Thanks to Brian, I rediscovered ELP. The fact that the critics hated ELP, calling them pretentious, has inspired a rant. The world of pop music seems to be constantly obsessed with the pursuit of authentic music - music that is not commercial, music that truly reflects the feelings of the composer. The irony of this grail-like search seems to elude those who wallow in every, cool, rad, groovy, hip, sick fad that big business flogs in the commercial world. The dead white guys like Beethoven and his buddies, and even the dead black guys like Coltrane, Ellington, and Strayhorn are somehow elitist. Musicians who emulate these old masters, in other words, musicians who learn to read, write, arrange, and actually master their instruments, are somehow not authentic. Critics, usually devoid of any significant musical skill, talent or knowledge guide the sheep through their version of what constitutes an authentic musical experience. It seems to me that a critics version of authenticity requires the following attributes: musicians who are self taught and technically limited, singers with untrained voices who struggle to maintain pitch, let alone beauty, melodies with little beauty and certainly no sentiment, tunes with no more than 4 chords, tunes with no counterpoint and tunes that are short (long tunes are only OK if some kind of critic-inspired pack-mentality has labelled an endless barrage of self-indulgent lyrics as profound - Im thinking Dylan and Cohen here). ELP were accused of being pretentious by most critics and critics ignore the pretentiousness of people like Niki Minaj, Fifty Cent, Leonard Cohen, Little Wayne, etc pumping out an endless supply of self indulgent musical drivel. Was ELP really pretentious because they could play, because could read, write and arrange. Is it pretentious to know enough about music history that they were inspired to pay homage to the masters of the past, such as Mussorsky in this clip. Real authentic music, non-commercial music is ignored because there is no business paying the critics to like it. If you want a really authentic, non-commercial musical experience check out the classical and jazz masters. Rock and roll took off in the 50s in part because the real rebels (the jazz players) wouldnt take any more shit from the man (the failure of record companies to pay royalties led to a 2 year musicians strike in the late 40s, which in turn paved the way for record companies figuring they could make music without musicians). The 50s rock and roll rebels were really musical scab labour willing to do what ever big business wanted in exchange for 15 minutes of fame. Hiring an orchestra, filling a stadium with pop fans to hear Mussorsky - now thats authentically rebellious! https://youtube/watch?v=jO4lEEigeeo
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 02:22:45 +0000
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