5.10.08
INTERDIT
We are currently not posting for perhaps a week because our keyboard is completely fucked. Thank society for the warranty.
2.10.08
Popology #2
Art In Macro gathers up some folk to take a look at the new Kings of Leon record.
'JOSHUA TREE DENIAL'
critical roundtable gears up
We know the drill by now. The template was put down by The Strokes and until we enter a new paradigm shall forever be so.
A young band of dubious provenance arrives on 'the scene'. Talk of their sound; simultaneously retrograde and yet the sound of the absolute now. 'Classic'. We are assured of their 'realness' despite the abstract/absurd nature of this concept.
The debut record (possibly after some impossibly hip limited EP or 7" is 'dropped') is released to vast critical aplomb - heck, even Robert Christgau likes it! It makes the top 100 albums ever despite having only been released four months prior in a traditionally lean spot in the year. A successful tour of the world's dumps and festivals and relax.
The second album dichotomy; more of the same or something different. History shows to err on the side of caution for sales and go for broke to be remembered fondly. It sells well and gets good reviews (critics don't like to think they were fooled, ever) but ultimately there's nothing to trumpet, especially when we have new feed coming in at the beginning of this cycle. Perhaps start to think about solo projects or a clothing line.
The third album tanks but you're still a live draw. Now you have the unenviable task of touring knowing you're pretty much creatively spent as a unit, playing these same chords every night despite the 'stripped-down' and 'mature' record you have inside. Even the groupies look kind of spent and redundant. Often, there is no fourth record, and if there is then it sells so poorly as to be the almost physical manifestation of one hand clapping.
This template works for so many bands; Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Music, The Stills, Interpol and Franz Ferdinand to name a few. Enduring the process over the next year or so will be CSS, Glasvegas and Klaxons. So why have Kings of Leon, forged through the same processes, endured to see a zenith of popularity in the run up to album #4?
Art In Macro have a suspicion that Kings of Leon endured because people simply forgot to listen to them first time around, so their third album was essentially their first to many.
This writer was at a karaoke party and the above song ('The Bucket') came on at random for me to sing: it was pleasant enough without developing (at all) and easy enough to perform despite never having heard a note before. Like good pop songs, it had an enduring and non-annoying quality to it. I mentioned this to a couple of 'music fan' friends. "Oh, they're pretty good, they've changed a lot. It's not just 'Molly's Chambers' going ba-ba-na-na-na-na-na all the time. You should have a listen."
And listen Art In Macro did. And the experience was neither pleasant enough to purchase anything, not terrible enough to incite rage. Kings of Leon had done it! They had run the gauntlet and were now primed to make 'a statement'.
MEET THE ROUNDTABLE
- ML is a singer in a rock and roll band and by day, he writes copy for his employers in the construction sector. He is 27.
- KD is a journalist on the local newspaper in her mid-20s.
- DG is a student and musician. He is 20.
ML: I found their stripped down hick rock they had on their earlier stuff really fucking patronising. That opening track, I think it was ‘Knocked Up’ - if you forgive the hamfisted lyrics, really shocked me. It’s like they’d found another couple of emotions. Or had stopped wearing sandals if you get my drift.
DG: The epic atmospheres that made Because Of The Times great have gone too far. The songs sound wet.
KD: I got a bit bored after about four songs to be honest, but then I do have musical ADHD.
ML: Where the delayed guitars on the last one sounded like a band branching out, they sound really fucking cynical on this. Take the single as a shining example. It’s like they wandered into a big room on their last album, metaphorically and literally, and have stayed there - wide eyed and complacent. Like The Joshua Tree never fucking happened. Joshua Tree denial.
DG: Caleb's voice tends to slide into power ballad mode from time to time, and each time he does this - while it fits with the song - it just contributes to the vast empty spaces, instead of filling them up. It's a shame sometimes because you can't help but feel his indie cred slowly draining out of him and ergo his band, into the realms of, well dare I mention other once rock and roll pioneers turned purveyors of radio friendly stadium capacity rock?
Art In Macro first heard the record whilst out purchasing DVDs in the local HMV, playing as it was at full volume over the speakers and delaying the thought process of purchasing, creating an internal digression of whether to stay or flee. On the bus home, I sent a message to a friend.
For the record, Metacritic have them as nearly a 7 out of 10. Other noteable reviews from Allmusic who give it 7, Observer Music Monthly give it full marks and finally Pitchfork, who give it a mid-three.
Please make up your own minds though. Perhaps let us know what you think.
'JOSHUA TREE DENIAL'
critical roundtable gears up
We know the drill by now. The template was put down by The Strokes and until we enter a new paradigm shall forever be so.
A young band of dubious provenance arrives on 'the scene'. Talk of their sound; simultaneously retrograde and yet the sound of the absolute now. 'Classic'. We are assured of their 'realness' despite the abstract/absurd nature of this concept.
The debut record (possibly after some impossibly hip limited EP or 7" is 'dropped') is released to vast critical aplomb - heck, even Robert Christgau likes it! It makes the top 100 albums ever despite having only been released four months prior in a traditionally lean spot in the year. A successful tour of the world's dumps and festivals and relax.
The second album dichotomy; more of the same or something different. History shows to err on the side of caution for sales and go for broke to be remembered fondly. It sells well and gets good reviews (critics don't like to think they were fooled, ever) but ultimately there's nothing to trumpet, especially when we have new feed coming in at the beginning of this cycle. Perhaps start to think about solo projects or a clothing line.
The third album tanks but you're still a live draw. Now you have the unenviable task of touring knowing you're pretty much creatively spent as a unit, playing these same chords every night despite the 'stripped-down' and 'mature' record you have inside. Even the groupies look kind of spent and redundant. Often, there is no fourth record, and if there is then it sells so poorly as to be the almost physical manifestation of one hand clapping.
This template works for so many bands; Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Music, The Stills, Interpol and Franz Ferdinand to name a few. Enduring the process over the next year or so will be CSS, Glasvegas and Klaxons. So why have Kings of Leon, forged through the same processes, endured to see a zenith of popularity in the run up to album #4?
Art In Macro have a suspicion that Kings of Leon endured because people simply forgot to listen to them first time around, so their third album was essentially their first to many.
This writer was at a karaoke party and the above song ('The Bucket') came on at random for me to sing: it was pleasant enough without developing (at all) and easy enough to perform despite never having heard a note before. Like good pop songs, it had an enduring and non-annoying quality to it. I mentioned this to a couple of 'music fan' friends. "Oh, they're pretty good, they've changed a lot. It's not just 'Molly's Chambers' going ba-ba-na-na-na-na-na all the time. You should have a listen."
And listen Art In Macro did. And the experience was neither pleasant enough to purchase anything, not terrible enough to incite rage. Kings of Leon had done it! They had run the gauntlet and were now primed to make 'a statement'.
MEET THE ROUNDTABLE
- ML is a singer in a rock and roll band and by day, he writes copy for his employers in the construction sector. He is 27.
- KD is a journalist on the local newspaper in her mid-20s.
- DG is a student and musician. He is 20.
ML: I found their stripped down hick rock they had on their earlier stuff really fucking patronising. That opening track, I think it was ‘Knocked Up’ - if you forgive the hamfisted lyrics, really shocked me. It’s like they’d found another couple of emotions. Or had stopped wearing sandals if you get my drift.
DG: The epic atmospheres that made Because Of The Times great have gone too far. The songs sound wet.
KD: I got a bit bored after about four songs to be honest, but then I do have musical ADHD.
ML: Where the delayed guitars on the last one sounded like a band branching out, they sound really fucking cynical on this. Take the single as a shining example. It’s like they wandered into a big room on their last album, metaphorically and literally, and have stayed there - wide eyed and complacent. Like The Joshua Tree never fucking happened. Joshua Tree denial.
DG: Caleb's voice tends to slide into power ballad mode from time to time, and each time he does this - while it fits with the song - it just contributes to the vast empty spaces, instead of filling them up. It's a shame sometimes because you can't help but feel his indie cred slowly draining out of him and ergo his band, into the realms of, well dare I mention other once rock and roll pioneers turned purveyors of radio friendly stadium capacity rock?
Art In Macro first heard the record whilst out purchasing DVDs in the local HMV, playing as it was at full volume over the speakers and delaying the thought process of purchasing, creating an internal digression of whether to stay or flee. On the bus home, I sent a message to a friend.
Just heard the new Kings of Leon record. It was like some bizarre medieval torture crossed with a terrible U2 record.
For the record, Metacritic have them as nearly a 7 out of 10. Other noteable reviews from Allmusic who give it 7, Observer Music Monthly give it full marks and finally Pitchfork, who give it a mid-three.
Please make up your own minds though. Perhaps let us know what you think.
Filmism #1
Enough of the pseudo-Marxism for the time being, I was never one to develop a shtick.
A TRIP TO THE CINEMA RESULTS IN CRITICAL ROUNDTABLE AT THE BUS STOP
post cryptically indicates future direction
The last time I saw Gavin was in 2004. He was carrying a mattress across the grey, run-down site of the poor kid halls in Moss Side, his hair loosely tied in a ponytail and a casual Irish brogue to his voice.
Manchester's second best voyeurism spot
I'm sitting in my second favourite spot in Manchester, on the stone front at the Cornerhouse cinema. All of life passes by this spot on a warm late-summer evening such as this. Mature folks in bespoke office wear, young art kids, entry-level freshers dressed in OR scrubs, nervous cinema buffs who never quite got over the fashion statements made in My Dinner With Andre. They clutch copies of Cahiers du Cinema and tut irritatedly when we talk through the pre-trailer advertisements.
All of life indeed, and of past life too, as Gavin from 2004 arrives dressed and sounding and looking exactly as memory had left him. Apropos of afternoon boredom we'd stuck a pin in the newspaper listings and come up with Jar City. With the upswing in the quality of police procedural on television, it finds itself increasingly pressed for cinematic real estate unless it can find itself combined with a shlocky, sepulchral or perhaps metaphysical element. The whodunnit is secondary to the whydunnit.
Jar City is a traditional whodunnit. The kind that Columbo, or even with the medical element of this picture a more serious Quincy, might encounter. There's a nice three-act structure, a denouement, a subplot and a man eating a sheep's head with his fists. Iceland itself plays a stunning role as the backdrop, at turns spellbindly mundane and jawdroppingly fantastic. I used to stare at these webcams at an old call-centre job as a way to elevate myself above the monotony.
The characters are realistic and satisfying and there's never a real jarring or overtly oblique moment to debate questions of technical competance. It is not the world's most original work, nor would it claim to be. The film never tries for your affection and never pushes you firmly away; it offers reasons for its austerity and apparent coldness. MVP award goes to the soundguys by a short head.
A still from Jar City
We leave the cinema in that familiar unusual silence, which Gavin immediately punctures. "Well, I thought the whole premise fell apart after ten minutes." He explains his reasons (this blog is a no-spoiler zone) and whilst reasonable, they did speak of an inate scientific approach to cinema that doesn't entirely sit with my cinema as art viewpoint. "You could at least suspend your disbelief", I say.
Liam, the third member of our party, seeks the role of diplomat. "Well, I kind of see what you're saying Gavin but it didn't ruin the film." We offer marks out of ten. I give it eight. Liam gives it seven. Gavin says it gets a five. Metacritic has it as a seven, as does IMDB.
A fair assumption of popular approach to mainstream cinema is that we seek a tale told efficiently with its artifice concealed - perhaps displaying an epistemelogical level of 'truth'. But what of cinema conscious of its nature as 'art cinema'? Certainly I could see the hole in the plot but dismissed it as inconsquential to the entirety of meaning to be felt through the whole film coming together at the end. For Gavin, he sought a tale told as if watching with detective's eyes; to give a thumbs up would have meant all the pieces in consonance and harmony. He admitted 'he'd quite like to go to Iceland' after seeing it, so certainly the cinematography was compelling as well as murmuring praise for the soundtrack. But the central focus was still on the plot, the story, rather than anything above it. I'm not saying he's even wrong, but just different to the way I experience film.
So, what I'm slowly getting at is this; there will be no individual reviews where I can avoid it. There will be some kind of critical roundtable of different kinds of people. I could attempt to jam my opinions down your throat but I think that 'one man with a blog and I'm gonna tell it like I see it' is so incredibly old (but hey, that's just my opinion) as to be put in a time capsule and studied in future days.
A TRIP TO THE CINEMA RESULTS IN CRITICAL ROUNDTABLE AT THE BUS STOP
post cryptically indicates future direction
The last time I saw Gavin was in 2004. He was carrying a mattress across the grey, run-down site of the poor kid halls in Moss Side, his hair loosely tied in a ponytail and a casual Irish brogue to his voice.
I'm sitting in my second favourite spot in Manchester, on the stone front at the Cornerhouse cinema. All of life passes by this spot on a warm late-summer evening such as this. Mature folks in bespoke office wear, young art kids, entry-level freshers dressed in OR scrubs, nervous cinema buffs who never quite got over the fashion statements made in My Dinner With Andre. They clutch copies of Cahiers du Cinema and tut irritatedly when we talk through the pre-trailer advertisements.
All of life indeed, and of past life too, as Gavin from 2004 arrives dressed and sounding and looking exactly as memory had left him. Apropos of afternoon boredom we'd stuck a pin in the newspaper listings and come up with Jar City. With the upswing in the quality of police procedural on television, it finds itself increasingly pressed for cinematic real estate unless it can find itself combined with a shlocky, sepulchral or perhaps metaphysical element. The whodunnit is secondary to the whydunnit.
Jar City is a traditional whodunnit. The kind that Columbo, or even with the medical element of this picture a more serious Quincy, might encounter. There's a nice three-act structure, a denouement, a subplot and a man eating a sheep's head with his fists. Iceland itself plays a stunning role as the backdrop, at turns spellbindly mundane and jawdroppingly fantastic. I used to stare at these webcams at an old call-centre job as a way to elevate myself above the monotony.
The characters are realistic and satisfying and there's never a real jarring or overtly oblique moment to debate questions of technical competance. It is not the world's most original work, nor would it claim to be. The film never tries for your affection and never pushes you firmly away; it offers reasons for its austerity and apparent coldness. MVP award goes to the soundguys by a short head.
We leave the cinema in that familiar unusual silence, which Gavin immediately punctures. "Well, I thought the whole premise fell apart after ten minutes." He explains his reasons (this blog is a no-spoiler zone) and whilst reasonable, they did speak of an inate scientific approach to cinema that doesn't entirely sit with my cinema as art viewpoint. "You could at least suspend your disbelief", I say.
Liam, the third member of our party, seeks the role of diplomat. "Well, I kind of see what you're saying Gavin but it didn't ruin the film." We offer marks out of ten. I give it eight. Liam gives it seven. Gavin says it gets a five. Metacritic has it as a seven, as does IMDB.
A fair assumption of popular approach to mainstream cinema is that we seek a tale told efficiently with its artifice concealed - perhaps displaying an epistemelogical level of 'truth'. But what of cinema conscious of its nature as 'art cinema'? Certainly I could see the hole in the plot but dismissed it as inconsquential to the entirety of meaning to be felt through the whole film coming together at the end. For Gavin, he sought a tale told as if watching with detective's eyes; to give a thumbs up would have meant all the pieces in consonance and harmony. He admitted 'he'd quite like to go to Iceland' after seeing it, so certainly the cinematography was compelling as well as murmuring praise for the soundtrack. But the central focus was still on the plot, the story, rather than anything above it. I'm not saying he's even wrong, but just different to the way I experience film.
So, what I'm slowly getting at is this; there will be no individual reviews where I can avoid it. There will be some kind of critical roundtable of different kinds of people. I could attempt to jam my opinions down your throat but I think that 'one man with a blog and I'm gonna tell it like I see it' is so incredibly old (but hey, that's just my opinion) as to be put in a time capsule and studied in future days.
1.10.08
Songs of the revolution #1
Before Brian Eno gradually sank into the world of corporate opprobrium (working with Coldplay, Microsoft '95) he was the chief architect of potential downfall of the rock and roll oligarchy.
Distending the threads of orthodoxy with a VSC3 synthesizer and make-up, Eno's early solo work speaks directly of struggle and class consciousness. The 'Warm Jets' are the wheels of military might, 'Tiger Mountain' is the rotten state and 'Before and After Science' refers to an exciting plan for after the successful struggle.
In this example Another Green World is the message of hope relayed to the comrades. Instead of the Soviet columns of grey, the new reality will be pastoral green splendour and truly free. Even the artwork shows the modernist and utilitarian uniforms worn by those willingly self-identifying as part of the solution rather than the problem (who would likely be slain like dogs anyway).
Eno's melody work on this record is so clear cut in terms of political principle that lyrics are not always necessary. The titles are evocative enough; 'Little Fishes' evokes swimming in large groups and strength in numbers, 'In Dark Trees' represents a death-knoll to the forces of doubt present in struggle and 'Sombre Reptiles' is a comical satire of the hegemony prevlalent in 70s politics in both west and east.
However, the lyrics are evocative enough to pass muster for this record were it just a sheet of paper with text. 'St. Elmo's Fire', too long to reproduce in its entirety here tells a symbolic tale of two travellers on the way to view revolution in action. 'I'll Come Running' tells the tale from the viewpoint of the new state, offering responsible solutions to fallen workers - 'I'll come running to tie your shoe' can certainly not be taken literally, as all children under this regime will have motor skills enough to tie their own laces and arms enough to make good of this.
Popology #1
When I hear the popular sounds of today my eyes want to eject themselves, my spleen does a dance of disgruntlement and my ears want to puke themselves to the sun.
This is not because, to use a widely-recognised example, Josh Groban's passionate performances of well-constructed popular motifs disgust me at a technical level. It is because the songs themselves attempt to belie the struggles of our forebears to maintain access to welfare and produce bread for the workers of the state.
In a study of popular song since the age of digital, the recording choice of the true egalitarian, we at Art In Macro have found repeated examples of work affirming our socialist nature, with the attendant corollary of the forces of neoconservatism smashing these subversive messages and incoporating them into the milleu of the bourgeoise.
Here we have 'Everything Counts', the 1983 hit from English pop group Depeche Mode. A subversive take on the nature of consumerism, the pitfalls of the monopolies and mergers commission and Hegelian dialectic. "A handshake/seals the contract/from the contract/there's no turning back." Martin Gore understands the dichotomous life of the professional, presenting a human face, a handshake and a smile, knowing that lurking beyond are shackles.
Even the visual plays these two contrasting ideologies against each other. Clearly Dave Gahan is portraying a man trapped in a hendonistic self-centred free market agenda, as if on drugs, whilst the other three represent a collective voice rising up on a new dawn. The musical agenda heightens this, with the abrasive synth tones contrasted against Gahan's sweet voice, in and of itself Gore's way of sugaring the one-word message: revolution!
Heightening this sense of burgeoning collectivism in both the physical and metaphysical was noted pop phenomenon Belinda Carlisle. Her hit '(We Want) The Same Thing' not only speaks to the proletariat in a literal way, but in a Jungian one as well. Carlisle believes in mass mind; when she tells us 'we dream the same dream' she is not simply referring to the hopes of the people but in the symbolic value of struggle unspoken for fear of repression.
These messages became increasingly part of the language of commerce. True innovators and iconoclasts such as Bronski Beat (the later line up of 'Hit That Perfect Beat', a march for modern youth resistance), The Communards and Frankie Goes To Hollywood woud wither away in confused interpretations of their struggles. All groups who heavily featured idiosyncratic visuals of men together at meetings of radical minds, it was perhaps ironic that such reliance on collectivism scuppered them. Countering these challenging and compelling arguments would be groups like Talk Talk ('it's my life', an individualist clarion which would prove decisive), Visage (pacifism) and Ultravox (themselves an inversion of Brechtian theses).
However, leftist themes were not completely ignored in the recent era. This song by Vanessa Amorosi is arguably the clearest call-to-arms since The Communist Manifesto. Let us examine the lyrics.
Amorosi understands that advantages cannot be made in an individualist mindset, that in the political act of being born she cannot escape the necessity of others. Here the hand is not merely the hand of a lover or a mother, but the hand of welfare and commune. She is part of the 'game', an obvious codeword for a sister of the revolution. However, her precious gift, which could not be simply co-opted, was smothered by the increasingly fascistic media value of popular music.
In these increasingly stressful times we turn to entertainment for guidance but find only Zach De La Rocha. We would therefore be amiss to forget the words of Vanessa Amorosi, surely a Rosa Luxembourg of our times.
This is not because, to use a widely-recognised example, Josh Groban's passionate performances of well-constructed popular motifs disgust me at a technical level. It is because the songs themselves attempt to belie the struggles of our forebears to maintain access to welfare and produce bread for the workers of the state.
In a study of popular song since the age of digital, the recording choice of the true egalitarian, we at Art In Macro have found repeated examples of work affirming our socialist nature, with the attendant corollary of the forces of neoconservatism smashing these subversive messages and incoporating them into the milleu of the bourgeoise.
Here we have 'Everything Counts', the 1983 hit from English pop group Depeche Mode. A subversive take on the nature of consumerism, the pitfalls of the monopolies and mergers commission and Hegelian dialectic. "A handshake/seals the contract/from the contract/there's no turning back." Martin Gore understands the dichotomous life of the professional, presenting a human face, a handshake and a smile, knowing that lurking beyond are shackles.
Even the visual plays these two contrasting ideologies against each other. Clearly Dave Gahan is portraying a man trapped in a hendonistic self-centred free market agenda, as if on drugs, whilst the other three represent a collective voice rising up on a new dawn. The musical agenda heightens this, with the abrasive synth tones contrasted against Gahan's sweet voice, in and of itself Gore's way of sugaring the one-word message: revolution!
Heightening this sense of burgeoning collectivism in both the physical and metaphysical was noted pop phenomenon Belinda Carlisle. Her hit '(We Want) The Same Thing' not only speaks to the proletariat in a literal way, but in a Jungian one as well. Carlisle believes in mass mind; when she tells us 'we dream the same dream' she is not simply referring to the hopes of the people but in the symbolic value of struggle unspoken for fear of repression.
These messages became increasingly part of the language of commerce. True innovators and iconoclasts such as Bronski Beat (the later line up of 'Hit That Perfect Beat', a march for modern youth resistance), The Communards and Frankie Goes To Hollywood woud wither away in confused interpretations of their struggles. All groups who heavily featured idiosyncratic visuals of men together at meetings of radical minds, it was perhaps ironic that such reliance on collectivism scuppered them. Countering these challenging and compelling arguments would be groups like Talk Talk ('it's my life', an individualist clarion which would prove decisive), Visage (pacifism) and Ultravox (themselves an inversion of Brechtian theses).
However, leftist themes were not completely ignored in the recent era. This song by Vanessa Amorosi is arguably the clearest call-to-arms since The Communist Manifesto. Let us examine the lyrics.
Everybody needs a hand to hold,
Someone to cling to...
I am just the same,
A player in the game
Amorosi understands that advantages cannot be made in an individualist mindset, that in the political act of being born she cannot escape the necessity of others. Here the hand is not merely the hand of a lover or a mother, but the hand of welfare and commune. She is part of the 'game', an obvious codeword for a sister of the revolution. However, her precious gift, which could not be simply co-opted, was smothered by the increasingly fascistic media value of popular music.
In these increasingly stressful times we turn to entertainment for guidance but find only Zach De La Rocha. We would therefore be amiss to forget the words of Vanessa Amorosi, surely a Rosa Luxembourg of our times.
Every boy and girl,
Every woman and child.
Every father and son.
I said now everyone
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