Think about the covers of 'Revolver' and 'Sgt Pepper's'. And now think about what we'd think about those two albums if you swapped the covers round.
Colours in music are so important. Only when I started thinking about it did I realise how intrinsically I linked some classic albums to their covers. But there's more to it than that.
Sometimes we just hear colours in music, don't we? This is more clearly true, in and of itself, in this era when we don't necessarily always see an album's cover.
I'm nowhere near being synaesthetic, nor have I ever taken hallucinogens, and I'd definitely place myself low down the imagination scale, so I'm pretty confident this isn't just me - some music is in black and white, and some is all the colours of the rainbow.
It is not always the case that the latter is better - 'Revolver' and 'Sgt Pepper's' being a good example of that (if we buy into the notion that the album covers represent the music, which may not be true ...). Bob Dylan is not (hardly ever, maybe in the mid-70s a little) kaleidoscopic, nor are many of the greatest artists of all time - I wouldn't say Marvin Gaye is, or Aretha Franklin, or The Smiths, or The Velvet Underground, or The Ramones, or many others ...
Sure, this is linked to drugs and psychedelia - across genres, most psychedelia is determined to let you know how colourful it is. But it's not just that.
Stevie Wonder is the artist, for me, most intrinsically linked to the kaleidoscopic. Colours burst out of so much of his music. Prince, I know, is someone people would think of in this respect, but I tried, I thought about a Prince song to pick, but I just don't love any Prince songs, I just don't, and there's not much can be done about it.
Here's my attempt at a playlist of my version of Kaleidoscopop:
https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/kaleidoscopop/pl.u-JPWXPtjqxpe
- Good Vibrations - Beach Boys
- Hey Ya - OutKast
- Good Times - Chic
- Knocks Me Off My Feet - Stevie Wonder
- Drive-in Saturday - David Bowie
- Locked Inside - Janelle Monae
- She Comes in Colors - Love
- Cosmia - Joanna Newsom
- King Harvest (Has Surely Come) - The Band
- The Jungle Line - Joni Mitchell
- Les Fleurs - Minnie Riperton
- Holes - Mercury Rev
- Rainbow - Kacey Musgraves
- Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Diana Ross
- River Deep, Mountain High - Ike and Tina Turner
- Suite: Judy Blue Eyes - Crosby, Still and Nash
- Doo Wop (That Thing) - Lauryn Hill
- Monster - Kanye West etc
- Ball of Confusion - The Temptations
- Stand - Sly and the Family Stone
- Stay Young - Ultrasound
- She's a Rainbow - The Rolling Stones
- Sitting on the Dock of Bay - Otis Redding
- The Return of the Grievous Angel - Gram Parsons
- Time to Pretend - MGMT
- Dreamy Days - Roots Manuva
- Listen, Listen - Sandy Denny
- Move Your Feet - Junior Senior
- We Are Your Friends - Justice Vs Simian
- Oh What a World - Rufus Wainwright
- He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot - Grandaddy
- Do You Realize - The Flaming Lips
- Gigantic - The Pixies
- Rapture - Blondie
- Fantasy - Earth Wind and Fire
- There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) - Eurythmics
- Plan B - Dexys Midnight Runners
- Galang - MIA
- I Saw the Light - Todd Rundgren
- Summer Breeze - The Isley Brothers
- Theme from Shaft - Isaac Hayes
- You Masculine You - Lambchop
- Nutmeg - Ghostface Killah
- Perfect Day - Lou Reed
- Eye Know - De La Soul
- Many Rivers to Cross - Jimmy Cliff
- Unfinished Sympathy - Massive Attack
- Ice Hockey Hair - Super Furry Animals
- Roscoe - Midlake
- Cloudbusting - Kate Bush
- And it Stoned Me - Van Morrison
- All Things Must Pass - George Harrison
- Hazey Jane II - Nick Drake
- Grown Ocean - Fleet Foxes
- Brimful of Asha - Cornershop
- I - Kendrick Lamar
- Everybody Loves the Sunshine - Roy Ayers
- A Day in the Life - The Beatles
- Yes - McAlmont and Butler
- Over The Rainbow - Judy Garland
I see what you're getting at and like it a lot (especially the name!), but surely this very much means you DO have some access to synaesthesia - linking a sound experience to a visual one is like the literal definition. It's not going to prove my point, but one of the reasons I love synth music so much is exactly because hitting those keys to make those electronic sounds sets off the kaleidoscope in my head every time. So while I can't argue with the logic of your playlist choices, mine would be dominated by OMD, New Order and Animal Collective.
ReplyDeleteHa, yeah, I wondered while I was typing it, I mean surely, as I protest too much, what I am describing is in some sense synaesthesia, but I just imagine it, when people use that word, being something different, more tangible. The colours in my mind are dim, but they are there, I guess ... and I think I am very suggestible to album covers - that's where I find the Revolver/Sgt Pepper's thing pretty fascinating. What do you feel when you hear them? Do you think Sgt Pepper's really is more "colourful" or do you think that's all in the cover ...
DeleteAnd yes, I love that is really something personal to each individual, so no one's choices can be questioned. Animal Collective I thought about, but it's something else for me with them, it's like a haze or an eddy ...