The New Boring. Or, Rock Is Dead Pt. 411

A recent Billboard magazine has “Rock Is Dead” as it’s front cover headline. There’s a part of me – the part who saw The Clash LIVE – who agrees with this. But maybe Rock’s just changed, like everything else in our post-postmodern world. It’s rock, Jim, but not as we know it.
Some speak of The New Boring. Music sales are down and record companies don’t like risk. They want safe, reliable and, well, boring. They love Adeles and Coldplays: nice tunes for uncertain times. Coldplay apparently accounted for about 50% of EMI’s sales last year. That’s a big cash cow and EMI don’t want to frighten the horses. Mylo Xyloto: only the title was weird or different or challenging, not the content. Adele’s shifted plenty units too but, without wishing to appear rude, it’s hardly reinvented the wheel. Even oh-so-edgy Amy Winehouse didn’t exactly push the envelope
The mainstream has always been a bit boring. Englebert Humperdinck had the biggest hit of 1967, not the Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Who etc. You know, the good stuff. The silent majority has always liked it’s fluff. Here’s the Hump…

The modern equivalent might be your average X-Factor dross. The triumph of marketing over content. The question today is the same as it’s always been then. If record companies want to play it safe then what competes with The Boring? What makes a difference and adds to the equation today? All the forms are known. The template for “classic” Rock was set over 40 years ago: bass, guitar, drum. All we’ve done over the years is add more bells and whistles. An empty box of tricks.
It’s hard to compete with a past that includes Elvis, Beatles, Rolling Stones – who weren’t destroyed in 1977 as prophecised…

Rock gets scared every now and then by a Strokes, White Stripes or Libertines. What those bands have in common is that they developed under the radar and built up a community, either by playing live or using the MySpaces of this world. This is the stuff of Rock Dreams, like a Beatles at The Cavern or Stones at the Crawdaddy Club. It’s hard to grow outside the Meejah bubble now. We’re so uber-connected, plugged-in and webbed-up that most things seem to get co-opted, chewed up and spat out, faster and faster…

Bands don’t get a chance to develop and grow. I think that’s why all those Stone Roses reunion gigs sold out in record time. They were part of a scene. A secret, special moment, when Rave culture was still underground with a new drug, look, music. That doesn’t happen anymore.

Rock, film, TV and all the other Arts are still finding their way in the Twenty First Century. Technology will lead us down more and more untrodden paths. For example, David Hockney’s new show has canvases created using the “Brush” app on his iPad. Music has an immediacy that makes it connect differently with an audience, which is why live music is still popular. And people will always want to the chase the new, to be entertained by novelty. Florence & The Machine? It’s basically Kate Bush with modern production techniques. The wish to connect is still there though. People want the communal experience.
So, who’s gonna save us from The New Boring? That’s the fun bit. Hearing a tune that makes you stop and go “Yeah!”. Or just tap your toe. Or at least raise a quizzical ear. Scanning the racks and leafing the press, here’s some that seem to be getting ver Kidz excited this year. Me? Sadly, I saw The Clash and that’s my yardstick. The bar was set high…

Viva Zappa!

This week I saw Dweezil Zappa, son of Frank, play Frank’s music. Un-feckin-believable. It’s been so long since I heard music that worked on all levels. It’s “clever”, sure, but has heart, soul and humour too.

So, my mission today is spread the word. Dweezil and his band played the whole of Zappa Sr’s “Apostrophe” album. This was Zappa’s biggest “commercial” hit and, as Dweezil said, is as good a place as any to start. 

Zappa died age 53 in 1993 of prostrate cancer. He released umpteen albums over his career and pretty much recorded everything he ever played in his studio. He had his own studio from the Sixties onwards so that he didn’t have to rely on a record company. He is the ultimate Outsider Artist, doing it his way and not eating shit.

A lot of his work has a vicious streak of satire and counter-culture humour shot through it, (though he hated drugs, except his beloved ciggies). He’s nobody’s fool. Here he is addressing the Senate about censorship ( gets going about 4 minutes in).

The music is varied ranging from spot-on spoofs of other people to jazz to doo-wop to freak out to rock to pop to, well, everything really. He’s a product of the country that spawned him: the melting pot with all its myriad cultural nuances, influences and music. He reminds me of something like Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”. A completely American thing: it couldn’t have been created anywhere else but still has universal appeal.

Here are a couple of things that formed his world view: stuff that he grew up listening to with his old school friend, Captain Beefheart… 

From dirty rocknroll to modern classical from 1931… 

There’s a mountain of Zappa on Youtube ranging from goofy stuff like ‘Joe’s Garage” to the orchestral “Peaches en Regalia”. Dive in and immerse yourself…. 

Frank sure could shred axe. His music will grow in stature. Unlike U2…

Real talent.

Hey Puppies! Hope 2011 has been rockin’ so far. This is my first post for a while after Crimbo, New Year, Man Flu etc.

Today’s lesson/rant is The Real, The Authentic, Soul Connection. That sounds a bit abstruse and worthy but here goes…

Recently I saw Richard Thompson. A fine guitarist and the man that made Fairport Convention great. He’s folky, tinged with rock. Indeed he does a version of “Hey Joe” in the style of Hendrix. I went with the wife, who likes his melancholy acoustic stuff, but this set was balls out electric. My wife doesn’t usually like my “noisy” stuff at home but, in the live setting, Thompson worked his axe beautifully and she “got” it. “Phenomenal” she said. Here’s some “folkie” Richard>

Thompson has his own voice. Literally, with his singing, and with his guitar style. People go on about Clapton but I find him too academic and muso. A fact reconfirmed to me when I caught 5 minutes of Eric and Stevie Winwood live at Madison Square Garden on TV recently. FFS! Turgid.

In recent years I’ve been going back through my record collection. It struck me that I hadn’t heard a voice in years that really grabbed me, that “spoke”. The stuff that comes out of the Brit Academy or X Factor just leaves me cold. Cynical manipulation. Where’s the love? So, just for shits and giggles, here are some great voices. I’m not going for your Elvises, Beatles or Jaggers here. Rather, voices that aren’t everyday hits but have charm, warmth, feeling GODAMMIT!

First up, Howling Wolf. When you see and hear this guy you know he ain’t fooling. Check out his song “Spoonful” too and for comparison, if you can stand it, hear Clapton’s Cream absolutely sodomise it.

 

This lady had her own documentary on BBC4 recently. Watch it. Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Testify!

Elvis fans will know the name Junior Parker. He wrote Mystery Train which Elvis covered for Sun Records. His voice is liquid honey: it oozes, free and easy.

To show off his voice even more, check this. The Beatles never sounded better. Word!

There are dozens more I could pick – Little Walter; Muddy Waters; Chuck Berry; Bo Diddley; Johnny Guitar Watson – and you’ve probably worked out I’m getting into my Blues. My own prediction is that the Blues is due another revival soon – an antidote to Cowell and all that plastic shite out there.

Here’s a voice on the mellower tip. Singer-songwriter is a description that conjours up images of James Blunt and the like. When it’s done right…
To round things out, let’s link back to Richard Thompson and the voice of Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny. When I hear a voice like hers I wonder how things like Cheryl Cole exist…

And if you’ve never heard it, buy “Leige & Leif”. Here’s Sandy again…

(Couldn’t embed this one but follow the link. My favourite song from this guy… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8y3aUgDY6c )

Name That Tune.

It’s been going on for years. Using Pop and Rock classics to sell stuff. From Nick Kamen stripping down to “Heard It Through The Grapevine” for Levi’s in the ‘80s to the Stones’ “Satisfaction” flogging Marathon, sorry, Snickers, or The Fall’s “Touch Sensitive” shifting Vauxhalls. Once upon a time these things were unthinkable but now they’re the norm.

ITV used the Stones’ “Shine A Light” for a drama promo during the summer. This tune is from their opus “Exile On Man Street” and was never one of the band’s Big Hits. The album’s recent re-release, and the live film of the same name, seem to have made it hip. The promo works, mainly because the song‘s lyric propels the story. There’s a part of me, who’s loved this album for over 3 decades, that is part-proud of my good taste for all those years, ahem, and Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells. How dare they sully a cool choon with something as crass and banal as a TV promo! ITV3 also has a cover version of Lennon’s “Imagine” in a promo. Not as effective.

Ditto the use of The Who’s “My Generation” on a new BBC promo for “The Old Guys”. OK, demographically it’s probably spot-on, but, really, is this all that Rock is now? Our personal Life Soundtrack used to flog us product? Music, that’s part of The Collective Mind and Culture, used as a short cut to our cortex? Quick! We’ve only got 30 seconds to ram our idea home!! Stun them with the warm glow of recognition, nostalgia. Short cut to their soft spot! Set Soundboard Faders on stun!

Sometimes the strategy works, if only because of the scale of the promo. The new BBC2 School’s Season promo uses Bowie’s “Space Oddity” in a concept piece with high production values, (done by an agency for big wonga which, as we all know, is cheating).

Other times it’s just annoying.  Master Card using Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out”. Stereo MCs on a Halifax advert, using oh-so-cleverly the “yeah, yeah, yeah” refrain. Snore. Pick your example. On one level it’s a sign of the times. Mick Jagger’s 20 years older than our Prime Minister. Rock has Heritage Acts now: bands as brands. Reformations are the norm. Rock music is just… there.

I blame the Beeb’s “Perfect Day” too. This was pretty much an underground “classic” before they used it and I was almost happy for Lou Reed. Artistic recognition and a big, fat, payday. Only Aunty could have pulled it off. The fact the original song was about heroin seems to have been lost in the Mists of Marketing. Rock’s back pages now provide fresh meat for the machine.

Bowie said in 2000 that the Web means we can now turn music on like water from a tap. Your entire personal record collection can sit in an iPod with gigabytes to spare. Record companies now have departments that try and place music in hit shows. That’s why you get some modern, bed-wetting, Indie tune for the emotional end to a show like “Holby City”.

If you make promos for a company that has a blanket agreement then, why not? It’s hard when all you can use is Audionetworks, (no offence). I worked at Five for years and a friend in Scotland could always tell one of my promos. In my time I managed to slip in choice cuts from my personal collection. Stooges, MC5, The Sonics, Television, The Cramps, all sorts. Highlight? “Liar” by the Sex Pistols for a documentary about Jeffrey Archer. Happy days.

OK, that maybe makes me a hypocrite but my biggest objection is the “fit”. If the song lifts the work above the every day and really helps tell-the-tale then, fine. Too much stuff is just so-so though. Lazy. Before you rape another classic, stop and think. There are still some people who will be more turned off by your “clever” use of their fave track than captivated by it.