Classifying Music
It’s too obvious to point out that the role of the music media, whether you’re talking about MTV, Rolling Stone, or the street press, is a classificatory one: they promote new or unfamiliar bands or sounds in terms of familiar ones. It is also too obvious to need to point out the industrial/corporate value of such a function.
But there’s something else going on here as well: there is a pseudo-modernist urge to view popular music within a trajectory of progress, where the “true” musician will build on the classics of the past to develop an original, yet consistent artwork in the present. This myth ties in very easily with those troublesome, but completely dominant themes of authenticity on which the rock myth is based.
Sometimes, however, this urge gets the better of journalists and writers: especially if their object of review is difficult to categorise. Mark Kemp, in a 1997 review of Radiohead’s OK, Computer in Rolling Stone, evokes the names Nirvana, U2, The Beatles, King Crimson, Queen, The Byrds, Brian Eno, REM, and possibly prog rock band Family, as well as referring to psychedelia, electronica, and glam rock: all in 600 words!
I think he wasn’t trying: I could have gotten Karlheinz Stockhausen, Philip Glass, and Arnold Schoenberg in there as well.
Your Comments
Catherine Howell writes:
Leaving aside the discourse of “influence”—which I think needs to be interrogated more rigorously (surely it is less about sound and more about genealogies, power, affect, laying claim to an identity)—I am curious as to how we might interpret a figure like John Peel, or more broadly, the role of the celebrity radio DJ. Was Peel’s role in introducing the public to new bands primarily a classificatory one, and if so, how complicit was he with the marketing behemoth of the (capital-I) Industry? Leader/led, chicken/egg… Of course Peel is popularly celebrated as an innovator; the interesting thing about popular music and its consumption lies in the constant traffic between innovation and familiarity/style/genre. Classification and identifying genres is a large part of the enjoyment of music, it is an activity that defines “being into music”, and participation in/ownership of popular cultures and genres. There is a gendered dimension to this (q.v. High Fidelity). Interestingly, the Guardian Weekend recently ran a piece reminding readers that aside from the more pop-friendly sounds he played on Radio 1, Peel was also interested in much more experimental artists…
Posted: 16 02 2006 - 21:52 | Permanent link to this comment
John Gunders writes:
Hey Catherine, good to talk.
Yes, absolutely it’s about laying claim to an identity: and within the “rock myth” (which I argue is fundamental to all genres of popular music) that identity must be forged in terms of the rebel, the outsider, or the innovative. That is, everyone in rock music wants to be marginal!
So you get Colin Greenwood in Radiohead bemoaning (proudly) that they were ostracised at school because they were into The Fall, Magazine, and Joy Division, rather than Iron Maiden, and this classic quote from a Brisbane street mag:
And, of course, The Guardian pointing out that John Peel was also into experimental music…
But you raise an interesting point about Peel. My initial reaction is that he was probably a special case, as evidenced by the fact that despite not being able to access Radio One, many (most?) Australians will have heard of him. And I’m not aware of many other DJs with the influence, or indeed credibility, of Peel: Molly Meldrum in 1970s Australia? I don’t think so…
(I know: different time; different context.)
But the point is that the Music Industry, as with any major capitalist institution, has—simply as a consequence of its structure—the means to internalise and neutralise oppositional voices. Thus the artists who don’t follow the “industry” plan and release obscure and un-profitable albums, who talk in all honesty about being true to the music, and ignoring “the man”, are talking in the sorts of cliques that the rock myth lives on, and which support the same industry that they are trying to distance themselves from.
Posted: 17 02 2006 - 11:00 | Permanent link to this comment
Catherine Howell writes:
Hiya John,
“The artists [...] who talk in all honesty about being true to the music, and ignoring “the man”, are talking in the sorts of cliques that the rock myth lives on”
Yes absolutely…
Do you read Diesel Sweeties? Check out the “Musical Elitist” tshirt 3-pack:
http://www.dieselsweeties.com/shirts/3packs.shtml
I’d like to know some facts before making a claim, but my initial feeling is that the reason Peel’s influence extended beyond the UK was mainly due to the Peel Sessions recordings (syndicated, re-played, icon-ised as artefacts of the mythical-cultural-centre for self-perceived “provincial” indie audiences).
BTW I wouldn’t dismiss Molly Meldrum’s influence in Australia. He’s an iconic figure.
Cool thread…
Posted: 20 02 2006 - 22:32 | Permanent link to this comment
Nick Caldwell writes:
I don’t have anything substantial to say here, but it’s comments threads like these that make me love the internets.
Plus, it’s my birthday today and I’m just a wee bit tired and emotional.
Posted: 21 02 2006 - 18:20 | Permanent link to this comment
John Gunders writes:
Also accept my caveat before I speak: pretty much everything I know about John Peel comes from the Wikipedia!
But one thing I didn’t know was that he started his career on one of the famous pirate radio stations during the 1960s (Wonderful Radio London). I would suggest that much of his later success rested on this irrefutable indie credibility, which is so important to the rock myth.
Molly Meldrum… I confess I was being faceatious, and thinking mainly of his later career where he descended into high-camp, self-parody, but you’re right: in the 1970s he was the music industry.
And Diesel Sweeties: “I liked you better before you sold out!” I want one…
Posted: 21 02 2006 - 18:21 | Permanent link to this comment
Catherine Howell writes:
Happy birthday, Nick!
Posted: 22 02 2006 - 01:02 | Permanent link to this comment
Ian Rogers writes:
“Peel was also interested in much more experimental artists…”
Peel was also a metal head. True story.
I recently read Albert Mudrian’s ‘Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore’ (it’s in the UQ music/arch library – although I don’t recommend it to the casual reader; it’s very dry, very factual, kinda boring). Anyway, I was surprised to find that the introduction to the book was written by the late John Peel.
It appears, Peel was an early supporter of what is arguably still very much an extreme area of music making. He happily played early death metal bands on his show along side whatever else caught his ear that week. Alternatively, it’s quite hard to imagine Richard Kingsmill popping the occassionaly Naplam Death single on during his Sundary afternoon JJJ program.
Posted: 22 03 2006 - 12:51 | Permanent link to this comment
Mark Kemp writes:
Leaving aside the discourse of faux-philosophical inscrutability in your attempts to internalize and neutralize mainstream critical voices, now that you mention it, I did hear a bit of a Glass-breaking Stockhausian sensibility and Schoenberg-esque quality in the eerie keyboards and odd time signatures of the complex, multi-segmented “Paranoid Android,” but I would posit that the whole of OK Computer is really just high-camp pseudo-modernist self-parody—as with any major capitalist institution, of course. (My acknowledgments to William S. Burroughs and the Bomb Squad for the cut-and-paste methodology.)
Posted: 14 02 2007 - 16:59 | Permanent link to this comment
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