Skip to main content

Follow the Heard, pt. I


The mis-classification, or rather the conglomeration of musical genres happens most readily at record mega stores and on what passes for MTV. It seems the act of naming a musical style has been wrested from the control of listeners, only to find its way to the content management systems of record label project managers. Duck and Cover will attempt, over the coming months, to find out whether we, as listeners, have lost control, whether we ever had it, and how the decentralization of the music business is good for everyone.



To begin with, when did emo become so incredibly, undeniably awful? Where is the transition between The Promise Ring and Good Charlotte? For that matter, who deemed Good Charlotte emo? We didn't. The t-shirted kids standing in the corner of the bar didn't. Furthermore, at what point did Country & Western demand concerts with pyrotechnics? How did we get from Merle Haggard to Randy Travis?



Anyone who pays attention to trends will easily spy the sneaky nature by which one's favourite unknown becomes Billboard's pick of the week. One day you're bopping along to Ultimate Fakebook while your kicks stick to the beery floor, and the next thing you know they're on a major with national tour dates. Your first reaction, understandably, is to feel betrayed. However, that quickly passes. You feel good for them. They made it. That's the point, right?



Except that their next album sounds different. A little predictable. You don't feel anything, so you put it back. Kids used to call it "selling out," but it's different from that. So often a compromise occurs when a band is told they can no longer write what the want; they have to write what sells. When musicians sign with a major record label, be it Sony or Merge, BMG or Warner, they so often sign away their integrity--they're no longer free to write when the muse moves them; they write when the producer demands it. And here is where music street veers sharply into the pop parking lot: a subdivided catch-all where bands stagnate, atrophy, and become Meatloaf.



Let us return to the emo example. During the mid to late 90s, bands like The Promise Ring, Sunny Day Real Estate, Rainer Maria, and Seam (to name but a few) were playing a sound as yet undefined. It isn't like they all sat down at Denny's and said, "Right. Let's make emo songs. What should we whine about?" They simply wrote songs they wanted to write. Style in music, as in the written and visual arts, often reacts with (or against) a preceding style. Usually these styles churn for years under the surface, bending and merging with mainstream genres. For instance, the influence of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds was noted, but rarely emulated. Hints of it creep in now and again with the likes of The Olivia Tremor Control, Beulah, and lately Sufjan Stevens, but it seems to be a sound that listeners aren't quite ready for. Yet currently, "emo" has been applied to an odd blend of post-punk pop . . . with eyeliner (Eyeliner? I guess they need it for all the posing for photo shoots). In these cases (Green Day, Good Charlotte, Sum 41), the label precedes the sound. It's as if the band stands up and declares first, "we are emo!" to a crowd that dutifully replies "okay! yes! we agree!"



"But Jamie," you may say, "this is how bands make money? They're making a living. You can't fault that." And you are right. They are earning their bread. This is how it's done. Or rather, this is how it WAS done. The Internet is a big place, and the old method of sign, print, sell is going the way of the dodo. New methods for distributing and selling music are but a mouse-click away.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Celebrate Halloween with Peter Squires's New Video, "Witch"

I don't usually do festive or holiday posts. In fact, the closest I get is writing some kind of seasonal bent against a track, and only then when I've had too much coffee and can't find any relation to a song other than what the weather is doing. I just think holiday-themed posts / articles are lazy. But Halloween is different. Why? Because Halloween, to paraphrase Wesley Willis, whips a horse's ass. So when Ryan from The Musebox put me on to Peter Squires a few days ago, I knew it was going into the annals of Duck & Cover (that's right, I said "annals" on the Internets). From the Press Release: Peter’s direct and honest vocal delivery is reminiscent of contemporaries such as Kimya Dawson and Luke Temple. The album is all heart, laid bare for our aural pleasure. Woe Is Me was recorded in Peter Squires’ Brooklyn bedroom and is available on his website for fans to download at no charge. The first video from the album is “Witch” and it was just rele...

Lucero Video for "Darken My Door"

Darken My Door from Lucero on Vimeo . It's good to see that a serious band doesn't have to take itself seriously. Even better when a band's fans don't take them too seriously. "Darken My Door" off of Lucero's latest album, 1372 Overton Park , is a song about losing stuff--girlfriend, money, dignity. In fact, a lot of Lucero's songs are like that, but I'm not getting into that now. I'm talking about the video, which has so much to love. Obviously, I love the fact director Alex Mecum has used a puppet as the protagonist. But it's what the puppet does that makes this video so much fun. Puppet eating chili dogs, puppet drinking whiskey, puppet giving blow jobs . . . Hell, there's even puppet vomit! It's ridiculous, yes, but also tragic. By the end of the video, if you don't feel a little sorry for the scruffy faced whore puppet, then you have no soul. Here's a little more about the videos for Lucero's new album: To promot...

Flight of the Conchords Are Tha Muthaflippin'

If you go to the official Flight of the Conchords website , you will see that it was about the time they started work on their HBO special that they stopped updating. However, you will also read that they don’t mind too much. In fact, they are very quick to point to other fan sites that are doing a much better job. This self deprecating humour is part of what makes the duo so endearing. For those who have not yet seen the programme, Bret McKenzie ( formerly of Wellington dub band The Black Seeds) plays the naïve Bret, who is a vertible emotional rollercoaster when compared to the dour-faced Jermaine (Jermaine Clement. See him in Eagle vs. Shark ). Together they look for gigs and . . . well that’s pretty much it: they look for gigs. But it’s enough. Just because the show’s premise isn’t robust, doesn’t mean the show falls flat. Hell, remember Seinfeld? That was a show supposedly about ‘nothing,’ and look how well it did. FOTC is at least about one thing, so it’s got that much more ...