Dancing About Architecture

Over at Rock Critics, they posted a handful of great quotes from some equally great music writers. My favorite is this one:

… Most rock writers are people with literary aspirations who appreciate music but really don’t understand how to do it — or else they probably would. There are people who write for guitar mags who may have some more knowledge about how to tap like Eddie Van Halen but they have even less elegance or imagination when it comes to the English language. Of course, there are just as many great rock musicians who can’t really articulate what it is that they do.

That’s Deborah Frost, and she’s right. It reminds me of Costello’s famous quip, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” There’s some sort of black hole on either end of the project, whether you’re writing songs and being asked where they come from or hearing them and trying to explain where they’re from.

I can sympathize with a songwriter reading a review of his or her work, scratching their head and wondering where in the hell the so-called critic pulled their words from. But since music is this sort of unique opportunity for people to make sounds from their mind’s silent talents, and almost everyone alive enjoys those results once in a while, music writing and criticism (two different things, I think) remain incredibly important ventures. Sure, it’s not up to one writer to decide the truth or end-all opinion on an album, but it’s even worse to imagine a world in which people have quit trying to verbalize the experience, the meaning, the worth of listening closely.

On a similar subject, Pete at Notes From a Defeatist writes, “I’m also confused by this habit of writing long descriptions of what happens in the piece. I don’t want to know the plot of a book or film before my first encounter with it, why should I be denied the excitement of finding my own way through a piece of music?” He’s discussing classical in this context, and I can understand how that ‘reveal’ is a bit more relevant to that sort of piece, but I think it can fit to a certain extent in pop music, too. Every pop music site races to ‘review’ something the day or week it hits the shelves, and in large part that’s because a) it’s timely news, good form but also b) labels and promoters want to know the album is being discussed, generating buzz and hopefully, sales.

But both a and b have very little to do with the piece itself (in a pop context, I’d refer to the album as the piece), and almost nothing to do with the context of the music. And again, what gives anyone the right to reveal the piece’s path before a listener has had a chance to experience it? I mean, besides trying to sell it (or not) to them? I think that in a lot of ways, music writers could do a lot of good by striving to discuss context, history, meaning and sound, not just descriptions.

And I’d like to make one more small point by adding that when I say we should talk more about sound, I mean the way it sounds, the quality of it, not just comparisons to other sounds. “It sounds like Pavement” is not only lazy and a giant shortchange to the artist, it doesn’t really give the reader anything meaningful. Let’s talk about production quality, small details, headphones and context — let’s talk about the experience, not just the place in relation to others. There are so many bands putting out so many records in short periods of time — entire festivals are organized based around bands with maybe two albums and no existence prior to this century; how could we possibly entertain the notion of thinking about them thoughtfully without doing more than talking about whether or not they’re dance-worthy, hip, “8.3″ or downtempo?

It all eventually comes to mean the same thing, and thanks to thousands of indie music blogs that blurp out tiny glimpses of these thousands of bands, we’ve already seen a decline in both the quality of writing associated with this independent community we love so much, and the listener’s dedication to actually spending time with something, attempting to understand it beyond its face value. If you love songs, none of this should bother you. If you love music, it should be very disappointing.

I wish more music writing were like Glenn Gould’s essay on Petula Clark. (Links to an mp3 file.)

“… Most rock writers are people with literary aspirations who appreciate music but really don’t understand how to do it — or else they probably would.”

This bothers me. I mean, since when are writing about music and performing music two separate, disparate worlds?

I certainly don’t like the assumption that “they probably would” — as if everyone who takes the time or interest in writing about music is just some closeted wannabe rockstar. That’s absurd. What I like about her quote there is that though much is said of what makes (or doesn’t make) music critics “qualified” to critique people who do perform, it’s just as much the case that those people a) don’t have a clue where their inspiration comes from or what it means and b) might not be able to write a complete sentence.

“Who are you to judge my art” can certainly cut both ways.