Reading another anti-Band treatise on RTH reminds me of this idea for a thread I’ve been nursing for a while.
Alleged sacred cows like The Band and Pet Sounds get subjected to routine scourgings, here and elsewhere. After a while, do (or can) these totems (re)gain underdog status?
Some food for thought:
1) In the non-rock-nerd world, isn’t The Band treated as borderline footnotes, what with the measly three songs of theirs that make it onto Classic Rock-radio playlists? (At least, that’s what I remember from the late ’80s-early ’90s.)
2) A few weeks ago, waiting for The Wrestler to start, I heard the song “Pet Sounds,” over the theater’s sound system. And it sounded great!
3) Sometimes I wonder if expectations are too high for these titans. And then I wonder how these expectations got so high. How much of it is hype, and how much of it is how people process hype? Lately, I find the 24-hour-news industry especially deplorable, with their junkie-like need to construct an instant narrative for a news event that actually needs time to play out. I think sometimes there’s an analogous need to devise an instant narrative when an artist releases something that is somehow wanting.
4) Then I get to thinking of an old comment from Mr. Mod that I should’ve countered back when the thread was active:
As someone who was never much of a fan of Westerberg’s music (I hate to keep prefacing my comments like that [not really]), one of the things I find fascinating in this discussion is the notion that Westerberg had much room to grow.
I’m not sure “room to grow” has anything to do with anything. I like it when artists make good music, and when they don’t repeat themselves. I don’t think that’s the same as “growing.” Every musician has their limits. Isn’t making good music in some ways a matter of simply avoiding or obfuscating one’s deficiencies, even for the great ones?
