Monday, January 31, 2005
More musicals please.
Or
I’m Not Even Gay!
Is it any coincidence that the decline in the popular song coincided with the rise of artists writing their own material? Probably, but let’s see where we can go with this. Take my hand, trust me, we’ll wing it together. The chimera, “authenticity”, has stifled creativity and ruined our quality control. We demand that our singers write their own words, that they speak from experience, that this somehow means more. That P. Diddy is privately educated and middle-class is frequently held against him. What difference does it make? Would his plodding flow be any sprightlier if we found out that he was the son of a crack whore? So now the popular end of music is full of boring singer songwriters and bands with nothing to say, their reliance on their own words is debilitating.
Lyrics were more interesting and the topics covered more varied when they were put into the mouths of characters* – a narrative can acquire a universal significance through its particularity. Middle-aged men and women could hide their disgusting ugliness and send their creations into the world to be interpreted by great stylists. We have song-writing teams now, of course, the Neptunes, those Scandinavian cats who pen tunes for Rachel Stevens, but we are missing a major outlet for creativity – the Musical. Most standards were written for Broadway shows, although many have outlived their original homes. "Can’t We Be Friends" is beautiful, although few remember "The Little Show" (1929). The use of mouthpieces meant that a much broader range of experience could be covered than the usual teenage concerns – lust, boredom, anger. "Always True To You In My Fashion" from Kiss Me Kate is a song for grown ups - Be My Baby, much as I love it, is not. Another example? “Why Can’t Be a Woman Be More Like a Man”, from My Fair Lady. On the surface, comic, but it says more about male attitudes to women than any number of Usher albums. If you don’t like this reading of it, then it can just as easily be interpreted as a demonstration of how a lack of empathy leads to confusion and annoyance – why can’t *you* be more like *me*, then everything would be fine. I may add more, I may bother finishing this post with less of a whimper. We’ll see. Also: On the Street Where You Live is a *tune*.
* This can probably be extended to Ziggy Stardust and much hip hop.
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Or
I’m Not Even Gay!
Is it any coincidence that the decline in the popular song coincided with the rise of artists writing their own material? Probably, but let’s see where we can go with this. Take my hand, trust me, we’ll wing it together. The chimera, “authenticity”, has stifled creativity and ruined our quality control. We demand that our singers write their own words, that they speak from experience, that this somehow means more. That P. Diddy is privately educated and middle-class is frequently held against him. What difference does it make? Would his plodding flow be any sprightlier if we found out that he was the son of a crack whore? So now the popular end of music is full of boring singer songwriters and bands with nothing to say, their reliance on their own words is debilitating.
Lyrics were more interesting and the topics covered more varied when they were put into the mouths of characters* – a narrative can acquire a universal significance through its particularity. Middle-aged men and women could hide their disgusting ugliness and send their creations into the world to be interpreted by great stylists. We have song-writing teams now, of course, the Neptunes, those Scandinavian cats who pen tunes for Rachel Stevens, but we are missing a major outlet for creativity – the Musical. Most standards were written for Broadway shows, although many have outlived their original homes. "Can’t We Be Friends" is beautiful, although few remember "The Little Show" (1929). The use of mouthpieces meant that a much broader range of experience could be covered than the usual teenage concerns – lust, boredom, anger. "Always True To You In My Fashion" from Kiss Me Kate is a song for grown ups - Be My Baby, much as I love it, is not. Another example? “Why Can’t Be a Woman Be More Like a Man”, from My Fair Lady. On the surface, comic, but it says more about male attitudes to women than any number of Usher albums. If you don’t like this reading of it, then it can just as easily be interpreted as a demonstration of how a lack of empathy leads to confusion and annoyance – why can’t *you* be more like *me*, then everything would be fine. I may add more, I may bother finishing this post with less of a whimper. We’ll see. Also: On the Street Where You Live is a *tune*.
* This can probably be extended to Ziggy Stardust and much hip hop.
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