Music

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Is Classical Music Dead?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 2, 2010 by admin in Music

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

Obviously not. But it doesn’t seem to be feeling very well.


Maybe classical will have the last laugh.

I was much more of an audio snob when I was a teen than I am now. At the peak of my snobbishness I had a Thorens direct drive turntable, a McIntosh (no, not MacIntosh) amp, and custom speakers that I built myself using components from a Seattle company called SpeakerLab. Aside from being able to blast my Aerosmith, Bowie, and Clash records at 120 decibels, I could then turn around, switch out the stylus, and throw on some immaculate Deutsche Grammaphon pressing of Beethoven, Bartok, Tchaikovsky or Arvo Pärt. Not too long after that the CD came along, and we were all so distracted by its signal-to-noise ratio and “accuracy” that it took us forever to notice how really bad they sound because of their sample rate. And in the 90′s, my snobbishness finally died a quiet death in the hands of a computer and a crappy file format known as mp3. The ability to compile and shovel around songs by the thousands and not need physical storage space seduced me. And the ability to choose from such a vast array became more important somehow than slowing down and really listening. This fact was painfully highlighted for me the other day when a friend and I were lamenting the dearth of classical music outlets these days. I don’t even know if there is one where I live, and my friend who lives in Chicago says they are a rarity even in a city of its size. So is classical music dying? Well, in a way, yes. The broad category referred to as classical has recently had extremely low unit-per-artist sales and accounted for around 3% of American music sales, and around 5% of global sales. And the trend has been to head steadily downward for some time. Adding to the genre’s woes, American orchestras are recently enduring severe budget crunches. So is this the end of the centuries-long line? Well, Universal and Sony don’t think so; they’ve launched Passionato and Ariama, respectively. Both sites offer CD’s and downloads in both mp3 and FLAC formats. Does this mean there’s hope? What do you think? Have you rocked any Amadeus lately? Is classical doomed? I personally predict an indie classical rock revival with renewed interest in the classics. But then, I’m an ELO fan.

The Books – The Way Out

[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 20, 2010 by admin in Music

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

Don’t let reviewers’ inability to pigeonhole The Books’ sample-driven sound collages. Terms like “Folktronica” don’t begin to capture the essence of their carefully crafted found sound creations.

When a friend of mine recently suggested I absolutely had to check out The Books’ latest release The Way Out, I of course went to their Wikipedia page, since I hadn’t heard of them before. I have to admit I was briefly disturbed by the fact that the entry puts them in the hilariously-named genre Folktronica. As much as I enjoy some good Hick Hop, I wasn’t sure I was in the mood for whatever “Folktronica” might turn out to be. I’m glad I ignored that incredibly misleading description of what The Books do; when I finally got my hands on a copy of “The Way Out” and Thought for Food, I was pleasantly surprised by an eclectic and tightly-produced pastiche of sonic art that I might try to describe by saying something like “it’s sort of like Pinback meets My Life In the Bush of Ghosts“. Which also miserably fails to convey their exceedingly listenable inventiveness. Most of their music incorporates random samples of people talking and other sounds, but the musicalness of how they incorporate these sounds is so well-executed that you never really think of it as a guitarist and cellist playing with samples. The only decent comparison I can think of is the rather obscure Bill Nelson, who throughout the 80′s churned out a massive body of exceptionally musical sound collages that came across more like ambient music or the sounds of a film you weren’t watching. There’s a ton of press out there about The Books, which apparently hasn’t in itself led to a lot of unit sales for the duo. In many earlier interviews, they seemed to try to blame this on fans’ file sharing, something didn’t resonate as true for me, so I was glad to learn from articles like this more recent Boston.com article that they’ve since accepted that they have to tour. And they are as I type this; visit their site for show dates. Read the rest of this entry »

Juggalos For Jesus

[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 10, 2010 by admin in Music

Sunday, October 10th, 2010

The Revelation that Insane Clown Posse are secret messengers of God may be the Genesis of a new era of Jack Chick Juggalos.


The evangelizing was plain as day
in Volume 1 of The Pendulum

If you think hatchet-wielding clowns are scary, you’ve obviously never met a Christian hatchet-wielding clown. That raps. And likes wrestling. Well, that’s what you’re likely to find in whatever remains of Insane Clown Posse’s fan base after they recently revealed that yes, they’re on a mission to bring the Lord’s message to today’s troubled youth . Or, as they like to refer to them, Juggalos. If you’re not familiar with Juggalos, they’re sort of like the recent generation’s answer to Kiss fans, but with hatchets. And Faygo. And a little white trash goth thrown in for good measure. Apparently it was way back in 2006 (with their concert performance of Thy Unveiling ) that ICP first revealed the shocking fact that behind all the murder, mayhem, and misogyny was just some good old-fashioned missionary work. But everyone either thought they were joking, or just didn’t care. Or, like you and me, didn’t even know. So earlier this year they got some good blogospheric spin with their video Miracles, in which they wore white and pointed out the miracles of God’s creation. You know. Like magnets. Which inspired Cracked.com to create Learn Your Motherf#@kin’ Science: A Textbook for Juggalos, which helps the average Faygo-and-whippet-impaired Juggalo to sort the science magic from the regular magic. The video got so much spin that Saturday Night Live even spoofed it. In the end though, in spite of the common assumption that ICP are a couple of white trash raptards, the joke’s ultimately only on any Juggalos who didn’t figure it out from the start. The message was there in plain sight in early episodes of ICP’s comic series The Pendulum, a sort of updated Jack Chick, with more testicle references, and less preaching. The rest of us can make fun of ICP, and granted, their movies Big Money Hustla$ and its prequel Big Money Rustlas will never make it to Cannes, but these clowns are laughing all the way to the bank; they rake in $10 million annually. Read the rest of this entry »

More Guilty Pleasures Of 70′s Symphonic Rock: The Moody Blues

[ 5 Comments ]Posted on September 24, 2010 by admin in Music

Friday, September 24th, 2010

Sure, these stoned, classically-trained hippies may have accidentally planted the seeds of the new age movement, but until tragedy struck in 1978, they were one of the best art rock bands in existence.


With covers like this they may have
been indirectly responsible for the new
age movement, but they still rocked.

Last year I publicly revealed the shameful pleasure I still derive from listening to 70′s symphonic rock band ELO, and was genuinely surprised by how many people still enjoyed their Beatles-esque pop genius. Well, today I have an even more shameful confession. I am a hopeless The Moody Blues fan. In spite of the fact that these guys were essentially a bunch of hairy-faced, classically-trained hippies who may be single-handedly responsible for the entire new age movement with their penchant for stoned, pseudo-spiritual peacenik poetry interludes and dreamy airbrush psychedelic album covers, they also happened to be amongst the most talented and innovative of all the 60′s/70′s art rock bands, with their brilliant early use of the mellotron and tight pop symphonics, provided mostly by the London Festival Orchestra. The Moody Blues especially stood out amongst many of their prog-rock contemporaries like Yes or Pink Floyd for the simple fact that they possessed a gift that few of these bands did: the ability to not sound like crap live. In fact, if you’re familiar with the studio version of Ride My See-Saw, I would defy you to be able to tell the difference between it and this live Paris club performance (also below) from 1970. The band churned out a string of hit singles and solid albums beginning with (video below) 1964′s Go Now – which could easily be mistaken for a song by Peter Bjorn & John or Grizzly Bear – and culminating with 1972′s Seventh Sojourn. Unfortunately, after creating a series of well-crafted stoner concept albums like Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Seventh Sojourn, and A Question of Balance, as well as resilient singles like Nights in White Satin, Tuesday Afternoon and I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock ‘n Roll Band), tragedy struck in 1978. No, there was no tragic aircrash, 1978 was the year the band decided to get back together and release Octave, which launched a series of middle-of-the-road pop dreck albums with aging rock star saccharine hits like I Know You’re Out There Somewhere. Personally, I do a good job of pretending – as I do with much of the 80′s – that their later releases never happened, and just enjoy the good stuff. Vids below. Read the rest of this entry »

Sink Your Teeth Into True Blood’s Music

[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 20, 2010 by admin in Music

Monday, September 20th, 2010

Music supervisor Gary Calamar’s brilliant music choices have left a bigger mark on me than all the vampire teeth, eroticism and wacked-out storylines have. Fortunately there’s an easy way to review and collect all the songs.


True Blood’s Music Will Have
You Licking Your Lips Too

I’ve mentioned before that I haven’t had TV for years, and am ironically more interested in watching TV commercials than the shows that they interrupt, but occasionally, when a few friends recommend something rabidly enough, I break down and watch it on line if I can, or borrow, rent, or torrent it if I can’t. Which is how I ended up watching all three seasons of True Blood in three weeks recently. Yes, I fell for the implausible but irresistible plot-twisting cliffhangers, and even endured the episodes where the plotline went all wacky and Dionysian and sort of became the “History of Mythology with Mary Ann Forrester” show. I think actress Michelle Forbes is carving out a great niche for herself; her character in Battlestar Galactica performed the same “appear as a heroine, derail the series, and turn out to be a nasty villain and die” function as her character in True Blood did. But in spite of any humorous criticism I have of the show, it’s been fun so far, and there’s no arguing that it’s another well-crafted piece of entertainment from HBO. And for me the most lasting element of what has made the series so watchable is the excellent selection of soundtrack and closing title songs. Which range from the alt-country of Todd Snider’s Back to the Crossroads to the industrial/techno of Ashtrayhead’s tune Ashtrayhead. I already picked up the True Blood: Music From The HBO Original Series collection, now I’m trying to figure out how to round up the remaining few dozen songs without going broke. Lucky for me, there’s a True Blood wiki that lists every song used in every episode, and conveniently presents them in a Grooveshark player so you can preview each song in its entirety. I wish HBO would just bundle them all in some kind of collection, but it’ll be fun all the same rounding up the tunes separately. True Blood’s music supervisor Gary Calamar is a genius, and apparently has a book out called Record Store Days: From Vinyl to Digital and Back Again which I think I just may have to check out.

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