Apr 242011
In its continuing quest to be hip, NPR posted this interview with John Maus and entitled it, “The Thrilling, Manic and Utterly Addictive John Maus.”
Mr. Maus makes multiple statements that invite discussion. These are just a few:
- Music of the 1990s was “a goofy mistake.”
- Utopia is “us playing our tapes for each other.”
- “The most radical thing we can do (in making music is to) make it as poppy as possible.”
I’m a fan of electronica and experimental music, but this interview made me want to pull up a rocking chair and join the ranks of E. Pluribus Gergely’s Curmudgeon Club. While some bands of the 1980s, namely Scritti Politti, have also made the argument that pop music can be a form of revolution, Mr. Maus’s babble came across to me as annoying and ridiculous.
I hope you will join me in further discussion of this interview, NPR’s title, and Mr. Maus’s conclusions.
I’ll agree with the “manic” part of the title to some extent. The interview is mental masturbation.
The most revolutionary music moments in recent history:
1. Elvis’ hip wiggle
2. The Beatles – “Yeah, yeah, yeah”.
3. The Ramones – “Hey, ho – let’s go”.
4. Nirvana – “Entertain us”.
These simple but pivotal events have done more to change our society than ten thousand self-styled musical revolutionaries.
I couldn’t make it past the “goofy mistake” quote. Was this all one long answer to a single question? I get the sense this guy spreads his own shit on his toast in the morning. My god, he’s full of it. How about those bold, new, unexplored chords in his music? The performance clips sounded like bad OMD, with a few obvious major chords. This guy’s in serious need of a rock wedgie. Thanks for making me feel so old and wise, ladymiss.
Well, I’m happy to oblige others in being in touch with their inner sageness.
I’m in agreement with tonyola’s revolutionary moments. Mr. Royale and I were listening to The Small Faces in the car on the way home and I would say THEY were pretty revolutionary, too (Blur basing a large part of their template on a few of those tracks.).
That interview infuriated me and I was doubly pissed at NPR for 1. posting it and 2. marketing such crap as “thrilling” and “addicting.” I mean, I’d hope that the typical NPR audience would be able to easily see through Mr. Maus’s ramblings. I was considering giving some benefit of the doubt to the fact that maybe the interview was poorly edited, but I watched a few other videos and looked at a Pitchfork review and decided that no, this guy is a pretentious twit. I WOULD agree with the characterization of him as manic, and I believe the DSM-IV would back me up on that one.
I would even go so far as to say that even some of the most crap music of the 80’s was better than his garbage – at least it contained multiple musicians trying to forge a sound together. Hmmph!
I could say a lot about this, but I think while he may be manic or just a blathering dickhead, he seems to be tapping into a “look at the freak” Ian Curtis thing for his audience. Plus, he looks like the guy from Inception.
He’s got a lot of nerve denigrating “me ‘n my guitar” spotlighting when he’s the front man of a one-man band; a nouveau Magas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSDart5j984 (Magas is a nice guy, though)
Audience-oriented electronic music has a long history of mediocre musicians namechecking Xenakis, Schoenberg, etc. while making bedroom beats out of static, and at about the same level of detail and knowledge as this guy, all without being mentally ill. This is the wrench in my diagnosis: the artists and fans (“the scene”) encourage this kind of studied ignorance. His words about pop are about the same, with the insight of someone dogged by those more experimental texturally and structurally (yer serialists and early electronicals), and more listenable (pop, grunge). I’d stutter too if my brain (or RSS feed) was constantly being ping-ponged among those I sought to emulate.
His music is completely derivative, that’s the funny part. That one part in the interview sounded exactly like U2’s “With Or Without You!” Whoosh, right over NPR’s head, as usual. Throw a delay pedal on a microphone and Terry Gross thinks it’s the second coming of what her friend told her LSD was supposed to be like. I sometimes like Terry Gross, so I’m just using her as a placeholder for the entire NPR production staff.
The guy’s a professor at the University of Hawaii and went to CalArts, so while he may be kooky, he can still graduate college and hold a job. Does that qualify as saying something positive? For his students’ sake I hope he’s more well-spoken leading his political science classes.
Anyway, I’ll get off my lecturing high-horse, I guess I did say a lot. How did this make me FEEL? Bored. Where I come from this routine has been a dime a dozen since Kid 606 started demanding a spotlight. I vote no on John Maus, just like I do Deadmaus, but with NPR’s support we may just be hearing a lot more from him in the future.
grandiose cokehead pretending to be a genius.
that’s a new one.
I like some electronica, chill wave or whatever you want to call it, but rarely pay attention to interviews with the artists — this is really annoying.
I’ll give NPR a pass this week though because they have the new Steve Earle and Emmylou albums on First Listen this week.
First, The Pulsars were totally making fun of people like Maus. Check out “The Tunnel Song”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjF6HH5zQE0
Second, NPR recently fell for a completely fabricated press release, which is really hilarious: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011/04/21/135568766/everything-you-know-about-this-band-is-wrong?sc=fb&cc=fp
That Delicate Steve album is pretty good, if you ask me. Funny story!
Thinks: I am smart, therefore I must make “smart music.”
Thinks: “Smart music” is not popular.
Thinks: I want to be popular.
Thinks: But I must also appear smart.
Thinks: I shall claim that “dumb music” is actually really smart!
Makes dumb music.
I googled around and the quotes about him went from ‘professor at U of Hawaii” to “instructor at U of Hawaii at Manoa” to I can’t find him in the directory at either institution’s website.
The clips of him jumping up and down and bellowing onstage come off as a parody, but I fear he may be for real … unfortunately.
You guys are great! I love being able to share my righteous indignation with others, esp. if they can verbalize my thoughts so much more eloquently than me.
Is sounding like My Bloody Valentine without guitars a koan?
Self-parody, maybe. I think he’s just milking it.
Hey wait, I thought MBV were sounding like La Monte Young with guitars.
Waving hands a lot words words words coming out coming out words not meaning anything hands waving words more words coming.
jump jump jump