Coffe table music - search and destroy!

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This term has been used a couple of times today, once by myself. I'm partial to a bit of coffee-table music myself. i think there are some records which "become" coffee-table, and some which just "sound" coffee table, regardless of who ends up buying them. suggest names that fit into these categories!

I say Mum are currently its greatest act, but coffee table has given us many more delights. "say what you want" by texas and "part of the process" by morcheeba fly the flag proudly for "naff" coffee table. lemon jelly, air, some massive attack and portishead - i challenge anyone to use this term as one of disparagement.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Thursday, 4 December 2003 15:37 (twenty-two years ago)

agreed, it is a term that it is easy to lapse into using lazily, or about thinking what it means. i think when i use it i think i am trying to say music without any life in it, or even music designed for background use or inoffensiveness (now, of course there is nothign wrong with music for background use, but somehow thats not really what i'ev ever really looked for in music, or in anything really i suppose)

― charltonlido (gareth), Thursday, 4 December 2003 15:43 (twenty-two years ago)

it should be renamed 'stevem music' forthwith

― stevem (blueski), Thursday, 4 December 2003 16:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought it was called wallpaper music?

― Citizen Kate (kate), Thursday, 4 December 2003 16:06 (twenty-two years ago)

I love some of this stuff (Texas and Morcheeba apart)

― chris (chris), Thursday, 4 December 2003 16:08 (twenty-two years ago)

you don't actively LOOK for background music, that's why it's background. but often it's 'travelling soundtracks' and that's something you would purposefully look for and that's where stuff under this umbrella also seems suitable...

― stevem (blueski), Thursday, 4 December 2003 16:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I heart Moloko

― NickB (NickB), Thursday, 4 December 2003 16:09 (twenty-two years ago)

If something is owned by the type of person who goes mental about fingerprints on a jewel case then it is usually coffee-table. Vinyl is one thing, that's 'collectors', but jewel-cases, there's something seriously anal going on. (re Lemon Jelly - recommended to me once by somebody who 'read my aura' and then said VERY sternly, "You listen to a lot of metal. I can tell. It is not good for you. You need...hmmmm...Lemon Jelly. Eagle-Eye Cherry too.")

― dave q, Thursday, 4 December 2003 16:10 (twenty-two years ago)

There's a strange fruit theme running through those suggestions...

― NickB (NickB), Thursday, 4 December 2003 16:12 (twenty-two years ago)

What does it mean?

― NickB (NickB), Thursday, 4 December 2003 16:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Dave Q lacks pith

― stevem (blueski), Thursday, 4 December 2003 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

man that aura guy was so OFF the money!

― stevem (blueski), Thursday, 4 December 2003 16:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Dave did you cremate that 'aura' person or bury them at sea?

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Thursday, 4 December 2003 16:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I suppose you could call it art gallery bar music...& it worls perfectly in that context, imo. You can add Zero 7 and Dimitri form PAris. Belive it or not, the Eiffel Tower capital A there, was a genuine typo! Am I allowed to patent it?

To be honest, most of the stuff I record probably falls into this category...

― Jez (Jez), Thursday, 4 December 2003 21:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I think Momus referred to the Aluminum Group as "coffee-table music." Although his intent was to mildly disparage, I think they would be very pleased to hear that description. I mean, they named themselves after Eames chairs.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 4 December 2003 22:15 (twenty-two years ago)

for some reason, the only thing i can think of that sounds like "coffee table music" to me is the Books, who i love. i don't actually have a coffee table or drink coffee though, so my expertise in this area is limited.

― Felcher (Felcher), Thursday, 4 December 2003 22:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I always thought the surplus implication of "coffee-table" was that such albums were primarily valued for their public display usefulness as an indication of the owner's cultural sophistication or fashionability, rather than as something to listen to. My mother has a book called "The Most Beautiful Villages of the Dordogne" on her coffee table which I suspect she's never really looked at. The *idea* of people doing the same with their copies of New Forms or Come Away With Me is a prevalent one, whether or not such people exist in great numbers. (which makes me wonder: is a Mercury Prize winner automatically coffee-table? Is Dizee coffee-table?)

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 4 December 2003 22:33 (twenty-two years ago)

thank you tim finney for writing what should have been the first post on this thread.

― reo, Friday, 5 December 2003 01:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd pick Nonesuch Records, mainly for their packaging aesthetic - though their music also comes out sounding pretty soothingly cultural, in spite of the fact that it's often very good. Their marketing is also extremely NPR-focused.

― Chris Dahlen (Chris Dahlen), Friday, 5 December 2003 03:31 (twenty-two years ago)

To Tim's point, owning a lot of Kronos Quartet albums looks cool, owning a lot of contemporary classical records by weirdo labels with heavily type-based unfriendly covers is just odd. I once showed a HatArt cover to someone and was told, "That cover relays no meaningful information to me."

http://www.hathut.com/covers/144.jpg

Whereas this speaks volumes about the tone and expected audience of the product:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000005J15.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

― Chris Dahlen (Chris Dahlen), Friday, 5 December 2003 03:36 (twenty-two years ago)

So then - and Nonesuch EXCELS at this - coffee table music means a record that you pick up and it says, "You're in the desert. The sun is high, a coyote howls. Suddenly, John Adams hops out from behind a rock ... " whereas another record might just say, "We played this piece. It is very important."

― Chris Dahlen (Chris Dahlen), Friday, 5 December 2003 04:13 (twenty-two years ago)

ECM to thread, then

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Friday, 5 December 2003 08:32 (twenty-two years ago)

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