I’ve recently been wrestling with Lady Gaga’s place in music, art and media culture.
When I first heard “Just Dance” on the radio, she just sounded of a piece with a slew of other dance and R&B acts bringing back the sounds of electroclash and anthemic trance. Akon was doing it; Britney, Fergie, Rihanna and Kanye too, so why were people touting her as the Next Big Thing?
Well, fast forward a year or so, and she really is everywhere. She’s now a sensation; not just another pop star, either, but an icon. An Artist. She now commands droves of faithful followers who have found expression and validation in her songs and videos.
Of course, it’s still too early to really get a hold on Gaga’s impact on our culture; she’s only released one LP and one EP so far. She could either grow and develop her art, or rapidly disappear into “Where Are They Now?” specials.
But critics and tastemakers, not just the fickle masses, seem to think that she’s already added something important to our lives, and this is what I’ve been trying to figure out.
Her impact as a sort of folk sensation is pretty obvious. There are people who are largely ignorant of the contributions of past icons (like Bowie, Madonna, Grace Jones, even Marilyn Manson) to the cause of gender-fuckery, for whom Lady Gaga is a vital realization of their own socio-erotic truths. There are even people who are aware of Gaga’s visual and musical antecedents, and who laud her appropriations as reviving something they just really enjoy. They don’t mind that “Alejandro” sounds like a fusion of “Don’t Turn Around” by Ace of Base and “La Isla Bonita” by Madonna. In fact, they like it, since they were fans of those songs to begin with.
And she does bring some worthwhile conversations to mainstream attention, even if they have been culled from others’ past efforts. Unlike pretty much any pop star getting press today, Gaga consistently incorporates gay iconography into her art. The Alejandro video, while riddled with stale art film clichés, does present male eroticism and unconventional dynamics of sexual dominance to an audience whose exposure to this stuff is otherwise limited to Katy Perry’s “Ur So Gay” and “I Kissed a Girl.” So that’s something to be said.
But what about the crowd that isn’t ignorant of the past few decades? It’s fine to say that Gaga is a new medium to spread (revive) ideas of postmodernism and subversion to the larger public. But isn’t that more opportunism on her part than creating something new? Or not even new—creating something expressive, rather than something strategized and calculated?
For me, that opportunism really does stand out. Gaga talks a lot about her music as being purely for expression, and also how it’s deeply informed by her love of the avant-garde. Her most-cited heroes are Warhol and Bowie, which makes her sound pretty enticing, at least in writing. So if this is the case, why is her music so smooth and readily digestible?
Bowie took sounds from various underground sources and fashioned songs that were both subversive and accessible, while Gaga is taking sounds from early 90’s Euro Pop, Alice DeeJay, and Madonna. If she wants to use Bowie as an influence, she should try harder. There are plenty of other acts to take inspiration from, both pop (Bat for Lashes, Patrick Wolf, Cocorosie, Antony & the Johnsons, the Knife, Crystal Castles) and avant-garde (Matmos, Xiu Xiu, Soap&Skin, Scott Walker, Animal Collective). Get cracking, Ga.
As for Warhol, he completely restructured the ideals of the art world to exalt the banal and the ephemeral alongside works of complexity and sophistication. Maybe there’s more to it, but I’m guessing that this has mainly served to inform her assertion that Pop Music can be Important Art. Or maybe this very blog entry is feeding into her ulterior motive: to have the world wrestle with the meaning of her art, and of contemporary art in general. But to me, that’s just cheap. Such talk comes with any pop star who is labeled (by themselves or others) as Important. See Eminem, Marilyn Manson, Kanye West and, yes, Madonna, for similar conversations.
Perhaps, then, it’s not her form that’s important, it’s her content. Which sounds true, if you ever hear her explanations of her songs (Pokerface is apparently about her imagining sex with a woman while mounting her man). This approach would be a lot more powerful if the meanings could be extracted without her explanations, though. Left alone, they just sound like vapidly opaque pop song lyrics. Perhaps a particularly vigilant sophisto can glean some of these “true” intentions, but there’s no way a typical pop fan is gonna catch that stuff. And that severely undercuts any subversive potential of her songs.
No, I think as she stands, Lady Gaga is perhaps subversive in image only. Smooth, friendly sounds supporting videos and photos that startle and titillate the uninitiated, and perhaps reassure the already-initiated that wider acceptance is just around the corner. Perhaps her sound will eventually evolve into something more challenging, but I’m pretty sure that when Gaga mentions the avant-garde, she’s referring only to fashion, and not to music. Her earliest videos (two years before The Fame) show her immersed in the sounds of Norah Jones and Vanessa Carlton. Something tells me that Madonna and Alice DeeJay is about as edgy as she’ll be able to conjure.
I’d love to be proven wrong, though. I may be a skeptic, but I’m certainly not a hater. I wish all the best for the Lady. May she eventually turn her fame into a monster that actually wreaks some havoc upon our culture.
Or at least find some more interesting artists to copy.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
The Hate of Politics
My sister once mentioned that she thought music and politics shouldn’t mix. Me, I couldn’t disagree more. Of course, I know what she really meant: her love of a band wan’t based on politics, and so when she found them to support a cause she was against, it really turned her off. The fact that my political inclinations lean nicely to the left means that I have to worry about this a lot less than she does, since most artistic types are of a liberal persuasion (although I was pretty sad to have lost the Nuge. ...Ha! ).
Now, mind you, they don’t always go well together. Patriotic propaganda is rarely inspiring in an artistic sense (have you forgotten Darryl Worley?). And even well meaning truth-to-power anthems can fall flat if there’s no feeling behind them.
From 2002-2008, I was desperately searching for political music to validate the feelings of dread, paranoia, and powerlessness that permeated the atmosphere at the time. And you know, for all of the ill will that is associated with George W. Bush and his administration, there was hardly any political music that did real justice to the era. Most attacks were too obvious, topical, and lacking passion. Really, it was mostly limited to Warped Tour pop punk bands, Eddie Vedder, and eventually the Flaming Lips, who made the worst album of their career trying to bash Bush.
Of course, there was Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief, which actually was a powerful evocation of those troubled times. A good deal of its power lay in the fact that it’s not an overtly political album (even though its title led some conservatives to write off the band without even hearing the thing). Thematically, it’s pretty consistent with Radiohead’s past albums: dread, paranoia, and powerlessness. But the War on Terror certainly informed Thom and the gang on the songs of Thief; the lyrics fuse cracked storybook imagery with phrases that belie a group of adults worried about the future of the world (“I will lay me down in a bunker underground. I won’t let this happen to my children.”), rather than about buzzing fridges and Hitler hairdos.
But, aside from Radiohead, I looked to the past for my musical validation. Naturally, the 60’s have some great songs, especially Dylan’s “Masters of War,” the Beatles “Strawberry Fields” (again, not explicitly political, but evoking a feeling of the times), and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence.” The 70’s gave me John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Randy Newman’s “Political Science.”
The 80’s, though, that was the gold mine. The Thatcher and Reagan years, forever etched into our eardums in indignant shouts and despairing howls from the musical underground. There was plenty of punk and hardcore railing against moral majorities and feared lapses into fascism. The Dead Kennedys were the most articulate of the bunch, but mention must also go to Gang of Four, Minutemen, and Reagan Youth.
But really, the most evocative 80’s stuff wasn’t punk; it was a lot of the stuff lumped into the post-punk and no wave scenes. Bands like This Heat, Pop Group, Einsturzende Neubauten, the Swans, Diamanda Galas, the Jerks, early Sonic Youth, Nurse With Wound. To me, this is music that is soaked in the blood of the era, even though most of them were mum on the specifics of their political views. Remember: expressive, not didactic.
Perhaps my two most played albums during trying political times, aside from Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief, are now This Heat’s “Deceit” and Diamanda Galas’ “The Litanies of Satan.” Deceit is almost a grandfather to Hail to the Thief. Despite more radical, experimental arrangements, the songs conjured the same sense of detached dread, like a defeated, hollow shell of a human reciting empty platitudes to keep themselves distracted from an impending nuclear holocaust. It’s powerful, sobering stuff, and their haunted chant of “History repeats itself, a war to end all wars” struck a particularly deep chord within me.
The Litanies of Satan was much less specific in content, but no less of a magical weapon for it. And this one does summon up an army of daggers. Diamanda’s vocal performances are truly astounding...and frightening to experience. Her music mainly consists of her moans, caterwauls and glossolalia, sometimes treated by filters and delays, but most of the chaos that emanates from your speakers comes straight from the singer herself. Her art is brutal, tortured, defiant, and even righteous. This is the sound of an idealist whose dreams and values are being stripped away, and she doesn’t take it lightly. If Jello Biafra offered some of the most pointed satirical attacks against Reagan and his cronies, Diamanda offered the most visceral attack upon the hypocrisy of the time, and the most vivid expression of an idealist’s fear for the future of their world.
Well, the political situation has changed; and while there’s certainly still lots of crazy in the world, the majority of America seems to have shifted to a more reasonable expectation of their country and its policies. Still, there’s plenty to be anxious and frustrated about; there’s still plenty of fodder for artistic release, right?
Or is it most effective to make politically informed art when railing against the party in power? I realize that one does not always agree with their party, even if they’re in power, and so one could make music informed by issues that are getting the short shrift by their own party. But does the really potent stuff come from the sorrow, rage and indignation of the dethroned and dispossessed?
And if so, does this mean that the Tea Party is going to release an album soon to rival the the folkies, the hippies, the punks, and the no-wavers?
Food for thought.
Now, mind you, they don’t always go well together. Patriotic propaganda is rarely inspiring in an artistic sense (have you forgotten Darryl Worley?). And even well meaning truth-to-power anthems can fall flat if there’s no feeling behind them.
From 2002-2008, I was desperately searching for political music to validate the feelings of dread, paranoia, and powerlessness that permeated the atmosphere at the time. And you know, for all of the ill will that is associated with George W. Bush and his administration, there was hardly any political music that did real justice to the era. Most attacks were too obvious, topical, and lacking passion. Really, it was mostly limited to Warped Tour pop punk bands, Eddie Vedder, and eventually the Flaming Lips, who made the worst album of their career trying to bash Bush.
Of course, there was Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief, which actually was a powerful evocation of those troubled times. A good deal of its power lay in the fact that it’s not an overtly political album (even though its title led some conservatives to write off the band without even hearing the thing). Thematically, it’s pretty consistent with Radiohead’s past albums: dread, paranoia, and powerlessness. But the War on Terror certainly informed Thom and the gang on the songs of Thief; the lyrics fuse cracked storybook imagery with phrases that belie a group of adults worried about the future of the world (“I will lay me down in a bunker underground. I won’t let this happen to my children.”), rather than about buzzing fridges and Hitler hairdos.
But, aside from Radiohead, I looked to the past for my musical validation. Naturally, the 60’s have some great songs, especially Dylan’s “Masters of War,” the Beatles “Strawberry Fields” (again, not explicitly political, but evoking a feeling of the times), and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence.” The 70’s gave me John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Randy Newman’s “Political Science.”
The 80’s, though, that was the gold mine. The Thatcher and Reagan years, forever etched into our eardums in indignant shouts and despairing howls from the musical underground. There was plenty of punk and hardcore railing against moral majorities and feared lapses into fascism. The Dead Kennedys were the most articulate of the bunch, but mention must also go to Gang of Four, Minutemen, and Reagan Youth.
But really, the most evocative 80’s stuff wasn’t punk; it was a lot of the stuff lumped into the post-punk and no wave scenes. Bands like This Heat, Pop Group, Einsturzende Neubauten, the Swans, Diamanda Galas, the Jerks, early Sonic Youth, Nurse With Wound. To me, this is music that is soaked in the blood of the era, even though most of them were mum on the specifics of their political views. Remember: expressive, not didactic.
Perhaps my two most played albums during trying political times, aside from Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief, are now This Heat’s “Deceit” and Diamanda Galas’ “The Litanies of Satan.” Deceit is almost a grandfather to Hail to the Thief. Despite more radical, experimental arrangements, the songs conjured the same sense of detached dread, like a defeated, hollow shell of a human reciting empty platitudes to keep themselves distracted from an impending nuclear holocaust. It’s powerful, sobering stuff, and their haunted chant of “History repeats itself, a war to end all wars” struck a particularly deep chord within me.
The Litanies of Satan was much less specific in content, but no less of a magical weapon for it. And this one does summon up an army of daggers. Diamanda’s vocal performances are truly astounding...and frightening to experience. Her music mainly consists of her moans, caterwauls and glossolalia, sometimes treated by filters and delays, but most of the chaos that emanates from your speakers comes straight from the singer herself. Her art is brutal, tortured, defiant, and even righteous. This is the sound of an idealist whose dreams and values are being stripped away, and she doesn’t take it lightly. If Jello Biafra offered some of the most pointed satirical attacks against Reagan and his cronies, Diamanda offered the most visceral attack upon the hypocrisy of the time, and the most vivid expression of an idealist’s fear for the future of their world.
Well, the political situation has changed; and while there’s certainly still lots of crazy in the world, the majority of America seems to have shifted to a more reasonable expectation of their country and its policies. Still, there’s plenty to be anxious and frustrated about; there’s still plenty of fodder for artistic release, right?
Or is it most effective to make politically informed art when railing against the party in power? I realize that one does not always agree with their party, even if they’re in power, and so one could make music informed by issues that are getting the short shrift by their own party. But does the really potent stuff come from the sorrow, rage and indignation of the dethroned and dispossessed?
And if so, does this mean that the Tea Party is going to release an album soon to rival the the folkies, the hippies, the punks, and the no-wavers?
Food for thought.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Analog Dreams of a Digital Age
These past few months I’ve been listening to a lot of synth pop. And when I say synth-pop, I mean the classic groups from the late 70’s and early 80’s: Kraftwerk, Human League, OMD, Tubeway Army, Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, John Foxx, Yazoo, New Order. Wonderful, beautiful stuff.
I’ve also been listening to Depeche Mode’s later albums. I’ve been ignorant of everything post-Violator, so I figured I’d give them a fair chance. And while I like most of the material (I don’t think DM has yet to release a bad album—pretty good track record for a band 30 years old), what's particularly striking to me is their progression throughout the years. From Kraftwerk-inspired robot pop, to industrial-tinged dance tracks, to massive arena-friendly synth rock, to an eventual embrace of 90’s “electronica” and glitch pop. Then, coming full circle, their latest album, “Sounds of the Universe,” incorporates 80’s era analog equipment to fashion songs by a band now aged and seasoned. From the futurism of the 80’s, to digital evolution in the 90’s, to a nostalgia for those bygone days of futurism.
Even aside from DM, though, this return to the analog synth sound is fairly common nowadays. Kanye’s 808 & Heartbreak, the Knife, Crystal Castles, Cut Copy, to name but a few examples. It’s so ubiquitous that charges of synth pop sounding “dated” are themselves out of date; the synth pop sound most associated with the 80’s has now achieved a “classic” status, not unlike 60’s Wall of Sound production effects.
While the textures and tones of classic synth pop live on, almost none of the recent groups or artists labeled as synth pop really have the same essence, the same spirit as the innovators who have haunted my speakers for the past few months. Goldfrapp, Ladytron, Darkel, Cut Copy, Postal Service, La Roux, Lady Gaga. Some I like, some I dislike, but none of them are really synth pop to me. It’s kind of like hearing that Jimmy Eat World is an “emo” band, when the original usage of the term was for bands that actually had earnest emotional conviction in their music. Yes, the 80's synth pop acts used synthesizers (but let's not forget that other instruments were used too; tasteful insertions of guitar were quite common), but more importantly, they forged a philosophy from synthesizers. Dashboard Confessional might reference emotional states (and so did the Beatles!), but the music does not seem emotive enough to warrant the emo label. Similarly, Postal Service might use synths to make their songs, but they don’t labor over those tones and textures like the old bands did. Their bleeps and bloops lack the blood and guts drawn from a group who exalts the synthesizer as the de facto medium of their artistic personalities.
It is true that, like Depeche, many of the old groups are marked by an outmoded pursuit of futurism. This perhaps adds to the charge of synth pop being dated. But it’s no more dated than the blissed-out idealism of late 60’s psychedelia. In truth, the groups’ embrace of new technology as the sound of the future granted them an exciting energy that many of their contemporaries lacked. In the music is the sense that anything is possible. Even if the songs are cold, detached prophesies of a dystopian future, they are performed with the relish of artists fully immersed in the narrative of their new sound. To me, this electric, naïve grandeur is akin to the freewheeling energy of 1950’s rock’n’roll tracks. Sonically, the styles are miles apart, but both contain a vitality that is almost primordial.
To that end, the only band currently labeled "synth pop" who I feel is worthy of inheriting the throne is the Knife. They don't sound like any particular classic synth act (although Gary Numan sometimes comes out in their textured drones), but they have that same spark, that total committment to the philosophy of their sound, that made synth pop more than just a gimmick. Others, such as Patrick Wolf and Bat for Lashes, don't showcase synths enough to warrant the label, but they have an approach to their art that belies a reverence to the classic synth pop pantheon, and so I give them honorable mention.
These other bands can use all the synths they want, analog or digital samples, and Lady Gaga can talk all she wants about celebrating "plastic." But unless they can take that shit to new, unexplored terrains of expression, they're just like the 90's swing revivalists--a stiff historical reinactment of a happening that was once dangerous, thrilling, and alive.
I’ve also been listening to Depeche Mode’s later albums. I’ve been ignorant of everything post-Violator, so I figured I’d give them a fair chance. And while I like most of the material (I don’t think DM has yet to release a bad album—pretty good track record for a band 30 years old), what's particularly striking to me is their progression throughout the years. From Kraftwerk-inspired robot pop, to industrial-tinged dance tracks, to massive arena-friendly synth rock, to an eventual embrace of 90’s “electronica” and glitch pop. Then, coming full circle, their latest album, “Sounds of the Universe,” incorporates 80’s era analog equipment to fashion songs by a band now aged and seasoned. From the futurism of the 80’s, to digital evolution in the 90’s, to a nostalgia for those bygone days of futurism.
Even aside from DM, though, this return to the analog synth sound is fairly common nowadays. Kanye’s 808 & Heartbreak, the Knife, Crystal Castles, Cut Copy, to name but a few examples. It’s so ubiquitous that charges of synth pop sounding “dated” are themselves out of date; the synth pop sound most associated with the 80’s has now achieved a “classic” status, not unlike 60’s Wall of Sound production effects.
While the textures and tones of classic synth pop live on, almost none of the recent groups or artists labeled as synth pop really have the same essence, the same spirit as the innovators who have haunted my speakers for the past few months. Goldfrapp, Ladytron, Darkel, Cut Copy, Postal Service, La Roux, Lady Gaga. Some I like, some I dislike, but none of them are really synth pop to me. It’s kind of like hearing that Jimmy Eat World is an “emo” band, when the original usage of the term was for bands that actually had earnest emotional conviction in their music. Yes, the 80's synth pop acts used synthesizers (but let's not forget that other instruments were used too; tasteful insertions of guitar were quite common), but more importantly, they forged a philosophy from synthesizers. Dashboard Confessional might reference emotional states (and so did the Beatles!), but the music does not seem emotive enough to warrant the emo label. Similarly, Postal Service might use synths to make their songs, but they don’t labor over those tones and textures like the old bands did. Their bleeps and bloops lack the blood and guts drawn from a group who exalts the synthesizer as the de facto medium of their artistic personalities.
It is true that, like Depeche, many of the old groups are marked by an outmoded pursuit of futurism. This perhaps adds to the charge of synth pop being dated. But it’s no more dated than the blissed-out idealism of late 60’s psychedelia. In truth, the groups’ embrace of new technology as the sound of the future granted them an exciting energy that many of their contemporaries lacked. In the music is the sense that anything is possible. Even if the songs are cold, detached prophesies of a dystopian future, they are performed with the relish of artists fully immersed in the narrative of their new sound. To me, this electric, naïve grandeur is akin to the freewheeling energy of 1950’s rock’n’roll tracks. Sonically, the styles are miles apart, but both contain a vitality that is almost primordial.
To that end, the only band currently labeled "synth pop" who I feel is worthy of inheriting the throne is the Knife. They don't sound like any particular classic synth act (although Gary Numan sometimes comes out in their textured drones), but they have that same spark, that total committment to the philosophy of their sound, that made synth pop more than just a gimmick. Others, such as Patrick Wolf and Bat for Lashes, don't showcase synths enough to warrant the label, but they have an approach to their art that belies a reverence to the classic synth pop pantheon, and so I give them honorable mention.
These other bands can use all the synths they want, analog or digital samples, and Lady Gaga can talk all she wants about celebrating "plastic." But unless they can take that shit to new, unexplored terrains of expression, they're just like the 90's swing revivalists--a stiff historical reinactment of a happening that was once dangerous, thrilling, and alive.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)