I’ve been thinking a lot over the last five years about hip hop and the dreadful state of pop music.

And I blame it all on Phillip Glass and C.P.E. Bach.

Back in music school there was this discussion of the constant tidal movements of complexity v. simplicity in all the arts. Some argued that this is ‘the Dionysian v. the Apollonian’, but I disagree.

Basically it works like this: every artistic movement starts out simple. Simple. A reaction to the mature prior aesthetic which has run out of gas. This can be a very good thing. The incoming group has fresh ideas that are stark and stripped down to their essence. They make the establishment look old and slow.

To contemporaries, ‘baroque’ music was a totally stripped down and simple aesthetic. But to modern eyes and ears, the term is applied to the overly ornate filigree that was only a part of the deal at the very end–when it was already being replaced by the classical period. Remember that J.S. Bach was considered […]

The five or six of you out there who are following my recent rants on various ‘operatic’ themes know that something is up with Detroit. It ain’t like I’ve got a deep, dark secret about it. What it is, is more a matter of ‘packaging’ or rather approach.

I’ve written that, although I love opera now, the reason I didn’t love it in my youth (aside from all the fat people screaming in Italian) was that I didn’t know that it was already dead. And by ‘dead’ I mean, no longer a currently relevant art form. Oh sure, people still write operas, but people still try to finish Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. Big deal. It doesn’t mean that these pieces have anything to say to me. This is tough talk as I know that Adams, Glass and Corigliano win all manner of fancy schmansy awards for long works about Einstein and Nixon and so on. How clever. But just between us girls? The last real opera; the one that will […]

…even though both are quite ‘operatic’.

When I was in school (way back in aught ’75) we all had to learn something about ‘opera’. But of course, it was all a big joke. I mean seriously: fat people trying to play ‘cinderella’; screaming in a way that no ‘normal’ person sings; with plots so ridiculous even Harlequin Romances wouldn’t publish ’em. And they’re in… wait for it… eye-talian to boot!

And if that’s what I thought—someone who was trying to like that shi.. er ‘music’, heaven help the man in the street!

I now actually enjoy many of the classic operas, though no modern ones as of yet. And I think I’ve figured out why by watching some good ol’ Swedish Death Metal. In one phrase: alternative reality.

See what I couldn’t dig when I was 18 was that opera has to be appreciated strictly on it’s own terms. It’s an alternative world just as real as being inside ‘The Matrix’. You have to agree to it’s rules or it’s just no go. But […]

Merry Christmas!

As we bask in the holiday season, we’re pretty well deep frying in so-called Christmas music. (A guy was telling me about the latest Black Eyed Peas Christmas record. I dunno if he was kidding or not, but I sure hope so.) This in turn has gotten me thinking about ‘religious music’ in general.

As many of you know, I’m a practicing Catholic. Which doesn’t mean that I’m hoping to get a Learner’s Permit to say the Rosary by end of summer. Rather it means that I am active in my Church. I attend Mass and involve myself in various parish activities. I rarely mention this because:

a) It’s none of anyone’s darned business

b) It seems to scare people in our increasingly secular world

But I mention it today because I do attend Mass and when I do? I literally pop in ear plugs during the musical portion of the show. It’s that bad.

When did the ‘universal church’ go from having the coolest music ever to having the absolutely crappiest? (1348? 😀 […]

OK, what is it supposed to be.

Great question. I’ve heard and seen numerous ‘retrospective’ radio shows and books which try to even-handedly discuss ‘prog’. The latest, and perhaps one that really did try to be even-handed was on the Public Radio show Sound Opinions (Show #207). What prompted me to write this was that they were trying so hard to be ‘fair and balanced’ but they can’t help themselves; they just gotta emphasize the ‘camp’ aspect. And that’s not only hosed the music’s image, but even more sinister, it’s had a horrible effect on the current range of bands that claim to be ‘prog’. In other words, prog bands today are as much defined by what they are trying not to be.

Why So Serious?

As The Joker says. Most of prog over the past two decades has been progressively (no pun intended more and more serious. And hard. Part of this is because of the connections with metal. After all one of the main roots of prog was King Crimson’s […]