As of this writing I’m 47 years old. Hopefully a day will come when someone reads this and I’m 48, 49, or even 79. The point of stating my age is that I’ve been listening to, loving, and discussing music for a long time and any kids reading this owe their elders the time of day to attempt to understand what we may be getting at! I know what makes me tick, and I do my best here and elsewhere, whether by written or spoken word, to articulate that. If I fail to communicate what I intend to communicate now and then, I’ll do better next time. Today I want to take a misguided complaint someone made about a piece I wrote elsewhere and blow it up into a potentially more interesting thread for discussion.
On a personal blog that I started years ago and now very rarely update, Overlooked Gems of My Lifetime, some pipsqueak reacted to a piece I did on Tom Verlaine‘s Dreamtime. He misunderstands a reference I make to the guitar work on some 1960s records I love and goes into this badge-of-honor rant about how I’m not capable of appreciating Tom Verlaine and how he was so inspiring despite his lack of popularity. He also pulls out a reference to My Bloody Valentine, a one-trick pony that also is frequently lauded for being “fucking inspiring” despite the fact that few people ever bought their records, to further tear down my stodgy, mainstream point of view. Here’s the full text of Pipsqueak’s reply:
Comparing Tom Verlaine albums to Beatles singles is like comparing My Bloody Valentine to Van Halen. Clearly, you don’t understand what makes his music interesting.
It’s unique! It’s not the same old guitar pop and he’s not trying to be some pretentious rock god. That’s why he’s cool, that’s why his songs stand out, and that’s why his fans are devoted. There’s more than coincidence to the fact that he influenced countless pop groups without having one thousandth the fame the Beatles did. He was fucking inspiring.
Maybe that’s what you’re trying to pry out of his records with the lame Paperback Writer references.
What is this guy, 19 years old? Hey man, I was 19 once too. When I was 19, when faced with a perceived old fart, I might spit out that Brian Eno quote about the Velvet Underground only selling 1000 copies of their first album yet launching 1000 bands as a result of those initial sales. BLAH BLAH BLAH… I’m now 47. As a furious Charlie Manual, manager of the Philadelpha Phillies, once told a pipsqueak sports radio host who yelled at him to grow up and take some criticism, “I growed up long ago!”
Where I really want to go with this, now that I’ve done the rock ‘n roll bully thing and called Pipsqueak out in a larger forum, is discuss the Badge of Honor we readily grant to our favorite cult artists. I assume we’ve all pulled this move on someone before. In the light of day, what does it mean? Do we really think the cult artist whose inspiring, integrity-laden, and ignored works takes that much pride in his or her or their Badge of Honor? Is the badge ever actually for the artists, or is it always for us, for sticking with them and showing these artists how much we care? Hell, I set up an entire blog to honor the overlooked works of some of my favorite artists and objects. Am I trying to kid myself?
Do we ever honestly think that more popular artists aren’t also capable of being inspiring or innovative? Did we when we were 19? Are we any wiser today?
I was once accused of being biased toward lesser-known artists. “Oh, you must not like that because it was hit,” was the accusation. My reply was always something along the lines of, “The Beatles? I adore The Beatles and they were far from popular…”
I went through my pretentious music major phase where everything dissonant and weird was fab.
Then I growed up.
I lament sometimes that people are largely unaware of Big Star or Michael Nesmtih. I feel bad for them. Like they are missing out on something GREAT. So, it’s like being a member of a secret club. I know I gravitate toward an artists lesser works, like Who By Numbers, but I appreciate the big ones, too.
I think you can be popular and inspriring. But only history can judge that. I believe that people will be talking about Lady Gaga in twenty years and no one will care about Katy Perry. But that’s just me…
TB
Lord knows I’m guilty of being on both sides of that discussion (more than once), but nowadays when I’m choosing the guy like Tom Verlaine, I try harder to be funny about the whole thing. Otherwise you just sound like a pipsqueak.
I still think the hipster kids and their disdain for the Beatles is unexpected by the Boomers, and a little misguided by the kids. The Boomers as a generation have pretty much claimed The Beatles as their artistic statement, and it will last in infamy as the greatest music ever. That barely fifty years later a bunch of kids think they sucked and weren’t anything special is a smack in the face that generation never expected to be alive to see. Much as I’m ambivalent about The Beatles, they were the biggest band ever by at least a factor of ten, and just because you can’t begin to fathom how truly big they were (I imagine it’s like The Grand Canyon, I have an idea how big it is, but I bet when I see it someday I’ll be WAY off).
Some guy years ago called me out as an old fart because I couldn’t see the genius of whomever the band was that sang Right Here Right Now, and that they would be as big or bigger than The Beatles. That helped me wise up, but just a little. I do wonder about all the old Rock History classes and stuff I got to take in school and their perpetuation of The Beatles immortality. Did anyone expect a generation so soon to not care one way or the other about them?
Big Star is a good example! I love them, and I remember taking my cousin to the Rock Hall and going to the “essential” listening station, or whatever they call it. He was picking things and then said it was my turn and I picked September Gurls and he loved it and couldn’t believe he had never heard it. The look on his face was worth the price of admission, and it was real cool to turn someone on to a band I like so much.
That is a great Charlie Manuel quote, but I kind of feel like I still haven’t grown up, really, I’d have preferred to be at least average height.
Being popular obviously allows you to inspire more people. If you bother to record or play concerts, aren’t you trying to communicate something TO someone else. That implies you want other people to listen, and connect. I suppose familiarity breeds contempt and popularity breeds compromise. I still don’t know whether freedom or repression makes for better art, but expectations likely make for the worst.
Critical expectations for someone like Verlaine are as difficult as sales expectations are for Lady Gaga.
Happy Birthday, by the way. Thanks for remaining older than me.
That seems to be the great balancing act with artists: To be commercial and sell tons of units or to be true to your art and watch the sales plummet? Commercial music tends to not reward artistic exploration. “Hey, I liked that last Gaga record. Now she’s being more mod and I don’t like that. It doesn;t make me want to dance.” Meanwhile, the hipsters all say, “Too bad that new Gaga record isn;t flying off the shelves. It’s the greatest thing she’s ever done.”
It’s funny how The Beatles were rewarded for their explorations. I don’t think they really thought they were changing the face of popular music. I think they were just curious about the sounds they were making and the way they were recorded. I could be wrong about that. But it seems that they could do no wrong as far as sales go. They still sold tons of rekkids.
If U2 goes out on a limb (or anybody) these days it’s almost like they just get forgotten.
TB
The kid’s superior attitude is hilarious, especially since he’s praising Verlaine not for the artistic quality of his music but for the fact that it’s unique, unpretentious, and influential. I mean, so?
Do young hipsters today really hate the Beatles? That may actually be healthy, but picking Verlaine, who’s not that much younger than the Beatles (born 1949), as your touchstone is kind of weird, if the Pipsqueak really is as young as he sounds.
As predicted by John Lennon and proven true by time, the Beatles were, in fact, more popular than Jesus Jones.
Hey Mod, you really are old. Heh, heh.
I remember when I was in high school (barely), and I ate drank and slept Beatles. (We’re talking about the early 80s.) NOBODY CARED about the Beatles then. I might as well have been trying to tell Mod about the virtues of Gary Cooper. No one was interested.
At some point, I think, things changed and the Beatles became such a given that it is no longer weird to be into the Beatles when you are young. At the same time, though, this same process (classic rock radio, etc., etc.) has, I expect, produced a mentality of “Christ, enough with your Beatles already.” I have friends who I would call younger (in their 30s), whose parents might have been baby boomers, who would never think about listening to the Beatles.
What all of this adds up to, I am not sure.
I think you might tell the kid to buy the first Quicksilver Messenger Service album, and then try to tell us how unique Verlaine is. (That’s not a knock on Verlaine–he’s actually my favorite guitarist.)
OK, here’s my take on this. In my 40s I’m wiser and much better at assessing quality and even inspiration. I find myself enjoying a lot of music I previously dismissed and also finding less to like about some things that used to mean a lto to me. But the most important things is that in my teens I got more pleasure out of music, espeically the new discovery or the band I loved and felt like was “mine.” As much as I appreciate my ability to be analytical about the whole thing, I often wish I could actually find myself excited by the anticipation of a new purchase, or thrilled by the discovery of something I’d never heard before.
Grand Canyon = really really really really big.
I’ve played both side of this old fart vs. hipster coin as well. However, sometimes worlds can collide.
The weekend after Kurt Cobain died I got into a discussion with a guy at party who was about 45 or so and who said he was a big music fan. After a few minutes, I could tell his frame of reference ended about 1978 or so.
I told this classic rocker that I thought, even though Cobain didn’t crank out that many albums, his passing was a cultural landmark equal to Jim Morrison’s death.
The guy freaked out on me! How dare I compare Cobain to Morrison!
It’s not like I was a huge Nirvana fan. They were almost too popular for me — I was heavily into alt-country at the time — to the exclusion of almost everything else.
Now this dude has to listen Nirvana on his classic rock station next Light My Fire.
It’s good to know folks see where I’m coming from here and not just piling onto poor Pipsqueak. Excellent tale, funoka!
I can see how today’s generation may be sick of having The Beatles shoved down their throat. It’s probably healthy for them to have a bad attitude about it all, but nothing made me prouder this past Sunday than to meet up with E. Pluribus Gergely and his lovely family and see that, coincidentally, my oldest son was wearing a Stones t-shirt while his oldest daughter was wearing a Beatles t-shirt.
I’ll completely ignore the dis of My Bloody Valentine because I love them so and it doesn’t matter what anyone else says, they do something for me.
And they may not for you. I am who I am. You are who you are. I wish I understood why some people are interested in hearing new things (or old things) and other people are interested in only hearing that same song over and over and over again. I have a million theories, some having to do with you interest about experiencing new things in general, what you were listening to in middle school, and other nature/nurture stuff. Whatever.
And does our wanting to share a love for a song/record/album/cd/tape have more to do with what WE really want to get out of it? I think this site is frequented by people who love music and are at least somewhat interested in hearing new stuff, and maybe having their tastes validated by someone out there.
So I may not get that 19 year old to listen to MBV, but if that person is in to music and is in to hearing something new I bet I can find one song or band that that person may also enjoy.
By the way, “Right Here, Right Now” could also be a reference to the Go-Betweens.
Uh…not really along the same lines of the thread, but – can I ask this? – am I likely the only person under 20 prowling this site at 2:30 in the morning?
I just joined here, don’t beat me up!
Meanwhile, after feeling slightly offended by the “19 years old” comment, I think maybe I should apologize on behalf of all the young dudes out here who say dumb pompous stuff from time to time.
We are still learning.
And actually on a side note, many of my musical friends don’t like the Beatles. I will quote one as saying, “I appreciate them, but I don’t listen to them.”
I just saw yesterday this list of the best selling albums of the Aughties or whatever they call this decade. First place, with I think 11.5 million sold, was The Beatles No. 1s.
It can’t be all boomers that bought those. My oldest daughter was 12 then and all of her friends had that disc (and most of them weren’t part of the 11.5 million since I think they were downloaded or copied). I think this supposed backlash is about as widespread as the hordes of diehard Verlaine fans…
cesca, I don’t think you’re alone in our under-40 demographic:) I really have no idea how old “Pipsqueak” is. In part, with my beef here, the joke is meant to be on me. The comment reminds me of stuff I might have rashly overreacted to when I was 19. Now I tend to overreact from the other end of the spectrum. As one of the fartiest of old farts around here, I can assure you that most age-related beefs are fully aware of the folly of our own youths and current ages. Feel free to bring your own music discussion into play and turn some of us onto new things.
a few things:
I really like Tom Verlaine, but I don’t think of him or his guitar work as “inspiring”
I got WAY into the Beatles in 1986 at the age of 13. All the kids in my grade/highschool were into Whitney Houston, Madonna, Bobby Brown, MC Hammer, Tone Loc, etc. They didn’t give a shit about music, They were just eating up what they were being fed and pretending to like it, like they’ve been doing ever since. I think anyone who really gets into pop/rock music is gonna spend a few years really finding out about the Beatles, whether or not that sticks with them as a regular listening habit.
Funoka, I had THE EXACT SAME Cobain/Morisson conversation with a classic rocker back in 1994. So Funny!
He was outraged that I could even think this Nirvana guy could have any kind of legacy.
Cesca, I don’t know how old everybody around here is, but sometimes they act like crotchety old cunts. PLEASE stick around.
The “you don’t understand what makes his music interesting” is really funny. That’s such an unverifiable and weakling argument. Isn’t it possible you can completely understand the music and just not like it? Lame to think that disliking someone MUST mean you don’t understand it.
There have been a few amusing objective arguments in the Hall in the past that have “proven” one artist is better than another, but stating anything beyond “I” like this better than that and if you don’t agree than there must be a flaw in your ability to understand is a fool’s errand.
There’s is only one absolutely certain way to determine which artists are worthwhile and which can be ignored, it’s easy; just ask me.
I like both the Beatles and My Bloody Valentine (saw them live; they were truly mindblowing), and it seems rather evident that “Tomorrow Never Knows” was a pretty big influence on MBV and the rest of the bands on Creation records.
This debate reminds me of the famous story about Johnny Rotten walking around wearing a defaced Pink Floyd shirt with the words “I hate” scrawled across it. At first that sounds pretty cool. But then, I thought, what about the Pink Floyd songs I do like? So I find these gestures are too absolutist for me.
To people who claim they don’t like the Beatles, I want to ask them, “Surely there’s one Beatles song you like, right?
Tvox, you stole my thunder. I was going to share that the Grand Canyon is so unbelievably huge that when you see it — after you prepare yourself for its hugeness — you will still reel back in amazement at it. I saw it for the first time a year or so ago, and my first glimpse took my breath away, such is its ginormity. And the first glimpse you get of it isn’t even the hugest portion of it!
Anyway, It’s big.
HVB
On a side note, I’ve always been a Beatles fan, and my parents like to remind me that I wore out Abbey Road when I was 3 (Octopus’s Garden is a great song for toddlers). Last night, Mr. Royale and I watched “Yellow Submarine” which, although not the greatest plot in the world, highlights how adventurous, interesting, enjoyable and classic their music still is this many years later.
Without going into the merits of the “Pipsqueak’s” argument, I found the response to him to be a bit condescending. His reasoning might have been lazy or undeveloped but plenty of old farts are guilty of that as well.
Cesca,
Welcome aboard.
You (and any lurkers who are feeling too intimidated by the resident loudmouths, myself included, to jump into the fray) should know that everyone here has really strong opinions about everything and that there is no right answer. So when you hear someone going on about what a masterpiece Pet Sounds is or how great XTC is, feel free to give it the same weight you give your drunken uncle at Thanksgiving when he’s going on about his hot-shit contributions to the high school football team 20 years ago.
Your acceptance of the Velvet Underground and rejection of Frank Zappa and the Misfits demonstrated a highly evolved ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. Not all tastes are worth acquiring and if one is going to make an effort to acquire a taste for an idiosyncratic artist, I suggest that your effort will be far more rewarding if you focus on Tom Waits instead of Zappa.
Anyway, I’m always glad to see new folks appear here. If you disagree with anything I’ve said, feel free to tell me to shut the fuck up.
No need to apologize, cesca. I doubt I’ve fully learned that lesson and my youngest offspring is older than you! The thing I have learned is that as much as I don’t like it, occasionally I’m wrong. I’m in the vast minority of my generation in my criticisms of The Beatles, and I can see where your friend is coming from. You should hang out and turn us on to some new stuff!
Speaking of the Grand Canyon, the movie Grand Canyon is one of the most self-important, pseudo-profound pieces of crap I can remember, a movie that isn’t content just to overuse an incredibly obvious metaphor (the Grand Canyon) but also it has to explain the meaning of this incredibly obvious metaphor in case the viewer is too stupid to get it.
On the plus side, all this talk about My Bloody Valentine prompted me to actually check out some of their stuff instead of just assuming they were of no interest. Anyway, now I know.
Yes, the Grand Canyon is massive & impressive, and the film is a pompous bore.
Young’uns can be pompous & ignorant much of the time, and old farts can be pompous & smug (& sometimes STILL ignorant) a lot of the time.
I never thought either Jim Morrison OR Kurt Cobain deserved even a tenth of the attention they’ve been given, but that “cultural landmark” parallel that funoka was trying to make to Mr. Classic Rock way back when, makes perfect sense to me.
Chicken has pretty much summed up my feelings on this subject, though I think it’s understandable for adolescents to get into verbal pissing contests over their particular faves (few have the Zen mastery over their emotions that Chicken has displayed from an early age in regard to these matters), but there *should* come a point where “You just don’t understand! You suck!” ceases to be a sentiment that enters the debate.
Anyway, I’m gonna be turning Mod’s age on Saturday, and all this writing has made me feel as though I need a nap. So, get offa my lawn, and keep your damn racket down or I’m calling the cops!