tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/rock-music-31514/articlesRock music – The Conversation2024-02-15T23:16:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2222842024-02-15T23:16:04Z2024-02-15T23:16:04ZKiss’s debut album at 50: how the rock legends went from ‘clowns’ to becoming immortalised<p>It has been 50 years since Rock & Roll <a href="https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/kiss">Hall of Famers</a> Kiss launched their thunderock-doused debut album into the pop culture stratosphere. The eponymous album, released on February 18 1974, became a platform-stacked foot in the music industry’s door. </p>
<p>What followed established Kiss as one of the most memorable hard-rock bands of the 1970s and ’80s, with a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1386/ejac.37.1.19_1">globally recognised legacy</a>.</p>
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<h2>The early days</h2>
<p>In 1972, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons shelved their first ever rock outfit following a short stint in a band called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_Lester">Wicked Lester</a>. The pair then <a href="https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/kiss-self-titled-debut-album/">hatched a plan</a> to form a far more aggressive and successful rock band. Drummer Peter Criss and guitarist Ace Frehley were recruited, and the new-generation Fab Four renamed themselves Kiss.</p>
<p>By late <a href="https://www.kissonline.com/history">November of 1973</a>, the band had developed their bombastic live performance style, perfected their makeup and signed a deal with <a href="https://ultimateclassicrock.com/kiss-first-record-contract/">Casablanca Records</a>. Yet they dealt with some rocky beginnings.</p>
<p>Armed with reworked songs from Wicked Lester, Kiss entered New York’s Bell Sound Studios to record their debut. A mere three weeks later the album was complete – but the band quickly realised the studio recordings didn’t capture the essence of their high-energy live shows. As vocalist Paul Stanley <a href="https://loudwire.com/kiss-self-titled-album-anniversary/">told Loudwire</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What was put down on tape was such a timid fraction of what we were in concert. I didn’t understand it because bands who were our contemporaries had much better-sounding albums.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They took another blow while shooting the album cover with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/obituaries/31brodsky.html">Joel Brodsky</a> when, after a mishap with Criss’s makeup, the band were allegedly handed balloons by the photographer since he thought they were clowns.</p>
<p>Then, soon before the album was released, Warner Brothers pulled its financial backing and <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-casablanca-records-story">distribution deal from Casablanca Records</a> after witnessing Kiss play a New Year’s eve show. Although it’s said the band’s makeup was the last straw for the label, the show in question also featured Simmons <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/kiss-early-years-history">setting his hair alight</a> shortly after throwing a fireball at a fan’s face. </p>
<p>Despite the blunders, the release of the first album set Kiss on a path to becoming immortalised. As Stanley says in his book <a href="https://www.paulstanley.com/face-the-music/">Face The Music</a>:</p>
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<p>For all the minuses I felt about the sound or the cover, we now had a finished album which was the prerequisite for all the other things we wanted to do. We were in the game now.</p>
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<h2>The Kiss sound</h2>
<p>I first heard Kiss as a teenager. I’d just thrift-scored a pair of ’80s-era roller-skates with the band’s logo scrawled on the heels in glitter glue. The salesperson, responsible for the glitter glue, enthusiastically recounted seeing Kiss play VFL Park (now <a href="https://footy.fandom.com/wiki/Waverley_Park">Waverley Park</a> stadium) in 1980 and made me promise I’d listen to them.</p>
<p>Overwhelmed by the band’s expansive discography, and the possibility that their name stood for <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/news/kiss-squash-long-standing-rumour-that-their-band-name-is-a-satanic-acronym-were-smart-but-were-not-that-smart">Knights In Satan’s Service</a>, I thought it best to begin from the start.</p>
<p>With their reputation of on-stage pyrotechnics and gore, I’d expected something more akin to Black Sabbath’s Paranoid than the jangly riffs of Let Me Know or Love Theme From Kiss. A 1978 review by <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/kiss-194584/">Gordon Fletcher</a> for the Rolling Stone also noted this rift. Despite calling the album exceptional, Fletcher described its sound as a cross between Deep Purple and the Doobie Brothers. </p>
<p>Stanley and Simmons have <a href="https://www.guitarworld.com/features/kiss-paul-stanley-gene-simmons-classic-tracks">spoken freely</a> about borrowing heavily from a number of mid-century legends, so it’s no surprise that sonically the album was nothing new. The Rolling Stones’ influence can be heard in the songs Deuce and Strutter, while Led Zeppelin and Neil Young are present in Black Diamond. </p>
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<p>The album initially hadn’t risen higher than #87 on <a href="https://ultimateclassicrock.com/kiss-kiss-debut-album/">Billboard’s album charts</a>. A studio cover of <a href="https://ultimateclassicrock.com/kiss-nothin-to-lose/?trackback=twitter_mobile">Bobby Rydell’s Kissin’ Time</a> was released next as the lead single, but the track only bumped them up to #83. This <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2262575">commercial unviability</a> loomed over Kiss until the release of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alive!_(Kiss_album)">Alive!</a> in 1975. </p>
<h2>Success and beyond</h2>
<p>As the band’s first live album, Alive! bridged the gap between the audacious intensity of Kiss’s performances and the timidness of their studio recordings. Their early tracks were repurposed to let listeners remotely experience the infamous Kiss live spectacle. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFMD7Usflbg&ab_channel=KissVEVO">Rock and Roll All Nite</a> claimed #12 on the <a href="https://loudwire.com/kiss-alive-album-anniversary/">Billboard charts</a>, the platform-stacked foot burst through the door to mainstream success. </p>
<p>Fifty years after Kiss first stepped into Bell Sound Studios, the band played their final sold-out show at Madison Square Garden on December 2 2023. The performance served as a crowning jewel on their End of the Road world tour, a four-year effort with more than 250 live shows. </p>
<p>Promised to be their <a href="https://www.triplem.com.au/story/kiss-add-more-dates-to-their-end-of-the-road-australian-tour-172305">biggest and best shows ever</a>, the farewell became a colossal celebration of the band’s legacy. Theatrical pyrotechnics, fake blood and Stanley’s classic opening line – “you wanted the best, you got the best” – were featured at each performance. </p>
<p>While both Kiss’s anthemic numbers and earlier catalogue were performed in these final shows, the music came second to the celebration of the Kiss live spectacle.</p>
<p>From their carefully designed makeup, to bombastic theatrics and hoards of merchandise, it was Kiss’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1386/ejac.37.1.19_1">brand building</a> that <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-au/Brands+That+Rock%3A+What+Business+Leaders+Can+Learn+from+the+World+of+Rock+and+Roll-p-9780471455172">set them apart</a> and embedded them in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2009.09.006">heritage bracket</a> of popular culture. </p>
<p>Despite the end of their live shows, Kiss endeavours to stay embedded in public memory. Referring to some of the band’s 2,500 licensed products, Simmons recently spoke on <a href="http://www.tommagazine.com.au/2022/08/19/kiss/">what’s next for Kiss</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kiss the entity will continue; what’s happening now is a metamorphosis. The caterpillar is dying, but the butterfly will be born.</p>
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<p>With a <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/kiss-biopic-early-years-netflix-2024-1235291572/">Netflix biopic</a> and holographic <a href="https://www.stereogum.com/2246254/kiss-hologram-era-begins-in-2027/news/">avatars on the way</a>, Stanley and Simmons – the band’s two remaining members – <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/gene-simmons-says-kiss-farewell-tour-is-end-of-the-road-for-the-band-not-the-brand-3541117">have declared Kiss immortal</a>. </p>
<p>Stanley even suggests the Kiss look has become so iconic it’s now bigger than any band member. This means the torch could be passed on to new-generation Kiss members. </p>
<p>Kiss has (quite literally) breathed fire into live rock performance. Now, they’re breathing fire into our expectations of what rock royalty retirement looks like. I have to ask, who – or what – will wear the makeup next? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-long-dead-soprano-has-taken-to-the-stage-with-the-melbourne-symphony-orchestra-are-holograms-the-future-219716">A long-dead soprano has taken to the stage with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Are holograms the future?</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlotte Markowitsch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As their debut album turns 50, we look back on Kiss’s larger-than-life career – and forward to what might come next.Charlotte Markowitsch, PhD candidate in popular music studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2223442024-02-01T20:56:00Z2024-02-01T20:56:00ZBilly Joel is back for an encore − but why did he wait so long to turn the lights back on?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572856/original/file-20240201-25-d4htz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=282%2C89%2C2582%2C1773&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Joel performs at New York City's Madison Square Garden in 2015.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/billy-joel-performs-madison-square-garden-on-january-9-2015-news-photo/461257302?adppopup=true">Myrna Suarez/WireImage via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the flip of a digital switch, Billy Joel fans have their first new song in 17 years, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hexZ5hwia08">Turn the Lights Back On</a>.” </p>
<p>It has all the markers of a classic Joel ballad: the rhythm and rolling chords of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx3QmqV2pHg">She’s Always a Woman</a>,” the plea to accept someone “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaA3YZ6QdJU">Just the Way You Are</a>,” the percussive bass and snare of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVlDSzbrH5M">The Downeaster ‘Alexa</a>.’” There’s even a lick in the piano solo some may recall from “<a href="https://youtu.be/izzM9LXqP-U?si=iyl52C5sQqYD6W9m&t=168">Scenes from an Italian Restaurant</a>” – much slower, yes, but we should all be so lucky to be making new music into our 70s. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The official lyric video for Billy Joel’s ‘Turn the Lights Back On.’</span></figcaption>
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<p>But what does it all add up to? Does this mean that Billy Joel is back? Did he ever go away?</p>
<p>In my scholarship, I explore <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/arranging-gershwin-9780199978380">the legacy of musicians</a> – how their music reverberates and transforms over time, long after the works themselves came into the world.</p>
<p>What makes Joel such an interesting case study is his active role in shaping the life of music that he composed long ago.</p>
<p>Typically, the legacy of an artist of Joel’s stature comes into view after they pass away. But Joel has been in the “legacy making” phase of his career longer than the entirety of many other musician’s careers.</p>
<h2>Creative hibernation</h2>
<p>Between 1970 and 1993, Joel released a new album every 12 to 16 months, composing more than 120 songs. </p>
<p>But he hasn’t released a new album of popular music since 1993’s “River of Dreams.” That album concluded with a song titled “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEtcu-l9wDo">Famous Last Words</a>,” a straightforward rock song with a chorus that repeatedly intones, “These are the last words I have to say.” </p>
<p>From a distance, his fans came to understand this as a retirement from churning out hit albums. Since then, Joel – as timeless as some of his songs might be – has largely been an artist locked in time. </p>
<p>Even though he long ago quit recording new music, Joel has continued to fill stadiums. He toured “Face to Face” with Elton John for several years, and in 2014 he began a monthly residency at Madison Square Garden. That run will conclude <a href="https://www.billyjoel.com/news/billy-joel-announces-final-show-of-madison-square-garden-residency/">when he plays his 150th performance</a> in the iconic venue in July 2024. </p>
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<span class="caption">Billy Joel and Ray Charles share a laugh in 1993, the year Joel released ‘River of Dreams,’ his most recent album of new music.</span>
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<p>These continual live performances have both extended the longevity of his songs and have allowed new generations to discover and enjoy his back catalog.</p>
<p>He’s sold <a href="https://www.billyjoel.com/biography/">more than 150 million albums</a>. Box sets, anthologies and special collector’s editions have long been a way to maintain and capitalize on an artist’s legacy – look no further than the steady line of <a href="https://variety.com/2022/music/reviews/the-beatles-revolver-deluxe-box-album-review-1235417007">50th anniversary reissues released by The Beatles</a>. In the absence of new music, Columbia Records has worked to maintain Joel’s presence by releasing Joel’s “Greatest Hits: Volume III” (1997) and “My Lives” (2005). </p>
<h2>A star’s last hurrah?</h2>
<p>Now it’s 2024, and Joel has been creatively dormant longer than he was active. </p>
<p>So what’s he doing with “Turn the Lights Back On”? Could a new compilation be in the works?</p>
<p><a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793601810/">I’ve written elsewhere</a> about the arrangement of Joel’s life and career through greatest hits compilations.</p>
<p>To encourage the purchase of these compilations, they’re usually accompanied by the release of new material, whether it’s something from the archives that never made it onto one of his prior albums, or – on special occasions – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_You_Feel_My_Love">a brand-new song</a>.</p>
<p>But in a streaming era replete with <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2WgQ96x6mlX6RMS2yuSmvp">accessible and customizable playlists</a>, promoting a forthcoming album doesn’t seem to be the motivation here. </p>
<p>Rather, Joel seems to be taking a cue from The Beatles. </p>
<p>Last November, they released “<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-now-and-then-really-a-beatles-song-the-fab-four-always-used-technology-to-create-new-music-216981">Now and Then</a>,” which was marketed as “the last Beatles song.” One month later, Joel wryly suggested during a Madison Square Garden residency concert that he might have something in the pipeline. The news spread via <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@billyjoel/video/7314822303660051758">his first-ever post to TikTok</a>.</p>
<p>In some ways, like “Now and Then,” the release of “Turn the Lights Back On” is a once-in-a-lifetime event – particularly for his younger fans. </p>
<p>Indeed, for millions of people this will be the first time many will have ever had the privilege of hearing a new song by an artist they’ve long admired. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IxMN3cW8DU">In the teaser video announcing this new song</a> on Jan. 22, 2024, you literally see Joel turn the page for this next chapter in his career. If you pay close attention, the page he flips is a waterlogged set of lyrics for “Famous Last Words.” </p>
<p>He’s making good on the promise of the lyrics from that song: “There will be other words some other day, Ain’t that the story of my life?”</p>
<p>Back in the 1990s, he got out of the business of making records <a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-reason-why-billy-joel-stopped-writing-songs/">because he was in a rut</a>. It’s possible that the years hence haven’t been as fulfilling as he’d hoped.</p>
<p>Does “Turn the Lights Back On” hint at what comes next? Is this Joel ready to share new music with the world again? Or is it a wistful plea from a baby boomer artist to be remembered as his star dims? </p>
<p>Perhaps trying to derive meaning is beside the point. As he declares toward the end of the song, “I’m here right now.” </p>
<p>Maybe that’s all any of his fans can ask for.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct the years that have passed since Joel’s last new song. It’s been 17 years, not 15 years.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222344/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan Raul Bañagale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1993, Joel sang, ‘These are the last words I have to say.’ What changed?Ryan Raul Bañagale, Associate Professor and Chair of Music, Colorado CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2156272023-10-16T15:38:07Z2023-10-16T15:38:07ZAs Dark Side of the Moon: Redux shows, when it comes to lyrics, less is usually more<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554004/original/file-20231016-22-iiykzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C11%2C1473%2C1053&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The cover to Dark Side of the Moon: Redux. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roger Waters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s a scene in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbeilmP2wY8">The Simpsons</a> episode, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0779668/">Lisa The Simpson</a> (1998), where Lisa is watching a jazz violinist’s performance and a man is criticising it. “You have to listen to the notes she doesn’t play,” Lisa says in the music’s defence. “I can do that at home,” the man drily replies. </p>
<p>The scene is meant to poke fun at the perceived pomposity of jazz, but it got me thinking about lyrics instead. I research lyrics and songwriting, and I believe that, sometimes, the best thing a lyricist can do is say as little as possible.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Roger Waters introduces Dark Side of the Moon: Redux.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Which brings me to the recently released <a href="https://rogerwaters.com">Dark Side of The Moon: Redux</a> by former Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters. It was <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/pink-floyd-the-dark-side-of-the-moon-at-40-classic-track-by-track-review-1552399/">Waters’ intention</a> for the original Pink Floyd album to cover the themes of greed, conflict, religion, mortality and mental illness. And it’s these themes (or, at least, his desire to hammer them home) that are at the root of his decision to create this “redux” version of the album. </p>
<p>Although redux means “revived”, in the hands of Waters the words become expanded, overstated and overwritten.</p>
<p>Boiling down complex themes and arguments into a three-minute pop song is a test of skill that positions good lyricists (as the award-winning songwriter <a href="https://www.jimmywebb.com/the-songwriter">Jimmy Webb</a> puts it) as “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8zWFEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=%22the+Swiss+watchmakers+of+music+and+literature%22&source=bl&ots=4mJvCpIJOk&sig=ACfU3U39h0QBnM-jf2wzo2cIBrJB2lK_eg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjg9Ne4nPqBAxWLLcAKHZTeAQEQ6AF6BAgDEAM#v=onepage&q=%22the%20Swiss%20watchmakers%20of%20music%20and%20literature%22&f=false">the Swiss watchmakers of music and literature</a>”.</p>
<p>Morrissey, the lead singer of The Smiths, achieved this effect in the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_3oFRcTNHo">Still Ill</a> (1984). As author Will Self noted in his book <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Feeding_Frenzy/V1YFHVI0KHYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=morrissey&pg=PT298&printsec=frontcover">Feeding Frenzy</a> (2002), Morrissey “is responsible – among other things – for encapsulating 200 years of philosophical speculation in a single line: ‘Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body, I dunno.’”</p>
<p>But the subtlety, nuance and art of suggestion that comes with brevity in lyrics seems to have escaped Waters on Dark Side of The Moon: Redux.</p>
<h2>Revisiting Dark Side of the Moon</h2>
<p>When asked in a <a href="https://www.radiox.co.uk/artists/pink-floyd/roger-waters-claims-hes-re-recorded-dark-side-of-the-moon/">recent interview</a> why he’d decided to remake the record, Waters said: “Because not enough people recognised what it’s about, what it was I was saying then.” But it’s this presumed need to clarify and explain that’s the major shortcoming of the Redux – it’s removed all subtlety. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUVmeYgo1Iw">Money</a> (theme: greed), he bolsters the “capitalism is evil” message of the original track by adding in lines like: “The devil pats the briefcase that holds the Faustian pact.” </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Waters discussing the album.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbfH8sSEW48">On the Run</a> (theme: conflict and religion), Waters says that there are: “Hordes and hordes / Too many to count / Poised to attack.” </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUEUqGbW7VQ">Brain Damage</a> (theme: mental illness), he takes away all ambiguity with his introduction: “Why don’t we re-record Dark Side of the Moon? He’s gone mad” – before launching straight into the opening line: “The lunatic is on the grass.”</p>
<p>This positions himself as said “lunatic”, instead of – as the original does – allowing the listener to wonder who the subject is (former Pink Floyd bandmate Syd Barrett? The media? Humanity in general?)</p>
<h2>The problem with overwriting</h2>
<p>It’s perhaps on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMWO8s6yGOA">The Great Gig In The Sky</a> (theme: mortality) where Waters is most successful in removing the nuance and subtlety of the original. He chooses to replace the largely wordless original track with a monologue about a friend who died of cancer.</p>
<p>On the original track, Abbey Road Studios doorman Gerry O’Driscoll <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PMnJ_Luk_o">utters the lines</a>: “And I am not frightened of dying, any time will do, I don’t mind / Why should I be frightened of dying? / There’s no reason for it, you’ve gotta go sometime.” This is followed by a three-and-a-half minute, searing, emotion-packed but lyric-less vocal from Clare Torry that manages, in the words of Vulture journalist Craig Jenkins, to “<a href="https://www.vulture.com/2020/01/clare-torry-pink-floyd-dark-side-of-the-moon.html">express the full range of human emotion without relying on words</a>”.</p>
<p>And those few words are all the song needs. They succeed in putting the theme of mortality into the listener’s mind, then the music allows them time to mull it over and ruminate over their own place in the world. In his book <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/301122/the-world-in-six-songs-by-daniel-j-levitin/#:%7E:text=About%20The%20World%20in%20Six%20Songs,-The%20author%20of&text=and%20throughout%20history.-,Dr.,culture%20and%20society%20to%20evolve.">The World in Six Songs</a> (2008), psychologist Daniel Levitin says that the compression of meaning in song lyrics invites us to interpret, to be participants in the unfolding of the story. </p>
<p>But in force-feeding the listener a pathos-soaked story on Redux’s The Great Gig in The Sky, Waters isn’t allowing us to participate, to figure out our own thoughts, to feel. Waters is explicitly telling us the meaning, and as a result, he risks losing our engagement altogether.</p>
<p>In Redux, Waters goes from the extreme of understatement in his earlier work to the extreme of overstatement and overwriting. Redux has its moments – not least in how Waters’ weathered, character-filled voice inhabits and adds weight to his original lyrics – but sometimes, less really is more.</p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenn Fosbraey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In Redux, Waters goes from the extreme of understatement in his earlier work to the extreme of overstatement and overwritingGlenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of WinchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1984002023-02-28T19:06:21Z2023-02-28T19:06:21ZThe Dark Side of the Moon at 50: how Marx, trauma and compassion all influenced Pink Floyd’s masterpiece<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512316/original/file-20230226-2222-ogd47z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C0%2C4013%2C2263&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Dixi et salvavi animam meam.</em></p>
<p>This Latin phrase – I have spoken and saved my soul – sits at the end of Karl Marx’s <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/">Critique of the Gotha Programme</a>. </p>
<p>Written in 1875, this text imagines a communist society that will come about “after the enslaving of the individual to the division of labour, and thereby also the antithesis between mental and physical labour has vanished”. </p>
<p>Only then, Marx argues, “can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be completely transcended and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!”</p>
<p>Roger Waters – bassist, lyricist and conceptual mastermind behind Pink Floyd’s 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon, released 50 years ago today – knows Marx’s Critique. Indeed, he quotes it when discussing the record with music journalist John Harris. </p>
<p>“Making The Dark Side of the Moon, we were all trying to do as much as we possibly could,” Waters <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/301401">told</a> Harris.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was a very communal thing. What’s that old Marxist maxim? ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.’ That’s sort of the way the band worked at that point. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Assertions about solidarity, cooperation and shared “unity of purpose” – as Waters says – situate Dark Side in the context of Pink Floyd’s <a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/pink-floyd-roger-waters-david-gilmour-feud/">notoriously fractious</a> recording career and helps us understand the album’s enduring appeal.</p>
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<h2>Shine on you crazy diamond</h2>
<p>Pink Floyd formed in London in 1965. Led by the charismatic songwriter, guitarist and lead vocalist Syd Barrett, the group established itself as a leader in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_underground">London underground music scene</a>. They released their debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn in 1967.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_Machine">Soft Machine</a> member Kevin Ayers <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/pink-floyds-the-piper-at-the-gates-of-dawn-9781441185174/">described</a> The Piper at the Gates of Dawn as “something magical, but it was in Syd Barrett”. </p>
<p>Not long after the record’s release, Barrett suffered a catastrophic, LSD-induced breakdown. In response, the band recruited David Gilmour on guitar and recorded a second album, A Saucerful of Secrets, as a five-piece in 1968. Around this time, the increasingly unstable Barrett was unceremoniously ousted by the rest of the band. </p>
<p>After Barrett left, says Ayers, “Pink Floyd became something else totally”. </p>
<p>There are different versions of Pink Floyd. The recordings released after Barrett left the band in 1968 bear little resemblance to the first. </p>
<p>Dark Side sounds nothing like the whimsical Piper. But it is obvious the record is in large part preoccupied with the loss of Barrett.</p>
<p>This preoccupation comes to the fore in the album’s penultimate track. </p>
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<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1OOQP1-wOE&ab_channel=HDPinkFloyd">Brain Damage</a>, written and sung by Waters, references Barrett’s adolescence (“Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs”), alludes to his illness (“And if the dam breaks open many years too soon”), and acknowledges his leaving the group (“And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes; I’ll see you on the dark side of the Moon”). </p>
<p>Drummer Nick Mason confirms the group didn’t want to lose Barrett.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/265734.Inside_Out">autobiography</a>, he writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>He was our songwriter, singer, guitarist, and – although you might not have known from our less than sympathetic treatment of him – he was our friend.</p>
</blockquote>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wall-cemented-pink-floyds-fame-but-destroyed-the-band-127174">'The Wall' cemented Pink Floyd's fame – but destroyed the band</a>
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</em>
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<h2>If the dam breaks open many years too soon</h2>
<p>What we hear on The Dark Side of the Moon is a band dealing with trauma. </p>
<p>In this sense, Dark Side represents the start of a reckoning with the past – a process that culminated with the band’s next record, 1975’s elegiac <a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/wish-you-were-here-pink-floyd-seminal-ode-to-the-tragic-life-of-syd-barrett/">Wish You Were Here</a>.</p>
<p>Culmination is a useful term when it comes to Dark Side more generally. On this record, all the avant-garde techniques and tendencies the band had toyed with in the post-Barrett period – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musique_concr%C3%A8te">musique concrète</a>, sonic manipulation, extended improvisation, analogue tape manipulation – come together to spectacular effect. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0kcet4aPpQ">Money</a> – with its anti-capitalist lyrics penned by Waters (“Money, it’s a crime; share it fairly, but don’t take a slice of my pie”), odd time signature, and handmade tape-loops mimicking the sounds of cash tills, bags of coins being dropped from great height and bank notes being torn up – is one of the stranger hit singles in pop music history. </p>
<p>Be that as it may, Money and the album from which it is taken, of which <a href="https://www.pinkfloyd.com/tdsotm50/">more than 50 million copies</a> have been sold, continue to resonate with listeners worldwide, five decades on from its initial release.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pink-floyds-1-8m-desk-shows-timeless-appeal-of-analogue-sound-74479">Pink Floyd's $1.8m desk shows timeless appeal of analogue sound</a>
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<h2>The enormous risk of being truly banal</h2>
<p>“I made a conscious effort when I was writing the lyrics for Dark Side of the Moon to take the enormous risk of being truly banal about a lot of it,” Waters told John Harris, “in order that the ideas should be expressed as simply and plainly as possible.”</p>
<p>On this point, <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/news/david-gilmour-says-its-pretty-unlikely-he-and-roger-waters-will-resolve-pink-floyd-feud">if nothing else</a>, David Gilmour agrees. He told Harris:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There was definitely a feeling that the words were going to be very clear and specific. That was a leap forward. Things would mean what they meant. That was a distinct step away from what we had done before.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Mortality, insanity, conflict, affluence, poverty and, in another nod to Marx, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation">alienation</a> are some of the themes presented on the record. The need – and this brings us full circle – for compassion, if not outright solidarity, is another. </p>
<p>This is an album about the importance of understanding, as Waters <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/301401">insists</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the potential that human beings have for recognising each other’s humanity and responding to it, with empathy rather than antipathy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Given the sorry state of the world in 2023, about which Roger Waters has many <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-64580688">contentious</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/feb/07/pink-floyd-lyricist-calls-roger-waters-an-antisemite-and-putin-apologist">problematic</a> things to say, I wager Pink Floyd’s masterwork will continue to resonate with listeners for a while yet.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-stoicism-influenced-music-from-the-french-renaissance-to-pink-floyd-181701">How Stoicism influenced music from the French Renaissance to Pink Floyd</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198400/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Howard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Over 50 years, over 50 million copies have been sold. Pink Floyd’s masterwork will continue to resonate with listeners for a while yet.Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1919502022-10-17T19:03:50Z2022-10-17T19:03:50Z‘Grief can have a chastening effect’: in Faith, Hope and Carnage Nick Cave plumbs religion, creativity and human frailty<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489295/original/file-20221012-22-y3vdkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C62%2C1375%2C905&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pfarrhofer_Herbert/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Whether you adore or despise Nick Cave, this book offers you a great deal. Far more than the stereotypes of the gothic expatriate, or the drug-loving, post-punk, underground lord, or the strutting songster with the deep, melancholy voice. All these characters appear in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/59056535-faith-hope-and-carnage">Faith, Hope and Carnage</a>, but we meet full on an older, reflective, theologically-probing Cave. For many readers this might sound like challenging, even uncomfortable, territory.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Faith, Hope and Carnage – Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan (Text Publishing)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In a long series of discussions across the pandemic period, Cave and his friend Seán O’Hagan conducted a recorded conversation that flows deep, through many sharp bends. </p>
<p>O’Hagan is an appropriate interlocutor. He is different to Cave in so many ways, and genuinely surprised at where Cave goes. O’Hagan is a journalist not a celebrity or a “creative”. He’s not religious, he’s not Australian, but he’s receptive and open to Cave’s challenges and, sometimes, his contradictions.</p>
<p>In the context of the pandemic, and after the tragic accidental death in 2015 of the Caves’ twin son Arthur at 15, a sustained and confronting strand of the conversation is, unsurprisingly, about loss, suffering, grief and death. </p>
<p>That will be no shock to aficionados of Cave’s music over the last 30 years, with earlier songs and albums like The Mercy Seat (1988) and The Murder Ballads (1996), his novel The Death of Bunny Munro (2009), the score for films such as The Proposition (2005) and Dahmer Monster: the Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022), and more recent albums Ghosteen (2019) and Carnage (2022), all drenched in often violent death. </p>
<p>What is new about this book, though, is that Cave is weaving the threads of his life – the loss of his son, and of so many friends, his mother and father, his early musical collaborator and girlfriend Anita Lane, his heroin years and rehabs – into a different, more reflective shape. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-reclaiming-artist-musician-anita-lane-from-the-despised-label-of-muse-188815">Friday essay: reclaiming artist-musician Anita Lane from the 'despised' label of muse</a>
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<p>And it’s not that he’s prettying things up. Not at all. In grief, Cave writes, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>you become deeply acquainted with the idea of human mortality. You go to a very dark place and experience the extremities of your own pain … [and as in the pandemic] grief can have a chastening effect. It makes demands of us. It asks us to be empathetic.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of the chastening effects of grief, for Cave, is registered in the experiences and expressions of religious faith. The conversation between Cave and O’Hagan leaves us in no doubt about Cave’s deepened religious beliefs. These have always been a part of him, through his post-punk, drug-fed years, but they are taking new turns.</p>
<p>To his strengthened Christian faith, Cave, often to O’Hagan’s bemusement, attaches a suite of moral human values he would now, through living with his grief and doubt and fear, like to nurture in himself: values of empathy, humility and vulnerability, mercy towards others, openness and tolerance, and acknowledgement of his need for atonement. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489296/original/file-20221012-14-kqvdlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489296/original/file-20221012-14-kqvdlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489296/original/file-20221012-14-kqvdlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489296/original/file-20221012-14-kqvdlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489296/original/file-20221012-14-kqvdlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489296/original/file-20221012-14-kqvdlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489296/original/file-20221012-14-kqvdlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489296/original/file-20221012-14-kqvdlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Cave performing in Lisbon in September.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tiago Petinga/EPA</span></span>
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<h2>Forgiveness and mercy</h2>
<p>Cave’s journey into grief and contemplation of death is personal, of course, but he does cast out a net, or spell, towards his audiences, and even broader. When O’Hagan asks about the differences between sacred and secular worldviews, Cave’s answer will be taken by many as provocative. He finds in the world:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a sort of cynicism and distrust of our very selves … a rejection of the innate wonder of our presence … to do with the increasingly secular nature of our society. There’s an attempt to find meaning in places where it is ultimately unsustainable – in politics, identity, and so on …[religion] deals with the necessity of forgiveness … and mercy, whereas I don’t think secularism has found the language to address these matters. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Religion “has a lot to answer for”, but it nurtures “a humility towards one’s place within the world – an understanding of our flawed nature”. </p>
<p>Such reflections do not, to this reader, come across in the spirit of hostility, but in a tested, lived, often broken human consideration of where meaning – Cave’s, his audiences’, the contemporary world’s – might be sought. </p>
<p>Throughout the book, Cave discusses the how and why of his <a href="https://www.theredhandfiles.com/">Red Hand Files</a>, an online blog fours year old and still going. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-transcendent-rage-nick-cave-and-the-red-hand-files-144735">Friday essay: transcendent rage — Nick Cave and the Red Hand Files</a>
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<p>In these Files, Cave seeks and practices openness, tolerance, empathy. Further, he consistently declares his gratefulness to his fans, and others who write in, for their care of him in his time of grief over Arthur’s death. Tragically, Cave lost a second son, Jethro Lazenby, earlier this year. (In May, Cave published a letter of condolence on the Files, <a href="https://www.theredhandfiles.com/dear-nick-i-have-no-question/">thanking readers</a> for their kind words and acknowledging their letters had been a great source of comfort.)</p>
<h2>Radical listening</h2>
<p>In the Files and in his recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/jun/16/conversations-with-nick-cave-review-wales-millennium-centre">Conversations</a> tour, where he talked openly with his audiences about any topic they threw out, Cave demonstrates an amazing vulnerability, describing his involvement as similar to prayer or meditation, to radical listening. </p>
<p>In contrast, he writes that he came off Twitter and “the world suddenly improved … as far as I can see social media makes you sick”. </p>
<p>Another major strand of the conversation in Faith, Hope and Carnage is around creativity. We are given multiple discussions about song writing, performance, collaboration, audiences, and the artist’s divine spark. For Cave, art “does not exist in its true form unless it moves through the hearts of others as a balm.”</p>
<p>Music has the capacity </p>
<blockquote>
<p>…to enlarge the spirit, provide solace, companionship, healing, and well, meaning. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Cave is not only talking about his own involvement with music here, he embraces his audiences, and all lovers of music. He then puts to O’Hagan that his current work is about seeking forgiveness, “making what might be called living amends, by using whatever gifts you may have in order to help rehabilitate the world.” </p>
<p>For some this might sound like egotism or zealotry, and there are certainly tinges of these.</p>
<p>Still, this is a panoramic, coruscating book. We are enabled not only to glimpse the wellsprings of Cave’s religious faith and hope, but in a vibrant landscape we are introduced to many of his friends, his literary, artistic and musical influences, his collaborations and recording locales. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489945/original/file-20221017-21-hgpj3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489945/original/file-20221017-21-hgpj3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489945/original/file-20221017-21-hgpj3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489945/original/file-20221017-21-hgpj3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489945/original/file-20221017-21-hgpj3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489945/original/file-20221017-21-hgpj3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489945/original/file-20221017-21-hgpj3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489945/original/file-20221017-21-hgpj3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>We can begin to map out the changes, and contradictions, of Cave’s lifetime in music, lived as a truly cosmopolitan artist who remains, in many wonderful ways, Australian (see his childhood memories in the book of Wangaratta and of art college in Melbourne). </p>
<p>It has been a rich life immersed in art, storytelling, poetic language, religious possibilities. It’s helpful to have Google and Spotify with you, just to check out the songs, historical contexts and personalities that jostle and claim attention in the pages.</p>
<p>There is, amongst all this, a person with regrets, self-professed sins, the felt need to make amends, and an overwhelming sense of human frailty. If this is an ego strutting its successes, it’s more so a broken, humbled, ageing, open-eyed man.</p>
<p>In the final pages Cave throws out one of his many <em>bon mots</em>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>…hope is in every little thing, as far as I can see. Hope is optimism with a broken heart. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For this reader, the unstoppable energy, as well as the reflectiveness of Cave – the musician, the religious believer, the religious doubter, the family man, the collaborator and the friend – continues to be a wonderfully tender balm.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191950/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lyn McCredden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a series of discussions with journalist Sean O'Hagan, we meet an older, reflective theologically-probing musician, drawn to the Christian qualities of mercy, atonement and forgiveness.Lyn McCredden, Personal Chair, Literary Studies, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1903472022-09-14T01:30:05Z2022-09-14T01:30:05ZMoonage Daydream: brilliant Bowie film takes big risks to create something truly new<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484452/original/file-20220913-3993-hu7z7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C1473%2C797&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Universal Pictures</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Don’t fake it baby, lay the real thing on me</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>– David Bowie, Moonage Daydream (1971)</strong></p>
<p>Hypnotic, immersive, kaleidoscopic, sublime: Brett Morgen’s film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUvjaPIEIBs">Moonage Daydream</a> has been described as an “<a href="https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/film/watch-new-trailer-for-david-bowie-documentary-moonage-daydream-3278359">experiential cinematic odyssey</a>” and a “<a href="https://letterboxd.com/nextbestpicture/film/moonage-daydream/">colossal tidal wave</a> of vibrant images and overpowering sound”. </p>
<p>But as a Bowie fan of 40 years, this film was a transformative experience for me because of the integrity with which Morgen reassembled “the real thing” to make something authentic and new.</p>
<p>Inspired by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNrvd_c9jn0">Bowie’s cautionary words</a> about comfort and his philosophy to “always go further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in”, Morgen embarked on a mission that would take him far outside his comfort zone.</p>
<p>Boldly eschewing the conventional biopic format, he immersed himself in a seven-year creative process – one that has led to a subjective but respectful representation of the artist who helped him navigate his own teenage journeys.</p>
<p>Propelling the biographical music documentary form beyond the expected conventions of talking heads and expert analysis, Morgen combines a documentary style with <a href="https://books.google.co.nz/books/about/David_Bowie_and_the_Art_of_Music_Video.html?id=LlKSzQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">music video aesthetics</a> and <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/ap3/2019/00000008/00000001/art00006">surrealist assemblage methods</a> to craft a new form.</p>
<p>Employing an even more extensive collage approach than he’d used for his Kurt Cobain film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4229236/">Montage of Heck (2015)</a>, Morgen treats Moonage Daydream as an audiovisual tapestry, woven from numerous archival materials: songs, vocal recordings, still photographs and film footage derived from music videos, theatrical films, televised interviews and live performance.</p>
<p>Morgen brings these things to life by punctuating them with sonic and visual effects. Bravely facing the potential wrath of Bowie devotees, he takes the creative liberty of disassembling and reanimating Bowie’s hand-drawn sketches, storyboards and paintings.</p>
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<h2>Ziggy Stardust lives</h2>
<p>A risky way to treat the work of a deceased artist, the approach nonetheless works because Morgen is channelling the Bowie “on his shoulder”. This is his reality of Bowie, but it allows space for viewers to fill in the gaps. As he <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018857805/the-director-of-the-new-david-bowie-documentary">explained recently</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Bowie invited us the way kabuki does, to kind of project and fill in the blanks. And so I tried to create a film in that manner […] We all have our own Bowie. You have your Bowie, I have my Bowie. I wanted the canvas to reflect back to each viewer their own Bowie, and ultimately themselves.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Taking two years to familiarise himself with millions of archival pieces, Morgen developed an intuitive sense about which materials to use and how they would project when blown up on a cinema screen. By allowing this raw material to retain flaws such as scratches, camera shake and blur, he conjures nostalgia for a moment in time.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/space-oddity-at-50-the-novelty-song-that-became-a-cultural-touchstone-120071">Space Oddity at 50: the 'novelty song' that became a cultural touchstone</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Transported to the Hammersmith Odeon in 1973, I marvelled at the grainy texture of the film stock used to shoot <a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/im-not-a-film-star-david-bowie-as-actor/ch1-ziggy-stardust-direct-cinema-and-the-multimodal-performance-of-gesamtkunstwerk">D.A. Pennebaker’s film</a> of the famous last <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmmmqGsi-iw">Ziggy Stardust</a> concert. I absorbed the texture of Bowie’s hair and the colour of his mismatched eyes in extreme closeups from Mick Rock’s music video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZKcl4-tcuo">Life On Mars?</a> from the same year.</p>
<p>Grounding the film in reality, the rawness and heightened proximity of these projections enhance the sensory experience. One moment I was on stage with Bowie, just behind his shoulder, experiencing his exhilaration as he stepped towards throngs of adoring fans. Next, I was one of those fans in full Ziggy garb, reaching out to touch Bowie on that stage.</p>
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<h2>Cut-up and collage</h2>
<p>This sense of intimacy and immersion in Bowie’s life explains why Moonage Daydream is such a treat for fans. But why did Bowie’s estate give their wholehearted approval to this film and not others?</p>
<p>Firstly, rather than relying on actors or expert commentators, the film allows Bowie to tell his story through his own words and his own art. Secondly, Morgen has taken more than inspiration from Bowie’s philosophy about life and creativity. He approached Moonage Daydream in a way that mirrors Bowie’s own <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10304312.2017.1334380">creative process</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/david-bowies-late-revival-belongs-to-a-grand-tradition-dating-back-to-beethoven-71031">David Bowie's late revival belongs to a grand tradition dating back to Beethoven</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Often described as a cultural magpie, Bowie was a rampant forager who used methods such as cut-up and collage to weave together a diverse array of inspirations and found materials. Morgen uses similar methods with archive material from across Bowie’s expansive oeuvre.</p>
<p>He shows how Bowie synthesised the gestures of <a href="https://theconversation.com/bowie-and-gender-transgression-what-a-drag-44569">Hollywood starlets</a>, visual motifs gleaned from kabuki theatre and noh mask traditions, protopunk style and a Kubrick-esque science fiction aesthetic. </p>
<p>Morgen also uses cut-up and collage methods to show how Bowie fused the Pierrot persona (derived from the <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/comm/hd_comm.htm">Commedia dell'arte</a> performance form) with visual references derived from surrealist and German expressionist films, along with the aesthetics of the fledgling New Romantic subculture.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484445/original/file-20220913-5031-1bqo63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484445/original/file-20220913-5031-1bqo63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484445/original/file-20220913-5031-1bqo63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484445/original/file-20220913-5031-1bqo63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484445/original/file-20220913-5031-1bqo63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484445/original/file-20220913-5031-1bqo63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484445/original/file-20220913-5031-1bqo63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Fan tributes in Brixton, London, after the death of David Bowie in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Time and space</h2>
<p>Mirroring Bowie’s creative process, the approach also replicates the artist’s treatment of time as medium, and his penchant for time travel. His songs, music videos and performances portray a constant, dizzying transit between past, present and future – something Bowie described as “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19392397.2018.1559125">future nostalgia</a>”.</p>
<p>Ironically, Morgen’s non-linear editing works in tension with the film’s overarching linear chronology. This complex structure is appropriate, since it portrays the temporal fluidity and “<a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/transmedia-directors-artistry-industry-and-new-audiovisual-aesthetics/ch14-the-alchemical-union-of-david-bowie-and-floria-sigismondi-transmedia-surrealism-and-loose-continuity">loose continuity</a>” that Bowie wove across five decades and several mediums.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/which-lazarus-was-bowie-really-referring-to-in-his-mesmerising-swan-song-53127">Which Lazarus was Bowie really referring to in his mesmerising swan song?</a>
</strong>
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<hr>
<p>This sense of time travel extends to the treatment of the songs, too. Morgen worked with Bowie’s long-time friend and collaborator Tony Visconti, who uses cut-up and collage to create new soundscapes by merging isolated tracks from the original song recordings.</p>
<p>At one point, Blackstar (2016) gradually begins to merge with parts of Memory of a Free Festival (1970) and other songs. Combined with visual collage, this surprising mashup forms a densely layered audiovisual bricolage that takes the audience on an exhilarating trip through time and space.</p>
<p>Recalling the liberating experience of dancing up the red carpet at the premiere for Moonage Daydream, and the creative process behind this almost psychedelic filmic experience, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3HDr3UM1hI">Morgen told one interviewer</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you ingest Bowie into your veins for seven years, you’re probably going to be a better person at the end of it than you were when you started […] It’s like having a natural high, I mean it’s like the endorphins are all alert.</p>
<p>I would never have arrived at that perspective without embracing his teachings, his philosophies towards creation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Creating this film was a life changing experience for Morgen. Moonage Daydream is a bold work of art that promises a transformative experience for all of us. I saw <a href="https://books.google.co.nz/books/about/David_Bowie_and_the_Art_of_Music_Video.html?id=LlKSzQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">my Bowie</a> reflected back from Morgen’s canvas. Will you see your Bowie? </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Moonage Daydream opens in cinemas worldwide on September 15.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190347/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Perrott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Like the artist himself, Brett Morgen’s film about David Bowie defies convention to create an extraordinary audiovisual tapestry of an endlessly creative life.Lisa Perrott, Senior Lecturer & Researcher in Screen and Media Studies, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1880752022-08-08T20:03:55Z2022-08-08T20:03:55ZWith the strokes of a guitar solo, Joni Mitchell showed us how our female music elders are super punks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477808/original/file-20220805-12-dhsykg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C0%2C3573%2C2398&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Carlin Stiehl for The Boston Globe via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The iconic Joni Mitchell’s recent surprise performance at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxiluPSmAF8&feature=youtu.be">2022 Newport Folk Festival</a> prompted a world-wide outpouring of love and respect. </p>
<p>This was her first musical performance since suffering from a brain aneurysm in 2015 that left her unable to walk and talk. Last year, she spoke of having <a href="https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/music/joni-mitchell-addresses-health-issues-in-rare-speech-at-2021-kennedy-center-honors-3112447">polio as a child</a> as “a rehearsal for the rest of my life”. </p>
<p>The tributes for Mitchell celebrated her triumph from illness to recovery, but they also paid homage to Mitchell’s career that has pivoted on protest. </p>
<p>Mitchell is largely associated with folk scenes of the 60s and 70s. She has produced a prolific body of work, advocating for social change. As a committed activist she has spoken against environmental degradation, war, LGBTQI+ discrimination, and most recently, removed <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/29/22907696/joni-mitchell-spotify-joe-rogan-podcast-misinformation-covid-19">her music catalogue</a> from Spotify in a protest against anti-vaccine propaganda. </p>
<p>Now, with the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7wOdpxGctc">strokes of a guitar solo</a> she repositioned herself from folk hero to punk provocateur, defying the “permissible” ways older women “should” behave. </p>
<p>In commanding public space and using one of the most traditionally masculinised expressions of popular music practice, she directly challenged the sorts of expectations many people have around gendered norms, particularly what women in their elder years look and sound like.</p>
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<h2>Not everyone gets to age on stage</h2>
<p>Some of the most persistent social restrictions placed on women and gender diverse musicians are in relation to age. </p>
<p>Ongoing expectations of older women are to be passive, quiet and very much in the background. They are rarely asked, or expected, to “take up space” in the same ways their male counterparts do. </p>
<p>Whereas men step through phases of youthful experimentation into established music legends, there are tiresome obstacles for female and gender diverse people to do the same. </p>
<p>And while exceptions are often exceptional, they are not plentiful.</p>
<p>It’s not just age. Women have long been sidelined when it comes to acknowledging their skills on the electric guitar. Much like Mitchell. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1552753021230120960"}"></div></p>
<p>The electric guitar has been an important part of rock and punk genres. There is a symbiotic relationship between how these genres – and the instrumentation that defines them – have unwittingly become gendered. The electric guitar solo in particular has come to be associated with machismo: fast, loud, expert, brave. </p>
<p>If you like to imagine a world where women don’t exist, google “best guitar solos ever”. </p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/02/opinion/grammys-rock-guitar-solo.html">New York Times article</a> suggested things are starting to change. Citing guitarists like Taja Cheek and Adrianne Lenker, the Times suggested the guitar solo has shifted from a macho institution into a display of vulnerability, a moment (perhaps many) of connectivity. </p>
<p>Mitchell’s performance sits somewhere in this domain. </p>
<p>For the hundreds of thousands of women and gender diverse guitarists world-wide, myself included, the electric guitar and the genres it is entwined with offer a cool, optional extra: to test the cultural norms of gender with other markers of identity like class, culture, sexuality and age, to blur ideas of what we should and shouldn’t do. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-crunched-the-numbers-on-ten-recent-worlds-best-guitarist-lists-where-are-the-women-111598">We crunched the numbers on ten recent ‘world’s best guitarist’ lists. Where are the women?</a>
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<h2>Australian women to the front</h2>
<p>Australian women and gender diverse rock and punk musicians are often subject to a double act of erasure – missing from localised histories, and also from broader canons of contemporary music, which often remain persistently rooted in the traditions of the UK and the US. </p>
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<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55669013-my-rock-n-roll-friend">Tracey Thorn’s brilliant biography</a> of the Go-Between’s drummer Lindy Morrison is a love lettered homage that steps out the complex local, emotional, personal and structural ways that Australian women and gender diverse people are often omitted from cultural spaces. </p>
<p>“We are patronised and then we vanish,” writes Thorn.</p>
<p>The work of women and gender diverse artists is often compared to the glossy pedestal of the male creative genius.</p>
<p>In this light, we don’t play right, we don’t look right, we don’t sound right. </p>
<p>And then, somehow, we don’t age right. </p>
<p>Other reasons are far more mundane. Women contribute around <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/au/en/blog/economics-blog/2019/Value-unpaid-work-care.html">13 hours more unpaid work</a> than men each week. </p>
<p>Carrying plates overflowing with generous gifts of labour, the maintenance of a music practice – a largely underpaid endeavour – is often the first to fall by the wayside. </p>
<p>Add to the mix ingrained social networks of knowledge sharing, and the dominance of men making decisions higher up the chain, and it is easy to see how women and gender diverse musicians stay submerged as men rise to the limited real estate of music elders. </p>
<p>The problem isn’t so much about starting up. It’s about finding the time to keep up. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-punks-legacy-40-years-on-60633">Friday essay: punk's legacy, 40 years on</a>
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<h2>Our female and gender diverse music elders</h2>
<p>There are so many Australian female and gender diverse music elders. Some are visible, but many ripple beneath the surface. </p>
<p>Regardless of genre, in maintaining decades-long practice, they are the super punks whose legacy can be heard in venues across the country. </p>
<p>The challenge now is to support the current crop of excellent musicians beyond the flushes of youth so that we have a more sustainable, textured and diverse Australian music culture. One where Mitchell’s defiance of expectations represents the status quo of how older women should and can be.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/her-sound-her-story-shows-that-womens-voices-are-louder-than-ever-in-australian-music-96205">Her Sound, Her Story shows that women's voices are louder than ever in Australian music</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188075/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janelle K Johnstone has received funding from Creative Victoria and the Australia Council. </span></em></p>Joni Mitchell’s performance at Newport Folk Festival defied the ‘permissible’ ways older women ‘should’ behave.Janelle K Johnstone, PhD Candidate, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1849022022-06-22T18:12:15Z2022-06-22T18:12:15ZWas there anything real about Elvis Presley?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469881/original/file-20220620-24-8ektb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C40%2C2213%2C1450&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pinpointing Elvis Presley's true persona can depend on when and whom you ask.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/singer-elvis-presley-looking-tired-and-somewhat-dejected-news-photo/50420521?adppopup=true">Don Cravens/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Baz Luhrmann’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkfplKD46Hs">Elvis</a>,” there’s a scene based on actual conversations that took place between Elvis Presley and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004596/">Steve Binder</a>, the director of <a href="https://www.blogtalkradio.com/feisty-side-of-fifty/2022/04/28/steve-binder-elvis-68-comeback-the-story-behind-the-special">a 1968 NBC television special</a> that signaled the singer’s return to live performing. </p>
<p>Binder, an iconoclast unimpressed by Presley’s recent work, had pushed Elvis to reach back into his past to revitalize a career stalled by years of mediocre movies and soundtrack albums. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_I4h_Wm_aY">According to the director</a>, their exchanges left the performer engrossed in <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/08/elvis-presley-comeback-special-1968-50th-anniversary">deep soul-searching</a>.</p>
<p>In the trailer to Luhrmann’s biopic, a version of this back-and-forth plays out: Elvis, portrayed by Austin Butler, says to the camera, “I’ve got to get back to who I really am.” Two frames later, Dacre Montgomery, playing Binder, asks, “And who are you, Elvis?”</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p072703">scholar of southern history</a> who has written a book about Elvis, I still find myself wondering the same thing.</p>
<p>Presley never wrote a memoir. Nor did he keep a diary. Once, when informed of a potential biography in the works, <a href="https://www.proquest.com/magazines/making-presley-biography/docview/2509565622/se-2?accountid=196683">he expressed doubt</a> that there was even a story to tell. Over the years, he had submitted to numerous interviews and press conferences, but the quality of these exchanges was erratic, frequently characterized by superficial answers to even shallower questions. </p>
<p>His music could have been a window into his inner life, but since he wasn’t a songwriter, his material depended on the words of others. Even the rare revelatory gems – songs like “If I Can Dream,” “Separate Ways” or “My Way” – didn’t fully penetrate the veil shrouding the man. </p>
<p>Binder’s philosophical inquiry, then, was not merely philosophical. Countless fans and scholars have long wanted to know: Who was Elvis, really?</p>
<h2>A barometer for the nation</h2>
<p>Pinpointing Presley can depend on when and whom you ask. At the dawn of his career, admirers and critics alike branded him the “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Elvis_Presley/NqCQo9nqVHYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22elvis%22+%22bobbie+ann+mason%22&printsec=frontcover">Hillbilly Cat</a>.” Then he became the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” a <a href="https://www.historynet.com/rock-n-roll-n-race-a-fresh-look-at-the-keystone-of-the-elvis-presley-legend/">musical monarch</a> that promoters placed on a mythical throne.</p>
<p>But for many, he was always the “<a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9780203700648-22/king-white-trash-culture-elvis-presley-aesthetics-excess-annalee-newitz-matt-wray">King of White Trash Culture</a>” – a working-class white southern rags-to-riches story that <a href="https://www.elvis-collectors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=51286&sid=9bb9e7df80f341cfbdcc376d828e8d21">never quite convinced the national establishment</a> of his legitimacy.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man with blue eyes and sideburns speaks into microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469880/original/file-20220620-18-h1loru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469880/original/file-20220620-18-h1loru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469880/original/file-20220620-18-h1loru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469880/original/file-20220620-18-h1loru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469880/original/file-20220620-18-h1loru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469880/original/file-20220620-18-h1loru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469880/original/file-20220620-18-h1loru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Elvis Presley during a press conference at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1972.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/elvis-presley-close-up-taken-on-his-first-trip-to-nyc-at-news-photo/529306471?adppopup=true">Art Zelin/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>These overlapping identities capture the provocative fusion of class, race, gender, region and commerce that Elvis embodied.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most contentious aspect of his identity was the singer’s relationship to race. As a white artist who profited greatly from the popularization of a style associated with African Americans, Presley, throughout his career, worked under <a href="https://www.southerncultures.org/article/elvis-presley-politics-popular-memory/%20%22%22">the shadow and suspicion of racial appropriation</a>.</p>
<p>The connection was complicated and fluid, to be sure. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/05/25/elvis-presley-rock-and-roll-graceland/%20%22%22">Quincy Jones</a> met and worked with Presley in early 1956 as the musical director of CBS-TV’s “Stage Show.” In his 2002 <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Q/zs1ixtkcJU8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22quincy+jones%22+%22memoir%22+%22elvis%22&printsec=frontcover">autobiography</a>, Jones noted that Elvis should be listed with Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, and Michael Jackson as pop music’s greatest innovators. However, by 2021, in the midst of a changing racial climate, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/quincy-jones-michael-jackson-elvis-presley-1234955138/">Jones was dismissing Presley as an unabashed racist</a>.</p>
<p>Elvis seems to serve as a barometer measuring America’s various tensions, with the gauge less about Presley and more about the nation’s pulse at any given moment.</p>
<h2>You are what you consume</h2>
<p>But I think there’s another way to think about Elvis – one that might put into context many of the questions surrounding him.</p>
<p><a href="https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/fellows-book/a-troubled-feast-american-society-since-1945/">Historian William Leuchtenburg</a> once characterized Presley as a “consumer culture hero,” a manufactured commodity more image than substance.</p>
<p>The assessment was negative; it also was incomplete. It didn’t consider how a consumerist disposition may have shaped Elvis prior to his becoming an entertainer. </p>
<p>Presley reached adolescence as a post-World War II consumer economy was hitting its stride. A product of unprecedented affluence and pent-up demand caused by depression and wartime sacrifice, it provided almost <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/highlights-guide-consumer">unlimited opportunities for those seeking to entertain and define themselves</a>.</p>
<p>The teenager from Memphis, Tennessee, took advantage of these opportunities. Riffing off the idiom “you are what you eat,” Elvis became what <a href="https://kennedy.byu.edu/you-are-what-you-eat/">he consumed</a>.</p>
<p>During his formative years, he shopped at <a href="https://lanskybros.com/">Lansky Brothers</a>, a clothier on Beale Street that outfitted African American performers and provided him with secondhand pink-and-black ensembles. </p>
<p>He tuned into the radio station <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/wdia-radio-station-1947/">WDIA</a>, where he soaked up gospel and rhythm and blues tunes, along with the vernacular of black disk jockeys. He turned the dial to WHBQ’s “Red, Hot, and Blue,” a program that had <a href="https://memphismusichalloffame.com/inductee/deweyphillips/">Dewey Phillips</a> spinning an eclectic mix of R&B, pop and country. He visited <a href="https://www.poplartunes.com/">Poplar Tunes</a> and <a href="http://thedeltareview.com/album-reviews/the-young-willie-mitchell-and-ruben-cherrys-home-of-the-blues-records/">Home of the Blues</a> record stores, where he purchased the music dancing in his head. And at the <a href="http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/4183">Loew’s State</a> and <a href="http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/14070">Suzore #2</a> movie theaters, he took in the latest Marlon Brando or Tony Curtis movies, imagining in the dark how to emulate their demeanor, sideburns, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducktail">ducktails</a>.</p>
<p>In short, he gleaned from the nation’s burgeoning consumer culture the persona that the world would come to know. Elvis alluded to this in 1971 when he provided a rare glimpse into his psyche upon receiving a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9HWlYoR40A%20%22%22">Jaycees Award</a> as one of the nation’s Ten Outstanding Young Men:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When I was a child, ladies and gentlemen, I was a dreamer. I read comic books, and I was the hero of the comic book. I saw movies, and I was the hero in the movie. So every dream I ever dreamed has come true a hundred times … I’d like to say that I learned very early in life that ‘without a song, the day would never end. Without a song, a man ain’t got a friend. Without a song, the road would never bend. Without a song.’ So, I’ll keep singing a song.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In that acceptance speech, he quoted “<a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200215452/">Without a Song</a>,” a standard tune performed by artists including Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Roy Hamilton – seamlessly presenting the lyrics as if they were words directly applicable to his own life experiences.</p>
<h2>A loaded question</h2>
<p>Does this make the Jaycees recipient some sort of “odd, lonely child reaching for eternity,” as Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks, tells an adult Presley in the new “Elvis” film?</p>
<p>I don’t think so. Instead, I see him as someone who simply devoted his life to consumption, a not uncommon late 20th-century behavior. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/dec/19/highereducation.uk2">Scholars have noted that</a> whereas Americans once defined themselves through their genealogy, jobs, or faith, they increasingly started to identify themselves through their tastes – and, by proxy, what they consumed. As <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/me-the-self-and-i/201904/how-do-we-form-identities-in-consumer-society">Elvis crafted his identity</a> and pursued his craft, he did the same.</p>
<p>It also was evident in how he spent most of his downtime. A tireless worker on stage and in the recording studio, those settings nevertheless demanded relatively little of his time. For most of the 1960s, he made three movies annually, each taking no more than a month to complete. That was the extent of <a href="https://theconversation.com/elvis-presley-was-paid-a-kings-ransom-for-sub-par-movies-because-they-were-marketing-gold-81586">his professional obligations</a>.</p>
<p>From 1969 to his death in 1977, only 797 out of 2,936 days were devoted to performing <a href="https://www.concertarchives.org/bands/elvis-presley">concerts</a> or recording in the <a href="https://blackgold.org/GroupedWork/d29f6423-5784-ccf6-6ca1-cff37b9081e9-eng/Home">studio</a>. Most of his time was dedicated to vacationing, playing sports, riding motorcycles, zipping around on go-karts, horseback riding, watching TV and eating.</p>
<p>By the time he died, Elvis was a shell of his former self. Overweight, bored, and chemically dependent, he appeared <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/04/07/elvis-in-his-prime-was-america-now-america-is-elvis-in-decline/">spent</a>. A few weeks before his demise, a Soviet publication <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1977/07/29/archives/notes-on-people.html">described him</a> as “wrecked” – a “pitilessly” dumped product victimized by the American consumerist system. </p>
<p>Elvis Presley proved that consumerism, when channeled productively, could be creative and liberating. He likewise demonstrated that left unrestrained, it could be empty and destructive.</p>
<p>Luhrmann’s movie promises to reveal a great deal about one of the most captivating and enigmatic figures of our time. But I have a hunch it will also tell Americans a lot about themselves.</p>
<p>“Who are you, Elvis?” the trailer hauntingly probes.</p>
<p>Maybe the answer is easier than we think. He’s all of us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael T. Bertrand does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Presley never wrote a memoir. Nor did he keep a diary. His music could have been a window into his inner life, but he didn’t even write his songs.Michael T. Bertrand, Professor of History, Tennessee State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1817042022-05-12T04:37:17Z2022-05-12T04:37:17ZExile on Main St turns 50: how The Rolling Stones’ critically divisive album became rock folklore<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460907/original/file-20220503-26-ht6k4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C2%2C1391%2C1395&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In May of 1972 the Rolling Stones released their 10th British studio album and first double LP, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/exile-on-main-street-96177/">Exile on Main St.</a> Although initial critical response was lukewarm, it is now considered a contemporary music landmark, the best work from a band who rock critic Simon Frith once referred to as “the poets of lonely leisure.”</p>
<p>Exile on Main St. was both the culmination of a five-year productive frenzy and bleary-eyed comedown from the darkest period in the Stones’ history. </p>
<p>By 1969 the storm clouds of dread building around the group had become a full-blown typhoon. First, recently sacked member Brian Jones was found dead, drowned in his swimming pool.</p>
<p>Then, as the decade ended in a rush of bleak portents, they played host to the chaos of the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-01/how-the-rolling-stones-killed-the-hippie-dream-at-altamont/11747188">Altamont Speedway Free Concert</a>, a poorly organised, massive free concert, which ended with four dead including a murder captured live on film.</p>
<p>Yet amidst all this the Stones produced <a href="https://greilmarcus.net/2020/03/22/the-end-of-the-1960s-let-it-bleed-12-27-69/">Let It Bleed</a> (1969) and <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/sticky-fingers-mw0000195498">Sticky Fingers</a> (1971), two devastating albums that wrapped up the era like a parcel bomb addressed to the 1970s. </p>
<p>Songs like Gimme Shelter, the harrowing Sister Morphine, and Sway, which broods on Nietzche’s notion of circular time, exuded the kind of weary grandeur that would define Exile.</p>
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<h2>Rock folklore</h2>
<p>The story behind Exile on Main St. has become <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXcqcdYABFw">rock folklore</a>. Fleeing from England’s punitive tax laws, the Stones lobbed in a Côte d'Azur mansion that was a Gestapo HQ during World War II. </p>
<p>Mick Jagger was largely sidelined, spending much of the time in Paris with pregnant wife Bianca. The musicians were jammed into an ad-hoc basement studio, a cross between steam-bath and opium den, powered by electricity hijacked from the French railway system. The house was beset by hangers-on, including the obligatory posse of drug-dealers.</p>
<p>Yet with control ceded to the nonchalant, disaster-prone Keith Richards – the kind of person a crisis would want around in a crisis – they somehow harnessed the power of pandemonium.</p>
<p>The result was a singular amalgam of barbed soul, mutant gospel, tombstone blues and shambolic country, as thrilling in its blend of familiar sources as works by contemporaries <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/sep/02/roxy-music-40-years">Roxy Music</a> and David Bowie were in the use of alien ones. </p>
<p>Jagger shuffles his deck of personas from song to song like a demented croupier, the late, great drummer <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/arts/music/charlie-watts-dead.html">Charlie Watts</a> supplies his customary subtle adornments, and a cast of miscreants – most crucially, pianist Nicky Hopkins and producer Jimmy Miller – function as supplementary band members.</p>
<p>All 18 tracks contribute to the ragged perfection of the document as a whole. Tumbling Dice and Happy are textbook rock propelled by a strange union of virtuosity and indolence. And there is an undeniable beauty to the likes of Torn and Frayed and Let it Loose, albeit a beauty that is tentative, hard-earned.</p>
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<p>The package is completed by its distinctive sleeve art, juxtaposing a collage of circus performers photographed by Robert Frank circa 1950 with grainy stills from a Super-8 film of the band and a mural dedicated to Joan Crawford.</p>
<p>Exile confused audiences at first: Writer <a href="https://www.amazon.com/EXILE-MAIN-STREET-Rolling-Stones/dp/0028650638">John Perry</a> describes its 1972 reception as mixing “puzzlement with qualified praise”. The response of critic Lester Bangs was typical. After an initial negative review, Bangs came to regard it as the group’s strongest work. Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/exile-on-main-st-mw0000191639">confirms</a> that the record over time has become a touchstone, calling it a masterful album that takes “the bleakness that underpinned Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers to an extreme.”</p>
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<h2>Inspiration</h2>
<p>The roll call of artists inspired by Exile is extensive, from Tom Waits and the White Stripes to Benicio del Toro and Martin Scorsese. But two album-length homages stand out. </p>
<p>In 1986, underground punks Pussy Galore concocted a feral, abstract <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHAEkWcgBD8">facsimile</a> of the entire double-LP. In 1993, singer-songwriter Liz Phair used the original as a rough template for her acclaimed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW1nMJ4-2qM">Exile in Guyville</a>.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, journalist Mark Masters notes that by the 1980s, the social and cultural circumstances that produced Exile were waning as acts such as Minutemen, Mekons, The Go-Go’s and Fela Kuti gave listeners access to fresh modes of rebellion.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/brown-sugar-why-the-rolling-stones-are-right-to-withdraw-the-song-from-their-set-list-169936">Brown Sugar: why the Rolling Stones are right to withdraw the song from their set list</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Circa 1972, the Rolling Stones deserved the title “greatest rock and roll band in the world.” That it is still claimed 50 years on shows how classic rock continues to overbear all that followed.</p>
<h2>The grandfathers of rock</h2>
<p>When in 2020 Rolling Stone <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-albums-of-all-time-1062063/">magazine</a> made a half-hearted attempt to tweak the classic rock canon – elevating Marvin Gaye, Public Enemy and Lauryn Hill alongside or above Exile and the Beatles – the response was predictably unedifying. </p>
<p>One reader complained that the magazine was catering to “young people with no musical history and older people who don’t know anything.” Others raged that rap is not music and the list was proof of rampant political correctness.</p>
<p>Such archaic, ignorant language is typical of gatekeepers of the classic rock tradition. It is a language of exclusion, ensuring that exceptional new music by, say, <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/fiona-apple-fetch-the-bolt-cutters/">Fiona Apple</a> (which sounds something like rock) or <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/listening-booth/the-hypnotic-spell-of-groupers-shade">Liz Harris</a> (which sounds rather different) will always be rated below what came before.</p>
<p>The Rolling Stones have an inevitable, if ambiguous, relationship to all of this. In terms of race, writer Jack Hamilton <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2016/10/race-rock-and-the-rolling-stones-how-the-rock-and-roll-became-white.html">argues</a> that they were always “fiercely committed to a future for rock and roll music in which black music and musicians continued to matter.”</p>
<p>How they intersect with gender is perhaps more troubling, though also <a href="https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar_url?url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13619460801990104&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GvplYvGUEpyO6rQP_qe3mAs&scisig=AAGBfm2sqr4oKv5EoKYSmkitlR44etMXqA&oi=scholarr">conflicted</a>. While eminent female musicians such as Joan Jett, Carrie Brownstein and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRPpCqXYoos">Rennie Sparks</a> continue to champion the Stones, their role as leading purveyors of an inherently masculine, increasingly archaic musical form cannot be avoided.</p>
<p>Exile on Main St. is a significant album made by a bunch of haggard rebels whose heyday (and rebellion) is past but whose art lives on in complex ways. </p>
<p>Along with Sly and the Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On and Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night, it fits snugly into an aesthetic of washed out, narcotic-smeared masterpieces from the early seventies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181704/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dean Biron does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In May of 1972 the Rolling Stones released their 10th British studio album and first double LP, Exile on Main St. Reception was mixed, but the album is now considered a landmark.Dean Biron, PhD in Cultural Studies; teaches in School of Justice, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1735662022-02-28T13:28:13Z2022-02-28T13:28:13ZIs it possible to listen to too much music each day?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445798/original/file-20220210-47556-1cbnilb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C35%2C2959%2C1764&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Listening to music can be a joyful experience.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nakesha-pope-of-bowie-dances-as-she-listens-to-music-during-news-photo/589997690">Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Is it possible to listen to too much music each day? – Emma, age 16, Springville, Utah</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>I love listening to music.</p>
<p>I love music so much I decided to study it in college. I’m earning a <a href="https://www.songsmysisterlikes.com/">doctorate in music history</a>, for which I have researched everything from early 20th-century French music to 1960s funk.</p>
<p>I make and perform music as well. I have played drums in rock and pop bands and composed original music for jazz ensembles.</p>
<p>I always have my headphones on, too. I listen to music while taking a walk. <a href="https://www.okayplayer.com/music/j-dilla-lofi-hip-hop-influence.html">I listen to lo-fi hip-hop</a> while answering emails. I listen to Brazilian <a href="https://library.brown.edu/create/fivecenturiesofchange/chapters/chapter-6/bossa-nov/">bossa nova</a> music while I cook and clean. I listen to the jazz vocalist <a href="https://bostonreview.net/articles/the-sounds-of-struggle/">Abbey Lincoln</a> while driving around town or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/6TLQjuOF9aBRrEVLWBXhvW?si=068ea66c436f4fa3">upbeat electronic</a> music while taking long road trips.</p>
<p>I miss out on a lot around me by constantly listening to music, however. I might not hear the sound of birds outside my window or my cat’s mewling when she wants to be fed or to play. I might not hear the rustling of the wind or the chatter of my family enjoying one another’s company right outside my closed door.</p>
<p>Apart from causing you to miss out on all the sounds that surround you, generally speaking, <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/addicted-to-music#is-it-possible">listening to music does not harm your body</a>. It does not damage your liver, poison your lungs or fry your brain. It is not possible to listen to too much music. </p>
<h2>Watch the volume</h2>
<p>There are, however, exceptions. </p>
<p>For instance, you can damage your ears if you listen to music too loud for long periods. The World Health Organization estimates that around <a href="https://www.who.int/pbd/deafness/activities/MLS_Brochure_English_lowres_for_web.pdf">50% of teenagers and young adults</a> listen to music on personal audio devices at unsafe levels.</p>
<p>Fortunately, some smartphones have built-in features that measure <a href="https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/check-your-headphone-levels-iph0596a9152/ios">how much sound is coming from your headphones</a>. Such features measure the output of sound in a unit of measurement called decibels. </p>
<p><a href="https://soundear.com/decibel-scale/">Silence will produce no decibels at all</a>. A jet plane engine produces 120. Everyday conversations are around 60 decibels, while a balloon popping can be as powerful as 150.</p>
<p>The WHO has concluded that people can withstand <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/hearing_loss/public_health_scientific_info.html">85 decibels consecutively for eight hours</a> without damaging their hearing. To give an example, I average about five hours of headphone listening a day at 70 decibels.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445706/original/file-20220210-27-151xxlt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screenshot of headphone audio levels" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445706/original/file-20220210-27-151xxlt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445706/original/file-20220210-27-151xxlt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445706/original/file-20220210-27-151xxlt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445706/original/file-20220210-27-151xxlt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445706/original/file-20220210-27-151xxlt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445706/original/file-20220210-27-151xxlt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445706/original/file-20220210-27-151xxlt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The author makes sure his headphone audio levels are safe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rami Toubia Stucky</span></span>
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<h2>Take precautions</h2>
<p>Anyone who plays music regularly or attends concerts and nightclubs needs to take extra caution as well. Several rock stars from the 1970s and 1980s have spoken out for years about their experience with hearing loss and <a href="https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2018/musicians-hearing-loss.html">tinnitus, a condition that causes ringing in the ears</a>.</p>
<p>Their condition resulted from rehearsing and performing for long periods of time at loud volumes. <a href="https://decibelpro.app/blog/how-loud-is-a-rock-concert/">The average concert often exceeds 100 decibels</a>, and the WHO notes that such sound can begin to damage one’s ears after only 15 minutes. Standing closer to the amplifiers and musicians will make the decibel level increase. </p>
<p>Most musicians rehearse and perform for more than 15 minutes. And most concerts last at least an hour, if not much longer. The solution, then, is to take precautions.</p>
<p>Just the way airport workers who signal to pilots <a href="https://pksafety.com/blog/airport-worker-safety-equipment">wear specialized earmuffs</a> while they are on the tarmac to protect their hearing from damage caused by noisy jet planes, musicians and concertgoers can wear earplugs.</p>
<p>I carry mine – which can cut out up to 21 decibels of noise – everywhere, attached to my keychain. I put my earplugs in while rehearsing or attending shows, or whenever I need to relax in a noisy environment. Other people rarely notice.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5363618/">Sound of Metal</a>,” a movie released in 2019, portrays a metal drummer’s experience with hearing loss. It is a sobering reminder of the importance of protecting your hearing.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t mean experiencing a lot of live or recorded music is bad for you. It is hard to listen to too much music, provided the volumes are reasonable. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173566/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rami Toubia Stucky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As long as you don’t tune out the world and protect your hearing, it’s hard to overdo it.Rami Toubia Stucky, Doctoral Candidate in Critical & Comparative Studies, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1755522022-01-24T17:03:37Z2022-01-24T17:03:37ZMeat Loaf – a complicated musical giant<p>Ridiculed by critics and custodians of cool, Meat Loaf’s bombastic performances were loved by millions, providing the soundtrack to the lives of various generations. </p>
<p>The man born Marvin Lee Aday was something of an unreliable narrator. He offered contradictory accounts in interviews of such basic details as his date of birth, real name, or why and how he came to be known as Meat Loaf. According to <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/to-hell-and-back/david-dalton/meat-loaf/9780753504437">his autobiography</a>, an inheritance from his mother allowed him, as a disturbed and distressed teenager, to leave the house of a violent alcoholic father to live, first in Dallas, and subsequently California.</p>
<p>He was cast in the original Los Angeles productions of both Hair and The Rocky Horror Show, also appearing in the 1975 film adaptation of the latter. On auditioning for budding playwright/songwriter <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/meat-loaf-remembers-jim-steinman-1160041/">Jim Steinman’s</a> More Than You Deserve musical – the title track of which would later pop up on the Dead Ringer album – Steinman identified his ideal leading man for the Bat out of Hell project.</p>
<p>Record executives were less convinced. They thought that the pairing of a large sweaty singer with unorthodox musical arrangements, pitched somewhere between Phil Spector and Wagner, was a complete anomaly in the age of punk and disco. The odd pair were eventually signed by independent label Cleveland after getting Todd Rundgren onboard as a producer.</p>
<p>The Texan-born singer and actor outlived his chief collaborator by less than a year. Their signing with Cleveland would be the start to a career full of hits and as many highs as there were lows.</p>
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<h2>Difficult success</h2>
<p>Bat Out of Hell – one of the top five selling records of all-time – was released in 1977. Almost all the songs originated from a university project of Steinman’s based on Peter Pan. Unable to clear the rights with JM Barrie’s estate, Steinman recycled the material into Bat Out of Hell instead. Jukebox musicals typically rely on a pre-existing songbook but Bat out of Hell is best characterised as a cast album that had its first outing in the charts before the stage. </p>
<p>Given that three of the album’s seven songs exceed eight minutes, remarkably not a moment is wasted. Epics such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C11MzbEcHlw&ab_channel=MeatLoafVEVO">Paradise by the Dashboard Light</a> and Bat out of Hell (designed to top the 1960s hit <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTjQgkHzbTk&ab_channel=John1948Ten">Tell Laura I Love Her</a> as the ultimate motorcycle crash song) are more than guilty pleasures. They encapsulate the sensations if not perhaps the realities of being a hormonal teenager in thrall to sex, death and rock‘n’roll.</p>
<p>The album sold over 10 million copies in the US, and spent over ten years on the UK charts. Meat Loaf was not, however, mentally or physically prepared for the pressures of success or large-scale touring. After losing his voice on the Bat Out of Hell tour in 1978, he had multiple nervous breakdowns and attempted suicide. Steinman lost patience, and a planned sequel to Bat was put on the backburner.</p>
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<p>There were occasional hits in the 1980s without Steinman (for instance <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCHWD9HeRKY&ab_channel=PeterSchulz">Modern Girl</a> and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/5TvUFX8blX7LAw4nMtYji4?highlight=spotify:track:0UeoAe8yipWeSNr3zfCPfx">Midnight at the Lost and Found</a>) but Meat Loaf’s star was on the wane. Despite recording one of the most successful albums of rock’s golden age, by 1983 the singer was facing the prospect of bankruptcy. </p>
<p>Yet by playing smaller venues and adopting more sophisticated vocal techniques, a constant touring schedule through the latter part of the 1980s transformed Meat Loaf into one of world’s most accomplished live performers. A nearly three-hour 1988 concert recording <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0gkNPhmn-0">from Edinburgh</a> shows why this period is considered his live peak by hardcore fans.</p>
<p>It also ensured he was better prepared to reap the rewards when he and Steinman staged one of rock’s most unlikely comebacks with Bat out of Hell II in 1993, with lead-single I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t do That) topping the charts in 28 countries. The 1990s marked Meat Loaf’s imperial phase, selling out arenas and enjoying celebrity, appearing in films such as Fight Club (1997) and Spice World (1999).</p>
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<p>Yet unlike Peter Pan, Meat Loaf wasn’t forever young, often appearing lost in the new millennium. After collapsing on stage in Newcastle in 2007, he said he wouldn’t perform in concert again. In reality, he continued touring for another decade, the musical equivalent of a veteran boxer not knowing when to hang up the gloves.</p>
<p>Steinman also launched a legal action when the singer sought to go it alone with <a href="https://ultimateclassicrock.com/meat-loaf-bat-out-of-hell-iii/">Bat Out of Hell III</a> (2006). An out of court settlement effectively gave the songwriter free rein to develop a stage version of Bat out of Hell. Despite their differences, Meat Loaf took on promotional duties as Steinman’s health prevented him from undertaking for the 2017 premiere of <a href="https://www.batoutofhellmusical.com/">Bat Out of Hell the Musical</a>.</p>
<p>Now that so many of rock’s founding fathers have died, my current research into rock musicals such as this and David Bowie’s Lazarus sees them as repositioning one of the major forms of cultural expression from the second half of the last century. </p>
<p>Blessed with one of rock’s most distinctive voices (admirers include Axl Rose and Kurt Cobain), quality control was never Meat’s forte. At his best, however, the Loaf was a heavyweight contender, able to hold his own alongside the world’s finest performers irrespective of genre.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175552/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duncan Wheeler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hits like Bat of Hell and I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t do That) characterise a career of risk-taking and genre-bending that also saw some spectacular lows.Duncan Wheeler, Professor in Spanish Studies, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1671082021-09-16T20:07:26Z2021-09-16T20:07:26ZFriday essay: Nevermind 30 years on – how Nirvana’s second album tilted the world on its axis<p>For many of us back in 1991, it felt as if the planet tilted slightly further on its axis when Smells Like Teen Spirit — the lead single from Nirvana’s Nevermind album — began to dominate the airwaves. The song’s compelling fusion of blast furnace punk, whimsical melody and inscrutable lyrics was unlike anything else commercial radio had embraced up to that point.</p>
<p>Friday September 24 marks the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2021/bbc-music-mark-30-years-nirvana-nevermind">30th anniversary</a> of the release of Nevermind. Materialising apparently out of nowhere, within four months the album had shoved its way to the top of the US charts, dislodging Michael Jackson’s Dangerous in January of 1992. It did almost as well in Australia, reaching number two.</p>
<p>Nevermind has gone on to become a recording phenomenon, with over <a href="https://www.mtv.com/news/1671298/nevermind-nirvana-album/">30 million</a> copies sold. Nobody saw this coming, not least the band’s record company. John Rosenfeld, who worked for Nirvana’s label, Geffen, at the time of its release <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4229236/">has said</a> they originally projected sales of 50,000.</p>
<p>Nirvana formed in 1987 in the logging and fishing town of Aberdeen, Washington. Featuring guitarist, vocalist and principal songwriter Kurt Cobain, bass player Krist Novoselic, and new drummer Dave Grohl, Nevermind was Nirvana’s second album — the first for a major label.</p>
<p>Instantly identifiable by its cover image of an infant swimming toward a fish hook baited with a dollar note, it included three more frenetic-cum-fragile singles — Come As You Are, Lithium and In Bloom — as well as two haunted acoustic tracks — <a href="https://www.openculture.com/2019/07/how-kurt-cobain-confronted-violence-against-women-in-his-darkest-song.html">Polly</a>, a repudiation of sexual violence, and the cello-bathed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVSjcS-N224">Something in the Way</a>, which alluded to homelessness.</p>
<p>A range of factors converged to draft Nirvana into the mainstream with Nevermind. Certainly, the quality of the songs helped.</p>
<p>So did Teen Spirit’s incendiary video, which conveyed generational antipathy through robotic cheerleaders, a swarm of convulsive teens and a wizened school janitor (Cobain having held down just such a job for a short time). Producer Butch Vig and mixer Andy Wallace were also vital, applying precisely the right amount of gleam to the band’s coarse-grained, jet engine roar.</p>
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<p>Significant, too, were the many post-punk musicians who in the 1980s shaped what Nirvana biographer Michael Azerrad subsequently termed a “<a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Come_As_You_Are/qrSDPW6G5ZIC">shadow music industry</a>”. This underground faction of American bands — Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Dinosaur Jr, Mudhoney, Sonic Youth and others — forged a crucial alternative, do-it-yourself aesthetic pathway through the ultra-conservative Reagan-Bush era.</p>
<p>Sometimes important art takes time to inject itself into the bloodstream of the culture. While the Velvet Underground are now acknowledged as a pivotal force in early rock music, at the time their records had limited critical cache and <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-velvet-underground-mn0000840402/biography">sold poorly</a>. With Nevermind, however, audiences caught on quickly, leaving cultural commentators scrabbling to hook on to a hurtling zeitgeist.</p>
<h2>Three stars from Rolling Stone</h2>
<p>Bass guitarist Novoselic has since spoken derisively of the many journalists who initially mocked Nevermind before later claiming “<a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Mojo_Collection/W5iXGwAACAAJ?hl=en">they loved it from the start</a>”.</p>
<p>In hindsight, this seems slightly exaggerated. Some publications did completely overlook the record at first. A few came in with fists flailing: the Boston Globe referred to it as “<a href="https://metro.co.uk/2016/09/24/20-things-you-may-not-know-about-nirvanas-nevermind-6143804/">moronic ramblings</a>”.</p>
<p>Others, though, were prescient in their praise. Melody Maker’s <a href="http://www.collapseboard.com/nirvanas-nevermind-20-years-ago/">Everett True</a> prophesied Nevermind would “blow every other contender away”. </p>
<p>Renowned author Greil Marcus expressed a <a href="https://www.artforum.com/print/199203/greil-marcus-real-life-rock-33602">surprising preference</a> for Nirvana’s murky debut album Bleach, while Chad Channing, the drummer replaced by Grohl to make Nevermind, complained the record’s major label sheen wasn’t true “grunge”.</p>
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<img alt="Nevermind album" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420396/original/file-20210910-15-1bazwh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420396/original/file-20210910-15-1bazwh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420396/original/file-20210910-15-1bazwh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420396/original/file-20210910-15-1bazwh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420396/original/file-20210910-15-1bazwh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420396/original/file-20210910-15-1bazwh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420396/original/file-20210910-15-1bazwh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Now considered a classic, Nevermind divided opinions on its release.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>But the most revealing response came from Rolling Stone magazine, whose initial reviewer Ira Robbins was one of the smarter music writers of the time. He concluded that Nevermind found Nirvana “at the crossroads — scrappy garageland warriors setting their sights on a land of giants”. The magazine’s editors hedged even more bets by adding a <a href="https://observer.com/2016/09/howling-in-the-abyss-the-improbable-success-of-nirvanas-nevermind/">three-star rating</a>, the rock press equivalent of consigning a record to eternal mediocrity.</p>
<p>Rolling Stone eventually yielded to popular sentiment. In 1992 there was a revised four-star review. Then, in 2004, Nevermind’s standing was upgraded even further: a five-star ranking in that year’s <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_New_Rolling_Stone_Album_Guide.html?id=t9eocwUfoSoC">Rolling Stone Album Guide</a>. This followed on from 17th place in the magazine’s 2003 <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-156826/">500 Greatest Albums of All Time</a> list, putting it up there with Highway 61 Revisited, Are You Experienced? and Marquee Moon.</p>
<p>Robbins, too, seemed determined to set the record straight as soon as the opportunity arose. For the 1996 edition of his <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Trouser_Press_Guide_to_90s_Rock/Onjb9IowkbsC">Trouser Press Guide</a>, the review of Nevermind — one of the longest in the entire volume — deemed it “the Rosetta Stone of 90s punk-rock”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kurt-cobain-and-the-search-for-a-sincere-rock-star-25335">Kurt Cobain and the search for a sincere rock star</a>
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<p>By the 1990s, music criticism was changing. A glut of available recordings — nowadays an overwhelming deluge — coincided with further fragmentation of the rock genre both in style and format. At the same time, publications like Rolling Stone were increasingly seen as tied up with <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/853694?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">traditionalist, patriarchal</a> notions of popular music history.</p>
<p>Kurt Cobain voiced the alienation of a marginalised youth who couldn’t care less about the old rules. His group’s music was nowhere near as unorthodox as, say, that of close friend Dylan Carlson’s influential drone-metal project <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MamWooW3dLA">Earth</a>. But Nevermind was a subversive assault upon the rock elite from within: a big guitar sound without the big-dick attitude.</p>
<h2>Into the stratosphere</h2>
<p>We’ll never know exactly what sent Nirvana into the stratosphere while artists of comparable brilliance didn’t transcend their relatively minor standing. After all, in the 1980s quite a few of us in Australia were convinced each new <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/jun/08/the-go-betweens-10-of-the-best">Go-Betweens</a> record would be the one to spark global domination. </p>
<p>Similar could have been said for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrFOb_f7ubw">Public Enemy</a> circa 1991, or for <a href="https://greilmarcus.net/2015/08/24/sleater-kinney-americas-best-rock-band-070901/comment-page-1/">Sleater-Kinney</a> (like Nirvana, hailing from the Pacific Northwest) a few years after. </p>
<p>No doubt Cobain himself would have conceded being a white, all-male, US-based guitar-bass-drums outfit (albeit one from the seamier side of the tracks) gave them a leg-up on these and many other contenders.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/redefining-the-rock-god-the-new-breed-of-electric-guitar-heroes-80192">Redefining the rock god – the new breed of electric guitar heroes</a>
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<p>Cobain’s amalgam of influences was expansive, from the Raincoats, Iggy Pop, Ian MacKaye and REM to <a href="https://radicalreads.com/kurt-cobain-favorite-books/">Samuel Beckett and William S. Burroughs</a>. He wasn’t above raiding the classic rock fortress for ideas, but also excavated deep below in search of subterranean misfits to emulate. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, Boston’s Pixies were the main forebears of Nirvana’s trademark quiet-loud-quiet sound. As it happens, I recall The Happening, an extraordinary Pixies song from 1990, giving me the same kind of this-could-be-the-one jolt that Teen Spirit did a year later. Yet one is regarded as a historical turning point, the other an obscurity.</p>
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<p>Wherever the alternative banquet began, big business and media were always going to be quick to gatecrash. As Nevermind broke, the corporate vultures weren’t just circling: they’d already flown in to commence tearing the last morsels from the skeleton of post-Reagan America.</p>
<p>As journalist and political analyst Thomas Frank noted in his important 1995 essay <a href="https://thebaffler.com/salvos/alternative-to-what">Alternative to What?</a>, by the time of Cobain’s 1994 death by suicide, the commodification of rebellion was complete. For the ultimate proof, Frank pointed to a cynical MTV advertisement found in the business sections of certain newspapers and magazines. It featured an image of a grunge-styled youth along with the caption: “Buy this 24-year-old and get all his friends absolutely free”.</p>
<p>Corporate scavengers aside, Nevermind continues to stir fans and critics. Its history continues to be told, and many of the sharpest (and best written) recent takes are by Australian writers. </p>
<p><a href="https://overland.org.au/2021/04/kurt-cobain-martyr-of-authenticity/">Josh Bergamin’s</a> recent note-perfect analysis sets Nevermind’s success within contrasting milieus of generational disillusionment and executive greed, arguing Cobain and many of his fans engaged in radical acts of political resistance.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.killyourdarlings.com.au/article/nevermind-how-i-found-freedom-in-nirvana/">Cristian Strömblad</a> uses the context of growing up in suburban Brisbane to tell of how Nirvana helped open up new aesthetic worlds.</p>
<p><a href="https://overland.org.au/2016/09/one-baby-to-another-twenty-five-years-of-nevermind/">Tiarney Miekus</a> explores perennial death-of-rock narratives in light of “the big dumb accident” that was Nevermind.</p>
<p>Conversely, wardens of the conventional rock canon still emerge to disdain the achievements of alt-culture’s “anaemic royalty”. In one resentful, ridiculous critique of the album on the <a href="https://www.classicrockreview.com/2011/08/1991-nirvana-nevermind/">Classic Rock Review</a> website, J.D. Cook concluded Nirvana was “only popular because of Cobain’s suicide”, implausibly overlooking the two-and-a-half years of international acclaim preceding that grim epilogue.</p>
<h2>A beginning</h2>
<p>To me, Nevermind wasn’t a peak. It was a beginning. Nirvana was a stunning band and Cobain by all accounts a dedicated, intelligent, yet supremely troubled individual whose life always teetered on the chasm’s edge. Until his death partly stalled the show – the imperatives of consumerism ensuring the band’s ghost would continue to post a profit regardless – the music kept getting better.</p>
<p>Cobain’s craft evolved as success lured his social conscience further into the open. This is palpable on the In Utero album (1993), in songs such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-deMfnLtMI">Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TsqlT0rfJI">Rape Me</a> (the latter later distorted by those who hid behind a controversial title to evade its prescient, victim’s-eye view of sexual abuse).</p>
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<p>Once Nevermind raised Nirvana’s media profile, Cobain continued putting forward positions on different political issues (for instance, after they appeared in drag for the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbgKEjNBHqM">video to In Bloom</a>, he told an interviewer that “at least it brings the whole subject of homosexuality into debate”).</p>
<p>The band’s social justice stance was made abundantly clear in the liner notes for the 1992 compilation Incesticide, which warned sexists, racists and homophobes would not be welcome to sweat in their particular mosh pit. They also contributed a “leftover” of exceptional quality, a song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC2A4IQNHss">titled Sappy</a>, to the 1993 AIDS fundraiser album <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/no-alternative-mw0003427986">No Alternative</a>.</p>
<p>The group even did its best to subvert MTV’s rebellion-into-cash mentality at their November 1993 Unplugged in New York appearance. The show featured gut-wrenching versions of the best tracks from In Utero (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dcIPGzxsl8">Pennyroyal Tea</a> and All Apologies) and a touching three-song gambol with underground mentors Meat Puppets. Topping it off were surely two of the most remarkable cover versions ever performed: David Bowie’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fregObNcHC8">The Man Who Sold the World</a> and Lead Belly’s <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2019/04/in-the-pines-song-kurt-cobain.html">Where Did You Sleep Last Night</a>.</p>
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<p>Today, Nirvana’s iconic stature is only confirmed by it being caught up in two of America’s pet modern-day farces: the conspiracy theory (some still claim Cobain’s death <a href="https://www.nbcchicago.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/kurt-cobain-file-released-by-fbi-27-years-after-his-death/2506248/">was murder</a>) and a multi-million dollar lawsuit (the child depicted on Nevermind’s cover is <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-58327844">currently suing</a> the band and others for damages).</p>
<p>As for all that voice-of-a-generation stuff … well, Nirvana’s appeal was hardly universal: they meant something to plenty of people in places like New York and Sydney, probably a lot fewer in Addis Ababa or Tehran.</p>
<p>Nor is the ultimate cultural significance of Nevermind easily pinned down. In that context, it is worth remembering that two other major US events of 1991 — the videotaped beating of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/04/26/524744989/when-la-erupted-in-anger-a-look-back-at-the-rodney-king-riots">Rodney King</a> in Los Angeles and the Luby’s Cafeteria <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/twenty-three-diners-massacred-at-texas-restaurant">mass shooting</a> in Texas — didn’t exactly portend epochal change in racial equality or gun control.</p>
<p>Nevermind didn’t change the world. But for a while it helped some of us believe the world could change, and that is enough.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167108/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dean Biron does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nevermind was a cultural phenomenon, though many critics missed its significance at the time.Dean Biron, PhD in Cultural Studies; teaches in School of Justice, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1476522020-10-07T05:58:13Z2020-10-07T05:58:13ZWith his signature guitar style, Eddie Van Halen changed rock music<p>The legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-1ttle-with-cancer/127382880-07/eddie-van-halen-dies-aged-65-after-ba">has died</a> aged 65. One of the most influential guitarists of the modern age, Van Halen was known for his mastery of the <a href="https://seeitlive.co/van-halen-guitar-tapping/">two-handed tapping</a> technique and for bringing the virtuosic rock guitar solo back into the popular music mainstream in the late 70s and 1980s. </p>
<p>One of the great innovators, Van Halen formed a bridge between 1970s rock styles and heavy metal sounds of the 1980s. He delivered his best work with a nonchalance that belied the training and dedication driving him and his band to succeed.</p>
<p>Born in the Netherlands in 1955, Van Halen came from a musical family. His father played saxophone and clarinet professionally and ensured Van Halen and his older brother, Alex, started piano lessons from a young age. </p>
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<p>The boys’ training in classical music and theory would influence Van Halen’s guitar playing, particularly the famous two-handed, finger tapping technique, where harmonic ideas derived from the keyboard found new expression on the electric guitar.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/redefining-the-rock-god-the-new-breed-of-electric-guitar-heroes-80192">Redefining the rock god – the new breed of electric guitar heroes</a>
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<h2>Young tour de force</h2>
<p>The family immigrated to the US in 1962 and the young Van Halen brothers later discovered rock music, with Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton as early heroes. </p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/eddie-van-halen-talks-revolutionary-gear-mods-and-the-death-of-rock-in-his-first-ever-interview-from-1978">first Guitar Player magazine interview</a> in 1978, Van Halen mentioned Clapton as a formative influence, having learnt his solos note for note.</p>
<p>In 1972, while still in high school, the brothers formed the band Mammoth, hiring a public address system from David Lee Roth. Van Halen originally sang as well as playing guitar, but he tired of combining duties so Roth (and his PA) joined the band. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">This recording, live on the Sunset Strip circa 1976, captures the energy of the band.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Mammoth caught the attention of Kiss’s Gene Simmons, who financed an early demo tape, and then producer Ted Templeman who signed the group to a record deal. Their first album, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen_(album)">Van Halen</a> (1978), was recorded quickly, drawing on their live sound and set list. </p>
<p>It was the album’s second track, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI7XiJgt0vY">Eruption</a>, that captured the attention of guitarists.</p>
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<p>This tour de force shows Van Halen had already developed his signature style by his early 20s. Opening power chords signal a call to attention while licks based on blues and rock phrases are transformed through sheer speed and intensity. The tone has a power, presence and clarity rarely heard in rock guitar recordings of the time. </p>
<p>The climax of the piece is the famous two-handed tapping section. With a concluding dive bomb – a pitch descent courtesy of subtle manipulation of the <a href="https://www.sustainpunch.com/whammy-bars/">whammy bar</a>, Van Halen ushered in a new era in electric guitar playing. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Van Halen demonstrating his two-handed tapping in 2015.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>True innovation</h2>
<p>The sounds and techniques used in Eruption seemed to be only possible on the electric guitar, exploiting the instrument’s responsiveness and tactile immediacy.</p>
<p>But Van Halen continued to seek new means of musical expression and on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen_II">Van Halen II</a> (1979), he gave us an example of what was possible when his virtuosic approach was adapted to the acoustic guitar. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Spanish Fly is a great example of his drive to innovate and adapt as a musician.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Van Halen was always modifying his guitars. Early experiments led to him creating his “Frankenstein guitar” in 1974, fusing the neck and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humbucker">humbucker pickup</a> from a Gibson guitar onto a Fender Stratocaster body. He added the stripes that became his signature.</p>
<p>He remained involved in designing new instruments throughout his career, collaborating with makers such as <a href="https://www.guitar-list.com/music-man/electric-guitars/ernie-ballmusic-man-edward-van-halen">Music Man</a>, <a href="https://www.themusiczoo.com/blogs/news/guitar-showcase-ten-eddie-van-halen-signed-charvel-evh-art-series-touring-guitars">Charvel</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT0exTVXIHI">Fender</a>.</p>
<h2>‘The brown sound’</h2>
<p>Van Halen’s sound was loud and distorted but also clear and focused. Often referred to as <a href="https://www.roland.co.uk/blog/guitarists-brown-sound/">the “brown” sound</a> for its feeling of organic warmth, this sound has gone on to inspire generations of guitarists. </p>
<p>The band’s biggest commercial success was the album <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_(Van_Halen_album)">1984</a>, where Van Halen turned to keyboards in both writing and recording.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A good example of the ‘brown sound’ can be heard here on Unchained, live at Oakland Coliseum Stadium in 1981.</span></figcaption>
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<p>On the single Jump, keyboard chords ground the song but an improvised, high energy electric guitar solo reminds the listener of Van Halen’s virtuosity as he leads the band into a Bach-inspired, keyboard fantasy.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Jump showed Van Halen’s skills on both keyboard and guitar.</span></figcaption>
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<p>From 1978 to 1998, the band released 11 studio albums, with their 12th and final album, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Different_Kind_of_Truth">A Different Kind of Truth</a> (2012), appearing 13 years later. But it is the searing lead break on Michael Jackson’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_It">Beat It</a> (1983) that bought Van Halen to global attention. </p>
<p>Jammed into 32 seconds, Van Halen’s solo is a masterpiece of construction, featuring pitch manipulation with the whammy bar, squealing harmonics, rapid-fire two-handed tapping, scurrying scalar licks (or quick scales) and a final ascending <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremolo">tremolo line</a> that soars to the upper reaches of the fretboard and makes you wonder what just happened.</p>
<p>It is one of the most famous rock guitar solos around.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Van Halen’s work on Beat It.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Van Halen was diagnosed with <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/van-halen-1225779">tongue cancer</a> in 2000, and declared cancer free in 2002. In 2019, it was first reported he had been battling <a href="https://consequenceofsound.net/2019/11/eddie-van-halen-hospitalized-report/">throat cancer</a> for five years.</p>
<p>In 2015, Rolling Stone named Van Halen as number eight on a list of the world’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-guitarists-153675/eddie-van-halen-3-159410/">greatest guitarists</a> of all time. But as his career shows, his talent wasn’t simply in his musical virtuosity, but in his innovation: creating a brand new sound for rock music, but also in the design of the guitar itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147652/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ken Murray does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Eddie Van Halen has died aged 65. He will be remembered for his virtuoso playing, particularly his groundbreaking, two-handed, finger-tapping technique.Ken Murray, Associate Professor in Guitar, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1470972020-10-02T03:40:56Z2020-10-02T03:40:56ZOn the 50th anniversary of her death, Janis Joplin still ignites<p>Janis Joplin died 50 years ago this Sunday, aged just 27, but her songs reach beyond time. Her enduring influence and popularity can be attributed to her raw, unadulterated, fearless performances.</p>
<p>We respond to vocalists who can express emotions such as pain, angst and release. Joplin gave us all those in spades, delivered with a powerful, uninhibited raspy voice.</p>
<p>Influenced by artists like Bessie Smith, Otis Redding, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin, she possessed a command of blues styling, phraseology and melody. She was inducted into the <a href="https://library.rockhall.com/janis_joplin">Rock and Roll Hall of Fame</a> in 1995 and voted number 28 in Rolling Stone’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-singers-of-all-time-147019/janis-joplin-12-223493/">greatest singers of all time</a> in 2008.</p>
<p>But when we hear a vocalist such as Joplin, who stirs something deeply in us, what is actually happening? </p>
<h2>In command of her voice</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199660773.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199660773">origins of music</a> are rooted in the emotional expression of the human voice. Expressive musical performances have been shown to <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0013812">activate</a> the emotional centres of our brains.</p>
<p>Joplin had a powerful and commanding voice. In her live performances she was focused and uninhibited, showcasing a broad palette of distinctive vocal timbres coupled with a fast vibrato. With her three-octave range, she used raspy growls, wails and screams to express raw emotion.</p>
<p>Rock singing often uses a rich chest voice, requiring great physicality and energy. Blues and rock singers might also incorporate a constricted quality in their voices: tightening the larynx and manipulating the air pressure they sing with. </p>
<p>Joplin’s voice has been <a href="https://cvtresearch.com/effects/distortion/">described</a> as using a distortion and edge, a mixture of noise and tone.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-art-of-the-pinch-popular-music-and-appropriation-86919">Friday essay: the art of the pinch – popular music and appropriation</a>
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<p>This is perhaps best demonstrated in her 1968 song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uG2gYE5KOs">Piece of my Heart</a>. This constricted sound directly conveys intensity — it is very exciting but also creates tension. This constriction comes to a climax on the line “you know you got it”: she improvises on the melody, changing the phrasing to include blues licks and then screams before the last chorus. </p>
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<p>This use of constriction in singing carries with it a variety of challenges and significant risks, impacting the singers’ control. But audiences are thrilled by risk-taking of high-wire artists. Here, Joplin’s technique is in service to the communication of emotion, simultaneously thrilling and devastating.</p>
<h2>The deepest of emotions</h2>
<p>In performance, Joplin was at once vulnerable and fearless, yearning to break free, pushing boundaries and willing to reveal her authentic self. She was unapologetic.</p>
<p>While Joplin wasn’t singing the protest songs of her contemporaries like <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-political-bob-dylan">Bob Dylan</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/26/phil-ochs-the-doomed-folk-singer-who-woke-up-from-the-american-dream">Phil Ochs</a>, a sense of protest comes through in her expression, her choice of repertoire and the way she refused to sing in a “pretty” voice accepted of women at the time.</p>
<p>As her biographer Alice Echols <a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/06/07/127483124/janis-joplin-the-queen-of-rock">said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Janis in some sense was the great unrecognized protest singer of the 1960s. No, Janis was not singing explicit protest songs. But in her voice, what people heard was somebody who was refusing the status quo.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Joplin’s last recorded work, posthumously released as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_(Janis_Joplin_album)">Pearl</a>, demonstrates the ongoing evolution in her vocal use. Her voice has undergone a refinement, still featuring gutsy and raw moments, here it is more controlled, without any loss of expression.</p>
<p>The opening of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfGSd-tikH4">Cry Baby</a> features Joplin singing two notes at once in a constricted tone, then loudly belting out the chorus. She then reduces the volume and softly explains her betrayal in the verses. </p>
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<p>There are clear influences in her use of call and response from gospel music, and in particular the original recording and vocal stylings of <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/garnet-mimms">Garnet Mimms</a>.</p>
<p>This refinement is also visible in one of her last filmed performances. On <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063957/">This is Tom Jones</a> in 1969, she transformed the touching jazz standard Little Girl Blue into a rhythm and blues epic. </p>
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<p>It is edifying to compare her performance with performances of the same song by some of her influences, Nina Simone and Nancy Wilson. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT_Z-D31vbU">Simone’s delivery</a> on piano and voice are expressively delicate and highlight a refined musicianship with subtle embellishments of the melody. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUNGuG700_Q">Wilson’s version</a> features rhythmic precision coupled with lush orchestration.</p>
<p>In contrast, Joplin’s approach features a change of rhythm and tempo throughout the song, regularly extending phrases and singing long held notes highly ornamented with gravelly yearning calls and vocal twists, turns and tone colours. </p>
<p>Joplin stands out as a vocalist of great influence. She was willing to express the deepest of human emotions – emotions not easily allowed nor expressed in western society. She afforded her audience a vicarious understanding of her emotions, an understanding which still echoes today.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-reason-for-livin-early-death-in-female-popular-musicians-61162">'No reason for livin': early death in female popular musicians</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leigh Carriage does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Joplin’s voice stirs something deep within us. What is it about her that still makes us listen?Leigh Carriage, Senior Lecturer in Music, Southern Cross UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1433502020-08-06T05:29:20Z2020-08-06T05:29:20ZPaul Kelly biography traces his journey but not his work with young artists today<p><em>Review: Paul Kelly: The Man, the Music and Life in Between (Hatchette)</em></p>
<p>Stuart Coupe’s new biography of Paul Kelly takes many known elements of Kelly’s story and rouses them again. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54493580-paul-kelly?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=nmIn1Qx8Tz&rank=1">Paul Kelly: The Man, the Music and Life in Between</a> reads the way a Kelly cover version sounds: familiar, but also a bit disorienting. </p>
<p>Old school music fans might go to the liner notes first – in this case the back cover and acknowledgements. Both detail the insights Coupe has drawn from others: hundreds of interviews, including Kelly himself and over 80 people thanked in the acknowledgements. </p>
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<p>It’s a who’s who of Australian music from the last few decades – Archie Roach, Kasey Chambers, Kev Carmody, Vika and Linda Bull and Neil Finn – but not too many younger voices. Coupe’s emphasis is on how Kelly became, rather than who he is today.</p>
<p>The impressive interview list provides the choir that sings this cover version. Each person adds an extra layer: a solo to recall a key memory of Kelly as a band member, collaborator, business partner.</p>
<p>As Kelly’s former manager, Coupe also chimes in with his own testimony.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/listening-to-songs-of-leonard-cohen-singing-sadness-to-sadness-in-these-anxious-times-142661">Listening to Songs of Leonard Cohen: singing sadness to sadness in these anxious times</a>
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<h2>If I could start today again</h2>
<p>Large parts of Kelly’s early career have been lost to time, with records not added to the master log. </p>
<p>Particular casualties are his first two albums with The Dots, Talk (1981) and Manila (1982). Coupe’s interviews do however explore singles like Billy Baxter and Alive and Well, which have been left out of subsequent Kelly histories, including <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/2kmbLohyHyFyeIb684f6rA">best of compilations</a> and Kelly’s 2018 <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/how-to-make-gravy-9780143795995#:%7E:text=A%20memoir%20in%20a%20hundred,rights%20to%20cricket%20and%20cooking.">autobiography</a>.</p>
<p>As Kelly explains it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When I gained control of my work in the late nineties I simply chose not to make them available anymore. It wasn’t the fault of the bands on those records. It was me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Studio recordings of this time are now hard to come by (as Coupe and his colleagues lament), though a few iconic <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250846/">Countdown</a> snippets linger on.</p>
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<p>The 1982 Countdown performance of Alive and Well captures the perspectives of some of Coupe’s interviewees. Kelly is working in collaboration, but also keen to draw the spotlight for himself. He is rake thin. Is this youth’s blessed metabolism, or the drug use many remember throughout the book?</p>
<p>The Paul Kelly he became in terms of sound and songwriting is here, but some of the interviews in Coupe’s book make the wobble of his head and unsteadiness of his gait hard to ignore. </p>
<h2>Look so fine, feel so low</h2>
<p>References to Kelly’s use of heroin in the past appear repeatedly in the biography. Fans will be curious to know how drugs influenced Kelly’s actual music, however Coupe doesn’t focus on Kelly’s writing process in this way. Some details are there, but nothing as forensic as Kelly has already offered himself in terms of craft and context. Instead, Coupe focuses on the machinations of the music industry.</p>
<p>As a songwriter, Kelly’s value was seen early. Accounts by Mushroom Records alumni and other associates from the early 1980s, show how his writing talent was privileged despite his unsteady performance style. </p>
<p>Still, Kelly’s songs were so popular so quickly that there was money to be made. Although many of the musicians in the book were left by the wayside as Kelly moved from project to project, his publisher continued to benefit. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/death-beauty-and-poetry-come-together-in-ancient-rain-66986">Death, beauty and poetry come together in Ancient Rain</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Deeper water</h2>
<p>The biography brings readers to the present day, including the 2019 <a href="https://musicfeeds.com.au/gig/paul-kellys-making-gravy-the-domain-sydney-14-12-19/">How To Make Gravy concert in the Domain</a> in Sydney and his 2020 album releases (<a href="https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/music/paul-kelly-releases-surprise-new-album-forty-days-2685021#:%7E:text=Paul%20Kelly%20has%20released%20a,he's%20performed%20while%20in%20quarantine.">one in lockdown, and with Paul Grabowsky</a>). </p>
<p>However, it would have been nice to see Coupe explore Kelly’s continued association with youth broadcaster Triple J and the newer artists and audiences who find him via contemporary collaborations. </p>
<p>Kelly’s 2016 collaboration with AB Original and Dan Sultan for Triple J’s Like A Version remains as much a step up for Kelly as it does for the younger musicians. </p>
<p>A reworking of Dumb Things, Kelly’s anthem (and his art) is sampled into a new context. Its energy is breathtaking. </p>
<p>How many teenagers discovered Kelly for the first time after this? </p>
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<p>As well, the 2019 collaboration with Dan Sultan on Every Day My Mother’s Voice shows the fundamental connection Kelly continues to make with new audiences and artists – only vaguely referenced as “the Adam Goodes song” by Paul Luscombe in Coupe’s book. </p>
<p>While of, course, there had to be an end to Coupe’s address book, a bit more on these more recent and younger collaborators would strengthen this story and tell us more about where Kelly is going, not just where he has been.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-scott-morrisons-white-male-music-playlists-matter-106522">Why Scott Morrison's white, male music playlists matter</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143350/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Giuffre does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Paul Kelly’s former manager draws on hundreds of interviews for his biography of the singer.Liz Giuffre, Senior Lecturer in Communication, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1434712020-07-27T12:21:36Z2020-07-27T12:21:36ZPeter Green: troubled Fleetwood Mac founder leaves legacy of brilliance that shines still<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349573/original/file-20200727-35-1ycbwv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C900%2C677&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Blues virtuoso Peter Green in 1970.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Contador via Mikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of rock’s clichés, originating in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cawk2cMTnGo">Neil Young song lyric</a>, is that “it’s better to burn out than to fade away”. And indeed, many of its most celebrated casualties – from Jimi Hendrix to Kurt Cobain – departed the stage in sudden, shocking fashion thanks to tragic premature deaths. But even those whose play-out was lengthy, after a brief initial burst, can leave a hefty legacy. </p>
<p>Such was the case for Peter Green, founder of Fleetwood Mac, who passed away on July 25 aged 73, leaving an indelible stamp on generations of guitar players based primarily on a core body of work between 1966 and 1970.</p>
<p>Born Peter Greenbaum in 1946, the youngest son of an East End Jewish family – and, like many of his generation, transfixed by imported blues records from America – he emerged just after the initial wave of British blues-rock guitar heroes – notably the celebrated triumvirate of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.</p>
<p>He made his name by filling Clapton’s shoes in John Mayall’s <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/john-mayall-the-bluesbreakers-mn0000238506/biography#">Bluesbreakers</a> – a kind of <a href="https://web.musicaficionado.com/main/article/why_guitar_gods_love_john_mayall_by_jimfarber">academy and clearing house</a> for many who would move on to some of the biggest rock acts of subsequent decades. Having substituted for Clapton on the occasional gig, Green took up a place in the band when Clapton left to form Cream. Green, in his turn, would be replaced in the band by Mick Taylor, before Taylor joined the Rolling Stones in 1969.</p>
<p>Replacing Clapton was a daunting task for Green. Clapton’s fan-base among London’s blues aficionados <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-DWxyYapaBwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=waksman+instruments+of+desire&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiq696z6OzqAhWko3EKHekLCSUQ6AEwAHoECAIQAg#v=onepage&q=clapton%20is%20god&f=false">was vocal</a> – famously demonstrated by the graffiti “<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/eric-clapton-still-god-fellow-musicians-weigh/">Clapton is God</a>” that appeared on a wall in London at the time.</p>
<p>Green rose to the challenge, however, stamping his mark on the next Bluesbreakers album, A Hard Road (1967), both as a singer, and with instrumental compositions such as The Supernatural that established him as an eminent instrumentalist in his own right.</p>
<p>Importantly, he did this by veering away from the overt virtuosity of the other guitar heroes of the day. As Mick Fleetwood <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/fleetwood-mac-green-s-the-best-blues-guitarist-the-uk-s-produced">would put it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He went immediately for the human touch, and that’s what Peter’s playing has represented to millions of people – he played with the human, not the superstar touch.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Forming Fleetwood Mac</h2>
<p>A key tension within Green’s career – and personality – was between ambition and independence, on the one hand, and diffidence and fragility on the other. This was clear when, keen to set up his own group, he split from the Bluesbreakers after one album – taking drummer Mick Fleetwood and, later, bassist John McVie with him – but naming the new band Fleetwood Mac after his rhythm section and sharing lead guitar and vocal duties with new recruit Jeremy Spencer.</p>
<p>In this new outfit, his capacity for innovation came to the fore. A series of hits drew on his growing confidence as a songwriter and pushed the boundaries of the blues. Others, including Clapton, drove the role of the “guitar hero” forward through ever-lengthier expositions of fretboard dexterity. But Green, despite his technical ability, focused on the more nebulous merits of “feel” and “tone”, eventually making these indispensable facets of the rock guitar arsenal. He would <a href="https://www.guitarworld.com/features/the-story-of-peter-green-one-of-british-blues-most-mythologized-and-influential-players">recall</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Playing fast is something I used to do with John Mayall when things weren’t going very well. But it isn’t any good. I like to play slowly and feel every note.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A trip too far</h2>
<p>His comparatively brief sojourn with Fleetwood Mac yielded standards including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-C6p-GwHfA">Oh Well!</a> (which inspired the Led Zeppelin staple Black Dog) and Black Magic Woman – later a signature song for Santana. </p>
<p>But in his songs, the fractiousness of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKRfCkx8KCM">The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown)</a> – its sonic density a forerunner of heavy metal – and the uncertainty of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IkNgwQNy2w">Man of the World</a>, evidenced a growing unease that would crash his career. On tour in 1970, following an LSD trip at a commune in Germany – one of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=i0r_DAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Fleetwood%20Mac%20on%20Fleetwood%20Mac&pg=PT107#v=twopage&q&f=false">several</a> he took – he abruptly quit the band, unable to cope with his growing fame.</p>
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<p>Fleetwood Mac would spend the next few years with a rapidly rotating line-up – including a brief return by Green to help them complete a tour after Jeremy Spencer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/nov/26/familyandrelationships.religion">left to</a> join a cult. They relocated to America and, having recruited Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, delivered one of the defining albums of the 1970s: the <a href="https://observer.com/2017/02/fleetwood-mac-rumours-album-anniversary-review/">hugely successful Rumours</a>. </p>
<p>Green himself struggled. Like Pink Floyd founder <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/arts/music/12barrett.html">Syd Barrett</a>, whose band achieved stratospheric success after his own LSD-exacerbated mental illness precipitated his departure, Green made occasional recordings in the early seventies, but never found his equilibrium. </p>
<p>Later <a href="http://www.schizophrenia.com/newsletter/buckets/newsletter/197/197fmac.html">diagnosed with schizophrenia</a> he oscillated between stints as a gravedigger and hospital porter. There were episodes of erratic behaviour – trying to give away all of his money – and spells in psychiatric hospitals, where he received electroconvulsive therapy.</p>
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<p>He re-emerged sporadically, first with solo recordings in the 1980s and then, on a series of albums with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/1999/may/13/artsfeatures4">The Splinter Group</a> in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Leaning heavily on standards and cover versions, and garnering a respectable, if sympathetic, following, they rarely troubled the upper reaches of the charts, or recaptured his earlier fire.</p>
<h2>Rich legacy</h2>
<p>If the headlines mainly remembered Green as a tragic figure, like other innovators of his generation that were brought low by drugs and collapse, his quiet influence was much deeper. Not the first, or most famous, of the British guitar heroes, his emphasis on tone, economy and space nevertheless shaped the vocabulary of rock guitar. </p>
<p>The likes of Jimmy Page and Gary Moore – the latter of whom <a href="https://www.musicradar.com/news/classic-interview-gary-moore-talks-blues-for-greeny-jack-bruce-bb-king-albert-collins-and-never-playing-with-clapton">recorded an album</a> of Green’s songs – attested to his impact. No less a luminary than BB King <a href="http://fleetwoodmac.org/peter-green.php">would remark</a>: “He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143471/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>A virtuoso guitarist and songwriter, Green’s career was blighted by drug-amplified mental health problems.Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1397512020-06-02T20:07:03Z2020-06-02T20:07:03Z40 years of Laibach – is this Slovenian avant-garde band the most controversial in rock history?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338727/original/file-20200601-78853-o0106w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3825%2C2238&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laibach#/media/File:LAIBACH_Press_Photo_2011.jpg">Laibach/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>June, 1980, Laibach was formed. Soon, they became the musical wing of the Slovenian arts collective <em>Neue Slowenische Kunst</em> (NSK), or New Slovenian Art. Comprising visual artists, theatre companies and a unit dedicated to social theory, NSK was concerned with exploring the relationships between art and politics.</p>
<p>Laibach took its name from Austro-Hungarian and then Nazi occupied Ljubliana, the capital city of Slovenia. They were the first Western band to <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SQORt5Y7Eqo">perform in North Korea</a> and their most recent album is a cover of the <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qOfkwm_Yz0Q">Sound of Music</a>, which re-presents that most saccharine of musicals as an exercise in the celebration of Austrian fascism and paedophilia. </p>
<p>Laibach is one of the most controversial, innovative and truly strange bands in rock history. </p>
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<h2>Exile</h2>
<p>Cultural provocateurs par excellence, Laibach has managed to offend all points in the political spectrum. </p>
<p>Its earliest concerts were performed against a backdrop of images of “<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tito-is-made-president-for-life">Tito</a>”, the revered former leader of the then in-decline Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), next to a drooping penis.</p>
<p>In a strategy that lent the appearance of tolerance while in fact inviting public retribution, the state invited Laibach to <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xz_PhMpFR9U&">explain its actions</a> on prime-time TV. The band appeared in military garb and gave an interview of totalitarian-esque slogans. </p>
<p>Laibach was promptly declared a fascist organisation by state officials, a descriptor thrust on anyone the state disagreed with.</p>
<p>In response, Laibach revealed its members were dressed in their Yugoslav army conscript uniforms, their words a mash-up of SFRY propaganda. The state banned Laibach from performing, and its members were forced into exile.</p>
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<p>Laibach similarly raised the ire of the very ethnonationalist forces that <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429495403">brought down</a> the SFRY. In 1984, they covered Live is Life, by Austrian Europop band Opus. In <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LB9lObWclFQ">Laibach’s video</a>, stags and majestic landscapes – symbols of romantic nationalism – are combined with symbols of Nazism and militarism, reminding Slovenian viewers of an uncomfortable public secret: the rural peasantry, who embody Slovenian nationalism most, were also <a href="http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/1478">willing collaborators</a> in the violent Germanisation of the country in World War II. </p>
<h2>Rehabilitation and the totalitarian cure</h2>
<p>After many pariah years, Laibach came to be rehabilitated. In 2017, the philosopher Slavoj Žižek wrote an article titled “<a href="https://deterritorium.wordpress.com/2017/08/20/why-are-laibach-and-nsk-not-fascists-by-slavoj-zizek-1993/">Why are Laibach and NSK not fascists</a>”. Žižek had critiqued liberal and leftists alike for their condemnation of Laibach’s use of fascist and other totalitarian symbolism. There was nothing at all ironic in Laibach’s actions, he argued. Rather, Laibach sought to promote an over-identification with such symbolism and it was through this that identification with fascism could be overcome. </p>
<p>Laibach’s recordings are now regarded widely as key examples of <a href="http://www.emory.edu/INTELNET/book_after_future.html">Soviet postmodernism</a>, exploring relationships between ideology and art. Laibach demonstrates how apparently benign musical forms conceal repressed totalitarian sentiments by transforming the musical arrangement of famous pop songs into martial anthems. The Beatles’ Get Back was written as a song about homecoming; in Laibach’s hands it is a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9w6SEtkeug">warning</a> to immigrants to keep out. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-foreign-band-to-play-north-korea-is-famed-for-its-fascism-45007">First foreign band to play North Korea is famed for its 'fascism'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Laibach’s live performances are even more affecting, using the discordant sounds of martial music, feedback, recordings of political speeches and barking dogs,<a href="http://www.mg-lj.si/en/exhibitions/1614/neue-slowenische-kunst-nsk/">described</a> by the band as “ritualised demonstrations of political force”. <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/interrogation-machine">Within each show</a> the audience goes through a full circle of alienation by identification with, and dis-identification from, totalitarianism. </p>
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<p>Not surprisingly, Laibach has cemented its status as a darling of the leftist avant-garde. Nowadays, they are just as likely to be found performing at the Tate Modern, the Venice Biennale, MONA or with philharmonic orchestras as in sweaty rock venues.</p>
<h2>Eternal Laibach</h2>
<p>With typical bombast, NSK <a href="http://www.mg-lj.si/en/exhibitions/1614/neue-slowenische-kunst-nsk/">once declared</a> “only God can subdue LAIBACH. People and things never can.” Laibach has gone about making itself eternal. </p>
<p>Mimicking the totalitarian state, NSK eschews individualism. Its <a href="http://www.mg-lj.si/en/exhibitions/1614/neue-slowenische-kunst-nsk/">manifesto states</a> “each individual is subjugated to the whole.” Indeed, when the original lead singer Tomaž Hostnik died by suicide, he was was posthumously thrown out of the band for undertaking an act that was not collectively sanctioned.</p>
<p>More recently, Laibach’s anti-individualism has manifested in core members relegating themselves to tech roles like lighting engineers, with the musicians <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/interrogation-machine">replaced</a> by younger artists who will outlive them. In 1991, NSK declared itself a virtual non-territorial state, with some displaced people <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20170515-a-passport-from-a-country-that-doesnt-exist">unsuccessfully</a> trying to use NSK passports at actual border crossings.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339033/original/file-20200602-95028-b4ugr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339033/original/file-20200602-95028-b4ugr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339033/original/file-20200602-95028-b4ugr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339033/original/file-20200602-95028-b4ugr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339033/original/file-20200602-95028-b4ugr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339033/original/file-20200602-95028-b4ugr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339033/original/file-20200602-95028-b4ugr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Laibach photographed in 1983.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laibach/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The Slovenian state now cherishes Laibach as a national icon. Children march into school assemblies to the accompaniment of a Laibach song, and rumours abound the Slovenian state is striving to have Laibach classified by UNESCO as an intangible site of World Heritage.</p>
<p>Laibach’s method for longevity contrasts sharply with the narcissistic cult of personality approach deployed by its main cultural colleagues: totalitarian political leaders and pop stars. The SFRY was unable to survive the death of its charismatic leader Tito. Despite frantic attempts on social media, pop stars will disappear as quickly as they shoot to fame. Perhaps the key lesson to learn from Laibach is the best way to remain a star is to go out of your way to not be one. </p>
<p>Happy birthday Laibach! It is likely to be just one of many more to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Dawson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Formed in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Laibach has offended all points of the political spectrumAndrew Dawson, Professor and Chair of Anthropology, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1386582020-05-19T12:18:06Z2020-05-19T12:18:06ZThe 1950s queer black performers who inspired Little Richard<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335863/original/file-20200518-83375-10o7e3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C92%2C3802%2C4004&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Little Richard’s rock 'n' roll brought the margins to the center.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/musician-little-richard-poses-for-a-portrait-in-circa-1956-news-photo/73909017?adppopup=true">Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since Little Richard <a href="https://apnews.com/9ea48d685b8fd81ea735a6ea9c8dc2ac">died on May 9</a>, he’s been rightly celebrated as one of the most exciting and influential performers in the canon of American popular music. But in most tributes, the full story of his artistic development has been slighted.</p>
<p>This is a pity, because Little Richard’s music is deeply rooted in an underground tradition of queer black performance that’s also worthy of celebration. Indeed, when I have lectured on Little Richard’s work to my students, they’re often surprised and delighted to learn about the subculture that contributed so much to his artistic persona.</p>
<p>His hairstyle, makeup and lyrics were inspired by fellow performers such as <a href="https://apnews.com/0df25857fbd3f40fb2e3e2f53248a2c3">Billy Wright</a> and <a href="https://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/1857-esquerita-and-the-voola">Eskew Reeder</a>. The better their influence is understood, the more the gleefully subversive energy that suffuses Richard’s own work can be appreciated.</p>
<h2>The Wright stuff</h2>
<p>Little Richard – born Richard Penniman – honed his craft as a teenage drag queen in touring minstrel tent-shows and vaudeville revues, as well as in an extended network of clubs and bars in the southern and eastern United States known as the “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Chitlin_Circuit/xpPgygAACAAJ?hl=en">chitlin’ circuit</a>.” In a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/02/16/275313723/the-origin-and-hot-stank-of-the-chitlin-circuit">1967 interview</a>, singer Lou Rawls offered his own memories of playing the circuit:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“These clubs were very small, very tight, very crowded and very loud. Everything was loud but the entertainment. The only way to establish communication was by telling a story that would lead into the song, that would catch people’s attention.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>African American studies scholars <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Mutha_Is_Half_a_Word/GsjnjwEACAAJ?hl=en">L. H. Stallings</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Looking_for_Leroy/sKRFmvIVcEIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Looking+for+Leroy:+Illegible+Black+Masculinities&printsec=frontcover">Mark Anthony Neal</a> have both observed that, while it wasn’t explicitly identified with sexual outlaws, the chitlin’ circuit nevertheless provided a space for queer black artists to flourish. </p>
<p>It was within one of these spaces in the city of Atlanta – either the <a href="https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/02/14/royalpeacock_wide-c9ea94cb66e8cc3d4a7eec4563c46538e67ed403-s1700-c85.jpg">Royal Peacock</a> or <a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/xPZSHho8Z8bi0jdtIAX3UCtGjyf1j2IbYhX-HXlkPeqGYtFByB_GzyjpT22ebky2oC7FCS_iaPSPDhe-t90vEcJ13NccvWik6reWhkJ6rQYiRlgcvCW11npPoVSCN38FY_Hifqo_eXP8WRAt5_n5-KE">Bailey’s 81 Theatre</a> – that Little Richard first met <a href="https://www.queermusicheritage.com/oct2007bw.html">Billy Wright</a>. </p>
<p>Wright had also started out as a female impersonator but had more recently established himself as a singer. He would score <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Wright_(musician)">four top 10 hits</a> on the R&B charts from 1949 to 1951.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335853/original/file-20200518-83371-lf1rkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335853/original/file-20200518-83371-lf1rkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335853/original/file-20200518-83371-lf1rkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335853/original/file-20200518-83371-lf1rkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335853/original/file-20200518-83371-lf1rkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335853/original/file-20200518-83371-lf1rkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335853/original/file-20200518-83371-lf1rkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335853/original/file-20200518-83371-lf1rkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1952 portrait of Little Richard in Atlanta, where he met Billy Wright.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/little-richard-poses-for-an-early-portrait-circa-1952-in-news-photo/74178743?adppopup=true">Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Little Richard admired Wright enormously. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=dTr_AgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q=billy%20wright&f=false">In Little Richard’s words</a>, Wright wore “very loud-colored clothin’ and shoethin’ to match his clothin’,” which Little Richard began to imitate. He also copied Wright’s pompadour hairstyle and even began using the same brand of <a href="https://image.glamourdaze.com/2012/08/1940s-makeup-secrets-max-factor-pan-cake1.jpg">pancake</a> makeup.</p>
<p>Billy was equally fond of Little Richard, helping to secure his first recording session with RCA in 1951 – using the very same musicians that had backed up Wright on his own records. </p>
<p>Both men were creditable R&B artists, but their recordings from this period offer no hint of the spectacular flamboyance that they apparently projected in person. The queer style that had brought them together was too outré to even consider trying to capture on tape.</p>
<h2>Hurricane Esquerita</h2>
<p>A year or so later, Little Richard met another young black queer performer named Eskew Reeder at a bus station in Macon, Georgia. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMAJUJ_lEKc">As Little Richard told the story</a>, he picked Reeder up and took him home, where Reeder played him a version of “One Mint Julep” by The Clovers on the piano. Little Richard was bowled over, immediately asking for lessons, and thereafter adopting aspects of Reeder’s style – playing blues licks in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZUwDnUDFOM&list=PLQp5unhf_1_hp1iEQ6Xh9xNkINCwvoFX4&index=3&t=0s">uppermost register of the keyboard</a> with the right hand, while supplying a pounding, rhythmic accompaniment with the left. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335826/original/file-20200518-83371-15z468o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335826/original/file-20200518-83371-15z468o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335826/original/file-20200518-83371-15z468o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335826/original/file-20200518-83371-15z468o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335826/original/file-20200518-83371-15z468o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335826/original/file-20200518-83371-15z468o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335826/original/file-20200518-83371-15z468o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335826/original/file-20200518-83371-15z468o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Esquerita could make Little Richard look tame by comparison.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/photo-of-esquerita-photo-by-michael-ochs-archives-getty-news-photo/74270366?adppopup=true">Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Reeder <a href="https://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/1857-esquerita-and-the-voola">later suggested</a> that Little Richard’s trademark falsetto whoop was also inspired by his own approach to vocalization.</p>
<p>Eskew Reeder would eventually adopt the stage name of “Esquerita.” It was a phonetic pun on his own name in which we can also hear a winking homoerotic suggestion: “Esquire Eater”; a scatological joke: “Excreter”; and perhaps even a prescient tribute to queer theory: “Askew Reader.” </p>
<p>Esquerita didn’t release any recordings until 1958, more than three years after Little Richard achieved national stardom with “Tutti Frutti”; but Little Richard always acknowledged the original direction of influence.</p>
<p>Esquerita’s 1958 sessions convey a flamboyant wildness that exceeds even Richard’s most exuberant recordings. The almost indescribable B-side, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G5tqli-t7M">Esquerita and the Voola</a>,” is a case in point – a strange mixture of pseudo-classical piano riffing set to a booming floor-tom rhythm, over which Esquerita warbles like a pop-opera Valkyrie. </p>
<p>Today, “Esquerita and the Voola” stands as the missing link between barrelhouse boogie-woogie and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” – a vinyl slice of queer black cabaret that must have left most record company executives and radio DJs utterly baffled.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Esquerita and the Voola.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bald-headed Sally</h2>
<p>In my view, it’s inconceivable that Little Richard would have recorded “Tutti Frutti” if not for these prior encounters. The song draws its manic energy from the queerest stops on the chitlin’ circuit. In fact, the original lyrics were a paean to the pleasures of anal sex:</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code> Tutti Frutti, good booty,
If it don’t fit, don’t force it,
You can grease it, make it easy ...
</code></pre>
<p>Although Little Richard loved incorporating the song into his live shows – <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=dTr_AgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q=tutti%20frutti%20good%20booty&f=false">according to him</a>, it used to “crack the crowds up” – he never imagined it could be a hit. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=dTr_AgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q=dew%20drop%20inn&f=false">But one day in 1955</a>, he found himself in New Orleans at a recording session for Specialty Records with producer Bumps Blackwell. Blackwell hadn’t yet heard anything that excited him when they called it a day and headed across the street for dinner and drinks at The Dew Drop Inn. Liberated from the confines of the studio, Little Richard began to play the barroom piano in the uninhibited style of the clubs. Blackwell’s ears pricked up: This obscene, irresistibly driving number was just what he was looking for. </p>
<p>Pat Boone’s success with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auAK-PEEiW4">a bland cover</a> of “Tutti Frutti” is emblematic of <a href="https://innerself.com/content/social/culture-wars/14776-how-the-1950s-racism-helped-make-pat-boone-a-rock-star.html">the racial inequities of the 1950s music industry</a>. But once you know the origins of the song, the Christian crooner’s clinical and clueless take on Little Richard’s swingingly queer hymn becomes ironically piquant.</p>
<p>A similar frisson energizes the sublimely joyous “Long Tall Sally.” This time, Little Richard and Blackwell didn’t even feel the need to change the words. When Richard hollers in the second verse –</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code> Saw Uncle John
With bald-headed Sally,
He saw Aunt Mary comin’
And he jumped back in the alley ...
</code></pre>
<p>– even the most naïve listener must know that Uncle John is up to the best kind of no good. But as the scholar W. T. Lhamon Jr. observes in his underappreciated cultural history of the 1950s, “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Deliberate_Speed/LUkI_BRNOP0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=deliberate+speed&printsec=frontcover">Deliberate Speed</a>,” in the drag shows of Little Richard’s apprenticeship, “baldheadedness was preparation for one’s wigs.” So Long Tall Sally – one of the original rock ‘n’ roll bad girls – may also be a bit of a bad boy, while Uncle John may be working both sides of that alley. Today, we might even describe Sally as a seductively nonbinary object of queer desire.</p>
<p>Little Richard’s rock ‘n’ roll brought the margins to the center, and that was one reason why it mattered so much. It’s also another reason to mourn his loss – and to play his music loud.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138658/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Saunders does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Little Richard honed his craft as a teenage drag queen. In everything from his hairstyle to his lyrics, we see the influence of gay contemporaries like Esquerita and Billy Wright.Ben Saunders, Professor of English, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1382392020-05-15T12:10:28Z2020-05-15T12:10:28ZHow Little Richard helped launch the Beatles<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335186/original/file-20200514-77239-rsfw2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">During their 1962 residency at Hamburg's Star-Club, the Beatles had the opportunity of a lifetime: opening for Little Richard.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/1st-may-the-beatles-posed-in-hamburg-germany-during-their-news-photo/184067810?adppopup=true"> Horst Fascher/K & K Ulf Kruger OHG/Redferns via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049263/">The Girl Can’t Help It</a>” is a 1956 film by Frank Tashlin about a young woman, played by Jayne Mansfield, who dreams of being a star vocalist. Some consider it <a href="https://search.proquest.com/docview/1514901325?pq-origsite=gscholar">the first rock ‘n’ roll music video ever made</a>; built into the story line were full versions of song performances by Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. But Little Richard’s music was the star of the show – so much so that his song “The Girl Can’t Help It” became the movie’s title.</p>
<p>At a small Liverpool movie theater, a 14-year-old Paul McCartney watched the hit film, mesmerized by the energy, talent and charisma of Little Richard, who had a cameo performing “Ready Teddy.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Little Richard performing ‘Ready Teady’ in ‘The Girl Can’t Help It.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Little Richard certainly left an impression on the talented young McCartney, he couldn’t have imagined that, in less than a decade, the two would take the stage together. </p>
<h2>Building towards the big moment</h2>
<p>A year later, McCartney met John Lennon, who was performing with his band in the back of a churchyard. The two quickly learned that they shared a love of American rock ‘n’ roll, and both were big fans of “The Girl Can’t Help It.” McCartney’s audition for Lennon even included a rendition of Eddie Cochran’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q08oC_34Mcc">20 Flight Rock</a>” from the movie. Lennon asked him to join the band.</p>
<p>The two started practicing together <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1990-05-15-9002090515-story.html">and dabbled in songwriting</a>. When penning tunes, McCartney and Lennon often borrowed a formula that Little Richard had made his trademark: three chords played with a contagious, driving rhythm and blues feel. </p>
<p>George Harrison joined them, along with Lennon’s art school buddy, Stuart Sutcliffe. They started performing together in Liverpool at venues like the <a href="https://www.beatlesstory.com/blog/2017/04/21/the-jacaranda-a-legendary-liverpool-venue/">Jacaranda</a> and the famed <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/09c1/1e24502ce96eefa1d50e5f0726e6f08799ce.pdf">Cavern Club</a>. Staples of their sets included covers of the Little Richard classics “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4gGFk2P854">Long Tall Sally</a>” and “Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey.” </p>
<p>As their popularity grew, they were invited to perform residencies as the house band at the Indra and Kaiserkeller clubs in Hamburg, Germany. Playing every night allowed them to hone their live chops; by the time they returned to Liverpool and the Cavern Club, they were seasoned performers, and the crowds at their shows swelled. The next year, they toured the U.K. with Roy Orbison and Del Shannon. And then the group got their biggest break yet: <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=iEpDeqa3FMsC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=beatles+and+the+star-club&ots=FrRcmn-PmV&sig=qtyToKhWbkmWZnXJi8z8kDPscYg#v=onepage&q=beatles%20and%20the%20star-club&f=false">They were asked to be the opening act for Little Richard</a> at the brand new Star-Club in Hamburg in late 1962 for 14 shows.</p>
<p>Little Richard was riding high. From 1956 to 1959, he <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=IqOf0-1z6ckC&oi=fnd&pg=PP7&dq=the+Beatles+and+little+richard&ots=KeOQxGoheY&sig=8VW67RCvn1NiHTFIvHmQD-6hiQY#v=onepage&q=the%20Beatles%20and%20little%20richard&f=false">scored 18 hit singles</a> with his unique combination of wailing vocals, energetic piano playing and flamboyant style.</p>
<p>Not only did McCartney and Lennon get to meet their idol, but they also <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=xKx9c7m1FgoC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=beatles+and+little+richard&ots=lguFK0vSDI&sig=_TbX5BvGGB0RDqvE1FxbtOqil28#v=onepage&q=beatles%20and%20little%20richard&f=false">got to observe and spend time with Little Richard backstage</a>. Little Richard would later recall helping McCartney hone his vocal style <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2CqEzy3iv4&t=1696s">in the green room</a>. And once their residency in Hamburg concluded, Little Richard joined the group in Liverpool to see them perform at the Cavern Club. He got a glimpse of what was to come; impressed by the group’s energy, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyPHSsw7tiQ">he foresaw success for the band in America</a>. </p>
<h2>Sticking with what Richard did best</h2>
<p>When the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein secured them <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Beatles/jl6NDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=beatles+decca+rejection&pg=PA561&printsec=frontcover">their first audition with Decca Records</a> in early 1963, Epstein decided that the band should play a set list that sounded more refined than the tracks the group had performed in Hamburg. So in front of studio executives, the group played “Three Cool Cats,” “Besame Mucho” and “The Sheik of Araby.” There’s a reason you might not recognize these songs. The record company wasn’t impressed and decided against signing the band. </p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>When another opportunity presented itself to audition for <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Beatles/zQwIDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=beatles+emi+contract&pg=PA631&printsec=frontcover">George Martin</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Beatles/zQwIDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=beatles+emi+contract&pg=PA631&printsec=frontcover">the Parlaphone label</a>, the band didn’t make the same mistake twice: They returned to the hard-driving Little Richard-style rhythm and blues that they had mastered under his tutelage in Hamburg. They were offered a contract, provided they find a better drummer, which is where Ringo Starr enters the story.</p>
<p>In late 1963 the group recorded their first album, “<a href="https://www.thebeatles.com/album/please-please-me">Please, Please Me</a>,” in 10 hours over the course of one day. It was basically their live show from the Star-Club. Tracks like “I Saw Her Standing There,” “Please, Please Me” and the album’s final song, “Twist and Shout,” borrowed heavily from the style of Richard. On the album, Lennon’s voice is noticeably harsh; it sounds raw and edgy – just like the man they had been studying in Germany. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1259260124750897153"}"></div></p>
<p>A few months after this recording session, the group <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sundays_with_Sullivan/_GxrEv8RnSYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=beatles+ed+sullivan&printsec=frontcover">famously appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show</a>, which catapulted them to international stardom.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/How_the_Beatles_Changed_the_World/NR8eAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=beatles+most+successful+group+of+all+time&printsec=frontcover">The rest is history</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138239/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clint Randles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When a 14-year-old Paul McCartney watched Little Richard in the hit film ‘The Girl Can’t Help It,’ he couldn’t have imagined that the two would one day take the stage together.Clint Randles, Associate Professor of Music Education, University of South FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1382662020-05-11T11:03:53Z2020-05-11T11:03:53ZLittle Richard’s scream kicked off rock'n'roll and still echoes today<p>When British author Nik Cohn wrote one of the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GDqHDAAAQBAJ">earliest histories of rock in 1969</a>, his title was the ostensibly nonsensical Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom. It was still instantly recognisable, and perfectly conveyed the sense of explosion at the birth of the genre. The phrase was originally coined, of course, by Little Richard – born Richard Wayne Penniman – who died on Saturday May 9 aged 87, and was indisputably one of the seminal rock'n'roll artists.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/852886?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">A host of factors</a> provided fertile soil for the emergence of rock'n'roll as a potent musical force. They included deregulation that allowed radio stations to mushroom across the US; the development of vinyl and the 45rpm record; and new transistor radios that were affordable and portable for the burgeoning teen market.</p>
<p>But a handful of figures at the centre of that mid-1950s musical ignition came to shape the sound of rock'n'roll, and the sensibility of rock for decades afterwards. Where Chuck Berry provided a link to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/chuck-berry-one-of-the-only-musicians-with-a-genuine-claim-to-be-the-founder-of-a-genre-74861">guitar lineages of blues and jazz</a>, along with a dash of urbanity, and Elvis Presley brought elements of country music and a saleable sex-appeal to the mass market, Little Richard infused the genre with a boisterous energy and raw unpredictability.</p>
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<p>As one of the progenitors, with Jerry Lee Lewis, of the piano as a rock instrument, he laid down a template for a relentless playing style. By <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nPmADwAAQBAJ&pg=PT72#v=onepage&q&f=false">evening out the beats</a> from the shuffle of the boogie-woogie piano that preceded it, he helped to define rock’s rhythm.</p>
<p>He also brought <em>volume</em> to the party. His raucous vocals, which could sail from a throaty roar into the upper registers, and pounding piano upped the voltage on the new music and imprinted a sense of urgency onto the rock'n'roll blueprint.</p>
<h2>Born again and again</h2>
<p>While his performing career lasted decades, Richard’s huge impact on popular music came primarily from a handful of singles in his 1950s heyday – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_C9q4tuwXI">Tutti Frutti</a>, Good Golly Miss Molly, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OfhmVmhL7s">Long Tall Sally</a> and Rip It Up among them. His music embodied his own personal contradictions and struggles. Having grown up in a deeply religious family and rebelled to embrace what was widely decried at the time as the “<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674980846">devil’s music</a>”, he rejected rock'n'roll at the end of the 1950s after seeing a vision of a fireball in the sky while on tour in Australia, became born-again, and returned to gospel music. (The fireball was, in fact, the first Sputnik satellite, launched in 1957.) </p>
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<p>He would bounce between a religious life and showbusiness thereafter. He returned to rock in the 1960s for a period, and toured successfully, with backing musicians including Jimi Hendrix. <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=X2drAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT12#v=onepage&q=%22richard%20had%20previously%20banned%22&f=false">He allegedly sacked</a> him after the younger man’s own flamboyant stagecraft threatened to steal the spotlight, although there were pay disputes involved as well. </p>
<p>Richard became an ordained minister in 1970, and in 1977 – after a series of albums that also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlAtjRYvFIY&list=PLrYQ7Wsg956jVLqz-vZdxLp2dCnhOHnum">incorporated country rock and funk</a> – he returned to evangelical work, feeling impelled by a perilous lifestyle of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XlASUIlNfQ&feature=youtu.be&t=1090">drug addiction</a> to once again leave rock behind.</p>
<p>These contradictions were apparent throughout his career. A large factor in his early success, and lasting influence, was his introduction of androgyny and campness into rock and roll. With pencil moustache and pancake makeup, he took with him into the mainstream aspects of his act in the drag clubs of the early 1950s, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/hwj/article-abstract/46/1/161/759331">cleaning up the explicit lyrics for mass consumption</a>. </p>
<p>His bravura and sexually charged persona were of a piece with his music in making transgression and subversion of social norms a key ingredient in rock'n'roll’s recipe long before homosexuality or queer culture were accepted by conventional society. </p>
<p>But it came at a cost. Having been rejected by his father as a teenager – part of the spur for his entry into the entertainment world – he struggled with his sexuality, variously acknowledging himself as gay and “omnisexual” before vociferously denouncing “<a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7990551/richard-sexuality-religion-history">unnatural affections</a>” in his turn back to religion in later life.</p>
<h2>Enduring talent</h2>
<p>Richard had, nevertheless, pushed open doors that could not be shut. His deployment of an exuberance that was at odds with the standard sexual stereotypes of macho rock was a clear precursor for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTyOVzdCsuU&feature=youtu.be&t=96">Prince</a>, and a direct line can be traced from his vocal gymnastics and driving rhythm to the music of James Brown and Otis Redding.</p>
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<p>Despite his oscillating association with rock'n'roll, Richard remained in the public eye. He made guest appearances in the 1980s in Hollywood movies like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090966/">Down and Out in Beverley Hills</a>, on hit TV shows like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0647104/">Miami Vice</a>, and on the records of the stars he had inspired well into the 1990s. He also maintained a successful touring career into the 2000s until ill-health curtailed his activities.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-lop-bam-boom-little-richards-saucy-style-underpins-todays-hits-138263">A-lop-bam-boom: Little Richard's saucy style underpins today's hits</a>
</strong>
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<p>Having overcome poverty, racism and homophobia, Little Richard’s musical dynamism and theatrical originality shaped the defining characteristics of rock'n'roll. From <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3052732?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">The Beatles</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/MickJagger/status/1259159305657475073">the Rolling Stones</a>, to <a href="https://twitter.com/bobdylan/status/1259222882233745411">Bob Dylan</a> and Bruce Springsteen, his successors have universally acknowledged his influence. The opening salvo of Tutti Frutti and his fiery run of singles in the 1950s were a primal rock'n'roll scream that still echoes today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138266/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>Richard Wayne Penniman was one of a handful of pioneers who shaped the original rock and roll sound.Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1309802020-04-10T12:12:04Z2020-04-10T12:12:04ZInside the Beatles’ messy breakup, 50 years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326989/original/file-20200409-165427-i79n2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=100%2C8%2C1658%2C1069&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who broke up with whom?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-beatles-celebrate-the-completion-of-their-new-album-sgt-news-photo/3297187?adppopup=true">Anurag Papolu/The Conversation via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty years ago, when Paul McCartney announced he had left the Beatles, the news dashed the hopes of millions of fans, while fueling false reunion rumors that persisted well into the new decade. </p>
<p>In a press release on April 10, 1970 for his first solo album, “<a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/people/paul-mccartney/albums/mccartney/">McCartney</a>,” he leaked his intention to leave. In doing so, he shocked his three bandmates.</p>
<p>The Beatles had symbolized the great communal spirit of the era. How could they possibly come apart? </p>
<p>Few at the time were aware of the underlying fissures. The power struggles in the group had been mounting at least since their manager, Brian Epstein, died in August of 1967. </p>
<h2>‘Paul Quits the Beatles’</h2>
<p>Was McCartney’s “announcement” official? His album appeared on April 17, and its press packet included a mock interview. In it, McCartney <a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/1970/04/10/paul-mccartney-announces-the-beatles-split/">is asked</a>, “Are you planning a new album or single with the Beatles?”</p>
<p>His response? “No.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Daily Mirror took McCartney at his word.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Daily Mirror</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>But he didn’t say whether the separation might prove permanent. The Daily Mirror nonetheless framed its headline conclusively: “Paul Quits the Beatles.” </p>
<p>The others worried this could hurt sales and sent Ringo as a peacemaker to McCartney’s London home to talk him down from releasing his solo album ahead of the band’s “Let It Be” album and film, which were slated to come out in May. Without any press present, McCartney <a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/1970/03/31/paul-mccartney-ringo-starr-letter-john-lennon-george-harrison-let-it-be/">shouted Ringo off his front stoop</a>.</p>
<h2>Lennon had kept quiet</h2>
<p>Lennon, who had been active outside the band for months, felt particularly betrayed.</p>
<p>The previous September, soon after the band released “Abbey Road,” he <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/why-the-beatles-broke-up-113403/">had asked</a> his bandmates for a “divorce.” But the others convinced him not to go public to prevent disrupting some delicate contract negotiations. </p>
<p>Still, Lennon’s departure seemed imminent: He had played the Toronto Rock ‘n’ Roll Festival with his Plastic Ono Band in September 1969, and on Feb. 11, 1970, he performed a new solo track, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZQny1XxOdI">Instant Karma</a>,” on the popular British TV show “Top of the Pops.” Yoko Ono sat behind him, knitting while blindfolded by a sanitary napkin. </p>
<p>In fact, Lennon behaved more and more like a solo artist, until McCartney countered with his own eponymous album. He wanted Apple to release this solo debut alongside the group’s new album, “<a href="https://www.thebeatles.com/album/let-it-be">Let It Be</a>,” to dramatize the split. </p>
<p>By beating Lennon to the announcement, McCartney controlled the story and its timing, and undercut the other three’s interest in keeping it under wraps as new product hit stores.</p>
<p>Ray Connolly, a reporter at the Daily Mail, knew Lennon well enough to ring him up for comment. When I interviewed Connolly in 2008, he told me about their conversation. </p>
<p>Lennon was dumbfounded and enraged by the news. He had let Connolly in on his secret about leaving the band at his Montreal Bed-In in December 1969, but asked him to keep it quiet. Now he lambasted Connolly for not leaking it sooner. </p>
<p>“Why didn’t you write it when I told you in Canada at Christmas!” he exclaimed to Connolly, who reminded him that the conversation had been off the record. “You’re the f–king journalist, Connolly, not me,” snorted Lennon. </p>
<p>“We were all hurt [McCartney] didn’t tell us what he was going to do,” <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lennon-remembers-part-one-186693/">Lennon later told Rolling Stone</a>. “Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it! I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record…”</p>
<h2>It all falls apart</h2>
<p>This public fracas had been bubbling under the band’s cheery surface for years. Timing and sales concealed deeper arguments about creative control and the return to live touring. </p>
<p>In January 1969, the group had started a roots project tentatively titled “Get Back.” It was supposed to be a back-to-the-basics recording without the artifice of studio trickery. But the whole venture was shelved as a new recording, “Abbey Road,” took shape.</p>
<p>When “Get Back” was eventually revived, Lennon – behind McCartney’s back – brought in American producer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phil-Spector">Phil Spector</a>, best known for girl group hits like “Be My Baby,” to salvage the project. But this album was supposed to be band only – not embroidered with added strings and voices – and McCartney fumed when Spector added a female choir to his song “The Long and Winding Road.” </p>
<p>“Get Back” – which was renamed “Let it Be” – nonetheless moved forward. Spector mixed the album, and a cut of the feature film was readied for summer. </p>
<p>McCartney’s announcement and release of his solo album effectively short-circuited the plan. By announcing the breakup, he launched his solo career in advance of “<a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/let-it-be/">Let It Be</a>,” and nobody knew how it might disrupt the official Beatles’ project. </p>
<p>Throughout the remainder of 1970, fans watched in disbelief as the “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0HfT_a3bIw">Let It Be</a>” movie portrayed the hallowed Beatles circling musical doldrums, bickering about arrangements and killing time running through oldies. The film finished with an ironic triumph – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/01/30/beatles-played-london-rooftop-it-wound-up-being-their-last-show/">the famous live set on the roof of their Apple headquarters</a> during which the band played “Get Back,” “Don’t Let Me Down” and a joyous “One After 909.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Beatles played their last live show in a January 1969 concert staged for the documentary ‘Let It Be.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The album, released on May 8, performed well and spawned two hit singles – the title track and “The Long and Winding Road” – but the group never recorded together again.</p>
<p>Their fans hoped against hope that four solo Beatles might someday find their way back to the thrills that had enchanted audiences for seven years. These rumors seemed most promising when <a href="https://longreads.com/2019/06/24/took-you-by-surprise-john-and-pauls-lost-reunion/">McCartney joined Lennon for a Los Angeles recording session</a> in 1974 with Stevie Wonder. But while they all played on one another’s solo efforts, the four never played a session together again. </p>
<p>At the beginning of 1970, autumn’s “Come Together”/“Something” single from “Abbey Road” still floated in the Billboard top 20; the “Let It Be” album and film helped extend fervor beyond what the papers reported. For a long time, the myth of the band endured on radio playlists and across several greatest hits compilations, but when John Lennon sang “The dream is over…” at the end of his own 1970 solo debut, “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/john-lennon-plastic-ono-band-108294/">John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band</a>,” few grasped the lyrics’ implacable truth. </p>
<p>Fans and critics chased every sliver of hope for the “next” Beatles, but few came close to recreating the band’s magic. There were prospects – first bands like Three Dog Night, the Flaming Groovies, Big Star and the Raspberries; later, Cheap Trick, the Romantics and the Knack – but these groups only aimed at the same heights the Beatles had conquered, and none sported the range, songwriting ability or ineffable chemistry of the Liverpool quartet.</p>
<p>We’ve been living in the world without Beatles ever since.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130980/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Riley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Unbridled ambition and bruised egos created an irreparable fissure.Tim Riley, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director for Journalism, Emerson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1271742019-11-27T19:37:53Z2019-11-27T19:37:53Z‘The Wall’ cemented Pink Floyd’s fame – but destroyed the band<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304127/original/file-20191127-112545-1219h0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C4%2C3118%2C2046&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Roger Waters continues to perform 'The Wall' even after leaving Pink Floyd.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hungary-The-Wall-Concert/27b0a8c0ffa240b48003094e1c0abdbb/35/0">AP Photo/MTI, Balazs Mohai</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Forty years ago, on Nov. 30, 1979, the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd released its 11th studio album, “The Wall.” </p>
<p>Featuring 26 tracks, two records and an operatic story line, the concept album would go on to become the No. 2 bestselling double album in history. But it would also mark the last time Pink Floyd’s core members – Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright – would record an album together.</p>
<p>Years of touring and financial stress had taken their toll. The egomania of one member, Waters, during the recording of “The Wall” would be the tipping point.</p>
<h2>Tensions mount</h2>
<p>The unchecked egos of band members can often be difficult to rein in, and often lead to acrimony – to the point where the band breakup has almost become a cliché. </p>
<p>Tensions among the four members of The Beatles – John Lennon and Paul McCartney, in particular – famously led to <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/why-the-beatles-broke-up-113403/">the band’s breakup in 1970</a>. Conflict between guitarist Johnny Marr and vocalist Morrissey <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/why-its-great-the-smiths-broke-up-117660/">triggered Marr’s decision to leave The Smiths</a>. And let’s not forget The Eagles, which broke up on such bad terms that drummer and vocalist Don Henley said the band would reunite “<a href="https://wcmf.radio.com/blogs/kane-o/25-years-after-fact-hell-freezes-over-again">when hell freezes over</a>.”</p>
<p>By the time Pink Floyd started recording “The Wall” in January 1979, tensions had been simmering for years.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/pink-floyds-dark-side-of-the-moon-10-things-you-didnt-know-201743/">The Dark Side of the Moon</a>,” released in 1973, had catapulted Pink Floyd to superstardom. But the band members struggled over how to build off the success of “Dark Side” and make another hit album.</p>
<p>They had already fought among themselves when recording their follow-up albums, 1975’s “<a href="https://www.thisdayinmusic.com/classic-albums/pink-floyd-wish-you-were-here/">Wish You Were Here</a>” and 1977’s “<a href="https://consequenceofsound.net/2017/05/pink-floyds-animals-pulls-no-political-punches-40-years-later/">Animals</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304135/original/file-20191127-112526-19labqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304135/original/file-20191127-112526-19labqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304135/original/file-20191127-112526-19labqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304135/original/file-20191127-112526-19labqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304135/original/file-20191127-112526-19labqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304135/original/file-20191127-112526-19labqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304135/original/file-20191127-112526-19labqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From left to right: Roger Waters, Nick Mason, David Gilmour and Richard Wright.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Pink_Floyd%2C_1971.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Roger Waters, the band’s bassist and co-lead singer, took charge for “Wish You Were Here.” He decided which tracks would appear and essentially dictated the album’s conceptual themes, which included alienation, a critique of the music industry and a tribute to former bandmate Syd Barrett, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/arts/music/12barrett.html">who had left the band in 1968 due to mental health struggles</a>. </p>
<p>In the process, Waters ended up cutting the songs, “Raving and Drooling” and “Gotta Be Crazy” against the wishes of guitarist and co-vocalist David Gilmour.</p>
<p>“Dave was always clear that he wanted to do the other two songs,” <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-wish-you-were-here-was-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-pink-floyd">Waters recalled</a>. “He never quite copped what I was talking about. But Rick did and Nicky did, and he was outvoted, so we went on.”</p>
<p>Perhaps feeling suffocated by Waters, Richard Wright and David Gilmour took a stab at solo albums in 1978, with Wright releasing “Wet Dream” and Gilmour debuting the self-titled “David Gilmour.” </p>
<p>Reflecting on his first solo album, <a href="http://www.pink-floyd.org/artint/circus.htm">Gilmour said</a> it “was important to me in terms of self-respect. At first I didn’t think my name was big enough to carry it. Being in a group for so long can be a bit claustrophobic, and I needed to step out from behind Floyd’s shadow.”</p>
<h2>The shadow of ‘The Wall’</h2>
<p>“The Wall” would be the band’s next project – and, again, Waters asserted control. </p>
<p>Waters was partly inspired by an infamous incident that took place during the “In the Flesh” tour, which promoted the album “Animals.” Annoyed by the sound of firecrackers – and feeling as if the crowd wasn’t listening to their music or lyrics – <a href="https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/music/planned-pink-floyd-opera-in-montreal-owes-existence-to-the-time-roger-waters-spit-on-fan-in-1977">Waters spat on the audience</a>. He later mused about building a wall between him and his fans. The seed for “The Wall” was planted. </p>
<p>In July 1978, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vkpISAAACAAJ&dq=The+Making+of+Pink+Floyd+The+Wall&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiomujiyormAhVDRqwKHcCgCuYQ6AEwAXoECAEQAg">he presented a 90-minute demo</a> to the rest of the band, proposing two concepts for the next album: “Bricks in the Wall” and “The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking.” </p>
<p>The band members agreed to make an album focused on the first of the two. It would be about the struggles and isolation of rock stardom, and its central character would be named Pink Floyd. </p>
<p>The name of the character belied the fact that this would largely be a one-man show. As musicologist Allan F. Moore <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.46254">observed</a>, “Waters’ growing megalomania, much in evidence on ‘The Wall,’ became harder to handle.”</p>
<p>The fact that the album’s central story was semi-autobiographical, based on Waters and former band member Syd Barrett, probably didn’t help matters. The motif of walls symbolized the defense mechanisms Waters had built up against those who might hurt him: parents, teachers, wives and lovers. Some lyrics dealt with the death of his father, others with infidelity.</p>
<p>If David Gilmour had ideas for ways to contribute to Waters’ vision, they were barely incorporated. Waters did include fragments from demos associated with Gilmour’s solo projects. But in the end, Gilmour only received three co-writing credits – for “Run Like Hell,” “Young Lust” and “Comfortably Numb.” Drummer Nick Mason and keyboardist Richard Wright didn’t receive any at all.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Young Lust’ is one of only three songs on which David Gilmour received a writing credit.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the track “Mother,” Waters even brought in Toto drummer and session percussionist Jeff Porcaro to replace Mason. On Mason’s limited drumming abilities, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090413165017/http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/news/vintage-pink-floyd-interview-part-1/">Roger Waters recalled</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It’s got 5/4 bars in it. Nick, to his great credit, has no pretense about that, it was clear that he could not play it. He said ‘I can’t play that.’ Or maybe somebody said to him, ‘Nick, maybe you should get somebody else to play this because you’re struggling.’”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The aftermath</h2>
<p>Today, “The Wall” is considered by many <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-156826/pink-floyd-the-wall-152799/">to be one of the best albums in rock history</a>. But it marked the last time the four members of the band would record an album together.</p>
<p>Keyboardist Richard Wright left, only to return later as a salaried sideman during Pink Floyd’s tours in 1980 and 1981. Pink Floyd – minus Wright – went on to record its 1983 album, “The Final Cut.” Waters eventually quit Pink Floyd in 1985 and sued members Gilmour and Mason in an attempt to stop them from using the band name, arguing that Pink Floyd was “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-24157591">a spent force creatively</a>.”</p>
<p>Waters lost, and Gilmour and Mason went on to record three more albums under the name Pink Floyd: 1987’s “A Momentary Lapse of Reason,” 1994’s “The Division Bell” and 2014’s “<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-pink-floyds-river-time-is-endless-33707">The Endless River</a>.”</p>
<p>None would match the critical or commercial success of “The Wall.”</p>
<p>The making of “The Wall” reflects a common experience faced by many other rock bands: how creative tension and competing visions can deteriorate relations between band members. </p>
<p>Luckily, Pink Floyd was able to keep it all together to record one final masterpiece.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127174/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark E. Perry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The story of the album, which was released 40 years ago, is a classic tale of how bands struggle with unchecked egos and competing visions.Mark E. Perry, Director of Music Industry Program & Assistant Professor of Musicology, Oklahoma State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1240702019-10-01T20:25:32Z2019-10-01T20:25:32ZThe Beatles’ revolutionary use of recording technology in ‘Abbey Road’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295038/original/file-20191001-173375-wjvi1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A fan carries a copy of 'Abbey Road' as he traverses the infamous crosswalk that appears on the album's cover.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Britain-Beatles/e99384fb0ee949ef860494d82de0dd12/23/0">AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With its cheery singles, theatrical medley and <a href="https://www.biography.com/.image/ar_16:9%2Cc_fill%2Ccs_srgb%2Cfl_progressive%2Cg_faces:center%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_768/MTE5NDg0MDYyMjg5MTM1MTE5/bio_abbeyroad_promojpg.jpg">iconic cover</a>, The Beatles’ 11th studio album, “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/beatles-abbey-road-890229/">Abbey Road</a>,” holds a special place in the hearts of the band’s fans. </p>
<p>But as the album celebrates its 50th anniversary, few may realize just how groundbreaking its tracks were for the band.</p>
<p>In my forthcoming book, “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Recording-Analysis-How-the-Record-Shapes-the-Song/Moylan/p/book/9781138667068">Recording Analysis: How the Record Shapes the Song</a>,” I show how the recording process can enhance the artistry of songs, and “Abbey Road” is one of the albums I highlight.</p>
<p>Beginning with 1965’s “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/50-years-of-rubber-soul-how-the-beatles-invented-the-future-of-pop-59132/">Rubber Soul</a>,” The Beatles started exploring new sounds. This quest continued in “Abbey Road,” where the band was able to deftly incorporate emerging recording technology in a way that set the album apart from everything they had previously done.</p>
<h2>Sound in motion</h2>
<p>“Abbey Road” is the first album that the band released in stereo only.</p>
<p>Stereo was <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Inventor-of-Stereo-The-Life-and-Works-of-Alan-Dower-Blumlein/Alexander/p/book/9780240516288">established in the early 1930s</a> as a way to capture and replicate the way humans hear sounds. Stereo recordings contain two separate channels of sound – similar to our two ears – while mono contains everything on one channel. </p>
<p>Stereo’s two channels can create the illusion of sounds emerging from different directions, with some coming from the listener’s left and others coming from the right. In mono, all sounds are always centered.</p>
<p>The Beatles had recorded all their previous albums in mono, with stereo versions made without the Beatles’ participation. In “Abbey Road,” however, stereo is central to the album’s creative vision.</p>
<p>Take the opening minute of “Here Comes the Sun,” the first track on the record’s second side. </p>
<p>If you listen to the record on a stereo, George Harrison’s acoustic guitar emerges from the left speaker. It’s soon joined by several delicate synthesizer sounds. At the end of the song’s introduction, a lone synthesizer sound gradually sweeps from the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Understanding-and-Crafting-the-Mix-The-Art-of-Recording-3rd-Edition/Moylan/p/book/9780415842815">left speaker to the listener’s center</a>.</p>
<p>Harrison’s voice then enters in the center, in front of the listener, and is joined by strings located toward the right speaker’s location. This sort of sonic movement can only happen in stereo – and The Beatles masterfully deployed this effect.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="13" data-image="" data-title="The introduction to 'Here Comes the Sun' showcases stereo's range." data-size="218927" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
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<div class="audio-player-caption">
The introduction to ‘Here Comes the Sun’ showcases stereo’s range.
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<p>Then there are Ringo Starr’s drums in “The End,” which fill the entire sonic space, from left to right. But each drum <a href="http://www.curvebender.com/rtb.html">is individually fixed in a separate position</a>, creating the illusion of many drums in multiple locations – a dramatic cacophony of rhythms that’s especially noticeable in the track’s drum solo.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="15" data-image="" data-title="'The End' peppers listeners' ears with a panoply of drums." data-size="242751" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
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‘The End’ peppers listeners’ ears with a panoply of drums.
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<h2>Enter: The synthesizer</h2>
<p>In the mid-1960s, an engineer named Robert Moog <a href="https://www.wqxr.org/story/moog-synthesizers-dynamic-musical-history/">invented the modular synthesizer</a>, a new type of instrument that generated unique sounds from oscillators and electronic controls that could be used to play melodies or enhance tracks with sound effects. </p>
<p>Harrison received a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-beatles-as-musicians-9780195129410?q=everett&lang=en&cc=us">demonstration of the device in October 1968</a>. A month later, he ordered one of his own.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295053/original/file-20191001-173337-d0fnki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295053/original/file-20191001-173337-d0fnki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295053/original/file-20191001-173337-d0fnki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295053/original/file-20191001-173337-d0fnki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295053/original/file-20191001-173337-d0fnki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295053/original/file-20191001-173337-d0fnki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295053/original/file-20191001-173337-d0fnki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robert Moog poses with one of his synthesizers in a 2000 photograph.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-North-Carolina-U-/3e77d51ac1e3da11af9f0014c2589dfb/9/0">AP Photo/Alan Marler</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Beatles are among the very first popular musicians to use this revolutionary instrument. Harrison <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beatles-Recording-Sessions-Official-1962-1970/dp/B004UOC08C">first played it</a> during the “Abbey Road” sessions in August 1969, when he used it for the track “Because.”</p>
<p>The synthesizer ended up being used in three other tracks on the album: “Here Comes the Sun,” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” </p>
<p>The Beatles didn’t incorporate the synthesizer for novelty or effect, as the Ran-Dells did in their 1963 hit “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAUuqpFLLvQ">Martian Hop</a>” and The Monkees did in their 1967 song “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TCOggiUGHk&feature=youtu.be&t=82">Star Collector</a>.”</p>
<p>Instead, on “Abbey Road,” the band capitalizes on the synthesizer’s versatility, creatively using it to enhance, rather than dominate, their tracks. </p>
<p>In some cases, the synthesizer simply sounds like another instrument: In “Here Comes the Sun,” the Moog mimics the guitar. In other tracks, like “Because,” the synthesizer actually carries the song’s main melody, effectively replacing the band’s voices.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="10" data-image="" data-title="In 'Because,' the synthesizer mimics the voices of band members." data-size="171698" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
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<div class="audio-player-caption">
In ‘Because,’ the synthesizer mimics the voices of band members.
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<h2>A dramatic pause</h2>
<p>In 1969, the LP record still reigned supreme. The Walkman – the device that made music a more private and portable experience – <a href="http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1907884,00.html">wouldn’t be invented for another 10 years</a>.</p>
<p>So when “Abbey Road” was released, people still listened to music in a room, either alone or with friends, on a record player.</p>
<p>The record had two sides; after the last song on the first side, you had to get up, flip the LP and drop the needle – a process that could take about a minute.</p>
<p>The Beatles, conscious of this process, incorporated this pause into the album’s overall experience.</p>
<p>“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” ends side one. It’s full of energetic sounds that span the entire left-to-right spectrum of stereo, bounce from lower to higher frequencies and include sweeps of white noise synthesizer. These sounds gradually amass throughout the course of the song, the tension growing – until it suddenly stops: the point at which John Lennon decided the tape should be cut. </p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="14" data-image="" data-title="The end of 'I Want You' is like the climax of a speech being cut off." data-size="228959" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
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<div class="audio-player-caption">
The end of ‘I Want You’ is like the climax of a speech being cut off.
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<p>The silence in the gap of time it takes to flip the LP allows the dramatic and sudden conclusion of side one to reverberate within the listener. </p>
<p>Then side two begins, and not with a bang: It’s the gentle, thin guitar of “Here Comes the Sun.” The transition represents the greatest contrast between any two tracks on the album. </p>
<p>That gap of silence between each side is integral to the album, an experience you can’t have listening to “Abbey Road” on Spotify.</p>
<p>“Abbey Road,” perhaps more than any other Beatles album, shows how a song can be poetically written and an instrument deftly played. But the way a track is recorded can be the artist’s final stamp on the song.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124070/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William D. Moylan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the album celebrates its 50th anniversary, an expert in sound recording details how the band deployed stereo and synthesizers to put a unique artistic stamp on this iconic album.William D. Moylan, Professor of Sound Recording Technology and Music, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1189502019-07-01T19:28:30Z2019-07-01T19:28:30ZBusiness-to-artist: record labels and sub-labels in the digital age<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279819/original/file-20190617-118535-1hbts7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C300%2C2448%2C1660&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/assorted-vinyl-record-lot-908965/">Robin McPherson/Pexels</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The history of recorded music has been marked by profound and continuous change – not just recording technology, but also musical form, style, technique and beyond. From the late 19th century until the present, technical change has been omnipresent – wax cylinders gave way to 78 rpm records, then LPs arrived and were surpassed in turn by CDs, downloading, and now streaming. </p>
<p>The evolving technology and shifting economics of the music industry have coincided with the emergence of major labels, which in turn have built diversified portfolios of sub-labels. From a marketing point of view, they’re intended to build brand equity, defined as “the added value a brand gives a product” (Farquhar, 1989). Having a better understanding of brand equity can help explain the abundance of labels and sub-labels in today’s digital world.</p>
<h2>Psychological and economic approaches</h2>
<p>When considering brand equity, there is the approach grounded in cognitive psychology, generally associated with Aaker’s work (Aaker, 1991) that encompasses brand associations, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand loyalty and other assets such as patents. There is also the economic approach dating back to Stigler (1961) and Stiglitz (1987) suggesting that branding and multiple brand development are related to decreased information costs and decreased risks from the consumer perspective.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279822/original/file-20190617-118530-hc542u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279822/original/file-20190617-118530-hc542u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279822/original/file-20190617-118530-hc542u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279822/original/file-20190617-118530-hc542u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279822/original/file-20190617-118530-hc542u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279822/original/file-20190617-118530-hc542u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279822/original/file-20190617-118530-hc542u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279822/original/file-20190617-118530-hc542u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aaker (1991)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Major labels do not necessarily behave as traditional umbrella brands because their sub-labels do not always share the same musical identity or genre. Sub-labels benefit from their parent label’s financial and marketing support – artist recruitment, product development, promotion and distribution. </p>
<p>Let’s consider Sony, Warner and Universal as the three dominant major labels concerning economics based-theory, as well as Motown (Universal’s sub-label today) regarding the psychology based theory.</p>
<p><strong>Sony Entertainment</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279834/original/file-20190617-118526-1vkvuyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279834/original/file-20190617-118526-1vkvuyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=244&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279834/original/file-20190617-118526-1vkvuyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=244&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279834/original/file-20190617-118526-1vkvuyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=244&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279834/original/file-20190617-118526-1vkvuyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279834/original/file-20190617-118526-1vkvuyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279834/original/file-20190617-118526-1vkvuyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sony Music Entertainment Japan and other independent national companies are not included.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.discogs.com">discogs.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Universal Music Group</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279835/original/file-20190617-118514-1go52k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279835/original/file-20190617-118514-1go52k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279835/original/file-20190617-118514-1go52k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279835/original/file-20190617-118514-1go52k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279835/original/file-20190617-118514-1go52k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279835/original/file-20190617-118514-1go52k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279835/original/file-20190617-118514-1go52k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Does not include all national companies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.discogs.com">discogs.com</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Warner</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279836/original/file-20190617-118510-2g9qlh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279836/original/file-20190617-118510-2g9qlh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=188&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279836/original/file-20190617-118510-2g9qlh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=188&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279836/original/file-20190617-118510-2g9qlh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=188&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279836/original/file-20190617-118510-2g9qlh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=237&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279836/original/file-20190617-118510-2g9qlh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=237&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279836/original/file-20190617-118510-2g9qlh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=237&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.discogs.com">discogs.com</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tracking sub-labels’ history can be difficult. For example, DefJam is currently a sub-label for Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1984 by Rick Rubin at New York University with early artists such as LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. The label was distributed through CBS Records in the 1990s, went through some financial difficulties, then had several major owners including Sony, Polygram, and Universal Music Group (see a <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8096177/def-jam-history-timeline-paul-rosenberg">timeline of Def Jam history</a>).</p>
<p>Today, Motown is a sub-label of Universal music Group, but was originally founded by Berry Gordy and became the Motown Record Company in 1960. The label has always benefitted from a strong, reputation for bringing together African-American musical genres and pop music featuring artists as Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Four Tops, and The Jackson 5 (see a <a href="https://classic.motown.com/history/">timeline of Motown’s history</a>). Certainly, the Motown roster boasts strong consumer awareness, loyalty and brand associations (Aaker, 1991).</p>
<h2>From marketing to risk-management tools</h2>
<p>While pricing, promotion, product quality and brand credibility are important factors for major labels and sub-labels, risk reduction by portfolio management is now one of the key motivations for major labels that manage sub-labels as separate assets.</p>
<p>Non financial risks are those that may threaten the image or the operations of the company. Today, the importance of the music label to consumers is less evident, and they primarily act as financial and marketing organizations. In this sense, we observe a shift from the label as having a highly visible business-to-consumer (B2C) function to something closer to business-to-business (B2B) or even business-to-artist (B2A).</p>
<p>We define B2A as the relationships between a company (or label) and an artist (a musician or a group) requiring financial support for recruitment, production, product distribution and promotion. We interpret the proliferation of sub-labels primarily as a risk-aversion brand strategy. Record labels know that brands’ rate of mortality has always been high, with an uncertain return on investment. A closer look at labels’ management practices in our current digital age does question the reason beyond taking such risks.</p>
<p>Music labels benefit from the profitability attached to their selling music to consumers. The artist benefits from having resources to make their music known to the market. In the past, consumers recognized the label-artist connection. Today, the brand is the artist, and the label as a brand in and of itself is vanishing. This disappearance is reinforced by digital technologies, and what remains is the label’s support for the artist. What is new is that labels and sub-labels stand in the shadow of the artist so that an artist can be managed as a personified global brand.</p>
<h2>B2A and the artist’s value chain in the digital era</h2>
<p>An artist’s value chain once involved business and tour managers, label representatives, marketers, and executives, and promotion and distribution specialists. Nowadays, small independent labels are embedded in the artist’s digitalized and simplified value chain.</p>
<p>Besides basic career or business functions, an artist’s manager can coach the artist in multiple dimensions of her or his identity, leveraging social media to distribute music and promote aspects of the artist’s existence, including lifestyle and performance and practice skills (Cartwright, Küssner and Williamon, 2019). The key is to spin online popularity and create meaningful experiences within a virtual community of consumers, fans or experts. The promise is a long-term instant online conversation. Our B2A concept is also linked to the stream of research called <a href="http://cctweb.org/">consumer culture theory</a>, which explores the world of consumer tribes and shows how they pursue common consumption interests and ways of life.</p>
<p>By creating strong interactive experiences with their fans, artists can keep fans engaged. A group like <a href="http://www.umphreys.com/">Umphrey’s McGee</a> has stayed successful in this way, experimenting with many genres since the band’s first studio album released in 1996 up through their most recent album in 2018. Their website even allowing fans to record their own personal shows and leave reviews on the band’s performances.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279826/original/file-20190617-118501-8ib79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279826/original/file-20190617-118501-8ib79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279826/original/file-20190617-118501-8ib79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279826/original/file-20190617-118501-8ib79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279826/original/file-20190617-118501-8ib79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279826/original/file-20190617-118501-8ib79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279826/original/file-20190617-118501-8ib79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279826/original/file-20190617-118501-8ib79g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>When it comes to digital sales today, generally there is no obvious display of the labels on the cover artwork of albums. The gap is extremely plain when comparing the original LP of the Beatles’ album <em>Meet the Beatles</em>, released in 1964, with how it is currently presented on Amazon. On the LP, the label name is extremely present, particularly above the song list. As now presented on Amazon, the label’s logo is in small type on the original cover, but not in the listing at all.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279828/original/file-20190617-118505-aith6o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279828/original/file-20190617-118505-aith6o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279828/original/file-20190617-118505-aith6o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279828/original/file-20190617-118505-aith6o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279828/original/file-20190617-118505-aith6o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279828/original/file-20190617-118505-aith6o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279828/original/file-20190617-118505-aith6o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279828/original/file-20190617-118505-aith6o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Beatles, <em>Meet the Beatles</em>.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GJ7ROX4/ref=cm_sw_r_pi_dp_U_x_DN0UCb75QC7YX">Amazon.com</a></span>
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<p>Compare this to Beyoncé’s <em>I Am Sasha Fierce</em>, released in 2008 by Columbia Records and Music World Entertainment. Here, the label isn’t visible at all.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279829/original/file-20190617-118497-1rcdo7h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279829/original/file-20190617-118497-1rcdo7h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279829/original/file-20190617-118497-1rcdo7h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279829/original/file-20190617-118497-1rcdo7h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279829/original/file-20190617-118497-1rcdo7h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279829/original/file-20190617-118497-1rcdo7h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279829/original/file-20190617-118497-1rcdo7h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279829/original/file-20190617-118497-1rcdo7h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Beyoncé, <em>I am Sasha fierce</em>.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/i-am-sasha-fierce/id296016891">iTunes</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>B2A thus serves labels’ and sub-labels’ identity shift inside the ever-changing digital music marketplace. They exist as brands that have become removed from the consumer awareness and now mainly serve as financial and marketing companies. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the artist is the brand, pushing labels to focus on the management of financial and non-financial risks via a proliferation of sub-labels that belong to a broader portfolio management strategy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118950/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>The history of recorded music has been marked by endless artistic and technological changes. While music labels persist, digital technology has profoundly altered why they exist and how they work.Françoise Passerard, Professeur assistant en Marketing, PSB Paris School of BusinessPhillip Cartwright, Professor of Economics, PSB Paris School of Business and Visiting Researcher, Royal College of Music, PSB Paris School of BusinessLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1189922019-06-20T00:54:36Z2019-06-20T00:54:36ZCross-over cocktail: Indies & Idols mixes rock stars with modern Polish composers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280126/original/file-20190619-118539-1dhy6zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Artistic Director Richard Tognetti and members of the orchestra: the rock musicians whose work feature in this concert openly acknowledge the influence of the seemingly inaccessible avant-garde.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Julian Kingma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Indies & Idols, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Opera House</em></p>
<p>“The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together”: what Samuel Johnson wrote about metaphysical poetry might have seemed transferrable to the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s <a href="https://www.aco.com.au/whats_on/event_detail/indies-and-idols-2019">Indies & Idols</a> program, where 20th-century Polish modernist composers were cheek-by-jowl with contemporary singer-songwriters and rock stars. </p>
<p>And yet, as so often with the ACO’s more eclectic offerings, there were plenty of resonances to be heard across the afternoon. This was less surprising after Artistic Director Richard Tognetti explained that the rock musicians openly acknowledged the influence of the seemingly inaccessible avant-garde.</p>
<p>Surprising though this may seem, the boundaries between popular music and classical music have always been more permeable than such terms suggest. Certain classical works have jumped the imaginary wall supposedly sealing high art off from popular tastes and become culturally ubiquitous: one need only think of the Ode to Joy or Flight of the Bumblebee. </p>
<p>Nor is the idea of the timeless masterpiece unique to classical music. Popular music, too, has undergone its own canonising process, so that the output of the Beatles and Bach are both recognised as “art” transcending their historical moment. </p>
<p>Beyond matters of reception, both sides have benefited from the fructifying influence of the other. Classical music has long mined vernacular music traditions, from folksong importations by Haydn and Beethoven (to name but two) to jazz influences in Debussy and Ravel, while Duke Ellington’s Black, White and Beige and the Beatles’ Revolution 9 show that this stimulus was a two-way street.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/revolution-50-the-beatles-white-album-remixed-106784">Revolution 50: The Beatles’ White Album remixed</a>
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<p>Rarely has a cross-cultural debt been as openly acknowledged as in The National’s <a href="http://brycedessner.com/">Bryce Dessner</a>’s <em>Réponse Lutosławski</em>, a five-movement work written in response to the Polish composer’s <em>Musique funèbre</em> (1958). Although it would have been performable by the ACO’s all-string line-up, the latter work was not heard on this program; instead, Lutosławski’s shorter Overture for Strings opened the concert. This strongly Bartokian work with its quirky pizzicato passages and glissando ornaments crackled with energy. </p>
<p>Even if Dessner’s specific model wasn’t showcased, there were enough textural similarities to enable some kinship to be discerned: <em>col legno</em> (hitting the string with the wood of the bow rather than the hair), siren effects, etc. There was perhaps more expressive lyricism in the Réponse than in the source material, with shimmering textures and fluid figuration prepondering.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280129/original/file-20190619-118510-1txqqbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280129/original/file-20190619-118510-1txqqbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280129/original/file-20190619-118510-1txqqbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280129/original/file-20190619-118510-1txqqbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280129/original/file-20190619-118510-1txqqbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280129/original/file-20190619-118510-1txqqbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280129/original/file-20190619-118510-1txqqbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280129/original/file-20190619-118510-1txqqbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Lutosławski’s shorter Overture for Strings opened the concert.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nic Walker</span></span>
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<p>In terms of performance, the Suite by Sufjan Stevens which closed the first half was particularly outstanding. Stevens’s 2001 electronic album Enjoy your Rabbit was rearranged for string quartet in 2009 as Run Rabbit Run. The Suite utilises four of the five arrangements by Michael Atkinson, reordered into something approaching the expected sequence of movements in a string quartet. Although less overtly Polish-influenced than the other 21st century compositions, it too employed scrub tremolos, slides and knocking on the wood of the instrument. </p>
<p>The opening Year of the Ox established the tonal sound world (later punctuated by noise effects) and good-humoured mood. The highly rhythmical Enjoy your Rabbit equated with a Scherzo, fading out into static at the end. The third movement, Year of Our Lord was a meditative sound-sheet, the slow changes giving it the feel of something static, even architectural. Energy was restored in the final Year of the Boar, with the players clearly enjoying the thrill-ride as much as the audience.</p>
<h2>Stylistic jolt</h2>
<p>By far the biggest stylistic jolt in the afternoon came at the start of the second half when Penderecki’s Aria was followed by the same composer’s String Quartet No. 1. Written for a film score, the Aria is an exercise in Baroque pastiche, almost indistinguishable from the real thing. </p>
<p>These mellifluous melodies gave way to the seemingly aleatoric landscape of jagged percussive effects and instrumental screams that dominate the uncompromising String Quartet.</p>
<p>Jonny Greenwood’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGUP1CV3WTc">Suite from There Will be Blood</a> followed without a break. Comparatively friendly in its musical syntax, it had coherence away from its filmic source, now bristling with determination (Future markets), now hypnotic (Prospector’s Quartet), with visually fun elements such as seeing the cellos play in banjo position (Proven Lands). </p>
<p>Tognetti, who since the interval had been directing rather than playing, supplemented the orchestral sound with a few notes on the synthesiser.</p>
<p>In some ways, the best was saved until last with Tognetti’s arrangement of Szymanowski’s String Quartet No. 2. The opening movement plunges the listener into the world of post-impressionist decadence that is the composer’s hallmark, the deliciously aestheticised sound world created through mutes and <em>sul tasto</em> effects (bowing above the fingerboard for a less focused timbre).</p>
<p>The second movement was a frantic waltz above a lively accompaniment, with cleverly varied textures and several nice solos. The impassioned final movement (not <em>Lento</em> throughout, despite what was written in the program book) offered a thrilling conclusion where the players’ commitment was once again palpable.</p>
<p>For the encore there was a return to the output of Jonny Greenwood, this time in the form of Radiohead’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZq_jeYsbTs">How to disappear completely</a> from <em>Kid A</em>. With Satu Vänskä providing vocals in the original tenor register of Thom Yorke, the swooping, haunting sounds from the much processed original were recreated in analogue form. </p>
<p>This Messiaen-and-Penderecki influenced track thus returned to the classical arena that inspired it: a fitting closing of the circle. </p>
<p><em>The ACO’s Indies & Idols can be seen in Perth on June 19, Melbourne June 23 and 24 and Sydney June 25, 26, 28 and 29.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118992/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Larkin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An Australian Chamber Orchestra concert features works by Jonny Greenwood, Sufjan Stevens and The Nationals’ Bryce Dessner, along with those of modern Polish composers.David Larkin, Senior Lecturer in Musicology, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.