A good week for music-related effluvia on the net. First, anyone with even a passing interest in popular music simply must read this witty, dead-on New York Times article from Sunday's Arts section. (Hurry, free viewings will expire in a week and a half.) It's about melismata, the singing phenomenon that, in its overuse, is destroying modern pop singing. This has been a pet theory of mine for years, and while other critics have shared my disdain for the tendency of modern singers to egotistically overemote, until now no one has pinpointed the problem as expertly as Brooklyn-based critic Jody Rosen does here.
My one criticism of Rosen's superb article is that she does not fully explore who is to blame for this phenomenon, though she does hint at it. The usual, and rightful, suspects, Whitney and Mariah, are repeatedly invoked, but to me Rosen hits it on the head in this brief aside: "Stevie Wonder impersonations gone terribly wrong." My long-held theory is that the line in the sand between the old Soul Era of Brother Ray and Queen Aretha and the modern Melismata Era is Stevie, whose '70s work is without peer but who unfortunately taught an entire generation to oversing. Wonder got away with it because his material was so good (until "I Just Called to Say I Love You," of course) and because he wrote it all, which allowed him to understand innately how his heavy-handed singing could serve the songs. But as wave after wave of modern pop and R&B singers invoke Wonder and Songs in the Key of Life as their models of great music, I have decided that Stevie was to singing what Sgt. Pepper was to albums: an innovator of great artistic merit and dubious artistic influence. Like Pepper, Stevie taught everyone who came afterward all the wrong lessons.
The second article I stumbled across this week that I had to share was this BBC piece, "Sesame Street breaks Iraqi POWs," which is definitely a spit-out-your-Froot-Loops headline. Basically, the word from Iraq is that U.S. interrogators are using repeated plays of the themes from Sesame Street and Barney and Friends, along with heavy-metal songs like Metallica's "Enter Sandman," to compel testimony from their captives. And Amnesty International has declared that this may qualify as Geneva-violating torture!
Rightfully, the debate is centering on the question of repetition and cultural interpretation, not the merits of the chosen songs, which are frankly all over the map. "Enter Sandman" is at this point a rock/metal classic, no matter how you feel about Metallica -- it's played at baseball games, fer chrissakes. But metal is poorly received not just by aging parents and classical fans, but also by certain non-American populations, for whom the sound of thundering rock is akin to punishment, both cruel and unusual. As for Barney's "I Love You, You Love Me," I doubt anyone would argue that even two plays of this song amount to anything less than torture. But Sesame Street? Obviously I'm biased, because my memories of that theme date to just after the womb, but it's a pretty happy-sounding song that could only resemble agony after endless repetition; that chunka-chunka melody, those high-pitched kids' vocals - sure, it's grating, but not at first listen. Even John Lennon's "Imagine" would sound like torture after several dozen replays. (More torturous would be the version of "Imagine" sung last night by American Idol's lovable but melismata-addicted Ruben Studdard. Sorry, I'm digressing back to article #1.)
Finally, The Onion offers a sly bit of pop-culture satire this week: "'90s Punk Decries Punks Of Today." This is one of those Onion bits that's not laugh-out-loud funny but gets the tone so wonderfully right. It manages to lampoon punk snobbery, generational arrogance and the KROQ Weenie Roast all in one go. Of course, I shouldn't talk -- I bought the bulk of my punk records...um, CDs in the mid-'90s, and I think Sum 41 are lame, too.
I think you are, sadly, spot on with ascribing the turn to Stevie, though I would without research suggest that all of the early 70s soul world contributed their share. Mem Day weekend I listened again to both Songs in the Key of Life and Hotter than July and would have to concur about Stevie Wonder overworking some tunes. Hard to admit, since he’s absolutely one of my top preferred singers, but I derive some consolation from knowing that it’s not his fault, like it’s not Raymond Chandler’s fault for all the bad private dick writing since his day. Or Miles Davis’s fault for Kenny G or Chuck Mangione. (I’m not implying that you think the contrary, just laying it out there.)
It’s always distressing living among popular poseurs and professional fakers (or professionally self-deluded over-earnest singers), though it is good to realize that Steveland Morris’s work will outlast them. His stuff gets covered by enough jazz artists that one WBGO DJ suggested that he might be the Gershwin of the lat 20th century. I’d love to see that analysis in some greater detail.
I have to take issue with you: I think that Onion article IS laugh-out-loud funny. I especially hee-hawed over Tolbert's quote, "That attitude (of current punks) is totally contrary to the whole inclusive spirit of what punk is all about."
The article's whole concept of aging punks frowning on young punks is totally hilarious. I'm forwarding it to a guy I know who'll also appreciate it.
I'm very reticient to riff on the "meaning" of punk - after all, to intellectualize it is to not get it, right? But there are two things I recall from my days on the punk fringe (no haircut, and barely hip on the clothes) in '80s S.F. and L.A.
1. Punk was totally non-inclusive in that anyone who wasn't punk was an enemy combatant. It was also totally inclusive in that if you could hold your own in the pit - and all I ever dug about punk was the music and the bruising pit - then you were one of them.
2. When I was moshing at the Mabuhay Gardens in S.F. or Raji's in L.A., I thought I was part of something brand spankin' new - until I discovered that punk in London was already like 15 years old!
Not to take the article seriously, but where Tolbert is "wrong" is in thinking any punk should give a rat's ass about the history of anything, much less punk. Isn't it about living the moment, unburdened by knowledge of history? I guess that's why the article's so funny. Thanks for posting it.
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Comment #3 :: link :: May 12, 2007 7:52 PM :: homepage
