The Beatles, Sloan, and the Evolution of Expectation

I started this blog with a quote from Leonard Meyer, calling out for the "some account of the meaning, content, and communication of music" better than the "special jargon" currently available. I've since tried to develop my own account stated in my own terms, based on my own experience. Now seems like a good time to circle back to Meyer, who offers his own interesting answers, and ones that I think fit within the concepts I've developed for myself.

Meyer's stated goal is to identify the sources of musical emotion and meaning, which isn't necessarily the same thing as my attempt to define perceived quality. I think we're on the same wavelength, though. I've described multiple ways in which I define quality based on the sort of points of craft and subtlety that also create emotional responses- minor chords on Justin Vernon's guitar, or the cracks in Freedy Johnston's voice. If we're not talking about the same thing, we're talking about close correlates.

Meyer's basic approach is to extrapolate a theory of musical emotion from a more general psychological theory of emotion, conflict theory. Meyer notes that divergent theoretical lines within the field still jointly accepted the basic premise of the theory, that emotions occur when a stimulus cannot be otherwise resolved physically or mentally. (At least he claimed this was a consensus at the time he wrote in the '60s; if there are any psychologists reading, please call me out if this is horribly outdated). He cites the basic example of smokers getting angry or depressed when they unable to meet satisfy their desire for the next cigarette; an opposite example could be feeling joyful when, say, the taste of food introduces a positive sensation that's not offset by a negative sensation.

In the musical context, Meyer suggests, the baseline- the equivalent to the point before the new stimulus is introduced- is musical "style": the instrumentation, rhythm, harmony and other basic musical characteristics we have learned and accepted as "normal." Those styles create "customary and expected progression[s]" of sounds that, upon being learned, lose some of their impact for the listener. At that point, it becomes the "deviations" from those styles that carry emotional impact by, in effect, serving as a new stimulus. Moreover, a given deviation can become part of a broader affective work because can "the listener will do his best to relate it to the style, to understand its meaning," and put it within the broader context of a whole musical work.

"In short," concludes Meyer, "embodied musical meaning...is a product of expectation," specifically the interplay of the expected and the unexpected. Which seems to fit with both of my criteria for identifying new music I like. My search for something "unique" within a still-familiar style has obvious parallels. And to the extent I've been able to define "good songwriting" or "craftsmanship" to date, it's also been in terms of adding something I perceive as "new" to the familiar- whether it's choices of instrumentation and arrangement that refresh so-called retro musical styles, or finding a way to do arrange something differently within a familiar pop song structure.

I'm therefore comfortable adopting the basic premises of Meyer's theory as a way to flesh out the vocabulary and the conceptual structure of what I'm already trying to do. And I think a good example that fits Meyer's particular emphases is my relationship with the Beatles and their musical followers.

Below is "Can't Buy Me Love," which to my ears, and I'm sure many others, sounds like a pretty clear and pure example of a familiar style. This is true in immediately identifiable ways: guitar-bass-drums instrumentation, verse-chorus-verse structure, guitar solo in the middle. But even though we may not process it as consciously, for me, and I suspect for many of you, the melodic and harmonic contours of the song sound familiar as well. The memorable musical components- the chord change under the chorus (first at about :06) the way the vocals change to a flatter, bluesier version of the melodic line in the second line the verse (i.e. at about 1:00), the structure of the three-part harmonies, and many more- are all, in Meyer's terms, "customary and expected progressions" for the pop-rock music we've been hearing for most of our lives.

The Beatles are legendary in large part because they had such a significant role in establishing those tropes as customary and expected- "Can't Buy Me Love" captures a style that didn't even exist 10 years before this song, but is still a big part of our shared musical experience 50 years later. And even though I was born long after they broke up, I maintain a lot of affection for them because they still played the same role in establishing foundations of my personal musical world; I listened to them a lot as a teenager, when my own musical expectations were still in the process of being formed.

Since the Beatles serve as such a core pillar of my musical taste, I'm still obviously interested in seeking out bands in the same vein. But those bands bear a different burden than the Beatles did in forming my taste. If the bulk of what they do is follow those same customary and expected progressions, the appeal is limited; it's probably just going to sound to me like something the Beatles did better (which may in part actually just mean that the Beatles, for me, did it first). It's the band that's able to consistently and effectively subvert some of those expectations that can continue to succeed.

In the world of specifically "Beatle-esque" music, I'm not the only one who thinks Sloan stands out as a band who's represented some of the best of the form for 20 years running. All the songs below are going to sound immediately familiar to you (and the album covers even look familiar, what with their penchant for the four-slightly-awkward-guys-looking-back-at-you picture.) But with Meyer's theory in mind, it becomes clear for me that Sloan's been able to build their deserved reputation in part on their ability to balance the pleasures of the familiar form with some subtle and clever subversions of the expectations that creates.

"Can't You Figure It Out," for example, shares some of the exact tropes of "Can't Buy Me Love;" listen to how the vocals repeat the melody line at :30 in bluesier fashion at :33, just like in the Beatles' verse. But the chorus sounds both memorable and fresh because they subvert the chord change the Beatles have also led you to expect. Stop the video at :41, right before the chorus hits, and see if you can envision how you think the musical aspect of the chorus is going to sound. If you've listened to enough of this sort of thing as much as I have, you may well be able to envision a harmonic chord that "resolves" the preceding chord progression in the way the Beatles have led you to expect. It's not what Sloan does, though- they move to a sharper, more dissonant chord that makes an impact in part because it manages to sound "correct" without being the answer we're (perhaps subconsciously) being led to expect.

"Coax Me" follows another familiar trope- perhaps less-used by the Beatles than fellow '60s-pop travelers like, say, the Byrds- of basing the song in large part on a winding, picked single-note guitar melody. Songs like that tend to be described as "jangly," in part because they tend to use light arrangements and pretty-sounding harmonies, as in "Mr. Tambourine Man":

In this case, Sloan subverts the expectations for such "jangly" songs by putting the melody in a particularly sad-sounding minor key. The rest of the arrangement is still very much in the Byrds' vein, but the harmonic choice achieves an air of melancholy that adds something "new" to the familiar form.

Sloan is also just as likely to subvert expectations through their song structures as their harmonic choices. Most Beatles songs, certainly from their "early" period up to 1966, follow a pretty tight verse-chorus-verse structure, with little variation. That repetitious structure can be incredibly effective for burrowing songs into the pleasure centers of your brain, especially when the melodies themselves are so strong, but it creates its own set of expectations- when the second verse ends, you know the second chorus is coming. "Another Way I Could Do It" has the sort of melody I'd probably still enjoy having repeated- but instead, Sloan cycles through numerous variations that find new, enjoyable angles on the underlying melody. After establishing the melody in the first minute, they repeat only the second half of the melodic phrase at 1:00; introduce a new guitar melody at 1:12; transition into an ascending bridge at 1:28; and repeat only the first half of the original verse phrase at 2:00 in order to transition to a new variation on the ascending bridge at 2:15; then they have a slow outro starting at 2:47 that inverts the arrangement that comes before by vocally harmonizing what used to be the guitar melody. That's five good spins on a strong melodic idea without a single full repetition, and that winding structure can still pleasurably subvert my structural expectations even after multiple listens.

Even much simpler structural variations can have impact. "Losing California" modulates the key upward on the final chorus, which I've already complained about as an overused trope. But while the standard pop songs does this by simply doing a chorus and then repeating it with the modulation, Sloan structures it in a different and clever way. After two verses and choruses, they plant the seed for the modulation through a short bridge at 1:17, which modulates upwards at 1:30 for just a second before dropping back to the original key. Then they follow through on the modulation at 2:20 by interposing the bridge between the final verse and the chorus- then following through on the modulation. It doesn't make the trope any less common- but I still find it quite enjoyable in this particular context because the song successfully subverts my expectations for when and how it's going to happen.

Now, I didn't even consciously notice most of these choices over a decade of listening to the band. I've just considered them good songwriters, good craftsmen, examples of Beatles-esque music still done well. But Meyer's vocabulary, integrated into my own more self-conscious criteria I've laid out in previous posts, provides a pretty persuasive way for me to better articulate what those general phrases mean.

Black Joe Lewis, Sharon Jones, and the Limits of Defining "Retro" Music

It seems difficult to read about Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings or Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears without seeing the words "retro" or "revival". I think this is simply meant to be descriptive: they're trafficking in varieties of funk, soul, and R&B that the general public and serious music fans alike perceive as historical. But in broader perspective, there seems something a little odd about that perception.

Compare them to the A.V. Club's top 3 albums of 2012: Frank Ocean's Channel Orange, Japandroids' Celebration Rock, and the Cloud Nothings' Attack on Memory. The historical reference points for each are just as obvious- Prince-like smooth R&B, Springsteen-esque drama-rock, and a mix of pop-punk and raw '80s post-punk, respectively- and reviews haven't hesitated to point them out. Yet not once in those reviews have I seen the words "retro" or "revival" associated with them. Instead they're using "influences" or "reimagining" their genres- probably intended as innocent descriptors themselves, but ones with less of a whiff of dust and cobwebs about them.

I don't get it. With some exceptions, any music with any degree of recognition and popularity is going to use the song structures, instrumentations, production techniques and other trappings of a specific, definable genre. (And the exceptions- say, EMA- can usually be defined as mixing multiple definable genres.) For all but those few fans of the avant-garde, I think it's fair to say it's typically a precondition to enjoyment- we need some sort of context. So why are Sharon and Black Joe "reviving" "old" genres, while, say, the Cloud Nothings are simply following in Fugazi's footsteps?

Is it because their genres are tied to the '60s and '70s, while the three albums above are tied more closely to the '80s? Maybe so- for someone my age, that's the difference between hearing the genre on an oldies station or hearing it in more contemporary contexts. But at a certain point making such a division seems like a fallacy. You may or may not like a given genre, and your preferences may well be connected to your generational touchstones. But if we're just trying to identify good music in and of itself- to rate an album or judge the best of the year- it seems fairer to focus on what they're doing with the tools of the genre they've taken on for themselves.

Personally, this brings me back to the two core criteria posted below: whether a band is avoids the saturation principle either by doing something that sounds new and unique relative to my accumulated listening experience, or by demonstrating those characteristics of craft and good songwriting that I'm slowly working to define. And I'd argue that Black Joe and Sharon face at least as much of a burden for me in reaching those criteria as the other artists mentioned above. I'm familiar enough with smooth R&B and Springsteen, but they're not integrated into my bones the way the Motown sound is.

Yet for me, both bands get over the line with creativity and appeal to spare. The vocals are a big part of it: both can belt it out just as well as the forebears they're "reviving," whether that's Wilson Pickett or Tina Turner. But that presence alone isn't enough. The Detroit Cobras, for example, have been doing fine work for over a decade finding little-known garage-rock songs and singing the hell out of them. But at the same time, most of their music feels more deserving of the slightly derogatory connotations I see in a term like "retro"- not just because they're digging up vintage material, but because the performance as a whole never seems all that distinctive, with a basic instrumental setup and straightforward arrangements. They're doing justice to the genre, but it doesn't sound as fresh and vital as the first time I heard James Brown, and it's not something I can see myself returning to all that often.

Black Joe Lewis and Sharon Jones may not sound original after hearing James Brown, but to my ears they DO sound fresh and vital, because they're following Birdy's Law: they're doing more with the genre, putting their own stamp on it. For Black Joe Lewis, the biggest part of this stamp is the Honeybears' ability to convey a sheer energy that keeps with Joe's vocals. I'm a particular fan of the driving, nonstop guitar line in "Livin' in the Jungle," which rapidly jumps between notes in a melody that still sounds unpredictable after a dozen listens. Or listen to the way the band uses multiple tricks- higher horn notes, the use of a splash cymbal, a general crescendo- to drive the horn lick to more powerful level the third time it's repeated at :37 and 3:30.

Sharon Jones, meanwhile, has the benefit of some fine arrangers within the Dap-Kings. The musical pieces of "How Long Do I Have to Wait" are perfectly familiar, from the wah-wah guitar to the short horn stabs to the thick Motown-style bass sound. But much like Phoenix does in a more poppy vein, they're put together so smoothly and tightly that they still sound new.

Or take my favorite single musical moment of theirs to date, the low guitar tone underneath the chorus lines of "Give It Back," at :56 and 1:38 and 2:18. The layering of that tone on top of the bass sounds incredibly rich, in a way I haven't heard before in similar songs- and in a way that might not have sounded quite as clear coming through a '60s-era control board.

All this said, I acknowledge that mileage may vary greatly in your appreciation for genres like this. I'm seeking out craftsmanship and uniqueness quite deliberately, and if you aren't, it's totally understandable that your saturation point for this type of music has already been hit by your exposure to the historical classics. That, in turn, may lead you to categorize these bands as "retro" while others are merely "influenced." But I suspect that says more about your relative genre preferences, or the public profile of a given genre, than anything more definitive about the music. Within a genre you follow and love, it hardly seems right to call anything "retro" or "revival" music. They're just open books on which the great artists can continue to place their own stamps.

Poking at Albums with "Pokey Midsections"

I am a major cheapskate who buys a lot of music, and still buys it in album form. (I attribute the album-buying primarily to the presence of good used CD stores near home, but inertia and creeping curmudgeonliness probably have something to do with it, too.) The listening habit I've developed to square that circle is to listen to every album I buy at least 10 to 12 times, usually concentrated over the course of a week or so before I move on to the next album.

The habit is partly a means to ensure I feel that I'm getting my money's worth out of my purchases, but I think it's stuck because it's also paid off musically. A number of my favorite albums- Talk Talk's "Laughing Stock" and "Spirit of Eden," The Flaming Lips' "Embryonic," Panda Bear's "Person Pitch," the Mountain Goats' earliest albums- I found either unremarkable or off-putting on the first listen; it was the concentrated, repeated listening that revealed their qualities.

I by no means consider this the "right" way to listen to music, just the way that's worked for me. But I'm sure it has had a significant effect on the fact those favorite albums are what they are. For one thing, it probably ties in to how I define terms like "craftsmanship" and "good songwriting". I'm probably going to be more impressed by musical decisions that don't fully pay off until the seventh listen than someone whose listening habits are less intensive or systematic, and emphasize them more heavily in my personal definition of those general terms. (There's probably a lot of writing to be done on that topic; I'll save it for future posts.)

I've also found that I tend to disagree with the common album-review complaint that an album has a "slow midsection" or starts strong before declining in quality, and I suspect I can define that difference very specifically in terms of listening habits. I can't speak authoritatively for any given reviewer, but I think it's fair to say that they're listening to music with some different parameters than mine. Most clearly, they're facing deadline pressures to finish reviews by release dates, while I take as much time as I please- and this may place fairly strict limits on the time they listen to the album, depending on how soon in advance they can get review copies. While I'm devoting my leisure time to these albums in as deliberate a fashion as I like, I assume most reviewers are trying to juggle one review among various other work tasks. And while I can ramble on as long as I like on this here blog, many reviewers are probably facing some degree of restraint on their word counts, creating the imperative to highlight their most concise criticisms (or praise).

The result I frequently see is that I agree with reviewer criticisms of weak sections of albums on roughly my third or fourth listen- and disagree after several more of my listens. Pitchfork hung much of its criticism of Elbow's most recent album, "Build a Rocket Boys!," on the criticism of a "pokey midsection" that "abates melodically." As far as I can infer, this has to be the two tracks between "Neat Little Rows," which the review itself highlights as "stomping," and "High Ideals," which has arguably the most complex arrangement on the album. Those two tracks didn't register with me much, either, for a while. But listened to on its own terms, it sounds to me like "Jesus is a Rochdale Girl" has just as much melody as anything else on the album- it just took a while to come through in the album context because it's so much quieter than its surroundings. I'll still grant that "The Night Will Always Win" may be one of the weaker songs of the album, but it can't bear the weight of a "pokey midsection" all by itself.

Pitchfork similarly criticizes the songwriting on the Title Tracks' "In Blank" for "petering out a little" after a strong first four songs. (Not intending to pick on Pitchfork here- I see this in reviews from plenty of sources, these are just the examples that are coming to mind.) Which, again, is consistent with my experience on early listens; the first four songs were so immediate and consistent to dominate my experience. But that eventually smoothed out a few listens later- the chorus of "All Tricks" has just as much melodic snap as anything on the album, it just took a few more listens to sink in.

I'll admit I don't have authoritative knowledge of the process by which the reviewers listened to these albums. But this is a pattern I see often enough to make this a reasonable hypothesis: reviewers can tend to have less immersive listening experiences to an album than I will, and that are more likely to diverge in opinions on album pacing as a result. To be clear, I don't find anything wrong with this. Reviewers may be less immersed for reasons outside their control, and there may be plenty of other listeners who listen to music differently than I do anyhow.

I should note that I also believe my system may bring its own biases to the table. I may have a tendency to underrate albums that are oriented towards immediacy and don't gain as much value-added on the tenth listen. This may drive me away from, say, even the best of simple punk-pop, as much as I might enjoy the first-listen experience. I also may have a tendency to dismiss albums that don't vary much in tempo, tone, or melody for the entire duration, even if I might enjoy any given song on the album if it came up in an iPod shuffle. At some point in the future I'll have to revisit some music that could fit either description and put these guesses to the test.

Was Whitney Houston Born 25 Years Too Early?

Whitney Houston deserves every bit of the praise and honor she got when she died young a year ago today. She's one of a small handful of the greatest vocalists in the 50-some years of modern pop music, and I think that's all the more remarkable considering she came of age in the absolute worst point for her particular talents.

Houston released her first album in March 1985, smack in the middle the most synthesizer-slathered period in pop music. The highest-selling albums of the previous 12 months were "Thriller," "Purple Rain," and "Like A Virgin;" even Bruce Springsteen broke out the synths on his album later that year. Houston (and her handlers) obviously weren't about to go against the prevailing winds.

The results are good songs, sung brilliantly. But on a song like "How Will I Know," her vocals don't come through as well as it feels like they should, and I blame the synths. It's most obvious on the chorus- her voice comes through plenty strong in the more spacious arrangements of the verses, but even her mountain-leveling pipes sound like they need to compete with the synth stabs that are carrying the instrumental hook.

Same sort of deal on "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" (released two years later). The arrangement gives the first three chorus lines plenty of room for her vocal power, but the addition of the synth hook on the final line doesn't sound like it's strengthening the power of the song so much as presenting another powerful sound that has to compete with Whitney's voice.

I can't help but conclude that, while Whitney can make a lot out of those songs, they're simply not an ideal fit for what she brings to the table. This is consistent with the fact that her two most lasting contributions to popular memory are the comparatively unadorned versions of "I Will Always Love You" and the national anthem. And, coming from the opposite direction, I think it's also consistent with the fact that plenty of popular and/or (in my opinion) great synth-pop doesn't involve strong vocalists. Britney Spears is a perfectly competent vocalist, but she's nowhere in Whitney's league. Yet when you listen to a song like "Oops I Did It Again," her thinner voice fits more naturally with the bed of synths than Whitney's belting, at least to my ears.

Or take Cut Copy's "Far Away", perhaps the best song on what I'd consider the best synth-pop album of the past decade. Like on the Houston songs, the core synthesizer melody sounds particularly full and powerful here, but Dan Whitford's vocal line projects a light tone that makes it sound less like a "lead vocal" than a polite, gentle countermelody under the driving synth hook.

I have at least two theories about why strong singers and synth-pop sometimes coexist awkwardly.
1. Basic acoustics. Synthesizers can fill up the frequency spectrum as or more easily than any "natural instruments," especially in an era like the mid-'80s where the production norm is to place them so prominently in the mix. There's just so much sound going on instrumentally that it's for the better if vocals come across in a somewhat secondary, subordinate role.

2. Our own preconceptions. We perceive vocals as an organic sound, and synthesizers as an inorganic, artificial sound. Which, perhaps subconsciously, makes it feel a bit unnatural for such powerful examples of both stacked on top of each other. This may make more sense when you think of the inverted version of the Houston example- it would almost undoubtedly sound odd to hear artificial, autotuned vocals over music based on naturally recorded piano or acoustic guitar.

Maybe it's one of those, maybe it's both, or maybe you might not even hear what I'm hearing anyways. The upshot, in any case, is this: Whitney's a deserved legend based in large part on music like the above. But if she was born 25 years later and came of age today, her pop template would be Adele rather than Madonna. I can't help but think the result might have been even better for her legacy.

Saying Something Nice: Miley Cyrus

See the previous post on Train for an explanation of this series.

Tempting Snarky Dismissal: We're talking about a revenue stream on a Disney executive's ledger more than we are music.

Hey, Say Something Nice: I'm guessing it wasn't Miley herself, but someone made a clever musical decision at the end of "Party in the USA."

The final minute of the song (starting right at 2:30) repeats the chorus twice. The standard approach in radio pop with this structure is to modulate the key a half-step (or maybe a whole-step) upward on the second chorus, which makes everything sound just a little bit higher and, as the link notes, "very uplifting." I'm sure you've heard what I'm talking about even if that description wasn't helpful- for an example, start at 2:36 below, then listen to the change at 2:55.

Thing is, this modulation is such a cliché that Marshall Crenshaw was ironically calling it out thirty years ago (at about 1:20 below- he does it at the bridge rather than the final chorus, but it's the same modulation for the same musical purpose). For me, any unironic use of the modulation at this point is a pretty blatant violation of the Saturation Principle. It's the audio equivalent of tired lyrical clichés like flying away into the sky- it's so obvious it just sounds lazy.

Whomever arranged "Party in the USA" found an impressively simple way to get the musical power and momentum the modulation (is supposed to) provide without succumbing to the cliché. The first ending chorus sounds just like it did earlier in the song. But instead of modulating that same arrangement for the second chorus (at about 2:55), the arrangement adds two tones on top of the existing instrumentation: a low, piano-type sound close to pitch to the existing bass line, and a higher-pitched bell sound.

What these two additions do is thicken the chord used in the original chorus. Stated another way, it takes the harmonies established by the instrumental track and makes them sound fuller and richer. Which, at least to my ears, adds a lot to the arrangement in a way I haven't heard much before. As far as I'm concerned, pop arrangers should start raiding this good idea. It could become saturated itself at some point, but for me, at least, there's a long way to go to reach that point.

Why That Isn't Enough: I still think there's more than a grain of truth in that snarky dismissal, and her vocal tracks are the clearest proof.

Miley has a nasal honk of a voice. There's nothing inherently wrong with that; I like a number of singers with similarly nasal voices, chief among them Freedy Johnston and John Darnielle. Part of their appeal is that both are strong lyricists. I'm willing to forgive more in the way of vocal shortcomings to someone who has a lot to say. But both also find musical ways to make their vocals fit well within their songs, despite their lack of a traditionally "good" voice.

Freedy Johnston, for example, commonly uses two strategies. The first is to write songs that rely on minor, dissonant, or otherwise "different"-sounding chords and tones. The guitar riffs in "On the Way Out" all sound a bit sharp and abrasive, and that makes his voice sound like a fairly natural fit. This is the reason I think "Party in the USA" works better than the most of the other Cyrus songs I've heard- her voice doesn't seem out of place with the gnarled chords of the guitar riff.

Second, Johnston successfully performs slow, spare, traditionally "pretty" songs through careful vocal control. He sings low in his range throughout the verses of "The Mortician's Daughter," so that the nasal inflection doesn't overwhelm the sometimes-minimal guitar accompaniment. He also undersings the more dramatic runs of the chorus; listen to the way he gets vocal power out of cracking and softening his singing (for example, around the 1:00 mark) under the swelling instrumentation. I suspect that if Johnston tried to keep up by singing louder, it would sound to most listeners like an exposure of his vocal shortcomings.

But keeping up is exactly what Miley does on many of her slow songs. She's trying to sing it the same way a more "traditional" singer would, and it just makes her nasality sound more obvious. Listen to the build at about 2:40 of "The Climb." She starts by undersinging the quiet first lines, but her vocal dynamics proceed to follow the music, and sound reedy and thin for the comparison.

That doesn't appear to be an exception either, based on pretty much the whole of this song:

Both songs have arrangements and structures that sound pretty standard for female pop singers, and it's clear that someone like Kelly Clarkson would sound more natural singing them. It's possible they're just honestly trying and failing, but it seems more likely that this indicates her handlers are often just giving her the same songs and arrangements they'd be giving any pop starlet, rather than trying to tailor her work to her strengths (and weaknesses). To me that's a pretty strong suggestion that her career's being managed more as a revenue stream than an effort at musical accomplishment.