(unofficial) article response-marcello's spector essay

http://cookham.blogspot.com/2003_02_09_cookham_archive.html#88844396

Spector might have done something horrible--murder.

But that piece...well, I guess we're living in an era that has no use for anything heroic...who the fuck is Marcello Carlin and who is Phil Spector? Yep, we can sit here in 2003 and judge it all...yep, pop is "banal" and all that, big insight, thanks, Marcello. It's not in good taste and Phil Spector wasn't a feminist...thanks again, you're really onto something here.

We're living in a dead, bad, stale era.

The writer, Marcello, is so very, very, self-righteous. Pop music is banal. Phil Spector wasn't interested in the "feelings" of the people he "exploited." Big insights, thanks!! That's what I'm talking about. The force of will it took to make those records--what,do you think they're supposed to be "masterpieces"--vs. what it takes to come on like you know everything ("Mr. Arkadin" reference) about pop music. Roy Wood? What the fuck has it come to? This is "liberalism"? I consider myself a humanist, a "liberal," and that piece made me sick.

Labels aside, there's another message: If I don't like someone, I can't like their music. But Marcello did say he likely would have drawn the same conclusions prior to the bad news.

If a musician can be self-righteous and have personality, isn't a writer allowed to have those same traits? Or an opinion, even if he's a "nobody" compared to the subject he's writing about?

But in some senses, it's a great controversialist piece.

But a cursory view of the
lyrics reveal just how conventional, conservative and dreary these “dreams”
are – almost without exception they return again and again to themes like
marriage and children, about giving themselves up to their babies, in both
senses.

Is a downright rotten nasty thing to say and goddamn stupid considering plenty of the current-day pop that marcello & I both like despite its much more overtly nasty sensibilities. I think there's something far beyond the prefab oppressive etc. of the 50s which rubs liberalism the wrong way, something about a set of values it brushed against which runs counter to the mythic structures of current day society, something which had to be assimilated and rejected in the course of developing capital, something which includes the degree to which the 50s WERE a time of material abundance for the working population in the U.S. more than maybe any other time in history, the result of the post WWII strike wave, and maybe it made people complacent but they also felt entitled to live well, something which modern liberalism holds people AREN'T entitled to feel.

These thoughts need more development, obviously.

I stumbled over that as well, but I tend to gloss over and ignore remarks that seem to say love and family are "provincial" or something for squares.

Those are big topics you mentioned that would call for deep digging in social history, I think. As to the article, for me, it seemed Marcello's reminder was that a human being should keep looking for the best expressions of humanity in other people. Anyway, it was his concluding paragraph that chilled me, reading him as a break from the dire news readings of the day, what else aside from impending war could he be talking about there? Did I completely miss the point? It's entirely possible.

I think his criticism of the lyrics to something like "Walking In The Rain" is ridiculous: I've listened to this song (and others like it) a thousand times and it NEVER occurred to me to analyze the words coming out of Ronnie Spector's mouth at more than a surface level. I don't even think I could recite them for you now. Even if I do give them a "cursory view," I can't find anything that's any more simplistic or offensive than other pop hits then or now. He praises Brian Wilson for favoring emotion over volume, but the lyrics of "Caroline No" are more sexist than any Spector song I know (I mean, now that she got a haircut you've given up on her? Get a grip, Brian!). It's also unfair to dismiss Spector's '70s work entirely on the basis of the junk he made: he also made classics out of Lennon's and Harrison's early solo records ("Instant Karma!" would probably be an entirely different song without Spector's input).

In the end I find it really hard to understand how anyone who likes pop couldn't appreciate Spector, so I actually am impressed that Marcello managed to argue the point so well, even giving me a twinge of doubt. This is the first completely anti-Spector piece I've EVER seen; anti-Beatles and anti-Dylan and anti-Zappa pieces are a dime a dozen by now, so this well may be the very last pop taboo. I'm glad he finally explained it, anyway: a while back he said on CoM that he found Stockhausen's music warmer and more human than Spector's, which completely floored me.

"Caroline No" - the haircut is a metaphor (well not really - more of a moment-of-realisation) and Wilson seems entirely aware he's a sad-act about it. That said the lyrics-about-marriage line is a weak spot in the essay because I don't think most Spectorsongs' lyrical content is unambiguous about that stuff.

The essay also doesn't really explore the fact that these records were in general humungous hits - if they were so offensive, what was their appeal? I don't think it has to explore that though - actually I'd be surprised if it did; as Edd Hurt hits on above, part of what Marcello does is get into a big one-on-one mental tussle with whoever/whatever he's engaging with so consideration of other views tends to be absent (this is what makes MC's writing distinctive, and isn't meant as criticism).

Probably-not-final thought: if you're reading this and open to requests, Marcello, any chance of writing more about ABBA?

I also love Spector, but Marcello is OTM about so much - particularly Spector making Ronnie sing "I wish I never saw the sunshine" - not even creepy, just gratuitously cruel and sadistic. I agree with a lot of his points about hollowness; though I can forgive it more easily. The sense of waste and profligacy and emptiness is central to Spector's work, the huge bands of musicians recorded counter-intuitively onto mono 4 track, and it moves on a scale from melancholy to inhumanity and despair as the decades go on.

but I wish people would abandon words like jouissance in the context of record reviews- good concept in terms of the piece, but the re-cycled Barthes terminology is a turn-off for me. I keep expecting the narrator to smugly point out the aporia where all Spector's jump for meaning is betrayed, or comparisons between the echo chamber of meaning, and the echo chamber of spector's arrangements - and that would cause me to throw my computer out the window.

"I find Spector’s records to be oppressive, meretricious, bombastic, pedantic, unfascinatingly hollow, devoid of any interest in or relation to humanity (even the most “inhuman” of music has to acknowledge, by definition, the existence of humanity) and, much worse, destructive to the artists and the music involved, and smugly sinister in its attempts to disguise the reactionary sentiments expressed within it under a coat of post-Camelot faux-liberalism."

my jaw dropped as this is so far removed from my experience of Spector. It also seems way too hyperbolic - I'm expecting ravening Spector zombies to come kill babies after reading that. It is a well written piece but doesn't seem to acknowledge what in Spector's music does touch ppl (see N.'s comment above and also Tom's re huge sales)

Have to think about ythis and post later when have some more time.

"Those massed drums thumping (they literally sound like wifebeating)."

"Despite King?s naturally beneficent vocal delivery, this gives us an early indication that Spector was to become pop?s most pretentious plantation owner."

"...the photograph used to illustrate the lyrics to ?Be My Baby? illustrates an elated Spector being literally cradled in the arms of the Ronettes as though they are about to go down on him en masse. He can barely hide his hard-on?and of course he ends up marrying one of them."

Yuck.

I'd like to have seen that. well argued but that's the flaw.

if these recs are devoid of humantiy the what does it say abt the ppl buying them?

He's mostly right about Spector's uselessness in the 70's, though I think he lent much to All Things Must Pass. "What is Love" and "Wah-Wah" are really given an epic sway by the Spector approach; I couldn't imagine those songs done by say, George Martin. Curiously, Carlin doesn't even address this album, surely Spector's greatest success of the decade.

He's a good writer and I'll need to think about the other issues a bit more. I think he painted himself into a corner by opening with the overly hyperbolic sentence that H. quotes above, and then the barstool psychology (father suicide = made at the world).

Yeah, it actually says that, SOUNDING LIKE RAPE.

Come on y'all, how can you continue to argue about any of the author's points as if they're actually serious. This piece is an obvious send-up, a parody of bad (moralistic) criticism. I bet the author loves the actual songs.

(and I remain ambivalent about the mechanics behind Abba’s later work).

followed closely by:

It may well all have been the fault of Lonnie Donegan.

Hats off for a superb performance Marcello!!

Now after Sterling and Tom's posts ...

Marcello, like many very smart people, doesn't get it. Or maybe it is a parody.

Furthermore, what would Tom Wolfe or Nik Cohn say?

Phil S. as a species of "hip" is worth discussing...he was hipper than Jerry Wexler or even Ahmet Ertegun, wasn't he? So hip he wanted to destroy his influences? Subsume everything? What's not hip about using hacks like those West Coast studio musicians to take all trace of personality out of basically idiotic material like "Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah" (no one listening to this in 1963 would flash on its being "pro-KKK Disney, by the way).

Piece seems so fucked, and also so knowing--Dave Edmunds? Roy Wood, who in the hell listens to Roy Wood's Wizzard any more, "This is the Story of My Love (Baby)" being prime ex. of Spector PARODY--that I think it has to be a parody. Opinions?

The problem with listening for "subversive" qualities of music -- if you can't find any, then you dismiss it.

why shouldn't it if he thinks it does? Why are you so afraid of someone using language metaphorically? What's wrong with moralist/humanist criticism? How is it any less valid than non-moralist criticism? What's wrong with hyperbole if it communicates an idea powerfully?

there is ample space between "completely serious" and "parodic".

absolutely: the ambiguity is what makes the piece so powerful. All these boring literalist objections from people are a bit depressing.

Nothing, except there aint much communicating going on here. As Tom said above, maybe a certain level of hyperbole is needed, esp. with Soector as the last(?) sacred cow, but it shouldn’t overwhelm the piece as it does here. I also didn’t think the objections were either “boring” or “literalist” but rather unconvinced, I was disappointed as I usually find CoM thoughtprovoking and saw this as a missed opportunity. The “hollowness” and “coldness” of the production could have been interesting to explore as could the links between Spector’s life, work and the ensuing psychodrama – unless you think “the triple snare drums as on many other Spector records sounding like rape” or “those massed drums thumping (they literally sound like wifebeating) count as such explorations.

Apparently, Spector has “a dangerous infatuation with the Other”, followed by the Other in a reading (hearing?) of “Uptown” as an example of Spector’s cultural tourism. Huh? What’s wrong with the standard reading of the song in which the singer’s lover is comingback to Harlem after spending his day downtown as a ‘boy’. Unles syou take the ‘little man’ in the song as Spector (to me a willfully perverse reading) the cultural tourism bit doesn’t work.

Another WTF moment was
“There is not much to say about the well-known run of hits involving the Crystals and Ronettes.”
The fact that many ppl loved & love those songs and that Spoector’s reputation is in no small part founded upon them seems to demand a certain level of engagement in a piece devoted to him. (I know there are 2 longishs paragraphs but that sentence still stuns me)
Sterling’s comments re the dismissal of the lyrics and sentiments therein was OTM, as was pretty much everything else he said above.

One last quote that encapsulates things for me “When Spector relented on the grandiloquence a little and allowed spatial awareness to intrude upon his work, there were admittedly glimpses of interesting ideas”

Substitute Marcello for Spector in the above and that was my take on the piece.

Spector's music and Brill Bldg. pop were both really styles, from a very particular time/place/studio (Gold Star; Broadway in NYC). But Eurodisco is pretty broad as a concept, and "northern soul" is just some American records that weren't a product of any particular place/studio and which folks in a particular region of England simply LIKED? So, I see what you're saying, but it doesn't seem like a very apposite comparison...

Re-reading the piece I am convinced either it's a really good parody or that the author is a total fucking idiot who oughta get out more...no middle ground.

Pulpo, of course he should say whatever he thinks. But I will say so if *I* think something I read is idiotic. If the piece is really about misogyny in Specter's productions, that rape statement is totally idiotic. What, do the harmonizations sound like a lynch party? I'm all for hyperbolic writing but these examples of it seem to undermine the political argument, if there really is one, because they are so outrageous that they read like parody of political criticism. I mean there's just no way he's going to persuade me to hear misogyny in a ronettes song by saying "the triple snare drum fills sound like rape". That line reads like a (right wing?) parody of "political correctness", and as such it's not going to convince anyone about the already dubious argument, that an artist's vices somehow contaminate his music.

Winner, Best in Thread.

I find the piece fascinating not because it literally describes or encapsulates Spector's music (the drums sound like "rape" - yeah sure, not literally), or the relationship of his reported character flaws to his art, but because it uses said music as a springboard to describe something very dark, and very rarely talked about or understood in the frame of culture, the kind of death-drive Marcello invokes as an obsession of Spector's. Whatever the fanboys think about Spector (and I am one of them) has already been said 1000000 times (check the papers re: the arrest and bail): I like the way Marcello writes about his Spector, seem through a patina/haze of hysteria, paranoia or nostalgia. If you don't, fair enough, but I think some of the criticisms above might be missing the point a bit.

Or maybe I just find death-drives more interesting to read about than music these days....

1. I find it pretty lame that Marcello writes this essay AFTER Spector has been arrested for murder. And Marcello knows that himself as he states it in the beginning.

2. I don't like Spector's productions neither but saying that he is devoid of humanity is a statement by someone who is devoid of humanity himself. It is too strong a verdict. Too despising. Pure hubris. And in any case to make such a statement you should know Spector better than I suppose Marcello knows him. You should have lived with the guy for at least ten years to say something outrageous like that. Spector may be an asshole but I don't think he is a monster.

Wow! This Marcello Carlin is insane, huh? I haven't been that drained since I listened to Wagner. He is right about the fact that it is only music and should not be made more important than humanity. But that's exactly what he seems to be doing. I love the music of Stravinsky so much because it is great music. It has no attachments to politics or religion or anything symbolic. The Rite of Spring may have been controversial for its grotesque imagery but that was the ballet. The music was supremely interesting. Marcello Carlin is either a raving lunatic or he is completely joking. This reminds me of some of the mock discussions we use to have, half-kidding, half-serious, when (old friend) Larry wouldn't know what to think. Phonetic Elvis. Rhyme and reason hardly ever mix, do they? Either way, how can you be ambivalent about the mechanics behind Abba? I find it all extremely danceable.
Roger

You CANNOT POSSIBLY read CoM and come to that conclusion - unless you have perfected the art of reading without comprehenson. Read the Jimmy Scott piece, read Marcello's walk to Hampton Court, read the Scott Walker piece.

I am not quite sure how to interpret the last sentence. It is the only part of the piece which could be interpreted personally. And that's how it is also meant, I hope, as a reminder for the writer himself:

But then again, the events of the 3rd of February - ... - may well serve as a reminder of what happens to those of us who value music, art, wires and plastic over the flesh and blood of humanity