the BADCRAP BARFS more like

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i. ok so out of "scholarly diligence" i watched the repeated omnibus about syd b last night
ii. and confirmed that barrett-era PF = post-barrett PF = post-PF barrett = ALL AS USELESS AS ONE ANOTHER
iii. except then i slept and dremt ALL NIGHT dreams soundtracked by barrett songs >:(

so this raises the deep poptimist question: is a tune that sticks in yr mind GOOD even if you HATE IT -- isn't the craft of melody a kind of nerve-glue to attach you to a ahem "work" so that yr feelings of some particular moment get externalised into it and there replayed?

anyway i am quite happy to grant that SB had an unusual facility with oddly shaped song-flow, burden and refrain* -- except i think i would also argue that the collective direction of the outfit he founded was increasingly at odds with this gift (cf also curtis and JD-NO)... they were fashioning a monumental high-volume drone juggernaut; his gift was quirkily quaint'Nquiet little broke-back ditties -- and that the split (as with joy div) was inevitable on musical grounds; the psycho-chemical context a pretext for sentimentalists and clueless romantics

ps the documentary itself was incredibly lame and lazy in almost every regard

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

"But then it's been done before with musicologists"

mippy if you can point me to ANY musicology which explores this i will be (1) excited and (2) surprised -- "why melodies work" is the great unspoken in musical analysis, in my experience

a small part of me wants macca and webba to pursue this project out of DEVILMENT -- viz their dissection renders them UNABLE TO WRITE ANY MORE SONGS

but basically i think if the life goes out of it it was weak in the first place -- if it's good, ruthlessly close atomic examination will make it BETTER

[mippy.livejournal.com]

I might be slightly wrong then - perhaps I'm thinking of those perennial lyric-analysis features in supplements. There was a Radio 2 doc a while back where they were going into production techniques (specifially autotune on the bit I heard) so I'd be surprised if it was largely uncovered. I've been out of touch with that world a bit for the past couple of years so I'd like to know.

Perhaps you're right, but...pop#s all about the je ne sais quoi, I reckon. Otherwise there would be so many records that are better than they actually are.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Ages and ages ago I read something about Motown and someone talked about how Smokey Robinson taught him how to write a hook. The details are totally fuzzy now, but i remember it because it has forever left me with the impression that there are some "rules," or perhaps "tricks" is a better word. Naturally said writing did not reveal said rules, but always imagined it working the same way I-IV-Vmaj7 demands I again. (If I'm remembering my music theory correctly.)

I think this is actually a great GREAT article idea, although I might pull a few more pro's in, such as someone from Motown, perhaps Elton John, and maybe some of those hired guns that were always being brought in to work with bands in the late 80s and early 90s (Holly Knight, Desmond Child, Diane Warren, et al).

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

if you can point me to ANY musicology which explores this i will be (1) excited and (2) surprised -- "why melodies work" is the great unspoken in musical analysis, in my experience

Mark, I read something about that in this otherwise at times pretty unbearably fawning book (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0711981671/026-0054579-5973262?v=glance&n=266239) once -- not Real Scholarly Musicology though, more like The Rules that blue russian mentions. It's back at the library now, otherwise I'd post them.