'Canonical'-type shit you just don't get

[bun-u]

I think the most underrated band ever were The Wolfe Tones, but there you go.

Wolfe Tones awful rebel rousing band, noen of them can sing and when I saw them a few years ago on Holloway Rd, the most entertaining part of the evening was when 2 of the band members broke into a fight over who wrote the song about the hunger strikes.

Isn’t the problem with canonising music or even all notions of “genius” it is that it is a lie. I remember discovering all the canonised artists of the 60s in the late 80s (scanning references/influences in the NME and then going to Coventry City record library!) and being initially blown away by everything from the Beatles to Can. But in the years since as I’ve filled in more of the gaps around these bands, and have placed them into a clearer context in which they were working, and have then ended up thinking, why are these artists canonised and not the others. For some it might be bring in the right place at the right time, for others record sales, but for a few, yes they were at the top of their game and were slightly better than the others. Then there are those who lay they foundations for future/eternal canonisation - cleverly keeping myths alive that help to enfuse the interest of future generations….a bit like the claim that Newton’s theory of gravity surfaced many years after others had invented it, but the nice story about the apple duped future generations into believing that it was him

 

[egg]

what's with all this 'i don't get the beatles'? something wrong with your listening sticks dear boys and girls.

 

[Randy Watson]

Is the canon in flux (and is that a contradiction in terms) or is a continuum of musical development at work?

Anyone else (apart from Blissblogger) remember Melody Maker's Unknown Pleasures freebie book? The foreword laid out it's intention to query the canon, to expand it through discourse. It's main point was that it is unhealthy to have stasis with comfortable assumptions about what is or is not canonical. A dissensus is literally vital. Hurrah for this thread then.

You wouldn't get such a book given away with a mainstream music publication now

If you don't like Jimi Hendrix then I think you need to listen to what was being done with Electric guitars before he came along. As Bun-U said, Genius is a chronically overused term in musical appreciation but some people are just so far ahead of the game there is no sense of a continuum at work.

 

[AshRa]

go and buy 'harvest'

Then check "Will To Love".

 

[noel emits]

i reckon most people 'get' the beatles - it's just that for some their music doesn't seem that relevant right now. redundant perhaps - victims of their own pervasive influence.

canon = hegemony right? when someone talks about the canon i always immediately think of acts like cream, the doors, dylan, hendrix, bob marley, the who - none of whom i feel any need to listen to most of the time. the mojo canon. dull, generic, lowest common denominator. tasteful.

so for me 'the canon' is almost a pejorative term. perhaps that's uber-rockist, but really i always want to hear amazing stuff that is not in this 'canon'. some confirmation that we can do better. it takes a while to become the hegemony, so all these canonical records are also old records. unless it's someone who sneaks in there by skillfully reproducing canonical moves wihtout deviating or innovating too much - like, say, the white stripes.

so i can totally understand why most of the canonised music is there - it's just that a lot of it is only really of historical relevance. our culture moves very fast, 'all time greats' stagnate.

 

[hamarplazt]

Certain things you need to experience in their natural element to understand them.

Speak to someone who actually went raving to it in it's peak during the late 90's and see the look in their eye as they recall what it was like, and you will get an inkling of an idea what it's redeeming features are.

Not necessarily. I never really experienced jungle in the natural element, but I still get it. Or at least I think I do.

 

[hamarplazt]

so two new questions: what are the bands that people think are canonical but really didn't add much to the musical landscape? and what canonical bands do we really wish hadn't existed because of their terrifying influence on musical culture?

Now I never thought that this thread was about kicking things out. I actually do think that a lot of stuff that I don't really like deserves to be in "the canon" exactly because of its influence, I just don't undrstand how it ever did become so influential. So in a way I think the second new question is actually the original question of this thread. To which my answer is still Hendrix.

As for the first question... well how about most detroit techno? Detroit techno added itself to the musical landscape, but at the same time established a limbo - a lot of people have been inspired by detroit, but only to make more music sounding almost exactly like the idols.

 

[hamarplazt]

If you don't like Jimi Hendrix then I think you need to listen to what was being done with Electric guitars before he came along. As Bun-U said, Genius is a chronically overused term in musical appreciation but some people are just so far ahead of the game there is no sense of a continuum at work.

But this is the whole point of what I don't like about him - that I really never ever heard him as ahead of anything. On the contrary, except for Beethoven I've never heard any other supposed timeless genius sounding so bloody dated and dependent on it's time. Now... I am aware that Hendrix revolutionized the way electric guitars are used but I just can't stand the way he sounds! Technical invention isn't the same as musical quality.

 

[redcrescent]

Nirvana. And no-one's mentioned Radiohead, so I'll have to.

 

[puretokyo]

Radiohead, abso-fucking-lutely. Can't stand it.

As for trying to explain Basic Channel, well... its... like... um, I dunno, I see it in the same way I see Sunn or Earth or Russell Haswell, excepts it isn't abrasive. Just massive slabs of massaging noise. It needs a seriously good stereo to shine, and a torpor-like mental state... then it blows minds. Of course, I vastly prefer their Rhythm & Sound output. That new See Mi Yah box is amazing.

 

[stelfox]

will people stop dissing phil collins?!

 

[blissblogger]

hendrix-disgust

hamarplazt, re. your disgust for hendrix ... well you know, i think the sensation of disgust and the sensation of ecstasy/voluptuous pleasure/etc can be in odd proximity sometimes, one only has to think of sex for how things that would be avoided normally or even found revolting can be erotic... i suspect that what revolts you about hendrix is precisely the same sensations i would find blissful, that orgiastic, sound-smearing excess

... again with the sex analogy, it's all about what turns you on, music taste is a form of sensualism, we all have different audio erogeous zones

there's people for whom the Dionysian aspects of sound are either de trop or just leave them cold, don't have any purchase on their listening bodies

bob stanley actually has a very defined audio-sensualist aesthetic, he once told me he didn't really like funk, esp P-Funk... his whole taste is very non-messy and Appollonianm=, hence preferring northern soul to funk... another one he hated was Cream!

re. what makes a Canon, harold bloom sez that Canons are created by artistic successors, so who's in the Canon at any given moment depends on the bands around today choosing who to be influenced by, who they choose as hallowed ancestors

and per Bloom, the most creative artists are those who choose their ancestors AND then engage in an oedipal struggle with them, a doomed attempt to be self-fathered and completely original

his schema works well with literature i think but not sure it has 100 percent applicability to pop music though

but yeah the canon is a zone of contestation and constant flux, innit

 

[egg]

will people stop dissing phil collins?!

y'won't hear me dissin phil collins. i walk with jesus.

 

[DigitalDjigit]

basic channel and autechre

Ok, let me defend two bands in this thread.

I really like Basic Channel, even leaving aside the aesthetic, the collectability, the influence. If you want banging I got two words for you "Phylyps Trak" (both of them). First of all, their bass sound is amazingly clear and propulsive. If bass was a religion they would be prophets. One of the most memorable musical experiences in my life was hearing "Inversion" in at a party in a forest in the wee hours of the morning.

They are like sound architects, it's not about melody but texture. I remember listening to "Enforcement" and thinking "just what the hell is this???" it was just this impenetrable grinding noise field with barely any recognizable musical elements (except for rhythm). It was great. There is so much detail to the sound. It's like the perfect Ohm sound, once you capture it do you really need anything else?

Yea, so most of their stuff is just one loop with an effect subtly modulating it over the span of 10 minutes. But when it is such a great loop, who can complain?

Now Autechre. I find that their albums usually contain about one or two really great tracks and the rest you can ignore. But those are really special. I like Autechre for many of the same reasons as Basic Channel. THey have this scratchy sound and it's really hard to understand what is going on. ONly instead of looping a perfect rhythm-perfect sound they take their insectoid tinkerings and create intricate tapestries where no two bars are similar. It is so unlike regular pop music, so far away from its concerns. Their melodies and moods can be really far out and unusual. I like their unique voice. The idea of generative music also excites me. I like Autechre the least when they use a recognizable hip-hop style beat. I like them best when it is just this miasma of pops, crackles and zips.

I have a hard time thinking of bands that are in the canon that I do not like because I have not heard enough to judge the ones I do not care for. There is a reason they are in the canon. As they say, "You can fool some of the people all of the time or all of the people some of the time but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

 

[noel emits]

some time ago i did a mashup mix of autechre's 'slip' with 'come back and stay' by paul young. they are very similar melodically. i find most autechre to be too disembodied, arch and yet not half as clever as it would like to be. there is the odd gem though, like you say. prefer the gescom stuff overall. that's an old, old discussion isn't it? horrible flashbacks of the idm mailing list.

phylyps traksl = thumbs up. they rock, quite simply!

 

[hamarplazt]

hamarplazt, re. your disgust for hendrix ... well you know, i think the sensation of disgust and the sensation of ecstasy/voluptuous pleasure/etc can be in odd proximity sometimes, one only has to think of sex for how things that would be avoided normally or even found revolting can be erotic... i suspect that what revolts you about hendrix is precisely the same sensations i would find blissful, that orgiastic, sound-smearing excess

I think you're absolutely right here.

and per Bloom, the most creative artists are those who choose their ancestors AND then engage in an oedipal struggle with them, a doomed attempt to be self-fathered and completely original

Now this is really interesting, because oddly I'm really into The Bevis Frond, one of the few rock artists I've cared to follow in the 90s. Bevis obviously has a HUGE oedipus-thing going on with Hendrix, going as far as writing these lines: I took an album from the ancient unit/ And I walked on down the hall/ "Jimi, I want to kill you"/ He stood before me in a vision/ With treasured secrets of the blues/ A voice rang out from battered speakers/ "You are not fit to shine my shoes". And still I love Bevis (except most of the solos and the long bluesy jam sessions where he's trying to imitate Hendrix directly) and choke on his mentor. I suppose the sound is the key more than anything, Bevis' sound is very different - cold and neurotic.

 

[Melmoth]

Not canonical but so many people rave about them that I have to say:

I really don't get DFA/ LCD Soundsystem. Why is this brand of retro good and other types bad? I mean what does yeahyeahyeah do apart from cobble together passable versions of disco and acid in an knowing way? The Losing my Edge joke wears off pretty fast too. Its all too knowing and tickled with itself. Dad-beat.

LCD are shite live too.

 

[Randy Watson]

I don't get Elvis Costello.

Harmarplatz, I don't want to drag this out but you say on one hand that you cannot hear how Hendrix was ahead of his time and on the other hand acknowledge that he revolutionised the way electric guitars were used. Which is it?

I know technical invention by itself is not musical quality but applying technical invention to expression seamlessly usually is. Lee Perry springs to mind, as does (for me) A Guy Called Gerald.

Random thought: If the canon is in flux how can anything be timeless?

Bloom's theory begs the question; what is the difference between an artist and a creative artist. Surely the former is only an imitator?

 

[AshRa]

Not canonical but so many people rave about them that I have to say:

I really don't get DFA/ LCD Soundsystem. Why is this brand of retro good and other types bad? I mean what does yeahyeahyeah do apart from cobble together passable versions of disco and acid in an knowing way? The Losing my Edge joke wears off pretty fast too. Its all too knowing and tickled with itself. Dad-beat.

LCD are shite live too.

Just because you don't like LCD, don't write off DFA (like I nearly did!) there's some ace stuff on there like Juan Maclean, Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom and JOY.

 

[hamarplazt]

I don't get Elvis Costello.

Harmarplatz, I don't want to drag this out but you say on one hand that you cannot hear how Hendrix was ahead of his time and on the other hand acknowledge that he revolutionised the way electric guitars were used. Which is it?

It's both. Technical innovation/revolution isn't by definition ahead of its time. If he was innovating in a way that people would only get much later, then yes, but that's hardly the case. Actually, if his time hadn't been so receptive of his technique, no revolution would have happened.

I know technical invention by itself is not musical quality but applying technical invention to expression seamlessly usually is.

Well, wouldn't that depend on the quality of what's expressed?

Oh, and I don't get Elvis Costello either, BTW.