If It;s All Fixed, Why Break It?

Becuase you know, you've got to speed it up, and then you've got to slow it down, because if you believe that a love can hit the top, you've got to play around.

You don't know what you've got until you lose it.

There's an element of devil's advocacy in this question because I obviously do love a lot of bands that do stuff like this, Disco Inferno eg. But after a couple of recent threads I've been thinking about this, why for instance I like mid-period Scritti much much better than early Scritti, and why I find Liliput interesting but not really entertaining, and why I can't stand Neutral Milk Hotel. These are bands where people might say "Well under the fuzz or amateurism or jumping about theres a pop sensibility" - but what does the fuzz and amateurism and jumping about actually bring to the music? What is gained by obscuring a pop sensibility?

Some of it overlaps with techy fetish, I think. it's tinkering! it's like the guys who have to constantly take things apart to see how they work, and then try to put it back together again in their own vision. I have a friend like that -- he converted his lunchbox into a refrigerator, and his car has a remote control. So it's not a bad thing for alot of the tinkerers, it's just ... exploration.

This way lies Geirdom...

But seriously, obviously the approach of "messing around" with a form has to be regarded as critically as staying "true" to the form. Simply lauding one or the other approach merely for its presence tends to say nothing about the quality of the music in question.

(Of course, to be relentlessly critical in one's listening is difficult, and simply buying into into musical concepts wholesale without regard for the quality of their application is something I catch myself doing all the time)

Although I think your use of Scritti Politti in this context is perhaps a bit iffy: even at their glossy-peak, I'd say there was a certain modernist edge to Gartside music - almost as if his pop was flawless only because he'd totally deconstructed the form and then painstakingly reconstructed it. Cupid & Psyche '85 sounds quite different to anything before or after it, which leads me to think it's anything but a totally faithful reproduction of an existing pop form.

It sounds like Michael Jackson more than anything else.

My other thought: I personally tend to like bands that keep the form of a pop song relatively straight and then explore with textures etc. Which means I dont get early Scritti or Liliput because of the formal play and I dont get NMH because the songs sound crap to me.

What? There's a pop sensibility in Liliput? Well, fuck that. Anybody want to buy a used Liliput CD?

NB you can replace "under ther [x] there's a pop sensibility" with comments about how some indie rock band has a "rock and roll heart" or how some glitch-hop CD is "true hip-hop" - it's not a pop thing exclusively in other words.

Tom E is OTM. Simple as that.

How much of the fucking about is intentional, though? (BTW Amateurism only starts to really annoy me when it becomes 'professional amateurism', I can sort of see Tom's point re why would anyone want to hear Jad Fair's Beatles covers)

maybe the question being asked is flawed itself (not tom's per se, but the whole notion of simply "burying pop music in fuzz/obscuring a pop sensibility"...which i guesss is tom's question...oh well), and we should be asking why can't this be pop music too. (comparing early scritti to nmh is problematic because scritti is playing with song form whereas nmh is purposefully [we assume] enfeebling indie pop [now that's enfeebled twixe removed.] the best part about, say, scritti's "messthetics" is the way that green croons the "in any english town" bit, which is full on POP, but only "works" because it's surrounded by the other "thorny" [c. simon reynolds] bits? i have yet to hear liliput, but i'd guess that the more "pop" end of family fodder works in the same way, if anthony's "make me feel like a little pixie" is anything to go by.) the other answer is that some of us like noise in our pop, but i like it more when they're using the noise as the pop (early mary chain?) rather than coloration.

I dont think I am OTM actually Pinefox, which is why I asked the question.

"some of us like noise in our pop" - yes but why, and why that kind of (ahem) 'deconstructive' noise?

Jess is right when he says that yeah this stuff is pop too. What disturbs me about my response to it is how much intentionality creeps in, i.e. I imagine somebody saying "Hee hee we have written a great pop tune here let's put a tempo change in after 1'10 and fuck it up." and it really annoys me.

>>I think existing pop forms have probably evolved because they deliver the biggest payoffs in the tightest packages <<

But the point is, evolution doesn't stop - much as we might like it to sometimes - does it? And it proceeds by mistakes, mutations, flukes, messing about. And like Dave q sez, it doesn't have to be intentional. The Beatles wanted to make girl group records (among other things), but ballsed it up because they weren't black american women, inadvertently inventing pop as we once knew it.

ballsed it up != gave it more balls?¿

Yeah Edna but I think what I'm getting at is an idea that all mutation is beneficial rather than a Darwinist model of pop whereby only those mutations which improve the pop species are good.

It is all seeming to boil down to unknowable intentions, curses.

Similarly, why would anyone - let alone NY hip hop pioneers - want to mess around with the the pop perfection of, say, Kraftwerk? Because it gives you something to do, because who knows what it might sound like?, because it's better than being bored.

(sorry that last comment was an addendum to my first, rather than a response to Mark or Tom)

"improving the pop species" can mean something subjective like Jess' "but this is pop too", or it can mean something historical like "lots of other artists rip them off".

I think my question and my first answer are asking two different things. I also think Edna is pretty much right.

yes but why, and why that kind of (ahem) 'deconstructive' noise?

i sound like ned here, but: because i like it. seriously, i'm reminded of something sundar (i think) once wrote on nylpm about joy division being the iniators of an increased play with texture and sound in pop over melody or harmony. while i don't think he's necessarily right about joy division (i've never thought about them like that and i think dance music had a lot more to do with it), the theory itself holds some kernel of truth. there are times when i would rather hear texture play over trad. instrumentation in a song, be it the cocteau twins or joey beltram. the only "deconstruction" i can see in this approach is that the "noise" becomes the melody/harmony (of a sort), so it's not really deconstruction at all, but a very traditional approach albiet using a different palette. why do -you- like to listen to something which a huge mentasm riff as the hook tom? (not to say you -do-, but i'm making an educated guess given yr predilections. and of course, dance and hardcore are "deconstructive" in their own ways, breaking with trad song structure, which is of course the whole reynolds theory [which i agree with] of why "real" dance is better than the idm which apes it. which is actually one point for yr theory tom. i agree with you that purposeful fuckery is mostly overrated.)

This just occurs to me: how much "messing stuff up" is to do with sub- cultures "making do", ie mangling the stuff of the mainstream to meet their own perverse tastes? I'm probably more interested (theoretically) in what dub producers do to standard reggae than (say) what the Jesus and Mary Chain do to Phil Spector pop, but are the two approaches related?

I think "stylized" is the operative word here. Variations on a traditional form serve the same purpose as, say, Van Gogh's sunflowers as opposed to a photograph of actual sunflowers.

"some of us like noise in our pop" - yes but why, and why that kind of (ahem) 'deconstructive' noise?
The same reason I like listening to Punk and Noise: I like abrasive sounds. I can't stand listening to sugary Pop for more than an hour. I think maybe we want to *join* elements we love? So we might ike Pop but also 70s Punk or whatever. Otherwise you'd just be a purely derivative band. I don't know...
That said, 99 percent of the Elephant Sux troup should be sent off with the Yellow Submarine to Pluto.

I'm not arguing for the primacy of melody or harmony or traditional instrumentation, merely for 'hooks' - but what are 'hooks'?

But what purpose is that Nitsuh? Actually I was going round the Tate Modern on Saturday and found myself really bored and pissed off by all the representational-with-a-twist stuff so you've probably got a point.

Variations on a traditional form serve the same purpose as, say, Van Gogh's sunflowers as opposed to a photograph of actual sunflowers.
Uh he expressed how he felt inside. . I don't see it as a variation. It was more a breaking away from realism (which was superfluous because of photography)

i sound like ned here

There are treatments for this unfortunate condition of yours.

but: because i like it.

Unsurprisingly, I rather approve of this statement. ;-) And I have a direct affinity with Tom in that Disco Inferno I lurve and NMH I'm not really het up about, for instance. Though I don't believe it's because of this whole issue being discussed here. I'm more interesting in (ahem) the song-in-itself, to misuse some philosophical terms, and what it creates in me. In that case, the question of 'intentionally' messing around with something becomes irrelevant, in that what I hear are the end results, not the process.

It has to do with tension. Putting barriers in the way of perfection. Sergei Bubka could clear the bar at 15 feet every time and look damn good while doing it, but we want to hold our breath and watch him go for 20. How much can you fuck with a song by piling on noise or tearing apart structure before it falls apart? You reach that moment where one more click on the distortion pedal would completely ruin the thing, and then you press record. Perfection is only interesting once.

Towards a - hem hem - typology of messing shit up:

1) 12" Remixes: accentuating, say, elements in the rhythm track at the expense of the hook. Deconstruction, maybe (in the sense of exposing the pop single's myth of presence or coherence).

2) Dub: it seems to me, from reading Mr Penman, that this involves some kind of profound warping of the fabric of the tune, but I wouldn't know about that, Sir. I'm not sure what the relation is between the effect and the original.

3) Indie noise: masking the disavowed pop melody beneath white noise (a little bit like bashful schoolboys pulling the hair of girls they like). Or, more charitably, introducing gratuitous *noise for its own sake* into the tight, tidy pop record.

I think existing pop forms have probably evolved because they deliver the biggest payoffs in the tightest packages...

A particular pop form is the most efficient method for musical thrills only for a particular audience. Different audiences have different musical values and demand different musical forms. The take-off of a pop form only shows us that its audience has a set of musical values that is related but not entirely similar to the values of the original form's audience. Both glitch-hop and hip-hop both deliver "the biggest payoffs in the tightest packages" to their respective audiences – though I’ll concede that what a payoff for either audience might be vastly different. I’ll also concede that for any given audience member, there might be more than one efficient way to a person’s gut – one person can enjoy both glitch-hop and hip-hop.

Sympathetic towards Mark's use of the word "tension". I think that for hooks to be really successful they have to *excite* me as a listener. And that excitement can come from familiarity (thinking "this is perfection done perfectly) or it can come from the shock of the new. But the tension created between familiarity and shock of the new often creates stronger excitement because you get these conflicting senses of recognition and disorientation.

With early 'ardkore, I love the use of female pop vocals pushed up really high because it gives a new perspective on the thrilling hookiness of said vocals. An analogy might be that the city you live in rarely seems as impressive as other cities because you take the visual impressiveness of a lot of its features for granted. But if you take a helicopter and fly over the city you get a wholly new perspective on your own city that is actually more exciting than doing the same over another city, 'cos you think "hey, I * know* that place! And there's my house!"

Actually, drop the high-art complexities of Van Gogh and just look at comic strips, which are most visually interesting when the cartoonist comes up with a unique way of signifying reality. With music, "reality" = traditionalism (what we assume "music," or a given genre, on a broad scale, to basically be like); the main purpose of "messing with" this seems, to me, to turn it over and over and find a previously unnoticed perspective from which to view it. If 40 people draw the same Peanuts strip in different styles, the result will teach us a hell of lot about what those individuals value, incline toward, or see potential in -- much more so than if they all tried to draw a new strip that was still Peanuts, and in certain senses more so than if they'd gone off and tried to construct a whole new type of comic. Pop songs with white noise, chirpy pop takes with the hooks exaggerated, dark minimalist takes on pop -- my visual art metaphors probably come from going to see Van Gogh / Gauguin the other day and seeing, side-by-side, their portraits of the same subjects, and how much this triangle of "actual thing" + "one approach to it" + "other approach to it" gets very clearly at what each of those approaches is actually working at without sacrificing the "actual thing" too much.

So maybe the "breaking down" that Tom talks about is actually a means of allowing us to keep dwelling on "existing pop forms" until every aspect of them has been thoroughly drained.

With music, "reality" = traditionalism (what we assume "music," or a given genre, on a broad scale, to basically be like); the main purpose of "messing with" this seems, to me, to turn it over and over and find a previously unnoticed perspective from which to view it.

But doesn't that put the people who listen to the "messthetic" music as opposed to the "reality" in a Plato's Cave position?

Uh...what Edna said.

To rephrase that - I think Jess' "nothing is messed up - everything is reality" stance is a more sympathetic one than Nitsuh's "there is reality, and there is the take on it". If we tilt Nitsuh's analogy to say that the 'mainstream' is a representational take on something on which 'messthetic' music is an expressionist take, I like it more but then we're left with the question of what that something is.

None of which goes very far to explain to me why I don't like the bands I don't like.

Something to do with the hair?

Underlying hummability usually = "it has pop tune underneath" but I'm not sure how far I'd go along with that as what does it mean when I have a certain drum break stuck in my head (which has happened with DO THE PEARL GURL for bleddy DAYS)? Mark Pitchforks arguments against perfection being boring seem to tally oddly with his anti-'snotty' stance :)

Can I propose an addition to Edna's handy first stab at a typology, please? I think there's also a distinct identifiable strand of messing-with is structurally messing-with at source...

One was of looking at the dub method is that it takes/took the structure of an existing song (rhythmic elements and melodic/ harmonic fundamentals) and stripped out some or all of the rest (tune, lyrics, individual instruments) and messed with them, adding extra bits as necessary. If the song were a car, dub leaves the chassis intact and builds a custonised body etc.

Some artists, though, do it the other way round. They take elements of generic form (melodics, instrumentation, lyrics etc) and redeploy them in a consciously, obviously fractured, disturbed way. I'm talking about bands like Big Flame's take on indie (they used the term 'cubist pop', high art buffs) or the early Scritti stuff Tom was talking about earlier, or Eugene Chadbourne's take on country. It takes recognisable bits of our car and rebuilds them in an unexpected (sometimes MENTAL) fashion with the chassis all broke up into bits and the exhaust pipe incorporated into the steering wheel. This messing-with operates at a generic level rather than remixing / dubbing a song.

I suppose, you might also include less structurally radical stuff which strains at generic boundaries via introduction of unexpected elements (rock rhythm into country, say) or technologies, but perhaps that's another thing.

Apologies for the car metaphor. And apologies for failing to come up with a snappy little name. Anti-dub?

And apologies for the nonsense of the first para above. And the spelling. And...

It's easier to arse about than to do something properly. That is my major contribution to this thread, but while I'm at it, I'd just like to say that I don't think dub was all that radical, deejay versions already existed, didn't they? Also, both arose for economic reasons rather than any great artistic urge, producers could get three or four times their money back for more or less the same investment. I sound like Valerie Singleton.

Everything arose for economic reasons, Peter.

Wait, yeah Tom, I forgot to match the Peanuts analogy with the portrait one. "Conventional" music should equal the standard method of representation, i.e. representational oil painting, Peanuts strip, Beatles. "Messing with it" should equal "stylizing it," i.e. expressionism, Bloom County, Jesus and Mary Chain. What "the real thing" is, with music, is really nothing, which I suppose is what makes music such an interesting art: it doesn't represent anything occurring naturally in the real world but rather organizes the acoustic mechanics of the real world into something artistic. Just as with architecture, where there is no "real" kind of building to be made, only conventions and the work of dealing with them.

Plus! Doesn't the same sort of "messing-with" you're talking about go on even with the poppest of pop, only at a more minute level? What separates any one artist from another is the way he/she/they assemble individual sonic decisions to make a distinctive, stylized whole that emphasizes certain qualities and shuns others. The "messthetic" you posit only does this on a broader and more radical scale -- as well as more deliberately, which seems to be your issue with it. And a fair issue: those restylings are always more effective when they are not entirely calculated.

Doesn't the same sort of "messing-with" you're talking about go on even with the poppest of pop, only at a more minute level?

Yeah - this is why I was leaning more to what Jess was saying.

I guess I always ASSUMED it was just the accumulation of influences. "I love noise"+"I love pop"+"I make music I would enjoy"="I MAKE NOISEPOP" I enjoy NMH because it because of the purity of the vision. It sounds like it's supposed to, to me anyway.

I don't think Tim's MENTAL car came about for economic reasons, unless it's some kind of tax write-off. Top Gear rating for said car - 3 out of 10. PS: What kind of 12 inches are we talking about, Edna? I don't think 'Love and Pride' by King (surely the best example) had any deconstructionist urges.