sometime i read christgau and am amazed...

*rubs eyes*

Tim, again, the dread psychology and politics are inherent to art in many cases -- Chuck Berry, even, if you wanna look for them.

That's right - but the psychology of Paul McCartney records was less rigorous and intellectual than the psychology of John Lennon and Lou Reed records.

Xpost

And yeah, I'm talking about meaning. A pretty big thing for Christgau, and I guess me too. Meaning is part of the pleasure RC takes from music. I don't think that's an incredibly overintellectualized stance, either.

"Rockism not only privileges "meaning" over, you know, "'Monkberry Moon Delight' is not meaningful enough" but creates a hierarchy where particular areas of thought - and when we're talking about Lennon, Reed, Young, etc., we're seemingly talking about DEALING WITH PAIN and POLITICS - are elevated to a position above...what? Above art!!!"

Yes, but it's a privileging of particular subject matter as meaning. And those are rockist approved subjects - psychology, politics, whatever else is deemed meaningful with Lennon, Reed, etc. Color - as in Ram and Venus and Mars are pretty colorful records - is not as significantly "meaningful." Don't tell that to a color therapist!

Yes, Martin, in that statment I meant art devoid of rockist-approved "meaning."

That's right - but the psychology of Paul McCartney records was less rigorous and intellectual than the psychology of John Lennon and Lou Reed records.

Well, yeah. This is a taste thing, but it's not my fault if he can't always make the "empty" thing work for him. As Alfred pointed out (think it was Alfred), a lot of this music is really slipshod: Even taking it on its own terms as sound, it lacks a lot. I was really excited to finally hear Wild Life, 'cause I thought it was all gonna be focused/loose like "Mumbo" (that's the first cut, right?). But no. Most of it's just loose and falling-apart in a really uncompelling way.

I mean, anyone who knows as much about Little Richard as Paul McCartney does should know how to apply those lessons of formalism to whatever he tries. Make goopy, aimless six-minute cuts, sure, but make 'em exciting. Then the goopiness and aimlessness -- voila! -- disappear.

Oh god, there are a ton of McCartney fans who would disagree with the idea that a lot of his music is really slipshod. I mean, other than the fact that he's had his down periods compositionally. But like even Lester Bangs recognized that Band on the Run was "masterful in its own way."

Tim I agree that McCartney is Lennon's superior in terms of the albums's overall aesthetic unity - I dunno if I'd say conceptualization, because I'm not sure there's the kind of conscious, schematic planning that seems to imply for me. But yes, in terms of the way his music seems to form this natural, supple, organic whole, with a staggering number of artistic decisions all cohering together, McCartney is astonishing in a way Lennon isn't.

Ironically the massive musical sophistication of McCartney contributes to a suspicion that he can't of planned it all, it must just be "natural genius". (see "I dunno if I'd say conceptualization")

But his polish (slickness if you want to be pejorative) wouldn't create that feeling if there wasn't a lack of, er, obvious intellectualism in his lyrics. And whether or not you think it should be prized in music, I think "intellectualism" is a good word for what Lennon offers that McCartney doesn't. Remember "more intellectual" doesn't mean "smarter", it just means "appealing to or using the intellect". McCartney's brilliance is designed to appeal to the emotions, and while it's immensely rewarding to analyze his music intellectually, it takes a conscious will (for me) to do so, whereas Lennon will engage the intellect even if I'm listening passively.

McCartney, Red Rose Speedway, Back to the Egg – all have their share of slipshodedness.

See, I disagree there because I think engaging someone aesthetically is engaging their intellect and I REALLY question the degree to which Lennon or Reed should be praised in retrospect for engaging the intellect about topical subjects in their lyrics.

I agree, Alfred (though whether you like it or not, and sometimes I don't think the stuff is that great, it was generally slipshodness-as-concept).

Lukas OTM.

Remember "more intellectual" doesn't mean "smarter."

Tell that to The Dean, who claims McCartney "just doesn't have it."

Tim, with Lennon or Reed or whoever, it's more than just bringing in "topical subjects" as a card trick or something, as you seem to be implying.

X-gau-POST I

...falling-apart in a really uncompelling way

Timi (not) Yuro -- please to give a good 'xample of "falling apart in a *compelling* way", then.
(In case it wasn't Little Richard already)

X-gau-POST II

McCartney, Red Rose Speedway, Back to the Egg – all have their share of slipshodedness

Good Lord, but so have most of Lennon's rekkids.
However rigorous in their "intellectual concep", in execution they're oftentimes rather slipshod, uh?

i always saw both L & M as weirdly stunted in some way. still rambling on and on about 50s rock all thru the 70's. get a new trick, grandpa. and no don't make it opera or techno. they could both be kinda dim. or maybe that's just rich people for you. same with lou reed and neil young though. they are all kinda demented.

x-posts to Timi Yuro: No, I don't know what you mean by "card tricks" - I mean, I know the subject matter of the lyrics was really significant to what they were supposed to be. But, for me, I don't see how the alleged DEPTH in the grappling with subjects (grappling = work; art = play) in those artists is so much more intellectually advanced than what McCartney was doing.

still rambling on and on about 50s rock all thru the 70's.

?

See, I disagree there because I think engaging someone aesthetically is engaging their intellect

I guess I'm drawing a left-brain/right-brain distinction. There's amazing music that just doesn't register in the left hemisphere for me. And there's crap music that does. It's not just a lyrics thing, either, instrumental music can fall on either side of the divide as well.

I REALLY question the degree to which Lennon or Reed should be praised in retrospect for engaging the intellect about topical subjects in their lyrics.

Well yeah like I said, whether or not you think it should be prized in music, it's there.

I should add that when Lennon engages the intellect, often the intellect's reaction is "what a poorly thought through mess of ideas and vague impulses."

Lou Reed is Xgau's old rocker go-to guy.

still rambling on and on about 50s rock all thru the 70's.

?

Scott's right about Lennon: despite the lip service he gave to punk in 1980, he spent most of the latter half of the decade playing proto-rock in his Wurlitzer.

Macca, on the other hand, never stopped listening to the radio, and this was reflected (sometimes badly) in the one-off albums and singles he released at the time.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the left brain/right brain topic. At least in that framework we can agree that aesthetics are indeed processed IN THE MIND.

Eh forget Christgau, you can't trust people who were there.

so much more intellectually advanced

You're right, they're not. But they care about being perceived as intellectuals and that has an impact on their music (not always a good one.) McCartney has different goals.

I think we actually agree idea-wise and we're just splitting over the term "intellectual" at this point.

we can agree that aesthetics are indeed processed IN THE MIND

Of course!

xps galore

I REALLY question the degree to which Lennon or Reed should be praised in retrospect for engaging the intellect about topical subjects in their lyrics.

Me too, actually. Can't recall any current events John or Lou have ever especially shed light on, say. To me it feels like they engage emotions sometimes, just like McCartney does sometimes, and their music engages sonically sometimes, just like McCartney's does sometimes. I'm not convinced their appeal is all that different from his, in the long run, and yeah, they've made plenty of imperfect records too. But then, I'm not Xgau.

grappling = work; art = play

There you go again.

But they care about being perceived as intellectuals and that has an impact on their music (not always a good one.) McCartney has different goals.

Have you read Barry Miles' book? I think that actually suggests otherwise. I think McCartney sees art as an intellectual activity - but yeah, it's maybe a semantic issue at this point.

Chuck, what I'm trying to suggest there is that I think there's a sort of work ethic involved here. Lennon and Reed were "grappling," which does imply work as opposed to play. I'm not trying to put words in Christgau's mouth, but I do think that's a factor here. McCartney didn't want to take on the "rigor," as Alfred claimed.

(or, again, the claim that he actually didn't have the intellectual aptitude to do so in the first place!)

should i go see beatlemania now? they are coming to the island.

lou reed reminds me of "steve martin - art collector" sometimes. he's better off rambling on and on about 50's rock. why do all these fancy rock stars have to prove they are smart? they are obviously kinda smart. frustrated poets.

paul is plenty smart. i don't think many people think that paul is dumb or something. that's silly.

but just cuz someone liked stockhausen and made techno records and operas doesn't mean that they are a deep thinker or anything.

Tim, the word you keep repeatedly putting in Xgau's mouth is "art," which - - again -- he never said Reed and Lennon are not. (I totally understand the grappling part, and may even agree with you on it.)

why are you claiming that they're trying to prove that they're smart?

actually, in mccartney's case, given all the criticisms of him through the years, it seems like a valid gripe.

x-post: don't know who you're referring to when you say it's silly. it's silly to point out the staid smugness and obnoxiousness of xgau claiming mccartney just inherently does not have the intellectual aptitude of lennon, reed, etc.?

everytime i think i might be curious to hear a mccartney album that i haven't heard (which would be most of them) i realize that i'm actually not that curious. same with all the fabs though. the man gave me helter skelter. i can't ask much more from a human being.

Many xposts:

Falling apart in a compelling way: Flipper; much postpunk stuff, I guess. "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen!

no, I'm certainly not saying xgau ever made any claim about lennon or reed being "not art." i'm saying that mccartney's music was considered trite for, it seems to me, a lot of sixties/seventies vanguard critics who didn't want to accept this lack of "meaning" (or lack of identification with the counterculture given his marriage and family) in the music of an ex-beatle. and their really stringent criticisms seem very hard-nosed in retrospect given the aesthetic complexity or depth of some of that stuff, which obviously has a lot to do with why there has been so much critical reappraisal of mccartney's old catalog, particularly over the last decade. so yeah, i'm saying that in retrospect, it does seem to have involved a privileging of content over aesthetics (what i meant when i was using the term "art"0.

Some lyrics from the new McCartney album for what it's freaking worth:

Lightning hits the house of wax
Poets spill out on the street
To set alight the incomplete
Remainders of the future

Hidden in the yard, hidden in the yeard

Thunder drowns, the trumpets blast
Poets scatter through the night
But they can only dream of flight
Away from their confusion

Hidden in the yard underneath the wall
Buried deep below a thousand layers lay the answer to it all

Lightning hits the house of wax
Women scream and run around
To dance upon the battleground
Like wild demented horses

Hidden in the yard underneath the wall
Buried deep below a thousand layers lay the answer to it all

yeah yeah yeah, some good songs on new album, some slackass vacant drivel too, like in that ipod commercial or whatever it is (opposite of intended effect since it has me switching channels the second I spot it). Mitch Cohen in Creem, long ago, politely wished that "so many things did not come so easily for him," the temptation to be a talent bimbo, too often.Especially or mainly when he and Lennon were no longer competing (even before the official breakup, like on The Beatles [White Album], it's like "Got a track for your bloody harmonies""Well just shove it under the door and be quick about it") Yes, an effective and elusive foil for Lennon for a long time(and even a true collaborator, like apparently they both wrote parts of "A Day In The Life", but by Abbey Road, at least, he was settling for fragments, which were used effectively there, and sometimes in the solo work. But Run Devil Run seemed to deal indirectly with Linda's death, maybe Lennon's too; anyway it was his belated, and distanced equivalent, his resumed rivalry with Lennon, in that Run Devil Run had this harsh, armored, stoic, yet soulful sound, some relation to the tautness of Lennon's seemingly less guarded Plastic Ono Band, but note that xgau pointed out all the vocal processing, like Lennon knew the masks made his vaunted truthspeaking come across that much more vividly, bitingly. Xgau wasn't valuing topics over aesthetics, not there, and for the most part, not on Reed's albums (or that sound tips the scales re acceptance of topicality, of the toppermost of what's going in the grooves or whatever they are now)(that bit about Run Devil Run compared to PLO is mine, not a paraphrase of him, far as I know: he liked RDR, but I don't mean to put words in his mouth, or anybody's)

Run Devil Run also used 50s-based/-associated elements in compelling ways, which is quite a feat.Not that using any decade etc elements from the Lonnngass Age Of Rock isn't quite a feat, at this point, and for some time up to this point (how much has Sonic Youth ever done that the Velvet Underground didn't do better)

Run Devil Run has fuck all to do with Plastic Ono Band. "Less guarded" - who are you to say? And who are you and MITCH COHEN OF CREEM to say that his talent" comes so easily for him?" Not that that ever necessarily has much to do with how good a record is because we all know "Pushin' Too Hard" has two chords and was written in thirty minutes, etc.

Xgau wasn't valuing topics over aesthetics

As I said at least twice, he was valuing particular topics as Intellectually Advanced and it's a bunch of old line rockist b.s.

or that sound tips the scales re acceptance of topicality, of the toppermost of what's going in the grooves or whatever they are now

No idea what you're saying here.

Run Devil Run also used 50s-based/-associated elements in compelling ways, which is quite a feat

There's a great essay/review that still hasn't been written about this album, and it must use this as its premise. The only Paul-solo that moves to actual tears is his performance of the Vipers' "No Other Baby."

Hidden in the yard underneath the wall
Buried deep below a thousand layers lay the answer to it all

I thought it was blowing in the wind.

coupla guys sitting around talkin bout music...not as good as Big Jim McBob & Billy Saul Hurok on Farm Film Celebrity Blow-Up but what is?

i liked when bob was patronizing mccartney -- not as intellectual as lou reed oh noes what an insult -- and then interrupts himself for being "negative" like he just remembered WHERE HE'S WRITING NOW.

"three stars" = gentlemen's c

I thought it was blowing in the wind.

Not on the night when lightning struck the house of wax...

Who's to say what's too easy for him? The listener, when something oozes out of the speakers, all glib and half-assed, regardless of how much blood sweat & tears may have gone into what's supposed to sound effortlessy magical etc. "Tips the scales": the way it *sounds* is what can make topicality acceptable and appealing, not what the artist's topics/opinions are, but how they exist in context of the music. Topicality (like Lou's two cents on Jesse Jackson)often needs some scale-tipping.Even if xgau gives some topics more points than others,so what, why is that rockist, he's approved (some, not all) albums by Helen Reddy, Joanne Newsome, Garth Brooks, lotsa folks who don't have all that much to do with Lennon ripping the veil etc. Not saying John uber Paul or rock uber pop, just the "poor Paul/pop" thing gets irritating sometimes. Peace.

privileging of content over aesthetics

Nope again. Privileging content as part of aesthetics. (And like Don said, why not? Some songs are good in part because they're about something.) (Including a few of Paul's, I'd guess.)

obviously has a lot to do with why there has been so much critical reappraisal of mccartney's old catalog, particularly over the last decade.

Also, where exactly has this reappraisal been happening? Not being sarcastic; just never noticed Paul's work was being reappraised more than anybody else's work lately. Also never realized he was notably hated-upon by crits to begin with (those early editions of The Rollng Stone Record Guide sure gave Ram and Band On The Run and Venus And Mars and Tug Of War better scores than they gave any LPs by Sabbath or Nazareth), but maybe I just wasn't paying attention.