More on Music

Since I was discussing music a while back, I thought I'd jot down a few more thoughts.

"Classically trained" pop singers seem to have great cachet, but did anyone ever wonder why they didn't go on to become classically trained classical singers -- their generation's answer to Flagstad, Nilsson, Windgassen, Bergonzi? Maybe they just couldn't cut it. Flagstad once said that the key to singing Wagner was the phrasing -- the power was no greater than other composers, but a mistake in phrasing could destroy you on stage. Most popular music doesn't require a singer to hold anything for longer than a couple of bars.

Not only has sophisticated musicianship become an expectation in pop music, it's a requirement. The artlessly crude renderings that some groups commit as either "rebellion" or a "return to their roots" is simply a waste of time, as far as I'm concerned. You want to do something original and significant? Pull a Bartok -- get far enough into another music tradition that you can translate its foundations into your own idiom without damange to either. Then I might think you've done something worthwhile. Maybe even interesting.

Either that, or take some real chances. I think that's why groups like Depeche Mode and The Eagles are still among my favorites. They took some real chances. On the other side, just make normal music, but do it superlatively well, like Foreigner or someone like that. I've been sitting here listending to Depeche Mode's Ultra, released in '97, which is after I had stopped listening to DM for a while. For anyone else, especially a younger group, it would have been a mess, no focus, wildly variable in style, derivative, you name it. The problem would be worse for anyone coming to the disc without knowing DM: "This is the great Depeche Mode?"

OK -- I know Depeche Mode, at least until Depeche Mode 101, so I think I have a good take on what they are capable of.

It's an incredible album. Fluent, easy, a greater emotional range than anything I'd ever heard from them before (although actually, the first intimations of that range were maybe in Violator, with its alternations of angst, darkness, and an honestly that was almost innocent). And it takes some serious chances. It's a risky album, and on the whole, it works. "Masterful," I think is the word.

Speaking of Violator, it holds up very well. "Halo" is still one of the sexiest songs I've ever heard. That's one that has a dance that happens in my when I hear it (see next post). I love the whole idea of that song -- full speed ahead and damn the moralists!