his reputation as an opera composer.  I bought the only version of the piece that I could find.  

To tell the truth, I hadn't cared much for the play.  Compared to the Restoration comedies that I loved from the previous generation of British writers, the text is lacking in wit, the characters are simplistic, the plot is drearily straightforward and bereft of true twists and surprises, with a clumsy deus ex machina ending that confuses and frustrates rather than providing a cause for celebration. If I had heard a musical arrangement that was close in spirit to the light, baroque airs that the original text stipulates, perhaps I could have gained more of an appreciation for the work.  Britten's realization is none of those things.  I was looking to flip my opinion of "The Beggar's Opera", and Britten was just about the worst possible composer to help me along.  

The music is characteristically Britten.  The orchestra is rather small (just fourteen players credited) but rich with unusual sonorities, and upfront and jarring percussion.  The overall effect is one of a much larger ensemble, as such, the musical arrangements take on more of a starring role than in the more "literal" adaptations.  A key element of "The Beggar's Opera" was its satirical interpretation of early 18th century Italian opera.  With larger than life divas supplanted by lowly thieves and miscreants, and the high drama of opera composition replaced by innocent English ballads that Gay's audience would have been completely familiar with, the irony in the presentation would have been impossible to ignore.   Britten's re-interpretation removes those chaste, innocent qualities from the music and presents something far more sinister.  One cannot forget for a moment that these are low-lifes singing along to a soundtrack meant for thieves.   Many musical phrases have uncomfortable resolutions, and unflinchingly displeasing conclusions.  

The pacing of the opera is still not much to my taste.  The vacillation between text and brief musical airs is dizzying.  What passes for action in the text is given little room to develop or breath through such short snippets of dialogue, and the same can be said for the short ballad airs (fifty five of them in all).  But Britten is a composer whose work rewards repeat listens, the music is dense and fascinating.   

Professor of Rock: Top Ten from February 7, 1984

If you were a music fan in the 80's, there's something for you on Professor of Rock's (Adam Reader) channel.   His  unapologetic championing of the era's music is admirable, albeit repetitive.  If never watched another music related channel, you'd think that no good music was made after 1987 or so.  You have to admire someone so devoted to his craft, even though his concept of "classic" music is so narrow in time and scope.     

One of the recurring segments on his channel is a countdown of the top ten songs in the US on that date in music history.  He also "re-ranks" the top ten in terms of total streams/views since they were released, to come up with a revised chart that reflects those song's long term impact. I'm not certain of his methods (streams and views on which platform?   During which years?  And if the goal is to gauge impact why don't sales count for anything?) but it makes for interesting debate material.  

Recently, he covered the top ten from 39 years ago, the week of February 7, 1984.  This is right up my alley.  He claims that 1984 was the best ever year for music, and he may well be right.  This was the first year that I followed the pop charts religiously, each week, for an entire calendar year.  Looking over Billboard's list of the Top 100 Singles of 1984, I know nearly every one of those one hundred songs with the possible exception of two or three, and can sing or hum excerpts from each of them from memory from the place I'm sitting in now.  It was a formative time in my beginnings as a music fan, so of course my memories will be hopelessly subjective, but that's OK.  Some people claim that the best music ever made is the music you listened to when you were sixteen.  That age might vary by a few years depending on who is making the claim, but I can't recall the number going as young as ten.  The rational, I believe, is that high schoolers rely on music to shape their identity and personality, but once you hit your 20's and have matured into your (mostly) fully formed adult self, music as a consequence starts losing its ability to make a lasting impression.   

There's a good argument to be made there, but my experiences fall well outside those parameters.  In 1984, I followed the charts like they were sports.  I clipped the CHUM charts from the newspaper each week as if they were the boxscores of games, I made a point of studying them and memorizing them, knowing the stats behind the songs (how many weeks at #1, in the top ten, etc.).  I wrote about this at some length in a post from over twenty years ago.  I had no money to buy records or tapes, the nearest music shop was a twenty minute walk from our house (too far for me to venture on my own).  We didn't get MTV in Canada, and in February 1984, Much Music was about six months away from its initial launch.  I learned the music by listening to the radio constantly, devouring nightly broadcasts and especially the countdown shows.  I knew the top 40 each week but that's all I knew at the time.  There was no "alternative", no niche genres to discover, but it was nevertheless my first attempt at a musical identity that was independent of the music my parents owned and listened to.  And that's how a ten year old became more deeply versed in the minutiae of the pop charts than at any point in my life since.   

Here is that top ten from thirty nine years ago: 

10.  Elton John, "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues"  

9.  Christopher Cross, "Think of Laura"

8.  John Cougar Mellencamp, "Pink Houses"

7.  Lionel Richie, "Running With the Night"

6.  Genesis, "That's All"

5.  Van Halen, "Jump"

4.  Yes, "Owner of a Lonely Heart"

3.  The Romantics, "Talking In Your Sleep"

2.  Kool and the Gang, "Joanna"

1.  Culture Club, "Karma Chameleon"

It's the fifth year of the decade, and the top ten is dominated by ... notable acts of the 70's, in various stages of adjusting to the challenges of being pop stars at the dawn of the music video era.  We have prog rock bands figuring out how to write four minute manifestos for mainstream radio (Yes, Genesis), and 70's megastars reinventing themselves for a newer, younger audience that might not have known their earlier hits (Elton John, Kool and the Gang, Van Halen, Lionel Richie).  Regarding that latter point, "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" was my first memory of Elton John as a contemporary pop star, "I'm Still Standing" was my favourite song of his (mainly thanks to its memorable video), and I didn't become familiar with his 70's megastardom hits until years later.  Similarly, "Jump", "Joanna", and "Owner of a Lonely Heart" were my introduction to each of those acts.

These days, I think The Romantics are remembered for the sound of their debut album, but "Talking In Your Sleep" was their most successful song by far. Christopher Cross debuted in 79 and was a force at the top of the charts in the early 80's, but his music was a holdover from the mellower FM soft rock of the 70's.  John Cougar Mellencamp also began his career in the 70's and found considerable success in the 80's, but his brand of heartland rock isn't characteristic of that decade.  More than any other song on this list, "Pink Houses" could have been released as-is and found a willing audience in just about any decade since the 70's. That leaves us with just one absolutely no doubt quintessential unmistakably 80's act -- Culture Club.  It should come as no surprise that they are #1 on the revised chart too unsurprisingly the retroactive #1 too (from least to most streams/views: Lionel Richie, Christopher Cross, Kool and the Gang, Mellencamp, Genesis, Romantics, Elton John, Yes, Van Halen, Culture Club).   

Where were all the 80's giants?  Michael Jackson was between "Thriller" singles.  Hits from albums by Duran Duran and Cyndi Lauper were several weeks away from peaking.  Tina Turner's triumphant comeback was a few months away.  Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, and Prince would release decade defining albums only later in the year.  With these unusual set of circumstances, the odds and sods 70's continuation acts were able to sneak in and take over the top of the pop charts.    

"Suede: The Insatiable Ones", dir. Mike Christie

This was a bit of a letdown after reading/enduring the raw outpouring of emotion in Brett Anderson's two books.  However, it does communicate the notions of fun and contentment that Brett's writing mostly lacks.  As a lighter look at Suede and their many accomplishments, one could certainly do worse.  And the documentary ends on a high note, with their 2010 reunion show at the RAH and subsequent return to recording and touring.  

Simon Gilbert's handheld camera archive is the drawing card of the documentary, but most of what we see are fast cut camera edits, with no sense of time and place and action.  They're really just a collection of random band photos spanning the first decade or so of Suede's existence.  If you're hoping for a fly on the wall, "Don't Look Back" type of capture of the times, it's not here.

I enjoyed the scenes where Brett tours around the neighbourhoods where he grew up and where he lived in London as an adult.  This provides air and colour to the sepia scenes that he describes in his books.  Justine Frischmann appears on camera and has nothing but good things to say about her time in Suede, she comes across as the wise insider turned outside, the voice of truth in nearly all her scenes.  Neil Codling speaks poignantly about his illness in the late 90's and early 00's, and the pain in his eyes is nearly unbearable as he describes the permanent changes in his personality even after "recovering", clearly the trauma of those years has never really gone away.       

Brett Anderson, "Afternoons With the Blinds Drawn"

This is the follow-up autobiography to Anderson's "Coal Black Mornings", which I read over three years ago.  Anderson is upfront about his intentions with the book from the opening pages.  He doesn't want to recount the post-1992 Suede narrative that fans already lived through and know quite well.  Instead, the book functions as an extended therapy session/confessional episode for Anderson, an opportunity to examine the past by applying the knowledge and self-awareness he has gained since those heady days.  As a result, "Afternoons" is a bleak, almost depressing read compared with with "Coal Black Mornings".  The first volume was full of dense, flowery writing about unusual minutiae, but by the end there was a palpable sense of excitement and anticipation for what was to come.  Reading the book made me appreciate the unconventional journey that led to Suede's well-earned success.  But there is very little joy in "Afternoons".  Being in Suede comes across as a grueling ordeal (albeit a rewarding one that produced some of the finest music of the 90's), full of near-disastrous mistakes and countless regrets.  

I think it's important for Suede fans to read this, because there's a certain brand of honesty that is rare in music bios.  For instance, he's extremely frank about criticizing his own music, and isn't shy about flat out staying that certain songs (and even albums) were horrible and should have never been released.  Anderson owns up to his poor treatment of friends and bandmates, and goes into thoroughly unglamorous detail about his years of drug addiction.  There's virtually nothing along the lines of amusing road stories, name-dropping, or interactions with other bands or music industry types beyond that of his inner circle.  His bandmates of over thirty years, Mat Osman and Simon Gilbert, are nearly invisible in his story.  I found myself agreeing with his perspectives on the 90's more often than not.  "Coming Up" is presented as his proudest achievement because the hype machine had already chewed up Suede and left them in the trashbin.  "Coming Up" was their most commercially successful album, but if you weren't there at the time, you might view it as an inevitability considering the still ongoing quality of music being made by the post-1996 lineup of the band.  Make no mistake, many people thought Suede were done as a creative force once Bernard Butler left.  Brett gets it exactly right in his retelling.  

One surprise in the book is his repeated laments about Suede's choice of b-sides, in many instances he claims that they erred in relegating great songs to the b-sides of singles instead of saving them for inclusion on an album.  But every fan I knew considered those b-sides to be a profound superpower that was unique to Suede.  I still believe that "Sci-Fi Lullabies" is the best Suede album.  In North America, the b-side was a complete afterthought, particularly since singles released six months or year in advance of an album was rare.  Why care about the b-side if there is an entire album of great music there to enjoy and process?  In Britain, many bands would build anticipation for an eventual album release via a succession of singles.  With fans being hungry for new material, the b-sides were expected to be stronger and worthy of repeated listening.  Suede were the masters of this, you couldn't possibly retell the band's history without including those songs, and as such, every true fan was intimately familiar with them.  

This is a good place to clarify some comments I made about Suede when they first reunited in 2010.  These lines in particular stand out: "Suede were a number of things, but risk-takers they were not.  They never strayed too far from a safe, signature sound".  That was unreasonably harsh on my part.  At the time, I had my doubts about their reunion, but after four albums of solid and far better than anyone could have expected material, their "signature sound" has proved to be more resilient than that of any rock band of their era.  Second, Suede weren't risk-takers in the sense that their key influences were fairly obvious -- Bowie, the glitz and androgyny of 70's glam, the windswept glamour of Echo and the Bunnymen.  But they were risk-takers by being profoundly unique compared to anything else happening in British indie music at the time.  The indie bands of the early 90's were a collection of sad sack C86 hangers on, Smiths wannabes, and Madchester dropouts, most of whom have been completely forgotten about today.  Shoegaze was underappreciated but was (and still isn't) the type of music to light a fire under the charts.  American grunge bands were the rage, and countless twee British acts were blown away into irrelevance as a result.  Suede cut through the boredom like a lightning bolt, there was nobody even remotely like them, the music seemed to get better with each classic single release and their potential seemed limitless.  

As a companion to this review, I plan to watch the band documentary "The Insatiable Ones" as soon as I can.