When it comes to art, I am sexist. I am not necessarily proud of this fact- while I would never be confused as progressive, I don’t think anyone should revel in the fact they hate something sight unseen/ heard. If I were to list my favorite authors, a female would not come into the picture until at least the twenties, and that would probably be Ayn Rand, an author I more respect than genuinely enjoy. Even more embarrassingly, I can only think of one female film director I truly like, and that reverence was only discovered recently*. But nowhere is my awful, awful bigotry more obvious than in music. I would guess of the 10k +/- songs I have on my iPod, less than four hundred are sung by the fairer sex. Worse, in many instances the songs in this four percent sliver just happen to be sung by women- the bands are typically made of artistic looking young men with names like Titus Andronicus; the girls’ voice seem at best auxiliary and at worst expendable to what the bands themselves typically seem to represent**.
*This being Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow director of the mind-blowingly-awesome-yet-deemed-overrated-by-every-person-I-have-spoken-about-it-with Hurt Locker. I have since given Point Break the closer viewing it so obviously deserves and can honestly say I feel like a richer, or at least more celestially in-tune, person because of it.
** I realize this is a pretty meaningless exercise- to talk about what bands “mean” in context of their creator’s life, but I think anybody who has even given a half-interested listen to The Monitor concurs it is a male-created album if there ever was one.
I guess it isn’t really that surprising. Like most people that appreciate music way too much, most of it involves how songs can give one significant perspective on our most personal of moments. When people get emotional, this can get amusing- borderline-pathetic because people are hopeful that a song will somehow fit their situation, give them that nugget of knowledge that they lacked that made said emotion (particularly when this emotion is “depression”) relentless, but it rarely does. A good example is how Pink Floyd’s most popular wedding song* is “Comfortably Numb.” It is doubtlessly an iconic, beautiful tune, but also tells the tale of self-numbing artist ostracized by the public that adores him- I’ll let you insert your own “marriage sucks” joke here if you deem it necessary. But while I may not be classy enough** to request an AOR track on my day of matrimony, I completely relate to the desire to make music personal. This is why I think I listen to male-dominated music- its simply easier to relate on a personal level to a guy than a girl. Plus, and this is at a more knee-jerk level, I listen to more guys because women rarely, if ever, can articulate the X-Men level destruction they are capable of unloading unto a man’s heart; a serious issue as a majority of great rock music is inspired by and/or about that very topic.
*If I ever have the means to live life out as an eccentric who just did random acts of kindness I found enjoyable, I think I would be willing to pay for a wedding if the first dance was “Echoes,” the original uncut one from Meddle.
**yet
There are obviously exceptions. I think Aimee Mann and Fiona Apple are two of the best singer/songwriters of the last twenty years- but that’s because both of them are willing to address the second criteria I suggested in the prior paragraph. Lush was comprised half of women members, but I’ll round up and say they were a girl group because songs like “Ladykillers” and “Single Girl” are defined by a female perspective. I like all the Motown-era singers and other women of soul, but I can’t think of the last time I put a Supremes song on a jukebox. Nico* was a significant part to the Velvet Underground, but I was always more enamored with their later stuff that was Warhol-less anyway. The B-52s have some cool songs, but I’m not so quick to identify them as a girl-centric band, as their asexuality is indispensable to their quirkiness, which is in itself indispensable to the band’s success. The Donnas have a couple songs with ironic/unironic** Foreigner-like guitar blasts, but the Donnas are too, albeit unconventionally, formulaic for my post-urban musical tastes***. I would consider Elastica one of my favorite girl-fronted groups, and they only made one album- the awesome, shamelessly derivative Elastica****, about fifteen years ago.
*Interestingly, a girlfriend of mine once told me Nico was blind. While I would quickly find out that she wasn’t blind, just a statuesque blonde, I wasn’t surprised, but I found it odd that it just made perfect sense that she was blind- how does a blind person sound? Apparently like a woman who blows self-important “visionaries” in hotel elevators.
**Who even knows anymore?
***The Donnas’ equation for (very relative) success: focus on appeal of band to audience over sound of band itself. That means we went to appeal to rock fans by saying they are like the Runaways, to girls by not too subtly selling the vapid “Valley Girl” shtick that is sarcastic, and thus gives people an inflated sense of intelligence (a sure-fire way to appeal to a very encourageable chunk of the American population), pepper with a healthy dose of cynicism; try not to look so disappointed while serving.
****Sound familiar?:
Enter Chuck Klosterman. While the flaws in his writing can be glaring at times- his taste for tangents annoy some, his wordiness others, his theories, which he presents as profound but really are just discussions on topics nobody can possibly think about*, I still love reading his stuff. He shows a clear passion for writing, and I think he is willing to take argumentative risks without sounding like an the always inflated “devil’s advocate” advocate. In his latest collection of essays, Eating the Dinosaur, Klosterman characteristically contemplates many of rock’s cultural mechanics with trademark random comparisons and consistently funny anecdotes, including one of the best pieces of his career, “ABBA 1, World 0.”
*An example from his newest collection discusses football being sold as a conservative game while in strategic practice it is anything but. Most people like reading books about common life questions; Klosterman seems uninterested unless getting digging through a topic’s intestinal minutiae - Klosterman clearly shoots for what singularly interests him, but that what makes his arguments so damn fun to get wrapped up in
Amongst the many points on music and how modern audiences appreciate it, the essay suggests a phenomenon that I have always found interesting- the “rediscovered” artist. ABBA is one such artist; while culturally irrelevant in the late 80s/ early 90s, the group ability to maintain a solid fanbase* eventually paid out when international stars like the Scissor Sisters started citing the Swedes as influences (although they should have referred to them as “people we will steal from”). Techno music’s direct tie to the disco era only further solidifies ABBA’s relevance, and the band’s stamp on popular music will only continue to grow as music becomes more electronic.** Interestingly, the film Mamma Mia would become popular with the anti-contemporary-music crowd***, a testament to ABBA, and maybe pop music in general, having the ability to be everything to everybody.
*Oddly made up of gay- esp. British (esp. Australian)- men.
**Although this will eventually end up in a backlash- think about how a band like Prodigy, one of the most successful dance groups of all time, evaporated after the Strokes came along. I’m sure in a few years that we will be decrying Fat of the Land an overlooked masterwork of the 2nd millennium, until people get bored with electronic music again and pursuit a more “genuine”- a term so relative it is nearly irrelevant- document, such as This is It…. Authenticity->Experimentation->Authenticity.
***We were far too busy looking deep into the nature of our soul’s after seeing Heath Ledger’s Joker; the fact that both of these films came out on the same weekend and were both financially successful further proves what I have known all along: Girls: Meryl Streep :: Boys: Batman
Because people like myself perceive ourselves as “cool,” or at least “smart,”* when we consume art we try to cut through things we might perceive to be bullshit. For instance, we dislike things like Lady GaGa and Will Smith because we know they are essentially corporate constructions that are more entities than people, and thus their art automatically comes across as mechanic or at least inorganic**. That being said, sometimes it is almost impossible not to be in awe of some facts, even if they deal entirely with the popularity of a piece over its artistic merits. Consider these three facts about ABBA’s most recognizable song, “Dancing Queen.”
Three Incredible Facts About “Dancing Queen”
1. When asked in 2008 by Blender magazine to name his favorite song of all time, then-presidential hopeful John McCain named “Dancing Queen.” I imagine this probably stunned many of his constituents. I would have bet because of his years spent as a prisoner-of-war it would have either been something darker because he was so effected by the experience or something older because I would imagine that after you spend time in a POW camp with your arms in pieces you could really give a shit about pop music. Klosterman also speculatively reports in his book that Russian Overlord Putin had an ABBA cover band at his birthday party in 2008. The band crosses political divides.
2. According to Wikipedia, which is usually dead-on when it comes to statistical matters***, the song was the number one song in thirteen countries. It has charted in Australia and England on three separate occasions- 1976, 1992, and 2008- all sixteen years apart from one another. There is probably some obtuse, awesome Nordic-Art symmetrical phenomena to report on here, but I can’t back that up. Speaking of impressive figures, the band was offered a billion dollars to reunite in 1999 according to Klosterman. No band has come remotely close to making this amount over the course of a tour- the mastermind of the scheme must of had another motive in this - maybe a spiritual journey to make sure everybody sees the singy-songy melodies of the band.
3. The song was written for Queen Silvia of Sweden and played for her at her wedding reception to King Carl XVI Gustaf. This is fucking insane. ABBA was one of the best selling acts of the 1970s, and easily the best selling Swedish act of the 1970s. Fast forward thirty years and compare this to contemporary America, where Eminem was the highest selling artist of the 2000s. Can you imagine Michelle Obama asking Slim Shady to write a song for Michelle and Barack’s marriage had they not wed decades ago?**** But that’s not even really that accurate because even Obama isn’t royalty (no matter how he is treated by some media outlets). I guess the British equivalent is more feasible- Prince William getting married while Chris Martin of Coldplay sings some harmless song about trade embargos or another topic on which musicians are clearly qualified to opine.
*Only nerds like myself would suggest that these are synonyms
**The contradictory thing here is that many music and films that people like me seek try to establish this aesthetic- see Kraftwerk, David Lynch
***I concede that if I were getting this published somewhere I would have to find a more reputable source, but this is a blog, and half the stuff I think and all the shit I say is just made-up anyway
**** Barack would clearly want someone a little less provocative, like Lil' Wayne, Jay-Z, or the other musicians he name-drops, to perform.
And “Dancing Queen” isn’t even the song I’m comparing. That would be “S.O.S.,” and while it may not garner the instant response of ABBA’s trademark song, its pop sensibilities may even be sharper. Plus, it too has a couple interesting side facts. First, the Sex Pistols- yes, the band most people would consider about as anti-ABBA as a group of musicians could be- essentially stole the riff for their “Pretty Vacant.” A more esteemed accolade is the fact that both Pete Townshend and John Lennon specifically listed it as one of their favorite pop songs. Love or hate classic rock, it still amazes that two of the most recognizable musicians of the last fifty years both respect what appears at first to be such an innocuous ditty.
Because this blog is based on comparing things*, I decided an interesting argument would be to compare “S.O.S.” to another female-centric song that has three letters, School of Seven Bells’ “I L U.” While the School of Seven Bells will probably never be asked to write a song for whatever Chinese dictator we will be saluting in twenty years, their first two albums show, and occasionally deliver upon, great promise. In a current pop-landscape where it seems everybody’s favorite new band is delivering this Passion Pit/ MGMT bleep-bloop-blap with spacey lyrics, School of Seven Bells escape mere mimicry by seeming somewhat…. and I hate to say it…. genuine [GASP] with their music. “I L U” from their recent Disconnected to Desire is an excellent example of this.
*Even though it’s obvious this article was supposed to be mostly about ABBA.
So now I’ve painted myself into a corner. On one side, we have a very genuine pop song written about lost love written almost forty years ago. On the other, we have a very genuine electrockica* song, also about lost love, although I am only 73 percent sure of that as the lyrics, as gorgeous sounding as they are, are difficult to construe because of their placement in the mix. I think they are both touching songs, but one I feel like you dance to when you’re hammered and want to show girls** how “fun” you can be, while the other seems like background music for pondering after you just got dumped, took your last whippit, or wondering whatever happened to that weirdo from seventh grade***.
Like most of ABBA’s music, “S.O.S.” begs interaction. “Oh when you’re near me/ Darling can’t you see me/ S.O.S.” is a chorus that begs participation; the building percussion and electric guitar combo perfectly wraps up the chorus that is as infectious as anything in pop music. It is far more difficult to imagine how people will react to “I L U.” While the tune certainly has a somber tone, the light beat and repetitive yet thoughtful guitar brushes keep it from an agonizing self-pity party, the thing that quickly makes music like this a Bargain Bin item. While this mopery**** does poke its sad little head up near the end of the song, it does so late enough in the recording not to spoil the rest of the song. And there lies the difference; while it could be argued that “I L U” is a better song for my rock-nerd ear, the fact that it has any deletable fat whatsoever makes it lose to “S.O.S,” one of the most direct and efficient pop songs I have ever heard.
*A term I made up and thought was very clever until I actually thought about it.
**Or gay Australian men
***He writes this blog
****Really mean “moping,” but always looking for an excuse to show this:
No comments:
Post a Comment