The Beatles White Album (1968)
A Random CD Review from the Stutzman Memorial ArchiveThe Beatles (White Album) by The Beatles (1968)
So, the Excel spreadsheet spit out #44 today-The White Album. Talking about this album, (or just about any album by the Liverpool lads), is kind of overwhelming. Mostly everything’s already been said by critics, academics like Walter Everett, and fan boys like me. I talked about The Beatles and this album in particular as musical influences very early on in this blog. You can find those posts if you want to. What’s left to say? “The Beatles were great. This is one of their great albums…Welp, see you later.”
I haven’t heard this album in a while. When I was in high school, there was a point where I listened to the tape I dubbed just about every other day, in my jeep with cow seat covers. While it’s not a “perfect album,” (What is?) it’s certainly way up there in my estimation. What sets it apart from other Beatles albums? Basically, the lack of polish in the production, (only exceeded by Let It Be.) A lot of the record sounds like they were in a rush just to get the songs down, rather than use the studio’s tricks to create a mind-blowing, aural cornucopia a la Sgt. Pepper or “Strawberry Fields.”
To me, this record kind of sound like self-aware hippies—the endless possibilities of love are tempered here by relationships not working, (insert comment about Yoko Ono breaking up the band.) The lyrics betray this as well: for all of McCartney's pie-eyed optimism found in songs like "Mother Nature's Son" and "Honey Pie," "Martha My Dear," there can conversely be seen depression ("Im So Tired), dark imagery, (just listen to some of the stuff in “Happiness is a Warm Gun”), and George Harrison’s acerbic social commentary on “Piggies.” These guys needed MORE than love.
To go back to my original thought about the monolithic legacy of the Beatles--In an Onion interview a couple months ago, an interesting question was posed: Is it possible to even listen to The Beatles' music anymore? That was an appropriate question for me. I know this music so well. I’ve heard this stuff thousands of times, studied some of the scores, listened and listened listened. Can I ever hear it anew? Probably not.
Can I even enjoy this music anymore? I really don’t know. I happen to be so methodical in how I listen to music, (for instance, I’ll chronologically listen to the Frank Zappa albums in the car over weeks), that maybe “enjoyment” is a loaded word. Or consider this; whenever I buy a new CD, I refuse to listen to it in any manner other than with a pair of decent headphones, so as to hear as many details as possible. As freakish as that sounds, though, the methodology and order is comforting to me. God is in his heaven when there is a rational structure supporting the activities of my life. I suppose that was way too much information. I just revealed a couple of my quirks just to make the point that my "enjoyments" are possibly another person's "homework."
Anyway, I think there is something to the idea that over-familiarity with a work of art can render it impotent. I think my ability to listen to these Beatles albums and songs is fading. What’s scary is that I’m less and less frequently finding new artists to listen to with as voracious an appetite. I think the last time that happened; it was with Elvis Costello about six or seven years ago. Very rarely do I hear some new artist and feel this compulsion to acquire and hear every artistic statement they've made.
posted by Mike @ 3:45 PM
2 Comments:
Mike-
Maybe you're just joining some of the rest of us who view The Beatles, and others, through the lens of a "music fan" and not so much as a "musician." I don't know if this applies to the Beatles so much because I actually find much of their music enjoyable, but sometimes what makes a band or music great is not the technical, formulaic design of sounds so much as it is something more intangible. I think you and I have had this discussion before on whether music can be objectively qualified as "good" or "great."
The best example I can think of of this is Bob Dylan. He's technically not a great singer; in fact, he's not even a good singer. I don't know if he's considered to be a great or even good technical guitarist. But would anyone argue that he's not a great ARTIST. I understand how he wouldn't connect with everyone, but the reason he connects with people is there is pain in his voice, which fits with the pain in his lyrics, which fit with the instrumentation and the melodies of the song. It all "fits" (which is the best word I can think of to speak to the subjectivity of a piece of music's virtue).
A lot of musical appreciation relies on place and time. I've always considered music to be an interpreter between our emotions and our experience. That's much of the reason why soundtracks and scores are so important to film. That's why we make mix tapes (well, I guess we don't do "tapes" anymore) for our girlfriends and wives. That's why people cry over a song.
(Of course, I don't mean to sound like I'm lecturing you personally about this because you ask people for mix CD's when you're going on a long road trip).
I just think that when music becomes a component of the routine, every day is the same, and your discovery of new music happens within that routine, and you're just looking at it from a technical standpoint it doesn't mean anything to you. It just gets lost among all your days which are the same. I guess what I am saying is that at some point, you can listen to so much music and look at the core parts of it so much that when you pull out a CD, you can't remember when you first discovered it. It doesn't take you anywhere. The music is just "there." And I think maybe that's where music loses its enjoyment. It's what you hear along with what's going on at the time that can make music so beautiful.
I hated "Dream On" by Aerosmith until I watched ESPN Sportscenter one day and they played it to accompany a montage of sports moments throughout the 20th century. I thought it was so cool and so perfect. Now, when I hear the song, I think of that montage and it gives me a strange feeling of boldness. If I'd heard "Sea Change" by Beck for the first time in the bedroom with my headphones on just like I had with so much of my other music, would I had appreciated it as much as I did discovering it on a blustery, windy day in early March, walking near Lake Hefner, feeling lonely and depressed and unable to take my eyes off a short-haired blonde girl who reminded me of an ex-girlfriend jogging several feet in front of me? (Sorry, dude, for that run on sentence. Hope it doesn't screw with your English major sensibilities).
I don't think there will ever come a time when I don't "enjoy" hearing "Long Ride Home" by Patty Griffin because those first few soft guitar notes will remind me of the melancholy of driving through the Vegas strip at 6 AM, sad that a week of pure freedom and fun was coming to an end.
It's kind of why when I discover a new band or new album, I'll listen through it once or twice, but then leave it because I don't want it to just be something that I first heard while sitting at my desk one day at work. I do that every day. There's no distinct imagery to that.
Anyway, hope all that jumbled up stuff makes some bit of sense.
Yeah, we have had this conversation before.
While I don't think it's possible to objectively quantify any kind of artwork as "good" or "great" or whatever gradations fall between those, I DO strive to objectively quantify why I as an individual listener enjoy listening to specific things.
But I'm not willing to prescribe those things that I find important. In other words, I don't expect other people to like the same things that I like. (Or at least I should say I don't WANT to be that guy. I probably fall into music nazi mode more often than I know.)
I take your point on music being experiential and that "where" and "when" is as important as "what."
However, I'll go one step farther and say that what's even more exciting for me is the prospect of this experiential meaning being in FLUX, constantly being added to. Maybe twenty years from now, I will have several other experiences linked to...I don't know...OK Computer, for instance.
Anyway, I'm certainly guilty of overlooking what I bring to the table as an aesthete. I'm constantly trying to hear "the thing as it is," not just "the thing as I perceive it." I think it's because I would rather be guilty of that than gushing gobbledy-gook that doesn't really describe anything other than my mental state at the time.
Regardless, I AM a musician and as such, I probably DO listen for different things, kind of unconsciously. (But this blog has helped bring the unconscious filters to light a little more frequently.)
--
Bob Dylan is a mystery to me. For one thing the sheer number of his releases over the years seems insurmountable. The little bits I've heard I've either loved, (Freewheelin') or been ambivalent towards (Slow Train Coming). I suspect that there are plenty of people who would argue that he isn't a great artist because he doesn't "connect with people," (not sure how I would actually define that.) And then there is a set that would say the converse--he IS a great artist because he doesn't "connect with" just the average person. He's special.
Either way, I should probably just be content with finding great artists TO ME.
Anyway, a classic approach to music appreciation starts with identifying standard practices and being surprised when a certain piece or artist diverges from those conventions. I know that sounds a little clinical. But the "surprise" is where appreciation or enjoyment STARTS for me.
And of course, as a thinking, feeling human being, the experience of music IN LIFE, not just in theory, is also important to me.
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