Well-adjusted is the new alternative.
I know there are seriously bad things going on right now, but this entry is about pop music.
I don't actually claim to know anything about pop music, but I always assumed its basic purpose is to be dark and edgy -- a contrast, in our best moments, to the happy normality of our lives, or in not-so-great moments to be a bond for our misery. I never even went in for hard, shock-rock stuff; I grew up listening to late Cure and post-Curt Smith Tears for Fears, bands who were as lame as I was, but who my parents had the decency to hate and whose meladrama always cheered me up and made me feel normal. But even the worst sort of Top 40 today always strikes me as hopelessly black stuff -- Britpop lads walking the line between cheeky and Clockwork Orange; Britney-like "virgins" vamping their amazingly young cleavage, while a nation of 40 year old men wait for them to inevitably go batshit crazy; the ironic distance between the pg lyrics and the x-rated lives you're supposed to believe the performers lead; or just the sneering derivativeness of it all. Even with the most banal sort of stuff, Paula Abdul or Celine Dion or Whitney Houston, the real story always seemed to be what was going on in the person's life; anerexia, drug use, bankruptcy, bad or May-December marriages. The music was like a gloss on the tabloid picture; fake sentiments on awful realities. The tease of pop music is always about being screwed up, either secretly or explicitly in the songs.
So I went to a big outdoor concert in Seattle last weekend. The bands I actually went to see -- the Tragically Hip and the Decembrists -- fit my view of pop music perfectly; they write songs about "a generation so much dumber than its parents" or holding your crooked French Canadian uncle's guts in after he's been shot running gin. We danced to one band with the innocuous name Clap Your Hands Say Yeah who sang a song in which they chanted on and on about Satan. It was great.
But then I bought this CD by one of the acts I liked but hadn't heard before: Gomez. And they've shaken my worldview. I have discovered the most genuinely tame band in the history of the universe.
I'm not being snitty. I'm totally obsessed with these guys. They're like normal, well-adjusted (and non-religious) young men with guitars. Crowded House without the sardonic parts. I can't get over it. The (sorry, one of the) lead singer(s) can fool you for a while because he has an edgy, I-could-be-Oasis-if-I-wanted sort of voice. But on track two, he's urging some friend to stop being so competetive and "see the world/ find an old fashioned girl". Old fashioned girl? The title track sounds for a bit like your standard ode to this-relationship-sucks-but-let's-fuck-anyway ennui, until you realise that the punchline is a shockingly earnest "I'll try to see things your way / And I'm gonna love you anyway". Awww. There's not even any eyebrow-raising raunch of the sort even my all-time favourite whimsical Brit band China Crisis would stuff into a song.* There's one song about getting drunk when unhappy about the past that's maybe the sort of thing your parents wouldn't like... but good God, even I do that occassionally. The rest of the songs are just relentlessly earnest and wide-eyed and happy... but not too happy, like Robert Smith in a manic phase, or label-forced flopsweat cheer. That is, not more happy than a well-adjusted 23 year old should be. They're making me feel like a freak. Nobody should be this unabashedly, unapologetically, uncalculatedly tame, except maybe my parents. Can I really be listening to a band of young men more stable than I am? Ugh.
A friend had some thoughts on this, which are roughly: isn't it about time that nice become the new alternative? I mean, in terms of shock value, what comes after grunge and gangsta? How much more laddish can we get? Not to oversimplify: conflicts of class, gender, race, opportunity will always fuel genuinely angry music, and there will be a market for it. But at some point, the music our parents grew up with isn't going to be any less daring, intellectually or emotionally, than our generation's stuff. We can't get off on being unhappier or more complex or ironic or dumber than the fam. At some point miserable indecipherable rebellion becomes a cliche. Then, there's Gomez to rub their basic optimism in your face. I'm certainly more weirded out than I was by "Heart Shaped Box".**
The last act of the concert last weekend was Beck, who had this creepy stage-show about the band as marionettes (only clowns are creepier). But the penultimate band was called Death Cab for Cutie. They were good, but -- despite the suggestive name -- their whole stage routine between songs was just relentlessly, but quite convincingly, nice, gushing about how awesome the other bands were and how great Seattle had been to them. Maybe they're on to something.
* In case you were curious, I was thinking about the title track this album.
** Yeah, yeah, apologies for the ancient references; like I said, I don't claim to know anything about pop music beyond my basic assumptions.
I don't actually claim to know anything about pop music, but I always assumed its basic purpose is to be dark and edgy -- a contrast, in our best moments, to the happy normality of our lives, or in not-so-great moments to be a bond for our misery. I never even went in for hard, shock-rock stuff; I grew up listening to late Cure and post-Curt Smith Tears for Fears, bands who were as lame as I was, but who my parents had the decency to hate and whose meladrama always cheered me up and made me feel normal. But even the worst sort of Top 40 today always strikes me as hopelessly black stuff -- Britpop lads walking the line between cheeky and Clockwork Orange; Britney-like "virgins" vamping their amazingly young cleavage, while a nation of 40 year old men wait for them to inevitably go batshit crazy; the ironic distance between the pg lyrics and the x-rated lives you're supposed to believe the performers lead; or just the sneering derivativeness of it all. Even with the most banal sort of stuff, Paula Abdul or Celine Dion or Whitney Houston, the real story always seemed to be what was going on in the person's life; anerexia, drug use, bankruptcy, bad or May-December marriages. The music was like a gloss on the tabloid picture; fake sentiments on awful realities. The tease of pop music is always about being screwed up, either secretly or explicitly in the songs.
So I went to a big outdoor concert in Seattle last weekend. The bands I actually went to see -- the Tragically Hip and the Decembrists -- fit my view of pop music perfectly; they write songs about "a generation so much dumber than its parents" or holding your crooked French Canadian uncle's guts in after he's been shot running gin. We danced to one band with the innocuous name Clap Your Hands Say Yeah who sang a song in which they chanted on and on about Satan. It was great.
But then I bought this CD by one of the acts I liked but hadn't heard before: Gomez. And they've shaken my worldview. I have discovered the most genuinely tame band in the history of the universe.
I'm not being snitty. I'm totally obsessed with these guys. They're like normal, well-adjusted (and non-religious) young men with guitars. Crowded House without the sardonic parts. I can't get over it. The (sorry, one of the) lead singer(s) can fool you for a while because he has an edgy, I-could-be-Oasis-if-I-wanted sort of voice. But on track two, he's urging some friend to stop being so competetive and "see the world/ find an old fashioned girl". Old fashioned girl? The title track sounds for a bit like your standard ode to this-relationship-sucks-but-let's-fuck-anyway ennui, until you realise that the punchline is a shockingly earnest "I'll try to see things your way / And I'm gonna love you anyway". Awww. There's not even any eyebrow-raising raunch of the sort even my all-time favourite whimsical Brit band China Crisis would stuff into a song.* There's one song about getting drunk when unhappy about the past that's maybe the sort of thing your parents wouldn't like... but good God, even I do that occassionally. The rest of the songs are just relentlessly earnest and wide-eyed and happy... but not too happy, like Robert Smith in a manic phase, or label-forced flopsweat cheer. That is, not more happy than a well-adjusted 23 year old should be. They're making me feel like a freak. Nobody should be this unabashedly, unapologetically, uncalculatedly tame, except maybe my parents. Can I really be listening to a band of young men more stable than I am? Ugh.
A friend had some thoughts on this, which are roughly: isn't it about time that nice become the new alternative? I mean, in terms of shock value, what comes after grunge and gangsta? How much more laddish can we get? Not to oversimplify: conflicts of class, gender, race, opportunity will always fuel genuinely angry music, and there will be a market for it. But at some point, the music our parents grew up with isn't going to be any less daring, intellectually or emotionally, than our generation's stuff. We can't get off on being unhappier or more complex or ironic or dumber than the fam. At some point miserable indecipherable rebellion becomes a cliche. Then, there's Gomez to rub their basic optimism in your face. I'm certainly more weirded out than I was by "Heart Shaped Box".**
The last act of the concert last weekend was Beck, who had this creepy stage-show about the band as marionettes (only clowns are creepier). But the penultimate band was called Death Cab for Cutie. They were good, but -- despite the suggestive name -- their whole stage routine between songs was just relentlessly, but quite convincingly, nice, gushing about how awesome the other bands were and how great Seattle had been to them. Maybe they're on to something.
* In case you were curious, I was thinking about the title track this album.
** Yeah, yeah, apologies for the ancient references; like I said, I don't claim to know anything about pop music beyond my basic assumptions.
3 Comments:
Laura-
Another great post. Takes me back to my own pop music dilemmas: "Do I have a moral responsibility to listen to the Dead Kennedys (who were actually before my time)? Can I actually admit that I like a couple of Duran Duran songs?"
I have a retro suggestion: somebody who straddled the line between weird and trying-to-be-sort-of-normal. You might want to check out Warren Zevon's Sentimental Hygiene album. The song Bad Karma has one of my all-time favorite lines:
"I took a wrong turn on the astral plane."
Will do, john. Seriously, though, what could be more subversive than listening to a band whose people are less angry and screwed up than you are?
Laura-
I love your logic. It's kind of like eating a bowl of oatmeal because it's good for you and discovering that you actually like it. Or reading a DLC newsletter and realizing that you agree with it because it's so damn responsible.
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