Saturday 1 December 2012

Critics, Genres, and One Way Streets.

  • Reflections on why genre classifications and the opinions of music critics ought to viewed as existing as part of a "one way street", set up by way of me trying to defend a few bands that people might be too quick to dismiss as "emo".
Whenever I go drinking or driving with my brother (note: or) there reaches a point in the evening when he asks me a very important question: "Do you still have Ricky Martin's 1999 gem of Latin pop-perfection Livin' la Vida Loca on your iPod?" Each time I answer yes. Good god, yes.

My music collection operates under a strict no-deletion policy. My iTunes collection has outlived several computers, USB hard drives, and iPods. I enjoy rediscovering a song or album I haven't listened to for years. I also enjoy intentionally revisiting songs that I listened to growing up; songs from the likes of Alkaline Trio or Green Day.

I'm not saying that those who aren't willing to endure an entire Atreyu record because it was acceptable ten years ago aren't "real music fans". I'm not trying to force my opinion on anyone. As will become clear, the point in this post is to encourage reader's not to take the opinions of others seriously. To make this point I'd like to try and defend three bands that some might be too quick to dismiss as mere "emo". Having made a cliched "never judge a book by its cover" argument, I'll then move on to talk a little about my philosophy on why genre classification and the opinions of music critics exist on a one way street.

STARS.

I'll start with a band who, despite displaying a few emo traits, are easy to defend. Any release by Canadian Broken Social Scene affiliates Stars is typically met with critical acclaim. When presented as a list of facts, however, Stars sound... awful:
  • The cover of Set Yourself on Fire features a semi-naked chick in a pink balaclava wielding some sort of bloodied knife and/or sex toy. 
  • Oh yeah, it's called Set Yourself on Fire.
  • The album Heart (yup, it's called Heart) opens with a track called What the Snowman Learned About Love which itself starts with each band member saying in turn "I'm ___, and this is my heart."
  • In Do You Want to Die Together? Torquil Campbell asks "What's the point of life without my heart?" He is 40 years old.
On the basis of these facts alone I would forgive anyone for writing off Stars as a band of trembling train wrecks who haven't emotionally aged since high school. Given a chance, however, Stars simply make sense. There's something undeniably alluring about Campbell's obscure-actor background; a background that lends a certain legitimacy to the melodrama of his music. Moreover, musically, Stars never miss a beat. Even if a listener doesn't feel that Campbell's acting career can redeem his preteen lyricism, the millimetre-perfect pop that his band plays is irresistible.

The beat two push right before the second verse of Reunion has the power to wash away a multitude of sins.


BRAND NEW - The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me. 

Perhaps less immediately defensible are Brand New. The band unavoidably attracts comparison to the emo genre, being associated with the likes of Taking Back Sunday and Finch. I won't try to defend their discography as a whole. It would be fair to say that their first record is lost to the chasm that is the early-00's emo movement. Album number three, The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me is however an undeniable work of genius. Its title makes reference to bipolar disorder, and every second of the record seems to have been birthed from a place of complete madness. Obsession, extreme self-loathing, screaming insanity and grisly deaths of innocent children. They're all here. The atmosphere of this loose concept album is absolutely enveloping. When combined with expertly deployed dynamics, the results can be genuinely unsettling.

Were that not enough, Degausser and Sowing Season are built on guitar work that Mogwai or Godspeed You! Black Emperor would be proud to call their own. The drum production on tracks like Millstone and You Won't Know is beefier than a burger encased in other burgers instead of a bun. If you're sitll not convinced, listen to the noisy-as-hell minor-major modulation halfway through Limousine.

FOUR YEAR STRONG - Rise or Die Trying.


Now i'm backed furthest into my emo-defence corner. Four Year Strong's Rise or Die Trying utilises more staples of the emo genre than either of the above examples. It makes regular use of that sickly, blocky synth lead sound made popular by Enter Shikari. Women are referred to as "catastrophes". Hell, sometimes the album breaks into full on screamo beatdowns.

But Four Year Strong gets away with it. The band makes tongue in cheek pop punk music that knows exactly what it is and doesn't apologise for it. It's impossible not to enjoy song titles like "Men are from Mars, Women are from Hell" or "Beatdown in the Key of Happy" when it's understood that they're meant to be fun and uplifting. If the album artwork doesn't make you smile then you don't have a soul. The reason Four Year Strong can pull off their shenanigans is that behind them lies an extremely competent group of musicians. Palm muted guitar riffs and drum fills are gloriously executed at break-neck speeds. The lyrics, while not to be taken seriously, display a great aptitude for rhythm and rhyme. Their vocal harmonies don't need to be defended by anyone.

Rise or Die Trying definitely isn't Sunday morning music, but it's definitely great music. It doesn't go well with a glass of red wine on a pleasant evening, but I'd recommend it for the gym: the balance of anger and uplift works wonders.



And so to move on to the broader point I'd like to make. First, I'll concede that I haven't really defended emo here. I haven't tried to defend the likes of My Chemical Romance because some things are simply indefensible. What I have done here is point out that great music has been produced by bands that some might overlook because of unhealthy associations with that most stigmatised of genres. I hope it's apparent from the above that what these bands have in common - whether it's the pop-perfection of Stars, the atmosphere of Brand New, or the complexity of Four Year Strong - is that they have undeniable talent that transcends any petty, irrelevant genre classification. They've simply made good music that I enjoy listening to. Good music that I might have been inclined to ignore or turn away from if I was embarrassed by its links to emo.

In my post The 5% I wrote extensively on the dangers of our social musical prejudices. Genre bias I think is another example of the cancerous prejudice I talked about in that article. From a similar place as the genre and social prejudices also comes music critic influence prejudice. I find it easy to recognise this in others because I have to work hard to fight it in myself. Just as I find it vital to suppress thoughts like "am I too old to be listening to Four Year Strong?", I find it vitaI to suppress thoughts like "I really like everything by Bloc Party but maybe I shouldn't. Pitchfork only gave Four a 4.9." In my previous post, Critical Engagement, I talked about why it's important to remember that artists are only people. In the same vein, it's important to remember that music critics are only people who happen to get paid to voice their opinion.

This of course isn't exactly correct. In providing a lettered or numbered rating for an album a good critic will take "big picture" issues, external to his or her own opinion, into account. They will consider how far the artist in question has developed since their last record, or whether the record is pushing the genre with which the artist is associated to interesting new places or merely causing it to stagnate, in turn reflecting badly on that artist's peers. These factors are however irrelevant to the average listener's enjoyment of music. While they are important in a broad sense, they ought to be entirely divorced from any subjective and emotional connection a listener makes with a song or record. What's more, while these issues are important, what essentially lies at the centre of every review is nonethless merely an opinion. A professional critic's opinion is no more valid than the opinion of a banker or a shop clerk. On top of all this, owing to the subjective nature of opinions and musical taste it is arguably dangerous to associate them with any notion of "validity" in the first place.

If an album by a band you've never heard of has been critically lauded, check it out. If a band is said to be of the same or similar genre to your favourite band, check them out. A negative review of an album you like however is irrelevant. A great album being associated with emo is irrelevant. It must be borne in mind that genre classifications are essentially nothing more than a means of cataloguing art. It's mad that they've become decisive in shaping our tastes. Equally important to remember is that critical media exists solely to serve the public. It should never work the other way around. 

Genres and reviews therefore operate on a one way street. They allow us to pull good music towards ourselves, but they should never cause us to push it away.

2 comments:

  1. I like this and the good. Please wright more. Sorry bad English

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    Replies
    1. Thankyou very much for the compliment!

      No need to apologise for the English. As someone who speaks only one language I have infinite respect for bilingual people.

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