The City Veins

At the end of last year, one of the Slate music critics, Jody Rosen, had a chat on the Washington Post’s website. In that chat Jody was asked, “is there a way for music criticism to return to looking at musical elements?” Which I think is an excellent question. Jody responded:

“You make a great point. I do think lyrics and, as you say, ’social context’ are overemphasized in popular music criticism at the expense of the music itself. Most critics, yours truly included, could stand to bone up on their musicology, or at least get conversant with basic music theory.”

Which is an answer that I find absolutely infuriating. First, I want to make it clear that I don’t think that everyone should have a knowledge of music theory. Hell, I don’t think you need to know music theory to appreciate music, in fact I hope that you don’t. I do believe is that you need to at least be “conversant in basic music theory” if you are going to make your living writing about music. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to learn music theory, and any professional critic that doesn’t is just lazy.

As a counterpoint, let me offer this delightful article from Guardian. In it, conductor Charles Hazelwood offers a few sentences on some recent popular songs. He presents nothing too intensive, or hard to follow, just illuminating little tidbits. For example, he writes the following about the Arctic Monkey’s “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor”:

“What’s so clever is it starts with an absolute deluge of F sharp minor. Then finally when Alex Turner comes in it’s actually on a C sharp major chord, which is what’s known as the dominant chord in music theory. Then you’re made to wait to get that big deluge of that tonic chord again until the chorus which is a brilliant way of building your expectation, holding you back like an elastic band and then letting you ping.”

I don’t think it is unreasonable to ask that a professional critic have the same level of music theory knowledge demonstrated above. For those interested, here is a good place to good to learn a little about music.

Photo by Flickr user Rustybuckets.

As a follow-up to my post about how stupid cable news has become, this video clip was on the Daily Show the other night and I think sums up the ridiculous pretty nicely:

I don’t think I’ve ever been in a state of greater shock than the Giants beating the Patriots yesterday. I watched the second half at Charles’ apartment, where he has a sweeeeet new 42″ flat screen, with my jaw agape almost the whole time. Eli Manning looked like old Mike Vick in getting out of that sack and making the 20-yard completion in the second half. We are now living in a world in which 1) Eli Manning is Super Bowl MVP, 2) Tom Coughlin beat Bill Belichick in a SUPER BOWL! and 3) Tom Brady couldn’t muster a game-winning drive on command. The universe is friggin screwy.

In the end, the similarities to the first Pats’ bowl victory against the Rams are eerie. The Pats used to be plucky team-oriented underdogs, but are now the evil juggernaut they once vanquished. Hubris and karma defeated them. Bill Simmons has the most insightful and entertaining take on it here.

As an Eagles fan (and I’m sure Skins fans can relate), I just pray to God the Giants don’t now become the powerhouse that the Pats did. I’ve suffered enough.

On the flip side, I’m hoping this whole underdog thing foreshadows the results of Super Tuesday. I’d love to see Obama upset Hillary. And as much as I like John McCain, I’d love to see a Romney comeback too, if only because he’d be so much easier for Obama to beat in November. Not even the Democratic Party could find a way to lose to Romney… I think.

(*Actually, now that I type that out I realize the Democrats could lose to anyone. They’re astoundingly good at that.)

I think that it is odd that my return to blogging is a post about Jackson Browne, but what can you do? For some reason I have been thinking a lot about Jackson Browne’s music recently.

My father has said that Jackson Browne only ever wrote one song in his career, and that he just keeps changing the lyrics to it. While that statement might be unnecessarily cruel, I don’t think it wrong. His songs do blend together after a while, I just happen to feel like it is a really good song. What I really love about Jackson Browne’s “song” is the major key sadness that he creates, that I think is unique to his music.

I think that a lot of people are turned off to Jackson Browne because his music has a laid-back, almost non-emotive, 70s feel to it. I think that the strength of Jackson Browne’s music is that very same quality. He never writes about anything that one would great truly angry or worked up about. There are no great tragedies in a Jackson Browne song, just everyday compromises and miscommunications. As I wrote before, I find myself increasingly drawn to songs where the music supports and illuminates the lyrics, and Jackson Browne’s “song” is an excellent marriage of words and music. I don’t have an instrument in front of me, so I can’t verify this, but every Jackson Browne song should be in the key of C (no sharps or flats).

When Bruce Springsteen inducted Jackson Browne into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he told Don Henley that Jackson Browne songs are songs that the Eagles wished they had written. I think that the contrast between Eagles songs and Jackson Browne sons is illuminating. Eagles songs have the same laid-back, 70s feel to them, but they are all about girls in flat-bed Fords, crazy-old nights, and peaceful easy feelings. This is why the Eagles are profoundly irritating. In “The Pretender,” that same predictable, major key, mid-tempo feel make the song particularly tragic because the what the speaker is experiencing and feeling is both unremarkable and universal.

Photo by Flickr user stewart.

As with many people in DC, I am moderately a political junkie. And as political heroin goes, this year’s primary elections are 100% grade-A straight-from-the-Afghani-poppy-fields black tar. This race is so compelling, so ever-changing, I found myself in desperate need of a fix of updates, opinions, and information every hour or two.

It’s this need that unfortunately has me watching more cable news than ever. The Internet is wonderful and I check it often, but for some reason whenever I turn on the TV I find myself watching CNN, MSNBC, or (on the rare occasion I’m jones-ing really bad) FOX. I stay glued to this shit (and that’s really what it is) for way longer than I should, considering how often they repeat themselves.

Cable news is dumbing down this country in ways that are too numerous to count. Ridiculous red, white, and blue colored graphics are thrown all over the screen all the time, and most of the move in disorienting ways. On MSNBC, for example, they have to superimpose the box with whatever “expert” is being interviewed over top of a background filled with moving white pillars and with the text of the constitution superimposed on top of that. CNN is trying desperately to recapture viewers lost to FOX, and it shows; they have almost as many graphics on the screen per inch as FOX and they continually find new ways to simplify every complex subject into two to three buzzowords that they shout out at each. For example: the question was raised (about every 5 minutes) on Monday “how will Kennedy’s endorsement help Obama?” Every single expert gave the same tired answer, all day long: “LATINOS!!!! UNIONS!!!!” Not one could come up with any more insight than that - and trust me, I watched enough of it to know.

CNN also has the nauseating slogan “the best political team on television” (see a great article on that here), which they like to say about every 4.5 seconds. I swear Wolf Blitzer must get paid by how often he works that phrase in.

And don’t get me started on that ridiculous stage setup of these debates. Look at this stage:

Then look at the stage for the Kennedy-Nixon debate:

Which one says “this is serious business, and we’re focusing on issues” and which one says “POLITICS IN YOUR FACE!!!!”?

I just want to be told the news as if I’m a grown-up and can understand the issues without idiotic simplification.  Is that too much to ask?