Not that I entirely agree with this article, but as a jazz musician, it definitely interests me.
I am curious though; when was the last time everyone listened to an entire album while doing nothing else? (no driving, surfing, working, etc...)
I am curious though; when was the last time everyone listened to an entire album while doing nothing else? (no driving, surfing, working, etc...)
I've yet to run into anybody who turns their nose up at, say, Dave Brubeck's "Time Out", which is certainly rhythmically sophisticated but tuneful, or Kenny Burrell's "Midnight Blue" (an album that's usually the first up for visitors). It's the "I'm an artiste, dammit" attitude, the cleverness for cleverness' sake, the removal of anything remotely engaging at a visceral level -- the attempt to emulate in the jazz idiom what Schoenberg perpetrated on "serious" music -- that forces people to decide that the Emperor is without skivvies to cover his shame.
Lyrical content is a red herring as well. There's a lot of dance crap (and some that's not crap) that gets heavy rotation in the wider world that is entirely word-free.
Okay, jazz is all about painting oneself into a corner and finding imaginative ways of escaping the trap you've set for yourself, but there's no harm in playing something that manages to capture a tune along the way rather than merely tracking the letter of the changes. Too many jazzers forget that it's still music.
But yeah, on your first point there, I remember a big double-bill concert around here about ten years ago. The first half was fairly traditional jazz, well-attended and apparently well-liked. The second performer's music could best be described as a quick, semi-recognizable head followed by minutes of endless sixteenth notes without any appreciable (to me, anyway) form or structure. There was obviously an incredible amount of skill on display, but I found it unimaginably boring. I wasn't alone: after about ten minutes of the second half, there was a steady stream of people getting up and leaving during the performance. So did I eventually.
Here is "Take 5" from "Time Out" by Dave Brubeck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwNrmYRiX_o
And "Midnight Blue" by Kenny Burrell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wAmxuHt5nw
An excellent and resonant question... It makes me think of generally how our relationship to music has changed over the past 20 years.
I have often thought of the jazz of the 1950's as being about as good as it gets when it comes to American cultural production. Take the production of Mingus and Monk as examples and you have two very different kinds of genius that produced challenging music to listen to.
It is really hard to listen to that music and do something else. Except ride subways - back in the late 80's living in Brooklyn used to listen to CDs while barrelling home at night on the G train or L train... But is demands your attention in a different way and can frankly at times be upsetting to listen to.
In the right (or wrong) frame of mind a song like Monk's version of "The man I love" or Sarah Vaughn's "April in Paris" or Mingus' "Ecclusiastics" can unhinge me -
And even when the Jazz is more popular in orientation - if it is good it bears repeated listenings. "kind of Blue" - despite being overplayed stands up. The "Ella and Louis" albums likewise. That stuff is way overplayed and yet you can listen to it and get something new out of it.
On the other hand most music today is designed to be what Tom Waits describes in the intro to "Better off without a wife", music that is:
"... you know, you put a little nice music on. Maybe you put on like... you know... like shopping music, something that's not too interruptive..."
Most music is designed to not interrupt the flow of commerce, not it interrupt advertising but to fall in line in a supporting role.
I am old enough to remember a time in which it seemed that some music was immune to commercialization. I know this sounds naive - and it is. It was very disturbing for me to see the Rolling Stones selling cars or Iggy Pop selling cruises. Or seeing pictures of Jack Kerouac in a Gap jeans ad. And yet I can see now that in most cases (Rolling Stones, etc) that it I was just a logical extension of the form itself. There was no real transgression - just my frame of mind.
There is a radio show on my local NPR (WNYC) - and I think it is syndicated on Sirius. Jonathan Schwartz - "American Songbook" or something like that. I find the music not mostly to my taste (he is a big Sinatra fan) but to hear Schwartz talk about songs and instrumentation and specifics of a performance (the drummer had a cold that day, etc, etc) and it is the closest that I listen to music in the course of a week. I really love the guy's ethos (if I can only take and hour or so of the show.)
On a different tangent - when I was back in college (late 80's- early 90's) I had a friend who was an audiophile. He had ridiculous equipment especially for a dorm/student apartment. Dedicated mono amps for each stereo channel, finely balanced belt driven turntables. We would listen to recordings and he would point out things like the low bass rumbling of the subway passing by Carnegie Hall. Or how in the dark you could almost visualize the spacial arrangement of a string quartet.
To be honest I am not that musical and most of the times the things he discussed went over my head. The one thing that I could hear at the time was the difference between digital recording and analog on his system.
But for me it was an object lesson in the specificity of a performance that is often lost today. And those days sitting in the dark with my friend might be the last time I really listened to an album...
I can't say I've had the chance since, umm, the kids were born, but there aren't too many better ways to spend a Sunday morning than laying in bed listening to Van Morrison.
Do people really not do this anymore? If I strolled around a University dorm at, say, 3am, I wouldn't find half-baked people listening to Pink Floyd or the Grateful Dead by candlelight? Kids these days....
But not the Grateful Dead. You hear "Friend of the Devil" and "Casey Jones" and think, oh hey, these guys are pretty good. Then you hear pretty much anything else they've ever done and realize that most of it is a session where everyone was too wasted to remember when to stop the song.
But I'm an anomaly, as I still buy CDs rather than individual tracks from the ITMS.
Here's something weird that I do: if I'm tuning the radio dial and run across a song or band the I recognize as being very well liked by a (absent) friend, I'll stop and listen to the whole thing out of respect for their opinion, even if I don't like it myself.
* OK Computer (by Radiohead) I've probably done 3-4 dark rooms listens through this in the last year alone. * Venomous Villian (by Victor Vaughn aka MF Doom) * Timeless (by Goldie) * The Stone Roses (by The Stone Roses) * Tranceport (by Paul Oakenfold)
I try and turn out the lights and listen to an album or two whenever my wife has Yoga or dinner with friends. Ideally I do this slightly drunk which helps me really lose myself in the music and keeps my brain from ruining everything.
So is everyone else, but I guess it stands out to me because I do consider it a worthwhile goal, to sit on the sofa, put on something like Jóhann Jóhannsson's IBM 1401: A Users' Manual, and just listen to the movements the way I would watch a movie.
But I never do. I always feel like I have to be doing something while listening to music, simply because it's possible. It's true; I don't know what to look at, what to do, if I'm not watching a live performance.
...
But even granting those points, it's been a few weeks. Shuffling among new tracks or listening to streams is just so easy.
(The album in question was Oil and Gold by Shriekback, an old favorite.)
Singles are very popular right now. Not a lot of people are listening or even making 70s-style albums that are meant to be listened to in their entirety.
I'm an anomaly. I only listen to music while doing nothing else. I'll add that I don't have a car, and did listen to music while driving. BTW, I feel like you're not really doing much of anything when you're driving, so your ability to actually listen to music is retained.
Unlike coding. I can't listen to music while working, I want to pay too much attention to analyzing the chord progressions, lyrics, etc. :)
I mean, I love music (I'm an amateur guitar & sax player, even tried my hand at writing some music software) but I can't listen to an album without doing anything else. Does that make me a bad person?