Entertainment For Lively Minds
Young Man Blues
I have come to the realisation that all of my favourite music is immature. Prog, metal, glam and folk all have an inexorable appeal to dopey fourteen year old boys.
Prog is all explosive time signature changes and wonky surrealism, songs about cyborg armadillos and severed heads on croquet lawns. Metal is men with long hair and spiky guitars shrieking angrily about the devil, war, and psychopaths (or preferably all three). Glam rock falls broadly into blokes in make up a) being all weird and arty, b) being intentionally daft (both of which are British bands in the 70s), and c) singing about shagging strippers while riding Harleys up Sunset Boulevard (American bands in the 80s).
Folk music aficionados will object that it's a genre characterised by its lack of pretension and image, therefore being sufficiently "grown up", but I only listen to folk music because 85% of it is songs about witches.
Even indieish types, hailed as brilliant songwriters, like Jarvis Cocker and Ben Folds have written a lot of songs about not growing up and feeling awkward in the face of responsibility.
We live in a world where it's perfectly acceptable for a grown man to buy himself toys (uh... collectables) and video games (er... they're a rapidly developing media), and gigs and music festivals the world over are crammed with people in their 30s and 40s who are desperate to prove they are still "down" with Little Boots and Black Kids (delete/replace with more current talking point as applicable).
So what is "mature" music? I actually think the most mature music I listen to is Marillion. Now, those that actually remember them will no doubt sneer, scoff and guffaw, pointing out that they are the most emotionally retarded of bands, with their album covers featuring sad jesters, clunky version of the standard prog rock widdly widdly instrumental style, ridiculously verbose lyrics and murky concepts (1982's Grendel was an 18 minute "epic" that would at least have found favour with Otto the bus driver, as it was from the monster's point of view).
However, there's the rub. Most people haven't heard the If My Heart Were A Ball It Would Roll Uphill hitmakers since the 80s. Their more recent stuff rejects the histrionic and is sombre, melodic and heart on sleeve emotional. To me it sounds, I dunno, mature.
So what is unequivacably mature in the field of rock and/or roll?
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It's all rock and roll to me.
Why does it have to be mature? I remember in the dim distant past when I used to pour scorn on bands like Pink Floyd for being dreary and tuneless with what seemed like interminable guitar solos and I wa stold by older friends and colleagues that I would appreciate them when I was older. Well I'm in my 50's now and it doesn't look like it's going to happen.
I like what I like and at it's heart it's simple straightforward rock and pop. I like to seek out new music but life is too short to care whether I'm listening to the right music. I don't care how many people are looking forward to a new (and no doubt dull) Radiohead album, I'm eagerly awaiting the new Brendan Benson one.
The stuff I like
You know that post recently about the website that decries pop as being superfical and banal and sentimental and all that stuff. Well, that's the kind of stuff I like. I haven't had a chance to read Fab 4 piece in this month's Best Mag in The World - but The Hep's letter indicates that it, in part, celebrates what might be termed pure pop Beatles rather than their experimental, more mature phase.
That's the stuff I like. There is grown up stuff I like too. In the realms of New Art Music - or whatever we're supposed to call it nowadays. But, like John above, my favourite stuff is good songs well sung. Preferably around 4 minutes or under.
It seems to me a song like Laura Nyro's Wedding Bell Blues is about as wise and naive, innocent and knowing as it gets.
2 minutes and 53 seconds of magic. That's the stuff I like
http://open.spotify.com/track/0e6vkScsimWCAr9jqGzQbv
Some doors just won't open
Twenty years ago I would have expected my 45 year old self to have moved on from 3-minute pop songs by now, and be listening to classical music, probably. I guess that's because that was what old guys listened to then.
It hasn't happened. I'm still most attracted to stuff that sounds a bit like the music that I liked back then. I just play it a bit quieter.
Why would anyone want to listen to *mature* music...
when one can listen to this instead?
Ice Cream Man...
by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.
Marillion indeed!
Indeed, the difference between current Marillion and the-Marillion-most-people-remember is vast. It's like the difference between The Word Magazine and Angler's Mail, like the difference between The Wire and Juliet Bravo, like the difference between 21st century Battlestar Galactica and 1970's Battlestar. Saddling themselves with the name hasn't really encouraged the music press to investigate enough to find that out, but how about it, Word? Eh? Eh?
As far as 'mature' goes... well, what does that mean, anyway? Like Simon (hello, Perrins!), I like Marillion I guess because they dig deep to make the listener really feel something, and with each album they try to do it differently, and it really isn't prog - unless you count The Decemberists or Bon Iver or Elbow as prog, in which case we're talking the same language. If that's 'maturity', then yep, give me mature every time.
Except... my 4 year old has rather turned me on to the delights of Girls Aloud's 'The Promise' and together we're on an Abba journey of discovery. It always helps to get a different perspective.
OK, here's a challenge;
the only Marillion album I have is a freebie copy of Misplaced Childhood, which I've never listened to, having caught some early stuff on the radio and been underimpressed.
I'm intrigued by these claims that their more recent material has weight, so show me the way in please. Which three Marillion albums should I start with?
Which 3 ?
Afraid of Sunlight - their last major label release from 1996, and a Q Album of the Year, if memory serves
Holidays in Eden - when they first veered from their progressive direction to a more immediate sound
Marbles - a recent 1 or 2 CD release. The 2 CD release has a few more tracks, including some that would definitely qualify as 'prog'.
But you should (also?) have a look at the *free* Crash Course (http://www.marillion.com/music/racket/crash.htm), a CD of their more recent stuff and directed to those who haven't heard them since 1988.
Top tip, ta!
My Crash Course is now on it's way to the den.
Er...
...I still prefer the old stuff. Is that ok?
Oh yes
Just don't expect to hear it when they play live!
Obviously these things are subjective
Personally I would have avoided Holidays in Eden, a good example of a band unsure of their next step and kowtowing to record company pressure, and perhaps the worst (and least honest) thing they ever did, but good call on Marbles and Afraid of Sunlight.
Rather than get into the minutiae that only an obsessive fan would find interesting (hello Jason!) here's a selection of some of their stuff, working backwards. Of course I tend to like the stuff that no one else does...
Soul Man
I listen to a lot of 60s and 70s soul, and it feels like music made by 'grown-ups', I identify with a lot more of it than I did when I was a teenager.
On the other hand I love The Clash, which to me, despite Strummer's older than punk allowed years, seems forever adolescent, all raging hormones and last gang in town attitude.
We, gentlemen
are the first generation that have had exposure to rock, roll, pop et al for our whole lives. If I compare with my parents, when they got to my current age (50) they would have spent the first 20 years or so listening to other stuff i.e. "popular" music of the day such as big bands, music hall, as well as classical music etc.
Having said that, Music hall lyrics were hardly a paragon of maturity were they?
Nonshensh.
I'm Burlington Bertie, hic! Of Bow. Thash ver matu. Hic.
Music for grownups?
Steely Dan.
Here endeth, etc.
Saying that, I'm listening to Toddla T at he moment. With his friend the very charming Mr Versatile. Following the belting writeup in the reviews by whoever it was who did it.
Fucking cock-on it is as well. I want to do silly dancing. Rice and peas. Wikkkedywikkedywah. I promise to wear mi pants at half mast an' Irae. Or something. I really must go to bed. Or lay off the Fernet Branca.
More songs about the Gom Jabbar please...
My original point wasn't that you should listen to "mature" music. Just which music automatically gets slotted into that category and why?
There was an advert on TV recently, usually on during GMTV, for some singer songwritery type. Can't remember who, but the ad was weird - it had Tom Robinson saying stuff like "ever feel like the world's passed you by? Don't like your teenaged daughter's boyfriend?". They were basically selling it as "Grumpy Old Men - The Album". So obviously that's supposed to be "mature". However, I don't have a teenaged daughter, so what am I supposed to do, Tom, WHAT??
Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen have always been taken more seriously than say, Iron Maiden and The Sisters of Mercy (just listened to Floodland. Should've been a goth - now there's an immature genre!). But "She breaks just like a little girl" makes about as much sense as "He is the Kwizatz Haderach, He is born of Caladan!". Actually I may have just answered my own question...