I said quite a while ago I'd write more about films, and I haven't, so here goes.
For me, it's harder to write confidently about film because I rarely watch a movie more than once (or occasionally twice), especially recent ones. So for all the fine films I've seen in the cinema lately, I'd feel a bit fraudulent saying more than a little.
So, let's go to some comfortable ground - a genre that may be called a guilty pleasure but isn't terribly guilty; the American coming-of-age/youngish adult romance/comedy/drama.
It's not the most critically revered, though it has significant span, from Grease to Brick. I'd say I'm a minor-league aficionado, and have seen a few more films starring the likes of Ryan Reynolds and Julia Stiles than most have.
I don't have particularly exacting standards and parameters - I remember being shocked by how much I enjoyed American Pie at the cinema, though usually I don't really go for the grosser/more laddish angle.
I've loved an awful lot of these films, whether they're darker indie dramas like The Squid and the Whale and Thumbsucker, or archetypal feelgood flicks like She's All That. I embrace their use of popular song of the day, find myself so often surprised at the wit of the dialogue I should no longer be surprised, root for the outcome and often find myself with a little lump in my throat.
I have a favourite - one that ticks all my boxes.
I was reminded of it by seeing publicity for the new film 'American Ultra' and its two stars being interviewed together. Ah, Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart, they seem to get on well, I thought ... oh yes, I remember.
I don't think I'll go see American Ultra - stoner and ultraviolent comedy aren't subgenres that always hit my happy spot, though if it's got a touch of Grosse Point Blank and gets decent reviews, maybe I will.
Anyway, Eisenberg and Stewart's previous encounter was in 'Adventureland', an underrated, underseen little marvel which is one of my favourite films in the world.
What's Adventureland? It's a theme park in late-80s Pennsylvania where students etc spend their summer earning a bit of cash. The sun occasionally shines, it's a bit grimy and depressing. I haven't actually seen much Kristen Stewart, just this and bits of the first Twilight film (Twilight is coming-of-age romance, a plus, vampire, a minus, blockbuster, also a minus) but the sadness and self-loathing behind the eyes makes her pretty compelling in this. Eisenberg I'm a huge fan of, Zombieland, The Social Network etc.
I first saw him in The Squid and the Whale, more a a family film than a teen film per se. I've been watching a lot of Noah Baumbach film's lately. They're all really good, but there is a sourness which can be a little off-putting.
Adventureland does not have that sourness. It's got the ring of truth, it's not glossy, but it's not sour. Greg Mottola is the director and it is, I believe, semi-autobiographical. There's a sweet nostalgia in the period detail. In Britain - maybe less so in the USA - the late 80s can be seen as a bit of a wasteland for music, but the soundtrack is one of the very best things about the film - the key band are The Replacements, those keepers of the flame for the real rock music.
I saw The Replacements a couple of months ago, at the end of their comeback tour, so quite probably their second last gig ever. I'd already been a fan before I watched Adventureland but the depth of my affection is certainly connected to the film. The film ends with the viewer satisfied, as there's a happy ending to the soundtrack of the band's most beautiful song 'Unsatisfied'. The otherwise awesome gig ended with this listener ever so slightly unsatisfied, as there was no 'Unsatisfied' to finish. It finished with 'Alex Chilton' their moderately famous song about what would have happened if Chilton's very unsuccessful but influential band Big Star were massively famous. Big Star also are on the Adventureland soundtrack.
I constantly wish for a world where Big Star, The Replacements and Adventureland have all been massively successful.
These teen films, they're easy to be moved by, to be sucked into empathising, but Adventureland is really more about the right kind of people than most. Geeky but not too geeky, normal and bright, well-read and poor, restless and hopeful.
And it's got Ryan fuckin Reynolds. I like Reynolds, the modern smartass king. Often he's the romantic hero, which kind of works as long as he's a bit of a dick with it, here he's just a bit of an ambiguous dick. It's a very strong supporting role, amongst any others, including Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader.
The film came out at the same time as (500) Days of Summer, a fair bit more feted for its "fresh twist on the romcom". I like that film too, I've seen them both more than once, and, again, great use of the pop music, but it's much more mannered, more artificial, more glossy. Also, not that "liking the characters" is always important for liking films, it does help somewhat with romantic films, and the central two in 500 Days of Summer are super-annoying where pretty much everyone in Adventureland is likeable.
The male star of 500 Days of Summer is Joseph Gordon-Levitt. There are three guys of roughly that age who've done roughly those parts - Eisenberg, Gordon-Levitt and Michael Cera. Cera (whatever will be will be), the oddest, most teen awkward, most straightforwardly comical, has seen his star fall a little inevitably. I'd be surprised if he's still getting main parts in five years time (not that i don't think he's pretty ace).
Eisenberg and Gordon-Levitt, it'll be interesting to see. Both are getting big parts in big films now, though physically Gordon-Levitt lends himself to more, I think, more action hero, more matinee idol, more capable of dumb. Eisenberg, I suspect, will always be at his best when stuttering, self-deprecating, wisecracking. We'll see. They're both in their mid-30s now, anyhow. No more coming-of-age dramas, one hopes.
Anyway, have I told you enough about Adventureland? I've talked it up to people, some of whom have liked but not loved it, not quite getting why I put it on such a pedestal. It's just ... everything about it ... it's marginal gains ... I like every detail in it better than other films of its type, that's all.
I, like Levitt and Eisenberg, am at an age when I'm (or should be) outgrowing the genre a little, but I think I'll always have a place in my heart for Adventureland.
Saturday, 29 August 2015
Wednesday, 26 August 2015
There ain't half been some clever bastards
Sang one of those clever bastards, Ian Dury.
Is his brand of clever quite the clever I'm talking about though?
No one is disputing there are clever people in every genre of music on both sides of the Atlantic - Chris Martin is a very clever man, Madonna is a very clever woman. But you wouldn't say they make clever music. They don't want to. Well, I hope they don't, otherwise they're not as clever as I thought.
There's a certain strand of clever music by clever British bands, often labelled something like art rock or math rock - the cleverness, the archness is its defining feature. It's learned and erudite, it has angles and time signatures and all that jazz.
It doesn't necessarily steal my heart, maybe I'm not clever enough for it. My all-time favourite British bands, from the Beatles to Dexys and the Clash, the Jam, Belle and Sebastian, Super Furry Animals and the Manic Street Preachers, they're undoubtedly full of very clever people, but these are bands where you could say the passion and the soul and the warmth overrides the cleverness. None of these are art-rock bands, sometimes they're even decidedly dumb and all the better for it.
Even Blur, for all the cleverness, had their most universal moments with huge sounds, dumb riffs and rabble-rousing.
The Manics have come unstuck when they've tried to incorporate the cleverness into the actual music, the Furries have always been self-effacing and prepared to use musical cliche to great effect.
All together, like I say, in both American and British music, I tend to have the greatest devotion to very clever bands who are prepared to bear their souls in the music, and prepared to keep it terribly simple at times. Arch is only for me in small doses.
Maybe the key to this is what your favourite Radiohead albums are.
But here are a few British bands in the fine tradition, and plenty of good ones there are, who sound clever and are clever, who don't compromise, who don't necessarily aim to tug the heartstrings. It's not a perfect idea or any kind of long list, it's just a thought I had. I know there is often something about what they're doing musically that I haven't even touched on, because I can't.
Also, let me take this opportunity to remind myself how awesome British Sea Power are.
There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards
Outdoor Miner - Wire
Waving Flags - British Sea Power
Cassius - Foals
Schoolin' - Everything Everything
The Word Girl - Scritti Politti
Darts of Pleasure - Franz Ferdinand
Precious Plans - Field Music
Apply Some Pressure - Maximo Park
Cars and Girls - Prefab Sprout
Helicopter - Bloc Party
The Fun Powder Plot - Wild Beasts
Default - Django Django
You know, I'm going to keep it short. I think that's suitable.
Is his brand of clever quite the clever I'm talking about though?
No one is disputing there are clever people in every genre of music on both sides of the Atlantic - Chris Martin is a very clever man, Madonna is a very clever woman. But you wouldn't say they make clever music. They don't want to. Well, I hope they don't, otherwise they're not as clever as I thought.
There's a certain strand of clever music by clever British bands, often labelled something like art rock or math rock - the cleverness, the archness is its defining feature. It's learned and erudite, it has angles and time signatures and all that jazz.
It doesn't necessarily steal my heart, maybe I'm not clever enough for it. My all-time favourite British bands, from the Beatles to Dexys and the Clash, the Jam, Belle and Sebastian, Super Furry Animals and the Manic Street Preachers, they're undoubtedly full of very clever people, but these are bands where you could say the passion and the soul and the warmth overrides the cleverness. None of these are art-rock bands, sometimes they're even decidedly dumb and all the better for it.
Even Blur, for all the cleverness, had their most universal moments with huge sounds, dumb riffs and rabble-rousing.
The Manics have come unstuck when they've tried to incorporate the cleverness into the actual music, the Furries have always been self-effacing and prepared to use musical cliche to great effect.
All together, like I say, in both American and British music, I tend to have the greatest devotion to very clever bands who are prepared to bear their souls in the music, and prepared to keep it terribly simple at times. Arch is only for me in small doses.
Maybe the key to this is what your favourite Radiohead albums are.
But here are a few British bands in the fine tradition, and plenty of good ones there are, who sound clever and are clever, who don't compromise, who don't necessarily aim to tug the heartstrings. It's not a perfect idea or any kind of long list, it's just a thought I had. I know there is often something about what they're doing musically that I haven't even touched on, because I can't.
Also, let me take this opportunity to remind myself how awesome British Sea Power are.
There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards
Outdoor Miner - Wire
Waving Flags - British Sea Power
Cassius - Foals
Schoolin' - Everything Everything
The Word Girl - Scritti Politti
Darts of Pleasure - Franz Ferdinand
Precious Plans - Field Music
Apply Some Pressure - Maximo Park
Cars and Girls - Prefab Sprout
Helicopter - Bloc Party
The Fun Powder Plot - Wild Beasts
Default - Django Django
You know, I'm going to keep it short. I think that's suitable.
Sunday, 2 August 2015
Four more tapes
Here's a burst of smashing compilation tapes with long self-explanatory titles.
First one is called
If sports people liked cool music, wanted to be inspired but also had a sense of doubt, this is what they'd listen to ...
If you have siblings, and you can all sing, here is the proof that you should really form a band ...
Guitars everywhere but not a man jack amongst them! What Maenad frenzy is this!
A small slab of the glorious history of popular British protest music ...
First one is called
If sports people liked cool music, wanted to be inspired but also had a sense of doubt, this is what they'd listen to ...
- Olympian - Gene
- Mr November - The National
- Chin High - Roots Manuva
- Lose Yourself - Eminem
- Search and Destroy - Iggy Pop
- Keep on Running - Spencer Davis Group
- Faster - Manic Street Preachers
- Steady Pace - Matthew E White
- The Middle - Jimmy Eat World
- So Alive - Ryan Adams
- Get Ready - The Temptations
- Can I Kick It - A Tribe Called Quest
- Who Gon Stop Me - Kanye West ft Jay-Z
- Cloudbusting - Kate Bush
- Finish Line - Fanfarlo
- Victory - The Walkmen
If you have siblings, and you can all sing, here is the proof that you should really form a band ...
- God Only Knows - Beach Boys
- All I Have to Do is Dream - Everly Brothers
- Summer Breeze - The Isley Brothers
- Forever Lost - The Magic Numbers
- Hey Lover - Dawes
- Emmylou - First Aid Kit
- Teeth White - The Staves
- Love You More - The Pierces
- MMMBop - Hanson
- I'll be There - The Jackson 5
- Respect Yourself - The Staple Yourself
- Thinking of You - Sister Sledge
- Gan to the Kye - The Unthanks
- Sunshine on Leith - The Proclaimers
- Where Does the Good Go - Tegan and Sara
- Schooldays - The McGarrigle Hour
Guitars everywhere but not a man jack amongst them! What Maenad frenzy is this!
- Hey Darling - Sleater-Kinney
- Our Lips are Sealed - The Go-Gos
- Deceptacon - Le Tigre
- Radio On - Ex Hex
- Walk Like an Egyptian - The Bangles
- Take Me Anywhere - Tegan and Sara
- Cherry Bomb - The Runaways
- Oh Bondage Up Yours! - X-Ray Spex
- Typical Girls - The Slits
- Woo Hoo - The 5,6,7,8s
- The Wire - Haim
- June Gloom - The Like
- Husbands - Savages
- Can't Find Entry - Those Dancing Days
- Undertow - Warpaint
- Ghost Town - First Aid Kit
A small slab of the glorious history of popular British protest music ...
- Between the Wars - Billy Bragg
- Shipbuilding - Elvis Costello
- Eton Rifles - The Jam
- Time for Heroes - The Libertines
- Working Class Hero - John Lennon
- Give Ireland Back to the Irish - Paul McCartney
- Free Nelson Mandela - The Specials
- Free Satpal Ram - Asian Dub Foundation
- Running the World - Jarvis Cocker
- God Save the Queen - The Sex Pistols
- The Queen is Dead - The Smiths
- Let England Shake - PJ Harvey
- Paper Planes - MIA
- iLL Manors - Plan B
- Cap in Hand - The Proclaimers
- Ready for Drowning - Manic Street Preachers
- The Mountain People - Super Furry Animals
- Sunrise - The Divine Comedy
Friday, 31 July 2015
Perfection and other tales ...
I've a couple more compilation tapes to share ...
Firstly, I'm to admit I got it wrong. I did think about it a lot, and I was always pretty comfortable with my choice of Over the Rainbow as the greatest song of all time, but I also wished at the time that my answer was a little bit more interesting, a bit more likely to prompt the response "yes, I hadn't thought that, but that rings true". Maybe this is a bit more like it.
I didn't get it far wrong, mind. Number 7 has become Number 1. The feeling's been growing throughout the year. It's come up on my ipod a few times recently, it's been featured in an excellent BBC4 documentary, it's somehow become obvious to me. It's Brian Wilson's favourite song. Boom-ba-boom-ch, boom-ba-boom-ch ... you know the one ... Be My Baby.
Now, the one thing that ever so slightly irks me about this being the greatest song of all time is that it rather caters to the argument that this rock'n'roll is all about the 3 minute thrill, the sonic rush, appealing to the heart, the soul, the hips, but not the brain so much. Be My Baby lyrically is, unavoidably, a little banal. But, really, fuck it! It's so flawless, it's sound is so thrilling, it doesn't let up for a second, the vocal, the drum, the chorus, the backing vocal, it still sounds so modern, it's a joy to everyone under the sun, able to memorably define two very different classic films, Mean Streets and Dirty Dancing.
It's the perfect song, the perfect song of all perfect songs.
Talking of which ... this is a tape called Perfection.
It's a certain kind of perfection, of course. The sweet spot.
This is a tape called ...
Girls Groups other than the Spice Girls
Be My Baby - The Ronettes
Remember (Walkin' in the Sand) - The Shangri-Las
Throw Shapes - The Pipettes
Love in the First Degree - Bananarama
No Scrubs - TLC
Bills, Bills, Bills - Destiny's Child
Love Child - The Supremes
Pure Shores - All Saints
Jimmy Mack - Martha and the Vandellas
Will You Love Me Tomorrow - The Shirelles
Don't Let Go - En Vogue
Push It - Salt n Pepa
Trouble - Shampoo
All the Things She Said - Tatu
Biology - Girls Aloud
Please Mr Postman - The Marvelettes
Pretty basic stuff, really ... see how many tapes demand to be kicked off by Be My Baby
Firstly, I'm to admit I got it wrong. I did think about it a lot, and I was always pretty comfortable with my choice of Over the Rainbow as the greatest song of all time, but I also wished at the time that my answer was a little bit more interesting, a bit more likely to prompt the response "yes, I hadn't thought that, but that rings true". Maybe this is a bit more like it.
I didn't get it far wrong, mind. Number 7 has become Number 1. The feeling's been growing throughout the year. It's come up on my ipod a few times recently, it's been featured in an excellent BBC4 documentary, it's somehow become obvious to me. It's Brian Wilson's favourite song. Boom-ba-boom-ch, boom-ba-boom-ch ... you know the one ... Be My Baby.
Now, the one thing that ever so slightly irks me about this being the greatest song of all time is that it rather caters to the argument that this rock'n'roll is all about the 3 minute thrill, the sonic rush, appealing to the heart, the soul, the hips, but not the brain so much. Be My Baby lyrically is, unavoidably, a little banal. But, really, fuck it! It's so flawless, it's sound is so thrilling, it doesn't let up for a second, the vocal, the drum, the chorus, the backing vocal, it still sounds so modern, it's a joy to everyone under the sun, able to memorably define two very different classic films, Mean Streets and Dirty Dancing.
It's the perfect song, the perfect song of all perfect songs.
Talking of which ... this is a tape called Perfection.
It's a certain kind of perfection, of course. The sweet spot.
- Be My Baby - The Ronettes
- Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
- Oh Boy - Buddy Holly
- Gimme Some Loving - The Spencer Davis Group
- Shining Light - Ash
- Going Underground - The Jam
- (Love is Like a) Heat Wave - Martha and the Vandellas
- Umbrella - Rihanna
- Fun, Fun, Fun - The Beach Boys
- Johnny B Goode - Chuck Berry
- The Rat - The Walkmen
- Crazy in Love - Beyonce
- Dancing Queen - ABBA
- Good Times - Chic
- Family Affair - Mary J Blige
- Yes - McAlmont and Butler
Find me a spare second in any of those song ...
This is a tape called ...
Girls Groups other than the Spice Girls
Be My Baby - The Ronettes
Remember (Walkin' in the Sand) - The Shangri-Las
Throw Shapes - The Pipettes
Love in the First Degree - Bananarama
No Scrubs - TLC
Bills, Bills, Bills - Destiny's Child
Love Child - The Supremes
Pure Shores - All Saints
Jimmy Mack - Martha and the Vandellas
Will You Love Me Tomorrow - The Shirelles
Don't Let Go - En Vogue
Push It - Salt n Pepa
Trouble - Shampoo
All the Things She Said - Tatu
Biology - Girls Aloud
Please Mr Postman - The Marvelettes
Pretty basic stuff, really ... see how many tapes demand to be kicked off by Be My Baby
Tuesday, 21 July 2015
The Best British Things
What are the best British things? A great stupid question.
I want to avoid, if it's even possible, being too cliched about it, or too phoney. I'm certainly confining it to recent times, and certainly not going to mention too many things which I don't directly love myself. Some people say "national treasures", though it's become a ghastly phrase. As it happens, I'm not going to include Stephen Fry.
They can be macro things or micro things, they can be a moment in time or an era.
I always have a trigger for a dumb idea - this time the trigger was Alan Partridge - has any character ever been so faultlessly well-realised across a variety of different formats for so long? Alan Partridge is a thing of such incredible genius, it's stayed strong through being a sketch of a sports reporter, a chat show host, a sitcom staple, a radio show host, an author, an author talking about being an author, an action hero, a documentarian. He's skewered everything it's possible to skewer, he's given a generation (my generation) it's very best catchphrases. And Partridge from 1992 is as funny as Partridge from 2013 and as funny as Partridge from 2020 will be, but never stuck and safe, always developed and different. I think Alan Partridge may be the very best British thing I can think of.
Well, best small thing. Best big thing ... well, it might well be the progenitor of Partridge, the BBC. It's good that recent events are giving people cause to pause and think about how amazing the BBC is. I'm currently constantly 2 seconds away from an angry rant about the people who are intent on taking it apart and those that would let it happen ... most of them probably get their news on how wasteful and bloated the BBC is from the BBC ... I'd pay £1000 a year for it, you can quote me on that.
I'm not going to mention Shakespeare or Paul McCartney or really anything not in its prime after about 1990, I'm not going to mention war heroes or scientists, really it'll just be cultural things, though that's got a pretty broad sweep to it.
I've been thinking about it for a while - here's something slightly interesting I noticed. It's quite striking a) how few British films of this era really feel like like they're going to do down as classics, that are groundbreaking, faultless, bold. Not that there aren't loads of very good enjoyable British films but here's b) the more interesting thing - so many of them seem to be "about Britain", showing it off, advertising it, saying what a grand country it is and what splendid people it produces etc. We know why this is to an extent - it's the formula for "quality" British merchandise making it in Hollywood. So, you know, Pride, Belle, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, The King's Speech, The Queen, East is East, even something like The Full Monty. There are too few acclaimed British films that could be something other than British, if you see what I mean.
Out of all that lot, and even the more offbeat likes of Trainspotting and Under the Skin, of Dead Man's Shoes, I found it hard to elevate anything cinematic to the level I'd hope.
So perhaps Shane Meadows, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, each their own little industry/brand name/oeuvre. But are their films really consistently gloriously good enough? They may be, but it'd be disingenuous, I think, of me to include them, though I'm a fan of all of them, they just didn't quite sit right for me, not like Partridge. Nick Park? Yes, probably, but, again, I'd be bluffing. Danny Boyle? He's rather a marvel, isn't he, though perhaps he's made a few too many films that didn't quite work.
But Danny Boyle does lead me on nicely, in as much he did a million times better job of doing exactly what I'm doing now, distilling the best of British, in July 2012. And if the London Olympic and Paralympic summer wasn't a treasure to be proud of, I don't know what it is.
Pretty self-explanatory. The Olympics. On the BBC. Big scale marvels ... The Olympics ... won under Ken Livingstone ... I'll lose most people here. Ken Livingstone's career is not short of cringeworthy moments, but I think he's the greatest politician of our time. Systematically, relentlessly, spun against. To even begin to compare his achievements as London mayor compared to his successor's ... his successor's most lauded achievements were just inherited from him. I really truly feel like he did so very much for London, embodied London truly, transformed it for the better and could have done more. A lot of people really hate him. So be it. I think he's been a powerful force for good.
And of course ... moving on ... he guested on Ernold Same, by Blur. Now, music gave me as many problems as film really ... the big scale might say Acid House, might tentatively say Britpop, might say Glastonbury - I think I'll skip past their huge imperfections and sour tastes and the names that came to my mind were Damon Albarn, Roots Manuva, PJ Harvey, Gruff Rhys and the Manic Street Preachers. I would say that, though. But, you know, over time, daring, humanity, representing the best of Britain, hope for the new music, big ideas, bravery, these are the ones for me. As many people would say Massive Attack. Radiohead, Portishead, I suppose ...
Then, going really small, Yes by McAlmont and Butler. Hear it, look at it, make it up. Nothing like it.
Let's go big again ... Edinburgh Festival ... is just an amazing thing ... so's the Notting Hill Carnival, though more condensed. But Edinburgh Festival, what a thing it is. So many comedians ... talking of comedians, I'm going for Ross Noble. Seeing him for the first time, 3 years ago, I came out pretty certain it was one of the very best "things" I'd ever seen. Has to be seen to be believed. This is a master.
Staying with comedy ... the people of League of Gentlemen, all they've done and all they do.
Free museums. The National Gallery just being something you can wander into for a few minutes if you're popping into town.
Talking of art, not a specialist area of mine, people who make grand inclusive artistic statements that really work ... Jeremy Deller and Antony Gormley tentatively suggested.
The East Coast main line.
Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson.
Steve McQueen's ongoing career.
Bill Drummond ... perhaps.
David Suchet's Poirots, all 68 of them.
Our Friends in the North, of course.
Tony Harrison ... Ishiguro ...
Tom Stoppard, very much so. Gosh, there's nothing subversive about what I'm coming up with, is there?
Emma Thompson. Kristin Scott Thomas. Daniel Day-Lewis. Extra level, something other than actors. Peter Mullan.
Quizzes ... cups of tea ... I think I'm losing focus ...
once I let something slightly off-topic in, I could go on and on.
Basically, it's Alan Partridge and the East Coast main line. Best we've got ...
I want to avoid, if it's even possible, being too cliched about it, or too phoney. I'm certainly confining it to recent times, and certainly not going to mention too many things which I don't directly love myself. Some people say "national treasures", though it's become a ghastly phrase. As it happens, I'm not going to include Stephen Fry.
They can be macro things or micro things, they can be a moment in time or an era.
I always have a trigger for a dumb idea - this time the trigger was Alan Partridge - has any character ever been so faultlessly well-realised across a variety of different formats for so long? Alan Partridge is a thing of such incredible genius, it's stayed strong through being a sketch of a sports reporter, a chat show host, a sitcom staple, a radio show host, an author, an author talking about being an author, an action hero, a documentarian. He's skewered everything it's possible to skewer, he's given a generation (my generation) it's very best catchphrases. And Partridge from 1992 is as funny as Partridge from 2013 and as funny as Partridge from 2020 will be, but never stuck and safe, always developed and different. I think Alan Partridge may be the very best British thing I can think of.
Well, best small thing. Best big thing ... well, it might well be the progenitor of Partridge, the BBC. It's good that recent events are giving people cause to pause and think about how amazing the BBC is. I'm currently constantly 2 seconds away from an angry rant about the people who are intent on taking it apart and those that would let it happen ... most of them probably get their news on how wasteful and bloated the BBC is from the BBC ... I'd pay £1000 a year for it, you can quote me on that.
I'm not going to mention Shakespeare or Paul McCartney or really anything not in its prime after about 1990, I'm not going to mention war heroes or scientists, really it'll just be cultural things, though that's got a pretty broad sweep to it.
I've been thinking about it for a while - here's something slightly interesting I noticed. It's quite striking a) how few British films of this era really feel like like they're going to do down as classics, that are groundbreaking, faultless, bold. Not that there aren't loads of very good enjoyable British films but here's b) the more interesting thing - so many of them seem to be "about Britain", showing it off, advertising it, saying what a grand country it is and what splendid people it produces etc. We know why this is to an extent - it's the formula for "quality" British merchandise making it in Hollywood. So, you know, Pride, Belle, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, The King's Speech, The Queen, East is East, even something like The Full Monty. There are too few acclaimed British films that could be something other than British, if you see what I mean.
Out of all that lot, and even the more offbeat likes of Trainspotting and Under the Skin, of Dead Man's Shoes, I found it hard to elevate anything cinematic to the level I'd hope.
So perhaps Shane Meadows, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, each their own little industry/brand name/oeuvre. But are their films really consistently gloriously good enough? They may be, but it'd be disingenuous, I think, of me to include them, though I'm a fan of all of them, they just didn't quite sit right for me, not like Partridge. Nick Park? Yes, probably, but, again, I'd be bluffing. Danny Boyle? He's rather a marvel, isn't he, though perhaps he's made a few too many films that didn't quite work.
But Danny Boyle does lead me on nicely, in as much he did a million times better job of doing exactly what I'm doing now, distilling the best of British, in July 2012. And if the London Olympic and Paralympic summer wasn't a treasure to be proud of, I don't know what it is.
Pretty self-explanatory. The Olympics. On the BBC. Big scale marvels ... The Olympics ... won under Ken Livingstone ... I'll lose most people here. Ken Livingstone's career is not short of cringeworthy moments, but I think he's the greatest politician of our time. Systematically, relentlessly, spun against. To even begin to compare his achievements as London mayor compared to his successor's ... his successor's most lauded achievements were just inherited from him. I really truly feel like he did so very much for London, embodied London truly, transformed it for the better and could have done more. A lot of people really hate him. So be it. I think he's been a powerful force for good.
And of course ... moving on ... he guested on Ernold Same, by Blur. Now, music gave me as many problems as film really ... the big scale might say Acid House, might tentatively say Britpop, might say Glastonbury - I think I'll skip past their huge imperfections and sour tastes and the names that came to my mind were Damon Albarn, Roots Manuva, PJ Harvey, Gruff Rhys and the Manic Street Preachers. I would say that, though. But, you know, over time, daring, humanity, representing the best of Britain, hope for the new music, big ideas, bravery, these are the ones for me. As many people would say Massive Attack. Radiohead, Portishead, I suppose ...
Then, going really small, Yes by McAlmont and Butler. Hear it, look at it, make it up. Nothing like it.
Let's go big again ... Edinburgh Festival ... is just an amazing thing ... so's the Notting Hill Carnival, though more condensed. But Edinburgh Festival, what a thing it is. So many comedians ... talking of comedians, I'm going for Ross Noble. Seeing him for the first time, 3 years ago, I came out pretty certain it was one of the very best "things" I'd ever seen. Has to be seen to be believed. This is a master.
Staying with comedy ... the people of League of Gentlemen, all they've done and all they do.
Free museums. The National Gallery just being something you can wander into for a few minutes if you're popping into town.
Talking of art, not a specialist area of mine, people who make grand inclusive artistic statements that really work ... Jeremy Deller and Antony Gormley tentatively suggested.
The East Coast main line.
Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson.
Steve McQueen's ongoing career.
Bill Drummond ... perhaps.
David Suchet's Poirots, all 68 of them.
Our Friends in the North, of course.
Tony Harrison ... Ishiguro ...
Tom Stoppard, very much so. Gosh, there's nothing subversive about what I'm coming up with, is there?
Emma Thompson. Kristin Scott Thomas. Daniel Day-Lewis. Extra level, something other than actors. Peter Mullan.
Quizzes ... cups of tea ... I think I'm losing focus ...
once I let something slightly off-topic in, I could go on and on.
Basically, it's Alan Partridge and the East Coast main line. Best we've got ...
Wednesday, 15 July 2015
The last time I heard Joni ...
... was earlier today.
I had got it into my head, as you know, that Blue was the only truly great Joni Mitchell album. I'd also found an interview she gave last year enlightening, fascinating but rather off-putting in its portrayal of a woman of extremely high self-regard. Even more off-putting was Alex James-esque bozo David Crosby's relentless "she's the best of all us" campaign, which felt rather self-serving, considering he was the one who "discovered" her.
I was, of course, deeply concerned when news of her hospitalisation initially emerged, especially with the haziness of her details. But it's only since the full seriousness began to emerge, including Crosby giving the (apparently false) information out that, after her brain aneurysm, she's no longer speaking, that I found that all I wanted to listen to was Joni Mitchell.
It's been more than a month now. It wasn't a task I set myself or a deliberate act of respect, it was just that every morning, as I settled for work, I'd put Joni Mitchell on and then not put anything else on all day.
There are specific circumstances. I've spent the rest of the year listening to as much new music as possible, usually a couple of new albums a week, trying to get to know them, assess them, feel them, before moving on to the next one. I expect I needed a change from that.
I also needed to work hard. I always work hard, but for the last couple of months, I've been sitting down to write questions in a way I really needed to concentrate, and to feel calm.
Joni Mitchell, above all, seemed right for the task. I reiterate, this wasn't a deliberate attempt at reassessment or an act of penance for previous judgement, it's just what happened.
I loved Blue so much, so instantly, when I first heard it 15 years ago, but dismissed several of her other works, in the following years, almost as instantly - Clouds and Ladies of the Canyon I'd found twee, living up to the cliche of what people think Joni Mitchell is. Court and Spark and The Hissing of Summer Lawns were acclaimed, but I'd found, respectively, poppy and self-satisfied, and obscure and self-satisfied.
So in the decade and a bit in between, I've listened to Blue hundreds of times, and the rest pretty rarely. However now, whether faced with the almost certain reality that there'll never be another Joni Mitchell album, it wasn't Blue I listened to. Blue's not really background music anyway. It's pretty unignorable. I wanted music which was stimulating, which was there, but which didn't regularly delay my work patterns.
So I've been listening to all of them, all the way through. In fact, currently I'm listening to her whole career in chronological order. I'm not actually here to reassess, to say "I was wrong, they're all classics". I don't even know what I think, I've just kept listening. Well, I can tell you Hejira's a really good album. That's my one piece of assessment.
I'm currently on the 80s albums. Not sure if I'll last all the way through those ... but who didn't sound rubbish in the 80s?
I'd recommend listening to a major career in order all the way through, actually. The gradual shifting, till you suddenly find yourself listening to a whole different voice (let alone sound) to the one you started with.
Anyway, like I say, I'm not going to review the albums as such. But I did get to thinking about the Joni Mitchell/Bob Dylan thing. Crosby should be applauded, really, for smashing the patriarchy of rock criticism and daring to suggest that Joni Mitchell isn't just the greatest "female" singer-songwriter but the greatest full stop. Perhaps the idea threatens me ...so many people have told me it's Bob Dylan, could I really cope with it not being?
Well, look, to use a slightly ghastly American sports term, I'm pretty satisfied that if you put the two résumés up next to each other, Bob still wins. I'm quite sure plenty of my reverence for Dylan was a learned reverence, but I do remember it went to a whole new level when I began to listen to all those songs, those matchless songs, better than anyone else had ever written, which didn't make it onto albums - Blind Willie McTell, Lay Down Your Weary Tune, Up to Me, She's Your Lover Now, Angelina, everything on the basement tapes, the list does actually go on and on. Dylan's got more songs, just way more songs, that strike you, that mean something to me and millions of others. Joni Mitchell herself, and David Crosby, and others, of course, are sniffy about Dylan's actual musicianship, and he's said himself he's no melodist like McCartney or Wilson, but it's incredible how many sounds and styles he conquered, or even created. Joni Mitchell's career has range, certainly, and I'd guess she is technically a better singer, guitarist, melodist, arranger, producer, but the range of Dylan's career is one of its most underplayed elements.
Oh look, I'm using a blog about Joni Mitchell to talk about Bob Dylan. How annoying! and it would, I presume, annoy the shit out of her. Little vignettes emerge of the sour personal competitiveness between them - Dylan falling asleep at a playback of Court and Spark, Mitchell affronted by having to open the Rolling Thunder Revue. Perhaps she was the only one he felt threatened by, perhaps she felt she deserved the blanket reverence he received. Just conjecture, really. That is a fly-on-the-wall I'd love to have been.
Anyway, "résumé" is just one way to compare, of course. I don't happen to think Bob Dylan, for all his great albums, ever absolutely perfected it. Blood on the Tracks is close, others might see Highway 61 in those terms, or Blonde on Blonde, but I would take Blue to the desert island above any one album he ever released. There's a song on 'Don Juan's Reckless Daughter' called Paprika Plains which is 16 minutes long. As yet, I don't have space for that on my desert island.
I had got it into my head, as you know, that Blue was the only truly great Joni Mitchell album. I'd also found an interview she gave last year enlightening, fascinating but rather off-putting in its portrayal of a woman of extremely high self-regard. Even more off-putting was Alex James-esque bozo David Crosby's relentless "she's the best of all us" campaign, which felt rather self-serving, considering he was the one who "discovered" her.
I was, of course, deeply concerned when news of her hospitalisation initially emerged, especially with the haziness of her details. But it's only since the full seriousness began to emerge, including Crosby giving the (apparently false) information out that, after her brain aneurysm, she's no longer speaking, that I found that all I wanted to listen to was Joni Mitchell.
It's been more than a month now. It wasn't a task I set myself or a deliberate act of respect, it was just that every morning, as I settled for work, I'd put Joni Mitchell on and then not put anything else on all day.
There are specific circumstances. I've spent the rest of the year listening to as much new music as possible, usually a couple of new albums a week, trying to get to know them, assess them, feel them, before moving on to the next one. I expect I needed a change from that.
I also needed to work hard. I always work hard, but for the last couple of months, I've been sitting down to write questions in a way I really needed to concentrate, and to feel calm.
Joni Mitchell, above all, seemed right for the task. I reiterate, this wasn't a deliberate attempt at reassessment or an act of penance for previous judgement, it's just what happened.
I loved Blue so much, so instantly, when I first heard it 15 years ago, but dismissed several of her other works, in the following years, almost as instantly - Clouds and Ladies of the Canyon I'd found twee, living up to the cliche of what people think Joni Mitchell is. Court and Spark and The Hissing of Summer Lawns were acclaimed, but I'd found, respectively, poppy and self-satisfied, and obscure and self-satisfied.
So in the decade and a bit in between, I've listened to Blue hundreds of times, and the rest pretty rarely. However now, whether faced with the almost certain reality that there'll never be another Joni Mitchell album, it wasn't Blue I listened to. Blue's not really background music anyway. It's pretty unignorable. I wanted music which was stimulating, which was there, but which didn't regularly delay my work patterns.
So I've been listening to all of them, all the way through. In fact, currently I'm listening to her whole career in chronological order. I'm not actually here to reassess, to say "I was wrong, they're all classics". I don't even know what I think, I've just kept listening. Well, I can tell you Hejira's a really good album. That's my one piece of assessment.
I'm currently on the 80s albums. Not sure if I'll last all the way through those ... but who didn't sound rubbish in the 80s?
I'd recommend listening to a major career in order all the way through, actually. The gradual shifting, till you suddenly find yourself listening to a whole different voice (let alone sound) to the one you started with.
Anyway, like I say, I'm not going to review the albums as such. But I did get to thinking about the Joni Mitchell/Bob Dylan thing. Crosby should be applauded, really, for smashing the patriarchy of rock criticism and daring to suggest that Joni Mitchell isn't just the greatest "female" singer-songwriter but the greatest full stop. Perhaps the idea threatens me ...so many people have told me it's Bob Dylan, could I really cope with it not being?
Well, look, to use a slightly ghastly American sports term, I'm pretty satisfied that if you put the two résumés up next to each other, Bob still wins. I'm quite sure plenty of my reverence for Dylan was a learned reverence, but I do remember it went to a whole new level when I began to listen to all those songs, those matchless songs, better than anyone else had ever written, which didn't make it onto albums - Blind Willie McTell, Lay Down Your Weary Tune, Up to Me, She's Your Lover Now, Angelina, everything on the basement tapes, the list does actually go on and on. Dylan's got more songs, just way more songs, that strike you, that mean something to me and millions of others. Joni Mitchell herself, and David Crosby, and others, of course, are sniffy about Dylan's actual musicianship, and he's said himself he's no melodist like McCartney or Wilson, but it's incredible how many sounds and styles he conquered, or even created. Joni Mitchell's career has range, certainly, and I'd guess she is technically a better singer, guitarist, melodist, arranger, producer, but the range of Dylan's career is one of its most underplayed elements.
Oh look, I'm using a blog about Joni Mitchell to talk about Bob Dylan. How annoying! and it would, I presume, annoy the shit out of her. Little vignettes emerge of the sour personal competitiveness between them - Dylan falling asleep at a playback of Court and Spark, Mitchell affronted by having to open the Rolling Thunder Revue. Perhaps she was the only one he felt threatened by, perhaps she felt she deserved the blanket reverence he received. Just conjecture, really. That is a fly-on-the-wall I'd love to have been.
Anyway, "résumé" is just one way to compare, of course. I don't happen to think Bob Dylan, for all his great albums, ever absolutely perfected it. Blood on the Tracks is close, others might see Highway 61 in those terms, or Blonde on Blonde, but I would take Blue to the desert island above any one album he ever released. There's a song on 'Don Juan's Reckless Daughter' called Paprika Plains which is 16 minutes long. As yet, I don't have space for that on my desert island.
Saturday, 4 July 2015
Tapes and tapes
I can't write ... anything. Apart from quiz questions. I've tried various times in the last month or so to come up with something for this blog but I've got nothing.
Here have been my ideas - they're good ideas ...
Here have been my ideas - they're good ideas ...
- Let's treat the careers of our favourite bands as if they're tenpin bowling games.
- Common People vs A Design for Life: Compare and Contrast
- What do people really want from a festival headliner?
- What is the perfect support act?
- Lines that burst out of songs, starting with "Michigan seems like a dream to me now ..."
Hopefully those blogs will come in time, but I'm all out of prose style.
Let's make some compilation tapes ...
Compilation for adventurous people with lots of money, who like trains and planes, who want to see lots of different cities
Let's Get Out of This Country - Camera Obscura
Lille - Lisa Hannigan
Paris - Friendly Fires
Vienna - Ultravox
Budapest - George Ezra
Istanbul (not Constantinople) - They Might Be Giants
Night Boat to Cairo - Madness
If You See Her, Say Hello - Bob Dylan
Marrakesh Express - Crosby Stills and Nash
Liberian Girl - Michael Jackson
Gimme Hope Jo'anna - Eddie Grant
Mozambique - Bob Dylan
A New Jerusalem - Carly Simon
Bombs Over Baghdad - OutKast
Holiday in Cambodia - Dead Kennedys
Shanghai - Ed Harcourt
Pyongyang - blur
Pyongyang - blur
Anchorage - Michelle Shocked
Via Chicago - Wilco
Do You Know the Way to San Jose? - Dionne Warwick
Loco in Acapulco - The Four Tops
Kingston Town - UB40
New Amsterdam - Elvis Costello
Going Down to Liverpool - The Bangles
Homeward Bound - Simon and Garfunkel
Until I Believe in My Soul - Dexys Midnight Runners
This one is called "Still got it"
That's Why God Made the Radio - Beach Boys
Nobody's Empire - Belle and Sebastian
Come On Let's Go - Paul Weller
Irish Blood, English Heart - Morrissey
Cocoon - Ash
Nothing I Can Do About It - Idlewild
Ruckus in B Minor - Wu-Tang Clan
Love is Gonna Lift You Up - Bobby Womack
Show Me the Wonder - Manic Street Preachers
The Never Ending Happening - Bill Fay
Maria - Blondie
New York is Killing Me - Gil Scott Heron
It Starts and Ends With You - Suede
Workingman Blues - Bob Dylan
You Got Me Singing - Leonard Cohen
40 Days of Rain - Roddy Frame
Losing You - Randy Newman
We All Go Back to Where We Belong - REM
Where Are We Now? - David Bowie
Ong Ong - Blur
Right, that's it for now
This one is called "Still got it"
That's Why God Made the Radio - Beach Boys
Nobody's Empire - Belle and Sebastian
Come On Let's Go - Paul Weller
Irish Blood, English Heart - Morrissey
Cocoon - Ash
Nothing I Can Do About It - Idlewild
Ruckus in B Minor - Wu-Tang Clan
Love is Gonna Lift You Up - Bobby Womack
Show Me the Wonder - Manic Street Preachers
The Never Ending Happening - Bill Fay
Maria - Blondie
New York is Killing Me - Gil Scott Heron
It Starts and Ends With You - Suede
Workingman Blues - Bob Dylan
You Got Me Singing - Leonard Cohen
40 Days of Rain - Roddy Frame
Losing You - Randy Newman
We All Go Back to Where We Belong - REM
Where Are We Now? - David Bowie
Ong Ong - Blur
Right, that's it for now
Monday, 25 May 2015
A Joyless Response to the Joylessness of Eurovision
This isn't the kind of post I usually put on this music blog, it's more like what I'd write on the sports blog - a mild-mannered piece of topical invective. But Eurovision was on last night, and I realised, in those brief seconds where my remote took me to BBC1, that I have moved fully from the delight I took in it as a child to thoroughly hating it. I've made excuses enough. I've enjoyed, indulged, been indifferent, but now, I must say, that joke isn't funny anymore.
Despising what one loved as a child is the mark of a cynic and a killjoy, but, notwithstanding that I've changed, so has Eurovision since then, significantly for the worse. Has the world changed or have I changed? Morrissey quotes through this post are fitting not just because I'm sure there were rumours a few years ago that Morrissey was going to be the UK representative, but also because, like Eurovision, Morrissey was awesome in the 80s and is kind of loathsome now.
Can I comment if I only watched a few fleeting minutes this year? Well, you could say that's enough. But, I should add, I did watch a fair bit of it last year, and, drinking and with family, I did manage to sit through and enjoy the whole thing about 4 years ago. So I'm still in touch with how to enjoy it.
Removed from a positive context though, let us look at Eurovision as it is now. It used to be an epic 3 hours, half songs and half scores. Really, the songs were a bit of silliness to get through before the fun started. Now it's a n obese four hours, finishing so far past any kid's bedtime, and the songs have multiplied while the announcements of scores have been stripped back. The only good bit. The "sport without the sport" as one superfan described it this week (I realise that was a positive for him ... it obviously sounds like life without the living to me). But it's not sport, because good sport, proper sport, is fair and does actually discover who is best, or purports to. Even sports like skating suffer if success is dictated by a seemingly arcane judging system.
See, I watched boxing last night rather than Eurovision. I watched Jame DeGales' supermiddleweight world title bout with the slick American Andre Dirrell. Once it was clear the fight was going the distance, the commentators (and I) began to worry about the judges' scorecards. Bad scorecards can be the bane of boxing. Fighters and fans get furious if one or more judges' has seen the fight differently/wrongly. Any sport decided by human judging can suffer from that. That's not sport, not really. So a lot of sports try to have pretty clear criteria on how they are judging. As it happened, there was one bad scorecard last night, but the other two were, in most eyes (though not Andre Dirrell's), pretty spot-on. The right man won. Hurray, DeGale.
There is corruption and cheating in sport. Fans hate it. It sticks so deep in the gullet. Corruption, nepotism, a lack of merit is the very essence of modern Eurovision. And people don't seem to mind that much.
I'm hardly the one to speak up against "judging" music, I'm really not, I know that, but come on, choosing between 30 songs, ranking 30 songs in one night, that's in and of itself a nonsense. But I can't complain about that.
The songs are rubbish. Haha, they've always been rubbish, you'll say. That's the fun. But they're hardly ever rubbish in a a fun way any more, just cynical, efficient pop tat, slick enough, probably written by committee. Eurovision, as a kid, was often hilarious. It's really not hilarious anymore. It's forced jollity. All the countries know how to write dull but efficient pop music now. It's like someone said to me recently - Much better to have an old house from before when people knew how to make bad houses efficiently and cheaply. Well, a bit like that ...
I watched Eurovision gleefully for years with my brothers and sisters, it was one of my favourite TV events of the year. I knew the songs were rubbish, there was fun in that. Laughing at foreigners was a bit more innocent and acceptable then. I can't really see how it is now.
So I've mostly ignored and abided it for the last 20 years. I've never been beyond sneering at other people's fun, but my happy memories of Eurovision kept me from doing that for a long time.
But it's turned from a silly treat for them that fancy it to something really rather ghastly and bloated, corrupt and pointless.
Empty laughter ...
Despising what one loved as a child is the mark of a cynic and a killjoy, but, notwithstanding that I've changed, so has Eurovision since then, significantly for the worse. Has the world changed or have I changed? Morrissey quotes through this post are fitting not just because I'm sure there were rumours a few years ago that Morrissey was going to be the UK representative, but also because, like Eurovision, Morrissey was awesome in the 80s and is kind of loathsome now.
Can I comment if I only watched a few fleeting minutes this year? Well, you could say that's enough. But, I should add, I did watch a fair bit of it last year, and, drinking and with family, I did manage to sit through and enjoy the whole thing about 4 years ago. So I'm still in touch with how to enjoy it.
Removed from a positive context though, let us look at Eurovision as it is now. It used to be an epic 3 hours, half songs and half scores. Really, the songs were a bit of silliness to get through before the fun started. Now it's a n obese four hours, finishing so far past any kid's bedtime, and the songs have multiplied while the announcements of scores have been stripped back. The only good bit. The "sport without the sport" as one superfan described it this week (I realise that was a positive for him ... it obviously sounds like life without the living to me). But it's not sport, because good sport, proper sport, is fair and does actually discover who is best, or purports to. Even sports like skating suffer if success is dictated by a seemingly arcane judging system.
See, I watched boxing last night rather than Eurovision. I watched Jame DeGales' supermiddleweight world title bout with the slick American Andre Dirrell. Once it was clear the fight was going the distance, the commentators (and I) began to worry about the judges' scorecards. Bad scorecards can be the bane of boxing. Fighters and fans get furious if one or more judges' has seen the fight differently/wrongly. Any sport decided by human judging can suffer from that. That's not sport, not really. So a lot of sports try to have pretty clear criteria on how they are judging. As it happened, there was one bad scorecard last night, but the other two were, in most eyes (though not Andre Dirrell's), pretty spot-on. The right man won. Hurray, DeGale.
There is corruption and cheating in sport. Fans hate it. It sticks so deep in the gullet. Corruption, nepotism, a lack of merit is the very essence of modern Eurovision. And people don't seem to mind that much.
I'm hardly the one to speak up against "judging" music, I'm really not, I know that, but come on, choosing between 30 songs, ranking 30 songs in one night, that's in and of itself a nonsense. But I can't complain about that.
The songs are rubbish. Haha, they've always been rubbish, you'll say. That's the fun. But they're hardly ever rubbish in a a fun way any more, just cynical, efficient pop tat, slick enough, probably written by committee. Eurovision, as a kid, was often hilarious. It's really not hilarious anymore. It's forced jollity. All the countries know how to write dull but efficient pop music now. It's like someone said to me recently - Much better to have an old house from before when people knew how to make bad houses efficiently and cheaply. Well, a bit like that ...
I watched Eurovision gleefully for years with my brothers and sisters, it was one of my favourite TV events of the year. I knew the songs were rubbish, there was fun in that. Laughing at foreigners was a bit more innocent and acceptable then. I can't really see how it is now.
So I've mostly ignored and abided it for the last 20 years. I've never been beyond sneering at other people's fun, but my happy memories of Eurovision kept me from doing that for a long time.
But it's turned from a silly treat for them that fancy it to something really rather ghastly and bloated, corrupt and pointless.
Empty laughter ...
Sunday, 24 May 2015
Mad Men
A few weeks ago, I decided to write a few words about Mad Men when it finished. As it happens, I don't really know what to say - Mad Men is written about a lot, and very intelligently and insightfully. It is studied and pored over, TV critics and obsessive fans see things which I wouldn't have seen as a basic viewer. I have little to add here. And Mad Men was such a rich, brilliant, complex show that it seems a shame to write about it as prosaically as I undoubtedly will.
I also resolved to come up with a Mad Men Compilation, a list of songs in the spirit of the show, but, thankfully, realising just how pointless that would be, in light of perfectly curated the actual music for the show was, I've pulled out of that.
I had ... America - Simon and Garfunkel (of course) ,,, and Koka Kola - The Clash ...
Aah, Coca-Cola. Right, I should say, as people do these days, if you haven't got to the end and actually want to keep a few things a mystery, don't read on. I won't be able to do this without giving a bit away, of course.
So, Coca-Cola ... well, let me say, popping my collar, I picked it. Not that long ago, but during the penultimate episode (perhaps the thought had floated through my head before, though I do my best not to predict events in TV and films) I guessed, as Don fixed the Coke machine on the motel porch, that he was going to go back to work and come up with that Coke ad, arguably the most famous TV ad of all time. So bully for me.
It was a great trick, a fitting ending, better than any of the other theories fans and critics came up with. The show finished, in almost all cases, humanely, realistically, cynically but hopefully. It got it right. As it did nearly all the time.
Right, I'll stop trying to make big points. Here are just a few distinct thoughts I have about Mad Men.
1. I came to Mad Men after it had run for two seasons, I'd just watched The Wire, which I thought was the best thing ever. I was persuaded to watch Mad Men, I was told it was cool and stylish and what have you ... it seemed a lot of people, friends of mine and media people, were really into it. To start with, I liked it but didn't love it. It didn't seem to have the scope of The Wire, lacked the power, the sweep. I didn't want to focus on just one man, and someone so dull as an ad man either. I liked it, I didn't love it.
As it progressed through the seasons, the viewing figures, the interest of my friends, the trophies and the critical hysteria, they all died away a little, people said it was losing its way, past its prime. I must say, to me, it kept on getting better and better, and I'm not just saying that because it ended so well. It got deeper and deeper, I understood it more and more, trusted it more and more. Maybe, that's because I read around the show, saw in all those critiques and discussions just how clever Matthew Weiner was trying to be - I had my eye out for the symbolism and the big ideas. The Wire wasn't so much about the symbolism and the big ideas.
2. Having said that, no one would deny that there were moments that tested you with Mad Men. There were less compelling, less believable episodes. There were characters, sometimes men but usually women, who were treated a little contemptuously by the show, serving as mere cyphers for Don's (or maybe Pete's) big story before being casually discarded. But I never felt the show lost its way, it always pulled me back in again quickly. Yes, there was repetition - Don did go through the same cycles over and over again, but that's the point, isn't it, and to set that against a backdrop of the world changing, the man aging, so that the mistakes and decisions he took had a different effect on him and others each time, that was what it was all about.
3. In the end, Don Draper was, of course, the main focus, but seven seasons gave time for so many great characters to emerge. Harry Crane and Ken Cosgrove - supporting characters throughout, never the main focus. But, I feel, very important to show. Watch back the first series or so, and it's interesting, it's Ken that seems like the standard obnoxious lad, Harry's a bit meek, the family man, the geek. I'm sure that's deliberate. As it turns out, Ken is pretty much the only unambigously good guy (maybe Stan too) on the show, Harry, of all of them, turns out to be the biggest scumbag, the real skincrawler. Harry never really gets comeuppance, indeed he's in a pretty good place at the end, but it was nice that he never got the big payout. Ken, well, it kind of comes up roses for Ken, he's happy and successful, he gets revenge on those that undervalued him, but he has turned his back on his creativity, which is a bit of a shame. Ken was the Slim Charles (Wire reference) of Mad Men for me - the background guy you rooted for because he was made of better stuff than the rest.
4. As it drew to its conclusion, I found myself surprised by how emotionally involved I was - how much of the last season (in its two parts) I was moved by. Mad Men didn't go over the top on death, but the passing of Bert and the in particular the fate of Betty in Season 7 cut deep. Betty was unfairly maligned as a person throughout, I felt. Was she really that bad, that vain, that selfish? Did she not deserve to be a bit selfish?
Of course, looking back, lung cancer seemed an obvious end for her, early death also an inevitability. How thoroughly rounded it all seems now.
5. In defence also of Don - yes, he could be a wretch, but was he really all that bad? He had his moments. Mainly, his treatment of the women he was in relationships with was awful. Obviously. But he wasn't a straightforward chauvinist, nor a racist nor homophobe nor snob. He's the one who wouldn't have let Joan prostitute herself, he's the one that saw Peggy's talents. He showed kindness to strangers and was often more fair-minded than others. Was he really a terrible dad? He had good relations with his children, he saw them often, he cared and empathized for the most part. There are a lot worse, I think. I'm not going to try to go into the character in depth, all that he may or may not represent, all that he was looking for and looking to escape from, but honestly, on a basic, unnuanced "arsehole scale" of the characters in Mad Men, for me, he's nowhere near the top!
6. Roger, for all his charm, now there's a proper arsehole!
7. I've never known another TV show given such academic analysis, nor so deserving of it. I'm so glad it ended brilliantly, because a lot of TV shows don't. The Wire didn't actually. Mad Men was allowed to travel its full journey at its own speed. and I think its reputation will only grow as the years progress.
That's all I've got really ....
I also resolved to come up with a Mad Men Compilation, a list of songs in the spirit of the show, but, thankfully, realising just how pointless that would be, in light of perfectly curated the actual music for the show was, I've pulled out of that.
I had ... America - Simon and Garfunkel (of course) ,,, and Koka Kola - The Clash ...
Aah, Coca-Cola. Right, I should say, as people do these days, if you haven't got to the end and actually want to keep a few things a mystery, don't read on. I won't be able to do this without giving a bit away, of course.
So, Coca-Cola ... well, let me say, popping my collar, I picked it. Not that long ago, but during the penultimate episode (perhaps the thought had floated through my head before, though I do my best not to predict events in TV and films) I guessed, as Don fixed the Coke machine on the motel porch, that he was going to go back to work and come up with that Coke ad, arguably the most famous TV ad of all time. So bully for me.
It was a great trick, a fitting ending, better than any of the other theories fans and critics came up with. The show finished, in almost all cases, humanely, realistically, cynically but hopefully. It got it right. As it did nearly all the time.
Right, I'll stop trying to make big points. Here are just a few distinct thoughts I have about Mad Men.
1. I came to Mad Men after it had run for two seasons, I'd just watched The Wire, which I thought was the best thing ever. I was persuaded to watch Mad Men, I was told it was cool and stylish and what have you ... it seemed a lot of people, friends of mine and media people, were really into it. To start with, I liked it but didn't love it. It didn't seem to have the scope of The Wire, lacked the power, the sweep. I didn't want to focus on just one man, and someone so dull as an ad man either. I liked it, I didn't love it.
As it progressed through the seasons, the viewing figures, the interest of my friends, the trophies and the critical hysteria, they all died away a little, people said it was losing its way, past its prime. I must say, to me, it kept on getting better and better, and I'm not just saying that because it ended so well. It got deeper and deeper, I understood it more and more, trusted it more and more. Maybe, that's because I read around the show, saw in all those critiques and discussions just how clever Matthew Weiner was trying to be - I had my eye out for the symbolism and the big ideas. The Wire wasn't so much about the symbolism and the big ideas.
2. Having said that, no one would deny that there were moments that tested you with Mad Men. There were less compelling, less believable episodes. There were characters, sometimes men but usually women, who were treated a little contemptuously by the show, serving as mere cyphers for Don's (or maybe Pete's) big story before being casually discarded. But I never felt the show lost its way, it always pulled me back in again quickly. Yes, there was repetition - Don did go through the same cycles over and over again, but that's the point, isn't it, and to set that against a backdrop of the world changing, the man aging, so that the mistakes and decisions he took had a different effect on him and others each time, that was what it was all about.
3. In the end, Don Draper was, of course, the main focus, but seven seasons gave time for so many great characters to emerge. Harry Crane and Ken Cosgrove - supporting characters throughout, never the main focus. But, I feel, very important to show. Watch back the first series or so, and it's interesting, it's Ken that seems like the standard obnoxious lad, Harry's a bit meek, the family man, the geek. I'm sure that's deliberate. As it turns out, Ken is pretty much the only unambigously good guy (maybe Stan too) on the show, Harry, of all of them, turns out to be the biggest scumbag, the real skincrawler. Harry never really gets comeuppance, indeed he's in a pretty good place at the end, but it was nice that he never got the big payout. Ken, well, it kind of comes up roses for Ken, he's happy and successful, he gets revenge on those that undervalued him, but he has turned his back on his creativity, which is a bit of a shame. Ken was the Slim Charles (Wire reference) of Mad Men for me - the background guy you rooted for because he was made of better stuff than the rest.
4. As it drew to its conclusion, I found myself surprised by how emotionally involved I was - how much of the last season (in its two parts) I was moved by. Mad Men didn't go over the top on death, but the passing of Bert and the in particular the fate of Betty in Season 7 cut deep. Betty was unfairly maligned as a person throughout, I felt. Was she really that bad, that vain, that selfish? Did she not deserve to be a bit selfish?
Of course, looking back, lung cancer seemed an obvious end for her, early death also an inevitability. How thoroughly rounded it all seems now.
5. In defence also of Don - yes, he could be a wretch, but was he really all that bad? He had his moments. Mainly, his treatment of the women he was in relationships with was awful. Obviously. But he wasn't a straightforward chauvinist, nor a racist nor homophobe nor snob. He's the one who wouldn't have let Joan prostitute herself, he's the one that saw Peggy's talents. He showed kindness to strangers and was often more fair-minded than others. Was he really a terrible dad? He had good relations with his children, he saw them often, he cared and empathized for the most part. There are a lot worse, I think. I'm not going to try to go into the character in depth, all that he may or may not represent, all that he was looking for and looking to escape from, but honestly, on a basic, unnuanced "arsehole scale" of the characters in Mad Men, for me, he's nowhere near the top!
6. Roger, for all his charm, now there's a proper arsehole!
7. I've never known another TV show given such academic analysis, nor so deserving of it. I'm so glad it ended brilliantly, because a lot of TV shows don't. The Wire didn't actually. Mad Men was allowed to travel its full journey at its own speed. and I think its reputation will only grow as the years progress.
That's all I've got really ....
Saturday, 16 May 2015
Greatest Greatest Hits
The age of Greatest Hits, is, of course, past. Anyone can put together whatever compilation of whatever band they want whenever they want. But let us not forget or underestimate how enjoyable and important Greatest Hits Collections were. Let us celebrate them.
Putting together my previous post on Masterpieces brought me to this, in some ways the very opposite. Some acts created something magnificent once in their career, they have a masterpiece but not that much else (let us say The Stone Roses), while some acts have no one outstanding work, but a phenomenal body. I disqualified Greatest Hits collections from being masterpieces, but some of them sound like it - All Killer No Filler.
A Greatest Hits is slightly different from a Best Of. There's an extra level to it. It's not just having a great body of work over the course of a career (let us say Leonard Cohen), it's also having a degree of success and being sufficiently in tune with your own work and fans to know what the best songs to release as singles are. It's also being a band that has singles, has hits, full stop, an act that has some degree of "pop" to them.
The ideal purpose of a Greatest Hits, I suppose, is to remind people who weren't huge fans of a band that, actually, they've got quite a few really good songs spread out down the years. There were, I think, three very notable Greatest Hits collections by bands in my era, albums which were surprising crossover successes and took the band to an extra level in people's consciousness - The Beautiful South, The Lightning Seeds and James. Bands born for the Greatest Hits Collections, poppy enough to collect several Top 20 singles, not despised but not overly acclaimed, without a particular album to be an albatross round their neck. The Greatest Hits was the very best they could offer, you'd hear it in a car and go "hmm, this band have a surprising number of songs I know and don't mind ..." or words to that effect.
I suppose a great Greatest Hits has to be the best a band can offer - so, to take the most obvious example, I wouldn't put The Beatles' Greatest Hits (I'll be flitting very loosely between real compilations and imaginary ones, by the way, I know there have been countless Beatles compilations) in the list, because somehow, their parade of Number 1s, their massive hits, that's nowhere near the best the band has to offer, despite being some of the finest songs ever, it doesn't come close to telling the whole story.
With the Rolling Stones, I think they're much closer to a great "singles band" - for me, most of their greatest songs were the hits. To take another of the great 60s bands, the Kinks, I'm not sure they quite qualify - I owned the Kinks' Greatest Hits so am well qualified to pass comment. There are, as the years progress, a surprising number of dodgy ones. Quality control is not as high as one would hope.
My favourite Greatest Hits is by The Jam. It's probably the single most influential album of my life and, though their albums are good and there are excellent album tracks, the singles are perfectly ordered, telling a coherent story, growing in stature through their brief career. There are the perfect number as well (a perfect Greatest Hits should be between 15 and 24 songs). There was the perfect trajectory of chart success as well. I'll see if I can remember (the chart position was printed in the sleeve notes).
40 (In the City), 12, 36, 20, 25, 15, 17, 15, 3, 1, 1, 4, 4, 1, 2, 1 (Beat Surrender) - build, build, build, explode, hold it, end it when you're on top.
So, here are some great Greatest Hits artists, acts you can spend a very enjoyable hour with even if you don't want to spend much more ...
There could be several more, most of them are pretty obvious, nice to pick out the surprising ones ...
Putting together my previous post on Masterpieces brought me to this, in some ways the very opposite. Some acts created something magnificent once in their career, they have a masterpiece but not that much else (let us say The Stone Roses), while some acts have no one outstanding work, but a phenomenal body. I disqualified Greatest Hits collections from being masterpieces, but some of them sound like it - All Killer No Filler.
A Greatest Hits is slightly different from a Best Of. There's an extra level to it. It's not just having a great body of work over the course of a career (let us say Leonard Cohen), it's also having a degree of success and being sufficiently in tune with your own work and fans to know what the best songs to release as singles are. It's also being a band that has singles, has hits, full stop, an act that has some degree of "pop" to them.
The ideal purpose of a Greatest Hits, I suppose, is to remind people who weren't huge fans of a band that, actually, they've got quite a few really good songs spread out down the years. There were, I think, three very notable Greatest Hits collections by bands in my era, albums which were surprising crossover successes and took the band to an extra level in people's consciousness - The Beautiful South, The Lightning Seeds and James. Bands born for the Greatest Hits Collections, poppy enough to collect several Top 20 singles, not despised but not overly acclaimed, without a particular album to be an albatross round their neck. The Greatest Hits was the very best they could offer, you'd hear it in a car and go "hmm, this band have a surprising number of songs I know and don't mind ..." or words to that effect.
I suppose a great Greatest Hits has to be the best a band can offer - so, to take the most obvious example, I wouldn't put The Beatles' Greatest Hits (I'll be flitting very loosely between real compilations and imaginary ones, by the way, I know there have been countless Beatles compilations) in the list, because somehow, their parade of Number 1s, their massive hits, that's nowhere near the best the band has to offer, despite being some of the finest songs ever, it doesn't come close to telling the whole story.
With the Rolling Stones, I think they're much closer to a great "singles band" - for me, most of their greatest songs were the hits. To take another of the great 60s bands, the Kinks, I'm not sure they quite qualify - I owned the Kinks' Greatest Hits so am well qualified to pass comment. There are, as the years progress, a surprising number of dodgy ones. Quality control is not as high as one would hope.
My favourite Greatest Hits is by The Jam. It's probably the single most influential album of my life and, though their albums are good and there are excellent album tracks, the singles are perfectly ordered, telling a coherent story, growing in stature through their brief career. There are the perfect number as well (a perfect Greatest Hits should be between 15 and 24 songs). There was the perfect trajectory of chart success as well. I'll see if I can remember (the chart position was printed in the sleeve notes).
40 (In the City), 12, 36, 20, 25, 15, 17, 15, 3, 1, 1, 4, 4, 1, 2, 1 (Beat Surrender) - build, build, build, explode, hold it, end it when you're on top.
So, here are some great Greatest Hits artists, acts you can spend a very enjoyable hour with even if you don't want to spend much more ...
There could be several more, most of them are pretty obvious, nice to pick out the surprising ones ...
- The Jam
- James
- The Beautiful South
- Ash
- Queen
- Super Furry Animals
- Wham!
- ABBA
- A-ha
- Beyonce
- Diana Ross and the Supremes
- The Police
- Dusty Springfield
- Bob Marley
- Blondie
- Madonna
- Billy Joel
- Lionel Richie
- Girls Aloud
- Bon Jovi
- Eminem
- Aretha Franklin
- Rolling Stones
- Madness
- ELO
- Isley Brothers
- Elton John
- Iron Maiden
- Sheryl Crow
- The Pretenders
- Supergrass
- Bee Gees
- Kool and the Gang
- Bill Withers
- Foo Fighters
- Kings of Leon
- The Cure
- Whitney Houston
- The Temptations
- Bread
- Slade
- Eurythmics
- Glen Campbell
- Elvis Presley
- Lightning Seeds
- Erasure
- Pet Shop Boys
- Creedence Clearwater Revival
- The Who
- Inspiral Carpets
- Kylie Minogue
Anyone else you can think of?
Monday, 11 May 2015
Super Furry Animals at Brixton Academy, 8 May
As I sat, shaken and stupefied, on the Victoria Line, my first thought as my ears rung, my eyes recovered from the blistering strobe show, my core shaken by the extravagant bass recalibrated, and my calves ached from 3+ hours on Brixton Academy's famous sloped floor, was "this is a funny way for 35-45 year olds (as the crowd overwhelmingly were) to spend their time in 2015.
This wasn't a heritage gig. I still go to gigs, but I haven't been to one where I had to stand up for a few years. These weren't young punks, these were bald 45+ family men, calm and mostly static on stage, calm amid the delirium of seeing the best band in the world get back together to do one of their greatest ever shows.
I don't know how many times I've seen the Furries - it might be up to about 10 now, plus Gruff Rhys about 5 times. I first saw them at the same Brixton Academy 14 years ago - that was a great gig too, they were still in their prime then, touring one of their best albums, Rings Around the World. They've never not been great, but late on they'd become less thrilling, no one could deny that their last three albums were less ... crowd-pleasing ... or just plain good. They weren't as good.
Well, this week's setlist suggested they didn't deny it themselves. No songs from Dark Days/Light Years, no songs from Hey Venus!, one, a pulsating Zoom, from Love Kraft. 1, out of 25 songs, from the last third of their career. No one complained.
No one really complained about the 5 songs from Mwng, their Welsh language album, since the reunion was putatively for the re-release of that album, and those songs are really nice. Indeed,
This wasn't a heritage gig. I still go to gigs, but I haven't been to one where I had to stand up for a few years. These weren't young punks, these were bald 45+ family men, calm and mostly static on stage, calm amid the delirium of seeing the best band in the world get back together to do one of their greatest ever shows.
I don't know how many times I've seen the Furries - it might be up to about 10 now, plus Gruff Rhys about 5 times. I first saw them at the same Brixton Academy 14 years ago - that was a great gig too, they were still in their prime then, touring one of their best albums, Rings Around the World. They've never not been great, but late on they'd become less thrilling, no one could deny that their last three albums were less ... crowd-pleasing ... or just plain good. They weren't as good.
Well, this week's setlist suggested they didn't deny it themselves. No songs from Dark Days/Light Years, no songs from Hey Venus!, one, a pulsating Zoom, from Love Kraft. 1, out of 25 songs, from the last third of their career. No one complained.
No one really complained about the 5 songs from Mwng, their Welsh language album, since the reunion was putatively for the re-release of that album, and those songs are really nice. Indeed,
Ymaelodi â'r Ymylon stands with their best. There was a little more chatter, sure, when those songs were being played, but, only a little, and anyway, it's hard to sing along in a language you don't speak.
For the rest, people sang along. People danced. Many probably cried. Because it was like that, it was a bit special. They played what you'd hope they'd play. They played Ice Hockey Hair 3rd and Demons 5th, just in case anyone wasn't sure that this was going to be the greatest gig ever.
It's not like the Furries only have 20 great songs, 20 songs which will make 1000s of people feel like the gig has been curated just for them. I'm going to prove it. Here's a 25-song SFA gig setlist entirely made up of songs they didn't play on Friday. It's still awesome. [bit geeky this, I know. Hope I'm not losing you].
God! Show Me Magic
Herman Loves Pauline
Fuzzy Birds
Presidential Suite
Atomik Lust
Chupacabras
Out of Control
She's Got Spies
Citizen's Band
Dacw Hi
Helium Hearts
Show Your Hand
Gathering Moss
Play it Cool
Turning Tide
Ysbeidiau Heilog
Bad Behaviour
Guacamole
Bass Tuned to DEAD
Venus and Serena
The Undefeated
Keep the Cosmic Trigger Happy
It's Not the End of the World?
Calimero
For Now and Ever
Come on, now, that's still basically one of the best gigs ever, but you've probably spotted the gaps and seen what they actually did play. They played the hits, the Number 12 and 14 hits, they played Northern Lites, Juxtapozed With U, Fire in My Heart, Something 4 the Weekend, If You Don't Want Me to Destroy You, Rings Around The World, of course they played The Man Don't Give a Fuck.
It's lovely to be reminded that I'm not the only one who thinks as highly of these songs as I do. Several reviews have mentioned Ice Hockey Hair casually as "maybe the best song of the 90s" (as if the journalists in attendance got together and decided to throw that in ... I thought I was the only person that thought that. It is, of course it is. It's better than Good Vibrations.
The refocusing, the clear thinking about what their most crowd-pleasing songs are, Gruff's new songwriting surge on Hotel Shampoo and American Interior, surely hopes can be high that they'll get it right if they record again, that they've got at least one more classic in them.
They sound like the Furries again, glorious, ever-changing, scary and challenging at times, tight, euphoric, despite the grim night before (Gruff made brief reference to the misery of it all. And the phrase kept going through my head... We've got the best songs. We've got the best songs ... they've got Mike Read and Gary Barlow ... it's worth the current despair of being left-wing just for this).
Next month I'm seeing Blur. Blur have got a new album, a really great new album which I very much want to hear, but I don't know, I don't know if they'll top this. I don't know if they can. I know who the second best British band of the last 20 years are, and I know who's the best. Now that you're here, tell me you're a non-believer ..
Friday, 1 May 2015
Masterpieces
In 2005 (or was it 2006?) I went to see Sufjan Stevens at the Royal Festival Hall (or was it the Barbican?). He was touring the album 'Illinois' and it was a glorious, memorable gig, one of the best I can remember. The support act was also great, a woman who sauntered out diffidently, said she was in the backing band and was going to play a few songs - I particularly liked the one called 'Marry Me, John' - she was St Vincent, who is now an acclaimed star in her own right, perhaps even more so than Sufjan Stevens. They're both acts of pure class, and they share something else, which I wonder if they talked about on that tour - a stillness, composure, a lack of emoting and grandstanding which could be off-putting to many fans of modern music who are used to really feeling it when the singers really mean it, man.
But in both cases, the songs lack nothing in emotional depth. Particularly when it comes to Sufjan Stevens' latest album, 'Carrie and Lowell', one of the most quietly devastating albums ever recorded - a sparse, fluff-free coruscating memorial to his recently deceased mother.
'Illinois' was a glorious, eclectic album, with big brassy adventures, rich arrangements and vast ambition; 'Carrie and Lowell' by comparison is tiny - it captures the mood of two of 'Illinois''s most quiet and renowned tracks 'John Wayne Gacy' and 'Casimir Pulaski Day' and carries that through the whole record.
It struck me - they're both, in their own way, masterpieces. Maybe. 'Carrie and Lowell' has the feel of an album which will be seen as such. Reviews have been universally grand and deservedly so, in my opinion. Indeed, it would be the best reviewed record for a long time were its scores not trumped by those for Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly'. If you look at Metacritic, it's rare for two albums to be met with such universal approval, to be acknowledged as masterpieces so rapidly.
Masterpiece ... a word I'm tossing around ... a word that always gets tossed around in music criticism. But if there are "masterpieces" in popular music, which I firmly believe there are, what are they, and why?
This is a fun thing to consider, ever so slightly different, but more satisfying, than simply "what is a great album". Some great albums, I've come to realise, aren't masterpieces. I wouldn't say vice versa is possible, though ... (actually, i think there is one, as you'll see later ...)
I've done "Greatest Albums" on this blog before, but it was never a list I was happy with. I'm not going to rate anything now, but I am going to make a few lists considering what might be masterpieces, what might fall short etc.
Perhaps I'll make these lists
1. Things which are, in my view, flat out major masterpieces
2. Things which might well be masterpieces, they're just not quite my type of thing or, to be honest, I haven't listened to enough yet (even if I've listened to them 10 times straight through, sometimes that's not enough)
3. Minor league, personal masterpieces, albums which I really think are pretty faultless, but I appreciate that's personal taste and they won't be viewed as such by others, and they're not likely to change the world any time soon
4. Things which, taking a tough line, though they're great, they might be influential, they might have several great songs and new sounds on, aren't quite masterpieces
5. Things which regularly get called masterpieces but I really strongly don't think they are
None of this will be close to comprehensive, it's just for fun, lazungenulmen.
Firstly, going back to my starting point, I thought about how impressive it is that Sufjan Stevens may well have come up with two masterpieces, and that they are both so different in sound, conception, scale ... then I thought about how vastly different the recent Sufjan Stevens and Kendrick Lamar albums are, one so sparse, so modest, so single-minded, so contained, the other so close to bloated, so long, so vast in ambition, so teetering on the edge of outstaying its welcome. But, you know, I think the critics are right in both cases. On my first listen to 'To Pimp a Butterfly' I was a bit annoyed and didn't get the hype, the second, already I was picking out tracks I liked, beginning to discern the flow, finding getting through its hour-plus less of a trial, the third was pretty much a pleasure without taint. OK, only three full listens so far, it might not be my place to call it a masterpiece yet ... but if it's being said, I'm not disagreeing. I prefer my hip-hop either more rockist, either literally or in spirit, whereas 'To Pimp a Butterfly' is, both in sound and spirit, steeped in jazz, and that might always be a hindrance to my listening to it over and over again. Still, 'To Pimp a Butterfly' is still calling me back to listen to it ... I might just be forever hooked next time, we'll see.
That's just the way sometimes. Some albums you can listen to, you can admire, you can even love for a while, but it won't keep calling you back year after year, because it's just not quite your medicine.
So, probably the albums in the top list are mainly ones which are both acknowledged marvels and also just my kind of thing. Surprisingly few ...
One can afford to be fairly strict when using the word masterpiece when it comes to albums. Albums are brilliant, magical things. Gosh, a song is hard enough, but to create a masterpiece of an album? A collection of between, say, 6 and 20 songs without a weak moment, which cohere and complement each other, which tell lots of stories and one story, which hold the interest, sounds and ideas which haven't been heard before, which create their own universe, which bear repeating for years to come, which never jar, never bore ... I think that's harder than almost anything else in the whole world of the arts, quite frankly ...
Some great albums are wonderful happy accidents - 'Otis Blue', say, or 'Grievous Angel' by Gram Parsons (happy perhaps the wrong adjective). They're great to listen to, they have meaning and influence, but, you know, they're rush jobs, they're collections of parts - a few covers here, a few out-takes there, I don't think masterpiece is quite the right word for these. I'm not saying a masterpiece needs years in the making, but I do somehow feel there needs to be intention, of authorship. Otherwise we might as well include Greatest Hits.
Perhaps there's no more to say by way of explanation and the categories speak for themselves. ... well, something else to say. Especially when I was younger, much less so now, my way into music was rock critics and list books and people telling me what to like and me heeding it. That's the way for a lot of people but I'm sure it was the way for me more than most. But I wasn't entirely divorced from my own taste. I would buy and listen to many albums I'd been told were masterpieces and I can still remember my varying reactions - the instant sheer understanding and acknowledgment sometimes, the slight uncertainty amidst the general enjoyment the next, the gritted teeth attempt to believe in what I'd been told sometimes, and occasionally the sheer "fuck off, you're kidding me, this is mediocre". Sometimes, the initial reaction has been diluted and hidden away, and rightly so, because albums, even shitty albums, deserve more than just one listen if you're going to pontificate on them, and sometimes, my first instinct, either way, was way off the mark. But those first reactions are worth something too. I still remember the first time I heard 'Astral Weeks' and truly felt like I was hearing something magical, and the first time I heard 'Pet Sounds' and pretended to myself that that's what I was hearing ...
Another thing about pop music ... by the very name, its interaction with its environment matters. There can be no debate about this, cos it's pop music. So, I suppose, a magnificent work that has never been heard can't be a masterpiece. In 2015, there are no lost classics. Gosh, that's blazingly obvious, isn't it ... sorry, I'm patronising you ...
Oh, and one more important thing to say. There are big masterpieces and small masterpieces. It makes sense that it's harder to make a big masterpiece, as more can go wrong. You can't keep up the pace of a 100m for a Marathon. You can't. That's a reductive and silly way to put it, but I hope you get the gist. But, if you choose to make a "big" album, in length or concept, it's your fault if you don't carry it through. "Flawed masterpieces", if you can really see their flaws, they're just not masterpieces, they're over-ambitious mistakes. I'm strict but fair about this. Will you see Blonde on Blonde here? Will you see The White Album? Not on my watch ... not that those albums haven't given me great joy ...
... perhaps, also, the term masterpiece lends itself more to a certain kind of artist - are a band, a collection of individuals, however united, or a pop group, or a big commercial act, as likely to be able create a masterpiece, something so focused, as one serious-minded individual with a devoted but not vast fanbase?
I should say that, inevitably, as I started doing it, I tried to cover more bases, listen to more stuff, try not to miss anything out, it's completely inevitable and ultimately unsatisfactory. So i just want to reiterate again I'm not trying to make this a definitive list ... hopefully I've missed lots of really obvious ones to prove this.
Anyway, I could go on and on with "just one more thing"s.
OK, then, here we go.
I'll comment on particulars occasionally, but hopefully most things will be self-explanatory.
1. Things which are, in my view, flat out major masterpieces
2. Things which might well be masterpieces, they're just not quite my type of thing or, to be honest, I haven't listened to enough yet.
I have, at minimum, listened to all these albums all the way through at some point. I'm not going to include anything I haven't listened to all the way through, anywhere
3. Minor league, personal masterpieces, albums which I really think are pretty faultless, but I appreciate that's personal taste and they won't be viewed as such by others
This category could go on and on really. It's all those great great albums which somehow aren't quite perfect
In some ways, it doesn't matter that much - bands like The National and The Jam, acts like Diana Ross, Chuck Berry and Madness aren't here at all, but they've got more great songs than most of these listed. But it does make you realise how rare it is to find a work that is wholly satisfying. Long may people keep trying.
But in both cases, the songs lack nothing in emotional depth. Particularly when it comes to Sufjan Stevens' latest album, 'Carrie and Lowell', one of the most quietly devastating albums ever recorded - a sparse, fluff-free coruscating memorial to his recently deceased mother.
'Illinois' was a glorious, eclectic album, with big brassy adventures, rich arrangements and vast ambition; 'Carrie and Lowell' by comparison is tiny - it captures the mood of two of 'Illinois''s most quiet and renowned tracks 'John Wayne Gacy' and 'Casimir Pulaski Day' and carries that through the whole record.
It struck me - they're both, in their own way, masterpieces. Maybe. 'Carrie and Lowell' has the feel of an album which will be seen as such. Reviews have been universally grand and deservedly so, in my opinion. Indeed, it would be the best reviewed record for a long time were its scores not trumped by those for Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly'. If you look at Metacritic, it's rare for two albums to be met with such universal approval, to be acknowledged as masterpieces so rapidly.
Masterpiece ... a word I'm tossing around ... a word that always gets tossed around in music criticism. But if there are "masterpieces" in popular music, which I firmly believe there are, what are they, and why?
This is a fun thing to consider, ever so slightly different, but more satisfying, than simply "what is a great album". Some great albums, I've come to realise, aren't masterpieces. I wouldn't say vice versa is possible, though ... (actually, i think there is one, as you'll see later ...)
I've done "Greatest Albums" on this blog before, but it was never a list I was happy with. I'm not going to rate anything now, but I am going to make a few lists considering what might be masterpieces, what might fall short etc.
Perhaps I'll make these lists
1. Things which are, in my view, flat out major masterpieces
2. Things which might well be masterpieces, they're just not quite my type of thing or, to be honest, I haven't listened to enough yet (even if I've listened to them 10 times straight through, sometimes that's not enough)
3. Minor league, personal masterpieces, albums which I really think are pretty faultless, but I appreciate that's personal taste and they won't be viewed as such by others, and they're not likely to change the world any time soon
4. Things which, taking a tough line, though they're great, they might be influential, they might have several great songs and new sounds on, aren't quite masterpieces
5. Things which regularly get called masterpieces but I really strongly don't think they are
None of this will be close to comprehensive, it's just for fun, lazungenulmen.
Firstly, going back to my starting point, I thought about how impressive it is that Sufjan Stevens may well have come up with two masterpieces, and that they are both so different in sound, conception, scale ... then I thought about how vastly different the recent Sufjan Stevens and Kendrick Lamar albums are, one so sparse, so modest, so single-minded, so contained, the other so close to bloated, so long, so vast in ambition, so teetering on the edge of outstaying its welcome. But, you know, I think the critics are right in both cases. On my first listen to 'To Pimp a Butterfly' I was a bit annoyed and didn't get the hype, the second, already I was picking out tracks I liked, beginning to discern the flow, finding getting through its hour-plus less of a trial, the third was pretty much a pleasure without taint. OK, only three full listens so far, it might not be my place to call it a masterpiece yet ... but if it's being said, I'm not disagreeing. I prefer my hip-hop either more rockist, either literally or in spirit, whereas 'To Pimp a Butterfly' is, both in sound and spirit, steeped in jazz, and that might always be a hindrance to my listening to it over and over again. Still, 'To Pimp a Butterfly' is still calling me back to listen to it ... I might just be forever hooked next time, we'll see.
That's just the way sometimes. Some albums you can listen to, you can admire, you can even love for a while, but it won't keep calling you back year after year, because it's just not quite your medicine.
So, probably the albums in the top list are mainly ones which are both acknowledged marvels and also just my kind of thing. Surprisingly few ...
One can afford to be fairly strict when using the word masterpiece when it comes to albums. Albums are brilliant, magical things. Gosh, a song is hard enough, but to create a masterpiece of an album? A collection of between, say, 6 and 20 songs without a weak moment, which cohere and complement each other, which tell lots of stories and one story, which hold the interest, sounds and ideas which haven't been heard before, which create their own universe, which bear repeating for years to come, which never jar, never bore ... I think that's harder than almost anything else in the whole world of the arts, quite frankly ...
Some great albums are wonderful happy accidents - 'Otis Blue', say, or 'Grievous Angel' by Gram Parsons (happy perhaps the wrong adjective). They're great to listen to, they have meaning and influence, but, you know, they're rush jobs, they're collections of parts - a few covers here, a few out-takes there, I don't think masterpiece is quite the right word for these. I'm not saying a masterpiece needs years in the making, but I do somehow feel there needs to be intention, of authorship. Otherwise we might as well include Greatest Hits.
Perhaps there's no more to say by way of explanation and the categories speak for themselves. ... well, something else to say. Especially when I was younger, much less so now, my way into music was rock critics and list books and people telling me what to like and me heeding it. That's the way for a lot of people but I'm sure it was the way for me more than most. But I wasn't entirely divorced from my own taste. I would buy and listen to many albums I'd been told were masterpieces and I can still remember my varying reactions - the instant sheer understanding and acknowledgment sometimes, the slight uncertainty amidst the general enjoyment the next, the gritted teeth attempt to believe in what I'd been told sometimes, and occasionally the sheer "fuck off, you're kidding me, this is mediocre". Sometimes, the initial reaction has been diluted and hidden away, and rightly so, because albums, even shitty albums, deserve more than just one listen if you're going to pontificate on them, and sometimes, my first instinct, either way, was way off the mark. But those first reactions are worth something too. I still remember the first time I heard 'Astral Weeks' and truly felt like I was hearing something magical, and the first time I heard 'Pet Sounds' and pretended to myself that that's what I was hearing ...
Another thing about pop music ... by the very name, its interaction with its environment matters. There can be no debate about this, cos it's pop music. So, I suppose, a magnificent work that has never been heard can't be a masterpiece. In 2015, there are no lost classics. Gosh, that's blazingly obvious, isn't it ... sorry, I'm patronising you ...
Oh, and one more important thing to say. There are big masterpieces and small masterpieces. It makes sense that it's harder to make a big masterpiece, as more can go wrong. You can't keep up the pace of a 100m for a Marathon. You can't. That's a reductive and silly way to put it, but I hope you get the gist. But, if you choose to make a "big" album, in length or concept, it's your fault if you don't carry it through. "Flawed masterpieces", if you can really see their flaws, they're just not masterpieces, they're over-ambitious mistakes. I'm strict but fair about this. Will you see Blonde on Blonde here? Will you see The White Album? Not on my watch ... not that those albums haven't given me great joy ...
... perhaps, also, the term masterpiece lends itself more to a certain kind of artist - are a band, a collection of individuals, however united, or a pop group, or a big commercial act, as likely to be able create a masterpiece, something so focused, as one serious-minded individual with a devoted but not vast fanbase?
I should say that, inevitably, as I started doing it, I tried to cover more bases, listen to more stuff, try not to miss anything out, it's completely inevitable and ultimately unsatisfactory. So i just want to reiterate again I'm not trying to make this a definitive list ... hopefully I've missed lots of really obvious ones to prove this.
Anyway, I could go on and on with "just one more thing"s.
OK, then, here we go.
I'll comment on particulars occasionally, but hopefully most things will be self-explanatory.
1. Things which are, in my view, flat out major masterpieces
- Blue - Joni Mitchell
- Astral Weeks - Van Morrison
- The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars - David Bowie
- Searching for the Young Soul Rebels - Dexys Midnight Runners
- If You're Feeling Sinister - Belle and Sebastian
- Carrie and Lowell - Sufjan Stevens
- It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back - Public Enemy
- The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill - Lauryn Hill
- The Holy Bible - Manic Street Preachers
- OK Computer - Radiohead
- Have One on Me - Joanna Newsom
- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
- The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
- London Calling - The Clash
- Time Out of Mind - Bob Dylan
- The Velvet Underground and Nico - The Velvert Underground and Nico
- Funeral - Arcade Fire
- The Times They Are a Changin' - Bob Dylan
- Definitely Maybe - Oasis
- Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space - Spiritualized
- Tapestry - Carole King
- Darkness on the Edge of Town - Bruce Springsteen
- Pink Moon - Nick Drake
- Heartbreaker - Ryan Adams
- Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits
- Songs of Leonard Cohen - Leonard Cohen
- Rumours - Fleetwood Mac
- To Pimp a Butterfly - Kendrick Lamar
- The ArchAndroid - Janelle Monae
- Revolver - The Beatles
- Blur - Blur
- Songs in the Key of Life - Stevie Wonder
- The Ramones - The Ramones
- A Christmas Gift For You - Phil Spector
- 69 Love Songs - Magnetic Fields
- Abbey Road - The Beatles
- Debut - Bjork
- The Band - The Band
- Exodus - Bob Marley
- The Crane Wife - The Decemberists
- Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem
2. Things which might well be masterpieces, they're just not quite my type of thing or, to be honest, I haven't listened to enough yet.
I have, at minimum, listened to all these albums all the way through at some point. I'm not going to include anything I haven't listened to all the way through, anywhere
- Dummy - Portishead
- In the Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
- Graceland - Paul Simon
- Let England Shake - PJ Harvey
- Yeezus - Kanye West
- Illmatic - Nas
- Appetite for Destruction - Guns N' Roses
- The Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd
- In Utero - Nirvana
- Back to Black - Amy Winehouse
- Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys
- Songs for the Deaf - Queens of the Stone Age
- Trans-Europe Express - Kraftwerk
- The Hissing of Summer Lawns - Joni Mitchell
- Endtroducing - DJ Shadow
- Dog Man Star - Suede
- Demon Days - Gorillaz
- Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
- Are You Experienced? - Jimi Hendrix
- Led Zeppelin IV ...
- Back in Black - AC/DC
- 3 Feet High and Rising - De La Soul
- Loveless - My Bloody Valentine
- Daydream Nation - Sonic Youth
- Remain in Light - Talking Heads
- Marquee Moon - Television
- Since I Left You - Avalanches
- Mezzanine - Massive Attack
- Tom Waits
3. Minor league, personal masterpieces, albums which I really think are pretty faultless, but I appreciate that's personal taste and they won't be viewed as such by others
- The Sophtware Slump = Grandaddy
- The World Won't End - Pernice Brothers
- Nashville - Josh Rouse
- I am Shelby Lynne - Shelby Lynne
- The Trials of Van Occupanther - Midlake
- Songs for Beginners - Graham Nash
- Odessey and Oracle - Zombies
- Wild Wood - Paul Weller
- Phantom Power - Super Furry Animals
- American Interior - Gruff Rhys
- More Adventurous - Rilo Kiley
- Grand Prix - Teenage Fanclub
- The Hour of the Bewilderbeast - Badly Drawn Boy
- Summerteeth - Wilco
- Free All Angels - Ash
- Lapalco - Brendan Benson
This category could go on and on really. It's all those great great albums which somehow aren't quite perfect
- Pet Sounds - Beach Boys
- Thriller - Michael Jackson
- Music from Big Pink - The Band
- The Queen is Dead - The Smiths
- Enter the Wu-Tang - Wu-Tang Clan
- Exile on Main Street - Rolling Stones
- Grace - Jeff Buckley
- Bringing it All Back Home - Bob Dylan
- Forever Changes - Love
- Moondance - Van Morrison
- Parklife - Blur
- Let it Be - The Replacements
- Low - David Bowie
- Screamadelica - Primal Scream
- Nevermind - Nirvana
- Rubber Soul - The Beatles
- Merriweather Post Pavilion - Animal Collective
- My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West
- Rubber Soul - The Beatles
- Ys - Joanna Newsom
- Parallel Lines - Blondie
- The Soft Bulletin - Flaming Lips
- Hunky Dory - David Bowie
- The Bends - Radiohead
- Nixon - Lambchop
- The Crane Wife - The Decemberists
- Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City
- The Seldom Seen Kid - Elbow
- After the Goldrush - Neil Young
- The Boatman's Call - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
- Want One - Rufus Wainwright
- Blonde on Blonde - Bob Dylan
- The White Album - The Beatles
- Innervisions - Stevie Wonder
- Talking Book - Stevie Wonder
- Doolittle - The Pixies
- The Blueprint - Jay Z
- Fear of a Black Planet - Public Enemy
- Deja Vu - Crosby Stills Nash and Young
- St Vincent - St Vincent
- Benji - Sun Kil Moon
- The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan
- What's Going On - Marvin Gaye
- Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Beatles
- Sign o' The Times - Prince
- Channel Orange - Frank Ocean
- Otis Blue - Otis Redding
- Never Mind the Bollocks - The Sex Pistols
- Beyonce - Beyonce
- Is This It - The Strokes
- The College Dropout - Kanye West
- A Different Class - Pulp
- Deserter's Songs - Mercury Rev
- Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
- In Rainbows - Radiohead
- Smile - Beach Boys
- Hounds of Love - Kate Bush
- Court and Spark - Joni Mitchell
- Don't Stand Me Down - Dexys Midnight Runners
- The Suburbs - Arcade Fire
- Smile - The Beach Boys
- On the Beach - Neil Young
- Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan
- Songs for Swingin' Lovers - Frank Sinatra
- Trout Mask Replica - Captain Beefheart
- Pacific Ocean Blue - Dennis Wilson
- No Other - Gene Clark
- Anything by The Who
- Slanted and Enchanted - Pavement
- Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen
- Liege and Lief - Fairport Convention
- Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel
In some ways, it doesn't matter that much - bands like The National and The Jam, acts like Diana Ross, Chuck Berry and Madness aren't here at all, but they've got more great songs than most of these listed. But it does make you realise how rare it is to find a work that is wholly satisfying. Long may people keep trying.
Thursday, 2 April 2015
Some Thoughts on Writing
I've been looking for something to get excited about on this blog for a while, and also looking for something which will make me write better. I think the entries, on both the music and sport blog, have been pretty limply written for quite a while - ideas have petered out, sentences have jarred, hell, I've left far too many "it's"s in (yes, I know I have a habit, on this blog, of erroneously writing "it's", i don't know where it's come from, I go back and edit when I can, but I imagine if I came to this blog by chance, I'd leave in disgust at the number of "it's"s left in. U-G-L-Y - Ugly!!).
What are my standards? Is it just that I'm not a good writer, now or ever? Well, I look at some of the entries from last year (as opposed to the last six months) and think "Yes, I did that fine, I wrung the details and the essence from that; albeit it was a trivial matter, but I did it justice". That's all I can ask for. Both blogs have a limited readership - feedback on style and substance is few and far between, and when it comes, usually biased in my favour by friendship.
Well, then, that's where I'll start. Feedback and judgement.
I write a fair bit. I watched the Nick Cave documentary '20,000 Days on Earth' last year and I remember feeling briefly inspired by him saying words to the effect of "I'm a writer so I just write ...". Yes, i thought, I'm a writer, I shall just write and write.
Well, yes, I am a writer, actually, kind of. Professionally. A certain kind of writing.
So what writing do I know about? I'll break it down. I don't write fiction or drama, haven't done since school. I used to write academic essays, I write these blogs, which are either lists or various things that might fall under the umbrella of quasi-journalism - reviews, assessments, argument, invective, autobiographical reportage etc. I'm not on twitter, but I write facebook statuses, that's some kind of writing, I write quiz questions of various sorts and I write a professional blog on quizzing and quiz theory. Finally, I used to attempt to write poetry, from 17 to 32ish, fairly often. I don't really write it at all any more.
Am I any good at any of these? How can I tell if I'm any good? The question matters to a variable degree.
To a large extent, I never dare to find out if I'm any good. I wrote poems in a bubble for almost 15 years, not interested in finding out what anyone else thought. I deferred to my own judgement, and, but for the first couple of months, where, so amazed that words actually rhymed, I believed myself the next Gerard Manley Hopkins, I judged myself not quite up to it. Rightly, I think. I was a pretty good self-critic. I wrote and I matured and I improved, but I was lazy. There were a few times where I knew that I was pretty close to breaking through, that if I concentrated and put the time in and revised and edited and cared, I would be able to write consistently competent verse, but I pulled back. In the end, I'd never have been fantastic. I lack the instinctive sense of rhythm, the empathy and the imagination. My academic understanding of metre remained divorced from its application. I liked to write di-dum di-dum, I liked to start and just see how the rhythm and rhyme turned out. I knew I needed to get beyond that and I never really did.
But ... and it's a big but ... most people ... i mean 99.7% of people ... wouldn't know any different. Poetry ... fucking poetry ... no one has a clue ... not even the people that pretend to know about it really. About 1% of the people that pretend to know about it, maybe ... General people's general understanding of what makes great verse is almost entirely based on what is poignant, what is moving ... at best, people can tell when they're being manipulated into finding something moving ... I mean, I studied poetry for my degree, and I wrote it for 15 years and I have no clue if something's actually good or not, not really.
So, I'd have always fallen between two stools. It takes some cojones to write some shit like the lyrics to 'Angels' or 'My Heart Will Go On', the kind of words that make millions of people all over the world cry at the death of their loved one, and I'd have lacked those cojones.
And I also lacked different cojones - to a) get really good at writing verse, and b) be prepared to put sub-par verse before an audience, and thus to learn and improve it. 5 years ago, while I still wrote verse but was on the point of stopping, I went to Latitude the night before my compadres. There wasn't much music on, so I spent a few hours in the poetry tent. It was thrilling and galling at the same time. They were good, it was fun, it was so basic, but not in a bad way ... they were just pros, that's all, they'd honed it, they knew what worked ... shit, I thought, if I'd only known that this was all I had to aspire to ...
Sometimes, poetry can seem far out of our grasp and make us think we can't do it, but sometimes, it really doesn't. For my own part, I spent too long aspiring to a standard, methodology and form which was always unattainable ... perhaps I should have just got competent and aimed for poignancy ...
... do you know, I stopped writing regularly in late 2010, I'd got through my 101 songs blog, I knew it was a fork in the road for my poems. I was better, but also more self-critical, than I'd ever been. My dad died. I wrote a poem about it. It was shit. True sadness, true meaning, didn't elevate my craft ... I was still "di-dum di-dum", I still had the same tricks and tropes. That was depressing.
I remembered the same feeling 14 years earlier when, in late 1996, believing myself the new Manley Hopkins, I thought spending 8 months in Africa, free from modern materialistic complaints, would make me the new Shakespeare/Wordsworth/Ovid etc and it was only there, surrounded by emotion and beauty, enveloped by the opportunity of time, that I woke up to the fact that I was a pure novice.
I put poems on my original (2009-2010) blog and a few friends would say if they liked or didn't like. It was nice, and it actually helped, but it also made me realise, first-hand, the obvious ... it's utterly subjective. One smart dude would love one thing and not like another, which another dude really liked... OMG, hoo noo? I think I always feared the Don of Poetry at the University of Verse coming down and pronouncing me a piss poor pauper of poorness ... but, actually, of course, someone really clever thinking I was shit wouldn't have mattered. I (the overlord of objectivity and amateur pop criticism) think U2 are shit, and the Doors, and the Sex Pistols, and Muse, And Alt-J, and Elvis Presley ... it doesn't matter, critics and millions and millions of fans are still queueing up to say they're awesome. I had a false enemy pushing me back constantly.
That can even be the case with the quiz questions, but not really. I haven't had the option to be self-defeating when it comes to my profession. I'm definitely good at it. I've been doing it for 9 years, so I ought to be. I've had feedback, occasionally negative but mostly positive - feedback on individual questions, on rounds, on whole sets of 1000 questions. There's also the truest feedback of all, which is simply seeing, night after night, how people respond to questions and rounds. In every area I've grudgingly listened and improved. I now know, beyond, any doubt, I'm very good at writing quiz questions. My question-writing is versatile, quick, well-judged, clever, fun, all dem tings. Too many people have responded positively to my work to dispute it. If someone should grumble about one question, one batch, one day, it won't kill my self-confidence, it'll just be an excuse to be mildly vituperative and then get on with sorting out whatever I didn't quite get right.
Some folk are truly immune to criticism because they're steely and that's probably helpful, though has its nicknames. Others do care about it, but in certain spheres and certain ways, can be confident enough to be at ease with it. That's how I am with quiz questions (not entirely, but mostly) and, funnily enough, how I was with translation of Latin and Greek, but have never been with anything else.
I don't value writing quiz questions as highly as writing poems. It's a weird hierarchy. Far more people watch, take part in and judge quizzes than poems. My quiz questions, across various forms, have been widely praised (yes, it's true!) but that doesn't make me feel I've made it as a writer, just that I'm doing my job OK.
There are considerable skills involved in it, in particularly in adapting to the task in hand, in researching and writing quickly, in understanding what people will and won't like, in dropping in clues which people don't realise are there. It's a learned skill. I've improve immeasurably since I've started.
And what of facebook statuses? No, I'm not kidding ... what a weird thing .. thank god I've kept myself off twitter ... every time I write what I think is a particularly well honed status I get a shiver of anticipation, only to be disappointed by the two cursory likes that come my way. And vice versa, ya know.
So I know, sometimes, if I'm a good writer. When it comes to my work, I care, broadly, if I do it well, but I don't get too encouraged or discouraged by individual responses. Quiz question writing ain't Dickens, but it has its value ("its" not "it's", huzzah!). It's certainly taught me the value of brevity - verbosity will be my curse to the end, I think that's why I didn't take up twitter originally.
Anyway, it's fun writing about writing. I'm very lucky to be able to do writing of any sort for a living, to call myself, in whatever sense, a writer. It clearly isn't wholly satisfying, otherwise I wouldn't have spent 100s of 1000s of words on this blog, but there we go.
What are my standards? Is it just that I'm not a good writer, now or ever? Well, I look at some of the entries from last year (as opposed to the last six months) and think "Yes, I did that fine, I wrung the details and the essence from that; albeit it was a trivial matter, but I did it justice". That's all I can ask for. Both blogs have a limited readership - feedback on style and substance is few and far between, and when it comes, usually biased in my favour by friendship.
Well, then, that's where I'll start. Feedback and judgement.
I write a fair bit. I watched the Nick Cave documentary '20,000 Days on Earth' last year and I remember feeling briefly inspired by him saying words to the effect of "I'm a writer so I just write ...". Yes, i thought, I'm a writer, I shall just write and write.
Well, yes, I am a writer, actually, kind of. Professionally. A certain kind of writing.
So what writing do I know about? I'll break it down. I don't write fiction or drama, haven't done since school. I used to write academic essays, I write these blogs, which are either lists or various things that might fall under the umbrella of quasi-journalism - reviews, assessments, argument, invective, autobiographical reportage etc. I'm not on twitter, but I write facebook statuses, that's some kind of writing, I write quiz questions of various sorts and I write a professional blog on quizzing and quiz theory. Finally, I used to attempt to write poetry, from 17 to 32ish, fairly often. I don't really write it at all any more.
Am I any good at any of these? How can I tell if I'm any good? The question matters to a variable degree.
To a large extent, I never dare to find out if I'm any good. I wrote poems in a bubble for almost 15 years, not interested in finding out what anyone else thought. I deferred to my own judgement, and, but for the first couple of months, where, so amazed that words actually rhymed, I believed myself the next Gerard Manley Hopkins, I judged myself not quite up to it. Rightly, I think. I was a pretty good self-critic. I wrote and I matured and I improved, but I was lazy. There were a few times where I knew that I was pretty close to breaking through, that if I concentrated and put the time in and revised and edited and cared, I would be able to write consistently competent verse, but I pulled back. In the end, I'd never have been fantastic. I lack the instinctive sense of rhythm, the empathy and the imagination. My academic understanding of metre remained divorced from its application. I liked to write di-dum di-dum, I liked to start and just see how the rhythm and rhyme turned out. I knew I needed to get beyond that and I never really did.
But ... and it's a big but ... most people ... i mean 99.7% of people ... wouldn't know any different. Poetry ... fucking poetry ... no one has a clue ... not even the people that pretend to know about it really. About 1% of the people that pretend to know about it, maybe ... General people's general understanding of what makes great verse is almost entirely based on what is poignant, what is moving ... at best, people can tell when they're being manipulated into finding something moving ... I mean, I studied poetry for my degree, and I wrote it for 15 years and I have no clue if something's actually good or not, not really.
So, I'd have always fallen between two stools. It takes some cojones to write some shit like the lyrics to 'Angels' or 'My Heart Will Go On', the kind of words that make millions of people all over the world cry at the death of their loved one, and I'd have lacked those cojones.
And I also lacked different cojones - to a) get really good at writing verse, and b) be prepared to put sub-par verse before an audience, and thus to learn and improve it. 5 years ago, while I still wrote verse but was on the point of stopping, I went to Latitude the night before my compadres. There wasn't much music on, so I spent a few hours in the poetry tent. It was thrilling and galling at the same time. They were good, it was fun, it was so basic, but not in a bad way ... they were just pros, that's all, they'd honed it, they knew what worked ... shit, I thought, if I'd only known that this was all I had to aspire to ...
Sometimes, poetry can seem far out of our grasp and make us think we can't do it, but sometimes, it really doesn't. For my own part, I spent too long aspiring to a standard, methodology and form which was always unattainable ... perhaps I should have just got competent and aimed for poignancy ...
... do you know, I stopped writing regularly in late 2010, I'd got through my 101 songs blog, I knew it was a fork in the road for my poems. I was better, but also more self-critical, than I'd ever been. My dad died. I wrote a poem about it. It was shit. True sadness, true meaning, didn't elevate my craft ... I was still "di-dum di-dum", I still had the same tricks and tropes. That was depressing.
I remembered the same feeling 14 years earlier when, in late 1996, believing myself the new Manley Hopkins, I thought spending 8 months in Africa, free from modern materialistic complaints, would make me the new Shakespeare/Wordsworth/Ovid etc and it was only there, surrounded by emotion and beauty, enveloped by the opportunity of time, that I woke up to the fact that I was a pure novice.
I put poems on my original (2009-2010) blog and a few friends would say if they liked or didn't like. It was nice, and it actually helped, but it also made me realise, first-hand, the obvious ... it's utterly subjective. One smart dude would love one thing and not like another, which another dude really liked... OMG, hoo noo? I think I always feared the Don of Poetry at the University of Verse coming down and pronouncing me a piss poor pauper of poorness ... but, actually, of course, someone really clever thinking I was shit wouldn't have mattered. I (the overlord of objectivity and amateur pop criticism) think U2 are shit, and the Doors, and the Sex Pistols, and Muse, And Alt-J, and Elvis Presley ... it doesn't matter, critics and millions and millions of fans are still queueing up to say they're awesome. I had a false enemy pushing me back constantly.
That can even be the case with the quiz questions, but not really. I haven't had the option to be self-defeating when it comes to my profession. I'm definitely good at it. I've been doing it for 9 years, so I ought to be. I've had feedback, occasionally negative but mostly positive - feedback on individual questions, on rounds, on whole sets of 1000 questions. There's also the truest feedback of all, which is simply seeing, night after night, how people respond to questions and rounds. In every area I've grudgingly listened and improved. I now know, beyond, any doubt, I'm very good at writing quiz questions. My question-writing is versatile, quick, well-judged, clever, fun, all dem tings. Too many people have responded positively to my work to dispute it. If someone should grumble about one question, one batch, one day, it won't kill my self-confidence, it'll just be an excuse to be mildly vituperative and then get on with sorting out whatever I didn't quite get right.
Some folk are truly immune to criticism because they're steely and that's probably helpful, though has its nicknames. Others do care about it, but in certain spheres and certain ways, can be confident enough to be at ease with it. That's how I am with quiz questions (not entirely, but mostly) and, funnily enough, how I was with translation of Latin and Greek, but have never been with anything else.
I don't value writing quiz questions as highly as writing poems. It's a weird hierarchy. Far more people watch, take part in and judge quizzes than poems. My quiz questions, across various forms, have been widely praised (yes, it's true!) but that doesn't make me feel I've made it as a writer, just that I'm doing my job OK.
There are considerable skills involved in it, in particularly in adapting to the task in hand, in researching and writing quickly, in understanding what people will and won't like, in dropping in clues which people don't realise are there. It's a learned skill. I've improve immeasurably since I've started.
And what of facebook statuses? No, I'm not kidding ... what a weird thing .. thank god I've kept myself off twitter ... every time I write what I think is a particularly well honed status I get a shiver of anticipation, only to be disappointed by the two cursory likes that come my way. And vice versa, ya know.
So I know, sometimes, if I'm a good writer. When it comes to my work, I care, broadly, if I do it well, but I don't get too encouraged or discouraged by individual responses. Quiz question writing ain't Dickens, but it has its value ("its" not "it's", huzzah!). It's certainly taught me the value of brevity - verbosity will be my curse to the end, I think that's why I didn't take up twitter originally.
Anyway, it's fun writing about writing. I'm very lucky to be able to do writing of any sort for a living, to call myself, in whatever sense, a writer. It clearly isn't wholly satisfying, otherwise I wouldn't have spent 100s of 1000s of words on this blog, but there we go.
Tuesday, 31 March 2015
Our Friends in the North
My main aim for the next month is to avoid posting angry, embarrassing, ill-informed diatribes on facebook about politics. I'll almost certainly fail.
Something, somewhere infected me with the idea that, despite being a son of West London privilege (well, sort of) and having the least down-to-earth job it's possible to have, I'm truly, straightforwardly old Labour. Of the people, for the people. Slightly ludicrous, when you think about it, but that has become where I think I come from.
My parents weren't old Labour, no way - one is loosely liberal and floats slightly mysteriously votewise, but rarely Labour, I think; the other was somewhat horrendously right wing, bless him. But, me, I'm old school left-wing, not some clueless, toffee-nosed idealistic, do-gooding liberal, no, I'm of the soil, of the unions ... where on earth did I get this idea?
I worry that one well-made TV show had a far larger role in this lasting entrenchment than it ought, so perfectly did 'Our Friends in the North' catch this impressionable young fellow as he slipped awkwardly out of a teenage spiritual, gospel-based morality, into a young adulthood which still felt it needed some kind of meaning.
In some ways, I've always been left-wing. By which I mean I'm not a cunt .... no, stop, only joking ... I mean, I can't remember a time where I didn't think kindness and fairness and stuff were good things, but to me growing up it wasn't a political thing. I don't know who I'd have voted for when I was 15. Well, at mock school elections, I voted Communist when i was 12 (in fact, I was the Communist candidate, but I think i was joking) and ... not sure ... when I was 14, probably something silly - the winning parties at my school were Invade Europe Now and The National Front. I thought that was irony at the time, but now I'm not so sure.
But I got political quickly. I began to read the NME and they were all really left-wing by default and always slagging off Tories, and I watched, in early 1996, 'Our Friends in the North'. In case you don't know, it was a nine-part drama about four friends from Newcastle era where each episode was set in a different year, making reference very often to actual events. The years were ... ok, let's see if I get this ... 1964, 1966, 1967, 1970, 1974, 1979, 1984, 1987, 1996 (the present day). The four friends were played by Christopher Eccleston (probably the most high profile at the time, but still a new face), Gina McKee, Mark Strong and Daniel Craig, required to don various wigs and prosthetics (perhaps the show's only weakness!) to stay in character for over 30 years.
Supporting roles were played by various other excellent British actors, Peter Vaughan as Eccleston's father particularly memorably. I don't remember a performance that wasn't gripping though.
It was immediately hailed as a classic, and continues to be so, as one of the finest British dramas of all time. Many of the great shows (mainly American) since have gained strength over many series, but the nature and format of 'Only Friends in the North' meant it could only ever be a one-off series. There were nine episodes to get it right and that was it.
What did it do for me? I can't overstate it. It educated me. It was obviously a left-wing work, but not blindly so, it was brutal on the corruption within the Labour Party and the crushing of ideals, but it told me the truth about this country in a way I had really not been aware till then. Corruption, basically. Corruption everywhere. In politics, in business, in the police, in personal lives, of rising and falling hopes and ambitions.
The four main characters are, in some ways, archetypes - Nicky (Eccleston), the disillusioned left-wing idealist, Mary (Gina McKee) the clear-headed centrist New Labourite, Tosker (Mark Strong), the Thatcherite, Geordie (Craig) the apolitical one, the victim of circumstance. It's funny that apparently Eccleston and Strong did not get on at all - there characters are the most diametrically opposed throughout the film. Nicky is, if anyone is, the "hero", though some found him insufferably self-righteous and flawed.
At some points, it feels like a tragedy, a catalogue of missed moments, bad luck and despair. Good guys get their comeuppance over and over again, bad guys rarely do. The stuff to do with the Met Police in the 60s and 70s is some of the most depressing and brilliant television I've ever seen. It told me that this country is built on lie upon lie, secret circle within secret circle, no good man on a mission will ever defeat it. Gosh, the more and more true that all seems now.
There are failed families, impossible parental relationships, sins repeated, hard lessons learnt. There are principled right-wingers and horribly corrupt left-wingers, but there is never any doubt, none at all, that the left is the truth, the cause. It's a given.
I'd have been left-wing anyway, of course I would, I probably overstate OFITN in my head, but that's how politics is for me too. Being right-wing seems ludicrous and unhuman to me, contrary to the very essence. It sounds daft in some ways, but I've never really looked beyond that.
I've watched Our Friends in the North three times all the way through and not really tired of it. It's still saddening and enraging - it ends with a bit of personal hope and a great deal of acceptance and resignation. It predates the Blair years ... gosh, if there were three more episodes, what years would they choose? ... Blair, the MP for Sedgefield, is a character ideal for Our Friends in the North - I think they might go for 2003 (Iraq war and protests being a significant backdrop), 2007 (Blair's departure) and 2010 (the end of Labour in power). Though 2015 seems rather a good one for it too, whichever way the next month goes ...
Something, somewhere infected me with the idea that, despite being a son of West London privilege (well, sort of) and having the least down-to-earth job it's possible to have, I'm truly, straightforwardly old Labour. Of the people, for the people. Slightly ludicrous, when you think about it, but that has become where I think I come from.
My parents weren't old Labour, no way - one is loosely liberal and floats slightly mysteriously votewise, but rarely Labour, I think; the other was somewhat horrendously right wing, bless him. But, me, I'm old school left-wing, not some clueless, toffee-nosed idealistic, do-gooding liberal, no, I'm of the soil, of the unions ... where on earth did I get this idea?
I worry that one well-made TV show had a far larger role in this lasting entrenchment than it ought, so perfectly did 'Our Friends in the North' catch this impressionable young fellow as he slipped awkwardly out of a teenage spiritual, gospel-based morality, into a young adulthood which still felt it needed some kind of meaning.
In some ways, I've always been left-wing. By which I mean I'm not a cunt .... no, stop, only joking ... I mean, I can't remember a time where I didn't think kindness and fairness and stuff were good things, but to me growing up it wasn't a political thing. I don't know who I'd have voted for when I was 15. Well, at mock school elections, I voted Communist when i was 12 (in fact, I was the Communist candidate, but I think i was joking) and ... not sure ... when I was 14, probably something silly - the winning parties at my school were Invade Europe Now and The National Front. I thought that was irony at the time, but now I'm not so sure.
But I got political quickly. I began to read the NME and they were all really left-wing by default and always slagging off Tories, and I watched, in early 1996, 'Our Friends in the North'. In case you don't know, it was a nine-part drama about four friends from Newcastle era where each episode was set in a different year, making reference very often to actual events. The years were ... ok, let's see if I get this ... 1964, 1966, 1967, 1970, 1974, 1979, 1984, 1987, 1996 (the present day). The four friends were played by Christopher Eccleston (probably the most high profile at the time, but still a new face), Gina McKee, Mark Strong and Daniel Craig, required to don various wigs and prosthetics (perhaps the show's only weakness!) to stay in character for over 30 years.
Supporting roles were played by various other excellent British actors, Peter Vaughan as Eccleston's father particularly memorably. I don't remember a performance that wasn't gripping though.
It was immediately hailed as a classic, and continues to be so, as one of the finest British dramas of all time. Many of the great shows (mainly American) since have gained strength over many series, but the nature and format of 'Only Friends in the North' meant it could only ever be a one-off series. There were nine episodes to get it right and that was it.
What did it do for me? I can't overstate it. It educated me. It was obviously a left-wing work, but not blindly so, it was brutal on the corruption within the Labour Party and the crushing of ideals, but it told me the truth about this country in a way I had really not been aware till then. Corruption, basically. Corruption everywhere. In politics, in business, in the police, in personal lives, of rising and falling hopes and ambitions.
The four main characters are, in some ways, archetypes - Nicky (Eccleston), the disillusioned left-wing idealist, Mary (Gina McKee) the clear-headed centrist New Labourite, Tosker (Mark Strong), the Thatcherite, Geordie (Craig) the apolitical one, the victim of circumstance. It's funny that apparently Eccleston and Strong did not get on at all - there characters are the most diametrically opposed throughout the film. Nicky is, if anyone is, the "hero", though some found him insufferably self-righteous and flawed.
At some points, it feels like a tragedy, a catalogue of missed moments, bad luck and despair. Good guys get their comeuppance over and over again, bad guys rarely do. The stuff to do with the Met Police in the 60s and 70s is some of the most depressing and brilliant television I've ever seen. It told me that this country is built on lie upon lie, secret circle within secret circle, no good man on a mission will ever defeat it. Gosh, the more and more true that all seems now.
There are failed families, impossible parental relationships, sins repeated, hard lessons learnt. There are principled right-wingers and horribly corrupt left-wingers, but there is never any doubt, none at all, that the left is the truth, the cause. It's a given.
I'd have been left-wing anyway, of course I would, I probably overstate OFITN in my head, but that's how politics is for me too. Being right-wing seems ludicrous and unhuman to me, contrary to the very essence. It sounds daft in some ways, but I've never really looked beyond that.
I've watched Our Friends in the North three times all the way through and not really tired of it. It's still saddening and enraging - it ends with a bit of personal hope and a great deal of acceptance and resignation. It predates the Blair years ... gosh, if there were three more episodes, what years would they choose? ... Blair, the MP for Sedgefield, is a character ideal for Our Friends in the North - I think they might go for 2003 (Iraq war and protests being a significant backdrop), 2007 (Blair's departure) and 2010 (the end of Labour in power). Though 2015 seems rather a good one for it too, whichever way the next month goes ...
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