I recently had an out of this world experience.
No, I didn’t use my millions of dollars and boyish good
looks to buy my way onto a Russian spaceship like that guy from
*NSYNC. I took my voyage by simply picking up a magazine.
There was Avril Lavigne’s picture on the glossy page.
There was her name. There was the question: “This
generation’s Bob Dylan?” This really blew my mind.
Sure, the magazine was Entertainment Weekly, a publication that
is by no means expected to have highly intellectual music coverage,
but this comparison seemed to spit in the face of everything I hold
dear. On the one hand, the mumbling, gnomish, greatest lyricist of
the 20th … well, ever, and apparently in that same hand, the
Canadian tie-over-T-shirt-wearing gnomish girl who doesn’t
want things to get complicated. Like I said, this really blew my
mind.
But it makes all too much sense when you look at the history of
the press talking about musicians. Everything is done in
comparison. Comparisons are fine. They’re quite necessary,
even when our vocabulary falls short of being able to describe a
sound or a mood a band creates. The problem arises when these
comparisons become misleading, distracting and even, in the case of
putting the name of the “Sk8er Boi” songstress next to
the man who wrote “Tangled Up in Blue,” egregiously
anti-intellectual.
Granted, the majority of a music fan’s real gripe
shouldn’t come from these preposterous, easy-to-dismiss
atrocities, but from the more subtle, potentially misguiding
instances. Everyone needs to be careful when making references to
other acts, or your friends might end up buying CDs they never
really wanted.
Even though anyone who doesn’t live in a cave would be
able to tell that Dylan and Lavigne have nothing to do with each
other, when every member of the press compares the Strokes to the
Velvet Underground, people might get confused. Sure, the Strokes
may try to look like Lou Reed and company, but your ears may
disagree. The Strokes’ brand of simple straightforward
three-minute pop songs with cosmopolitan party lyrics and Julian
Casablancas’ quirkless singing style has little to do with
the improvisational explosiveness of Reed’s guitar playing
and singing, John Cale’s viola work, and song lyrics that
pushed the boundaries of the rock song. Listen to
“Heroin” and then “Last Nite,” and see if
you can tell the difference. Basically, despite what you may have
read, don’t go buy “Is This It” just because you
liked “White Light/White Heat.”
If you haven’t heard every British pop band whose
singer’s register is higher than a bass compared to
Radiohead, then you’re lucky. Names like Travis, Coldplay,
Starsailor and Shania Twain always get labeled with having a Thom
Yorke-like yodel to their sound. Listen to “You and Whose
Army,” then listen to “Why Does it Always Rain On
Me?” or “Yellow,” then play the good old
“Sesame Street” game, which one of these is not like
the others? I think you get the picture.
So, be careful when telling people who is like who, as well be
wary when digesting comparisons from outside sources yourself.
Don’t forget they can be helpful. For instance ““
continuing in the Brit pop vein ““ if you were to say Oasis
sounds like updated, less intelligent, more whiny, but still catchy
Beatles covers you’d be doing people a favor, but shoot
straight my friends, shoot straight ahead with your analogies,
comparisons and contrasts.
Oh, by the way, I hear there’s this new band called the
Dave Matthews Band that sounds just like Pink Floyd circa
Ummagumma, check ’em out.
Bromberg’s column runs every Thursday.