On today's pop music being sustainable for future generations. By Matthew Dallman On his personal blog, my colleague Bill Harryman posted about the Q Magazine list of best pop songs of the last 20 years. For whatever it is worth, Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" ranked first. Even a couple songs from 2006 made the list, which may surprise some. Lists such as this change with the weather (more precisely, these are our cultural weather), so rather than comment on particular songs, I'd rather comment more generally, in the vein of thoughts I recently expressed about how we think about folk music, which you can here. Here's the nutshell: folk music is that music which is anonymous to a culture (or could easily be so), and is that music enjoyed without objection or second thought by most people. Thus pop songs are clearly candidates to be considered "folk music". But there's more to say, of course. Q Magazine's list begs the question, will these songs still be as highly regarded 50 or even 100 years from now? One way we might surmise such a thing, not to mention sort through our favorite songs ourselves and decide upon what is truly great, would be to consider whether it is the personality of the performer we really like (his or her image, reputation, outlandishness, etc.) or whether it is truly the song itself. Recently, the jazz group The Bad Plus recorded their own version of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (watch it here). Perhaps their version works, or perhaps it doesn't. But it leads to an interesting test for durability and timelessness, one one immediately self-evident to people who don't spend their days looking at scores and sheet music, as I do. What I'm proposing is, in order to gauge a song's "iconicity", so to speak, we ask whether the song can be performed by average, everyday people with but their guitar (or piano) and their voice. Is the song still good in simple arrangement? Does something of resonance survive the stripping away of the personality of the original artist? Not a pretending that the song wasn't composed by a very interesting person (since most good music is, no matter the kind). Rather, does the song hold up by its own internal merits, after, like you would tree sap to make maple syrup, boil it down to the raw essentials of lyrics, melody, chords? After all, we don't need to know a single thing about the tree where the syrup came from to enjoy our pancakes. Why must things be different with our everyday songs? The simple arrangement of voice and guitar is different, of course, than what The Bad Plus showed us; their's is a well-trained jazz sensibility, and their version of Nirvana's song is harmonically sophisticated. Nor am I suggesting this is the only test of greatness, or one applicable outside of the relatively bounded category of "songs". For to reduce, say, Bach's cello suites simply won't work. (Reason being is that part of sophisticated composing at its highest levels is, in fact, to reduce the motifs of the work to bare essentials first, to sculpt until nothing more can be removed, and paradoxically, its true strength is revealed, and then ornamented according to the composer's tastes). In other words, great compositions have already been reduced, further than what I'm proposing for pop stuff. But I am suggesting that this test, beyond being a passing curiousity or fodder for sheet music publishers, is one rooted in the notion of sustainability. This largely ecological term I've written previously about (for example, see here), and I've done so because I think the artists can benefit from considering not this generation, but future generations; and critics can benefit from thinking not only of present aesthetic concerns, but those timeless concerns as well, which will (if the past is any guide) be important to people 50, 100, 500 years down the line. All of which painfully, but not entirely falsely, might be expressed by simply, "can I sing it?" Because the basic fact is that good art lasts, inevitably, the question of "what will be iconic?" or more generally, "what will be great?" leads towards questions of sustainability, in terms of what future generations of art lovers, and artists, have to work with, and have to influence them, as well as how lively and energetic a culture's art awareness is, and how able artists then are to learn from us, today, in the right now (I know, I know, perish the thought! you say). No one ought need reminding that songs traditionally last because people sing them. Are we to be so sure that because us peeps today have fancy recording thing-a-majiggers, the timeless test of a song's singability is now rendered archaic? But it is not only about being sung, but also being learned from. Particular to music, are future musicians and composers going to regard music as "great" that they can only listen to, but never perform themselves, with their own bodies, motor skills, and sensibilities, because (as it the case with, for example, electronica, and any highly-produced/sonically-contoured pop song) it is literally impossible, because most of the "song" is synthesized blips, boops, and bops, and the melody is too weak to stand by itself. One is left sampling part or all of a song of someone else's, such as how countless hip-hoppers sampled James Brown, never learning how to do themselves what he did, night in, night out. But what about symphonies, you ask? Aren't those impossible for any one person, no matter how many limbs they use, to ever realize? True; but there is still a score, a reflection fixed on paper, even abstractly, for the motivated learner to follow if he or she wants to, in order to trace the footsteps of the masters, to learn how to make such a monumental creation, to model their work upon, or even to copy. The score reflects, you see, not the actual song, but the template for the song, which allows many interpretations. This is a score's virtue. And I'm saying that by putting pop songs of today to the test I propose, what you would be doing is making a simple score of the song, with a melody, chords, and the words on the staff. All of which is to ask of today's songs — can its arrangement be distilled, yet still pop? There is the issue that some people regard today's studio producers as actual composers, which is an interesting angle, though I'd argue against it. I recently thumbed through a The Producer as Composer: Shaping the Sounds of Popular Musicbook on just this topic. Now, there is something to be said for that argument, and studio producers, the good ones, are quite skilled and musically sensitive. But there is also quite a bit against this analogy of composer and producer, as well, starting with the fact that few producers ever learn tonal harmony. In any event, it is a question for another day. Notably, we've already seen at least three songs on the list survive a transformation from its highly produced original version to a stripped-down-to-acoustic version performed by other musicians. I already mentioned The Bad Plus's take on "Smells Like Teen Spirit". We also have U2's "One", performed by the late Johnny Cash, and OutKast's "Hey Ya", performed by to much less acclaim by Obadiah Parker (and which you watch here). Again, how successful the new versions are is at this point largely a matter of taste, as well as the skill of the musicians. But it is also a matter of how strongly composed the original songs are, and how great these might be, through the ages. Or won't be. —Matthew Dallman is the composer and producer of the full-length album, I Am Sound. NOT YET A SUBSCRIBER TO POLYSEMY? Make the choice to become one today — click here for POLYSEMY Print, or here for POLYSEMY Digital. ©2006 Polysemy. All rights reserved. |
