The time: December 2010. The place: Colgate University. The situation: it's the Saturday night before finals week, and I have a 12-page paper due the next day. In typical form, I have been slacking consistently for the past few weeks, and I've left this paper to the last minute. Usually, my paper-writing technique is very methodical: I sit down in the library, take copious amounts of notes on my sources, and write the paper from the notes. However, this tedious process was wholly unappealing to me on this particular Saturday night. The last thing I wanted to do was sit in the library all night and write a paper on post-Civil War economic history.
I resolved to write the paper straight from the sources, without prior notes, and do so at a breakneck pace. To do this, I needed a few things. First, I acquired an isolated seat in Cooley Science Library, which is not as crowded with socializing Greek types as the main library. Second, despite my resolution to not drink soda, I needed some short-term energy in the form of multiple Dr. Peppers. The isolation and frenetic caffeine buzz would allow me to write a boatload of pages in a short amount of time.
For the most important speed-writing tool, I needed some music to put me in the proper writing mode. Paper-writing music is a very tough thing to find. I don't recommend writing to Katy Perry or Led Zeppelin. Driving, hard-hitting rock and pop music draws your attention away from writing and forces you to focus all attention on listening. I will sit for hours in the library and listen to Physical Graffiti, and I might write three sentences. It's great music, but it's terrible paper-writing music.
Jazz, particularly the greats like Miles and Coltrane, always provide an awesome choice for paper-writing music. This music creates a wash of sound that soaks into the background in the wake of other activities. While I can sit in a darkened room and hear every single note of Kind of Blue, I can write a paper to that album without ever noticing the music. Indeed, Miles Davis and John Coltrane were two staples of my paper-writing soundtrack on that Saturday. But I also wanted something more to listen to than the usual jazz fare. Thus, after visiting a friend's apartment the night before, I decided to buy an album from a band that I had never heard or studied with more than a passing interest. Three hours and seven-and-a-half pages, that album later, Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion became one of my favorite albums in modern music.
The 'wash' effect that is so important for good 'writing music' defines Merriweather Post Pavilion. Here, Animal Collective creates an aural landscape that runs unbroken from beginning to end. The individual songs are almost indistinguishable from one another, but that makes the album all the more appealing. There are no songs that stand out from the others, but there is no filler material either. Each song contributes equally to a symphony of modern electronic music. On MPP the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts, and the album is all the better for it.
As a fan of traditional classic rock and blues, I find Animal Collective's music very strange. The traditional rock instruments, sounds, and arrangements are nowhere to be found. Instead, the band mixes limited guitar and keyboard parts with heavy synthesizers and electronics. This process can result in a cold, industrial sound, but MPP is exactly the opposite. The music here is warm and enveloping. From the first swell of electronics, the listener gets sucked in to the album's sound and gets stuck there for the duration. The vocals are distorted but soothing. The music overwhelms, but it does overstimulate or create distress. For the experimental and modern nature of the music, it is hard to imagine a more pleasant listening experience.
Much of Animal Collective's success on MPP is due to their skill with modern electronic. However, the album's warmness comes from the band's brilliant use of their musical influences. Surf music is highly present throughout the album. Song titles like "My Girls" and "Summertime Clothes" evoke the same emotions as the carefree surf culture of the early 1960s. The group's sound owes much to Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" concept that was presented most successfully in records like The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and Brian Wilson's SMiLE. The wall of sound and uplifting attitude that defined the best of surf music provided great roots for MPP.
Animal Collective also pays tribute to the great psychedelic groups of past and present. The album title is the name of a concert venue in Columbia, Maryland that often hosts psychedelic rock acts, most importantly the Grateful Dead. The title is an homage to the Dead, whose laid-back, experimental music is very influential for A.C. After the release of MPP, Animal Collective further honored the Grateful Dead by becoming the first band to legally sample a Dead song. The song "What Would I Want? Sky," from the band's Fall Be Kind EP, samples "Unbroken Chain," a little-known Phil Lesh tune off Grateful Dead From Mars Hotel. The influence of the Grateful Dead and other psychedelic acts on Animal Collective cannot be underestimated.
Many publications named Merriweather Post Pavilion one of the best albums of 2009, and I see the reasons why it is so highly praised. It's the type of album where the listener cannot get hung up on individual notes and songs. You simply need to dive in and experience a brilliant array of sounds and emotions. Whether you need to write a paper, kick the depression of the winter months, or just escape from real world for a while, MPP will do the trick. As I've written before, the best music picks you up when you're down and inspires you to move forward. Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion does that as well as any album in today's music.
Grade: A
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Why The Grateful Dead Are So Important.
This is originally from thread on the Discussion Board of Golf Club Atlas.
I've heard every criticism in the book about the Grateful Dead. I'm a huge Dead fan, no doubt. Yet beyond my obvious emotional reasons for liking the Grateful Dead, I have several logical arguments for why the Grateful Dead were (and still are) one of the most important bands in rock n' roll. Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide review of the Dead's Two From the Vault gives an overview of what made the Dead so fascinating as a live band:
The preserve of a huge, insular cult accustomed to rendering its very real aesthetic discriminations within a context so uncritical no outsider need pay them the slightest mind, the Dead's music has disappeared into the mythology it engendered. They were a great band. But trying to convince an unbeliever is like trying to tell a stranger about LSD. Great drummers were hard to come by in the hippie era, and the Dead were too discursive to want one anyway--Bill and Mickey rocked out by revving tempo and volume and letting Pigpen take it away. But often the Dead's ruminations have content--they listened more responsively than any other band of the era. And on solos of over a chorus or two, Jerry Garcia stands as the era's most inventive guitarist short of Hendrix and Page. God they were a trip.
Christgau makes several good points about what makes the Dead so appealing. The Dead functioned well as a unit, and it is fascinating to watch old videos of the band to see how they interact with one another. Furthermore, I agree with Robert Christgau's review of the Dead. I am a devotee of Christgau's writings. While I don't agree with everything he says, he's mostly right here. Yet there so many other reasons to appreciate the Grateful Dead.
The Dead invented the jam-band genre. When they started playing psychedelic music in San Francisco in 1965, nobody else was doing what they were doing. There were jazz acts that were stretching out on songs, but all of the major rock acts were still playing compressed, radio-friendly songs. Bands like the Beatles disdained improvisation (John Lennon called jazz "shit music.") Yet after the Dead began playing and developed their sound, other bands followed in the jazz vein. By the end of the 1960s, the typical rock n' roll concert was changed forever, and musicians were now improvising and exploring musical ground never before seen. While this style went out of vogue in the late 1970s, partially because lesser musicians tried to copy bands like the Dead, Cream, and the Allmans, it has resurged in recent years. Every single one of the jam bands on the scene now owes something to the Dead for taking rock and adding jazzy, jam elements to it.
However, the Grateful Dead was so much more than a jam band with decent jazz chops. Listening to the Grateful Dead is an education in American music. Each of the original band members came from a different musical background. Phil Lesh was a classically-trained bassist and trumpeter who was interested in electronic music. Jerry Garcia and perennial Dead songwriter Robert Hunter were folk and bluegrass musicians. Bill Kreutzmann had a jazz background, while fellow percussionist Mickey Hart was interested in world music. Pigpen was a blues fanatic, and Bob Weir would carry on his blues voice after Pigpen's death. While the Beatles inspired the Grateful Dead to become rock-oriented, the band would always bring the musical backgrounds of its individual members. That, combined with the psychedelic culture of San Francisco, created a melting pot of all styles of American music.
Not only did the Dead come from an American musical background, but they played music that came from every corner of the American musical scene. Robert Hunter wrote folk and rock songs that evoke vivid images of Americana, particularly the allure and troubles of the American West. The band also paid tribute to their American influences in their cover selections. They covered Robert Johnson, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan, Derek and the Dominos, Martha and the Vandellas, James Brown, the Reverend Gary Davis, and countless others. They also paid tribute to British artists who were devoted to American music, including Van Morrison and the Rolling Stones. If you hear a Dead show, you hear the best of American rock, folk, country, soul, and blues, all infused with jazzy improv work that only improved through time for the band.
The Dead played the best American music, and they preserved it through relentless touring for thirty years and by attracting a devoted following of fans. When other bands from the 1960s were breaking up or assimilate to the music of the late 70s and 80s, the Dead continued on in their same style. Sure, the Grateful Dead's sound evolved, and three concerts from 1968, 1972, and 1980 will all sound very different. Yet this evolution had nothing to do with external trends in music. When punk rock raged in the late 70s, the band was setting off on long, mellow musical journeys on a nightly basis. In fact, 1977, the height of the punk explosion, is often considered the Dead's finest year in concert. The band spent its years exploring new ground, trying new types of music, and constantly trying to improve.
All the while, the Grateful Dead's fan base remained strong. No band in American history has a such a large, close-knit, thoroughly devoted group of fans. The Dead were one of the first bands to play two sets, giving their fans more music for cheaper. They also extended personal invitations for fans to stay in contact with the band, such as the mailing list request in the liner notes of the "Skull and Roses" album. This status allowed the band to carry on with the same method for decades and preserve great American music while others were ignoring it. Furthermore, with the band's unique policy that allowed fans to tape and distribute shows, all of their music and its history remains today for people to hear. No band, not even the Stones, has had such longevity.
Even after Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, the remaining members carry on the musical tradition of the Dead. There are now scores of Deadheads that have never saw a show but still love the music. Fans still follow groups like Dark Star Orchestra and Furthur from show to show, knowing that, on any given night, it is possible to hear something they've never heard before and won't again. With the band's oldest member, Phil Lesh, reaching age 70 in 2010, the band members are still searching and refusing to play the same show twice. Most importantly, the jam movement of the 1990s has reinvigorated enthusiasm for the Grateful Dead. Jam bands like Phish, String Cheese Incident, and Widespread Panic will continue to be influenced by the Grateful Dead and carry the tradition into the future. Bands outside the jam band scene, too, continue to learn from the Dead. Animal Collective released an album in 2009 entitled "Merriweather Post Pavilion," as a tribute to the Columbia, Maryland venue where the Grateful Dead played many shows. The improvised and psychedelic ethos of the Dead is important for music in any genre.
The Grateful Dead changed the live rock concert forever while still playing classic American music. Additionally, they were the first rock band to incorporate jazz music into a genre that had otherwise avoided jazz completely. The band defined a generation while continuing to inspire fans to the present day. The Grateful Dead belongs on the list of great live acts with The Who, Bruce, the Allmans, and the Stones. Whether you love the Grateful Dead or not, you should realize how critical the band has been in the development of American music.
I've heard every criticism in the book about the Grateful Dead. I'm a huge Dead fan, no doubt. Yet beyond my obvious emotional reasons for liking the Grateful Dead, I have several logical arguments for why the Grateful Dead were (and still are) one of the most important bands in rock n' roll. Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide review of the Dead's Two From the Vault gives an overview of what made the Dead so fascinating as a live band:
The preserve of a huge, insular cult accustomed to rendering its very real aesthetic discriminations within a context so uncritical no outsider need pay them the slightest mind, the Dead's music has disappeared into the mythology it engendered. They were a great band. But trying to convince an unbeliever is like trying to tell a stranger about LSD. Great drummers were hard to come by in the hippie era, and the Dead were too discursive to want one anyway--Bill and Mickey rocked out by revving tempo and volume and letting Pigpen take it away. But often the Dead's ruminations have content--they listened more responsively than any other band of the era. And on solos of over a chorus or two, Jerry Garcia stands as the era's most inventive guitarist short of Hendrix and Page. God they were a trip.
Christgau makes several good points about what makes the Dead so appealing. The Dead functioned well as a unit, and it is fascinating to watch old videos of the band to see how they interact with one another. Furthermore, I agree with Robert Christgau's review of the Dead. I am a devotee of Christgau's writings. While I don't agree with everything he says, he's mostly right here. Yet there so many other reasons to appreciate the Grateful Dead.
The Dead invented the jam-band genre. When they started playing psychedelic music in San Francisco in 1965, nobody else was doing what they were doing. There were jazz acts that were stretching out on songs, but all of the major rock acts were still playing compressed, radio-friendly songs. Bands like the Beatles disdained improvisation (John Lennon called jazz "shit music.") Yet after the Dead began playing and developed their sound, other bands followed in the jazz vein. By the end of the 1960s, the typical rock n' roll concert was changed forever, and musicians were now improvising and exploring musical ground never before seen. While this style went out of vogue in the late 1970s, partially because lesser musicians tried to copy bands like the Dead, Cream, and the Allmans, it has resurged in recent years. Every single one of the jam bands on the scene now owes something to the Dead for taking rock and adding jazzy, jam elements to it.
However, the Grateful Dead was so much more than a jam band with decent jazz chops. Listening to the Grateful Dead is an education in American music. Each of the original band members came from a different musical background. Phil Lesh was a classically-trained bassist and trumpeter who was interested in electronic music. Jerry Garcia and perennial Dead songwriter Robert Hunter were folk and bluegrass musicians. Bill Kreutzmann had a jazz background, while fellow percussionist Mickey Hart was interested in world music. Pigpen was a blues fanatic, and Bob Weir would carry on his blues voice after Pigpen's death. While the Beatles inspired the Grateful Dead to become rock-oriented, the band would always bring the musical backgrounds of its individual members. That, combined with the psychedelic culture of San Francisco, created a melting pot of all styles of American music.
Not only did the Dead come from an American musical background, but they played music that came from every corner of the American musical scene. Robert Hunter wrote folk and rock songs that evoke vivid images of Americana, particularly the allure and troubles of the American West. The band also paid tribute to their American influences in their cover selections. They covered Robert Johnson, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan, Derek and the Dominos, Martha and the Vandellas, James Brown, the Reverend Gary Davis, and countless others. They also paid tribute to British artists who were devoted to American music, including Van Morrison and the Rolling Stones. If you hear a Dead show, you hear the best of American rock, folk, country, soul, and blues, all infused with jazzy improv work that only improved through time for the band.
The Dead played the best American music, and they preserved it through relentless touring for thirty years and by attracting a devoted following of fans. When other bands from the 1960s were breaking up or assimilate to the music of the late 70s and 80s, the Dead continued on in their same style. Sure, the Grateful Dead's sound evolved, and three concerts from 1968, 1972, and 1980 will all sound very different. Yet this evolution had nothing to do with external trends in music. When punk rock raged in the late 70s, the band was setting off on long, mellow musical journeys on a nightly basis. In fact, 1977, the height of the punk explosion, is often considered the Dead's finest year in concert. The band spent its years exploring new ground, trying new types of music, and constantly trying to improve.
All the while, the Grateful Dead's fan base remained strong. No band in American history has a such a large, close-knit, thoroughly devoted group of fans. The Dead were one of the first bands to play two sets, giving their fans more music for cheaper. They also extended personal invitations for fans to stay in contact with the band, such as the mailing list request in the liner notes of the "Skull and Roses" album. This status allowed the band to carry on with the same method for decades and preserve great American music while others were ignoring it. Furthermore, with the band's unique policy that allowed fans to tape and distribute shows, all of their music and its history remains today for people to hear. No band, not even the Stones, has had such longevity.
Even after Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, the remaining members carry on the musical tradition of the Dead. There are now scores of Deadheads that have never saw a show but still love the music. Fans still follow groups like Dark Star Orchestra and Furthur from show to show, knowing that, on any given night, it is possible to hear something they've never heard before and won't again. With the band's oldest member, Phil Lesh, reaching age 70 in 2010, the band members are still searching and refusing to play the same show twice. Most importantly, the jam movement of the 1990s has reinvigorated enthusiasm for the Grateful Dead. Jam bands like Phish, String Cheese Incident, and Widespread Panic will continue to be influenced by the Grateful Dead and carry the tradition into the future. Bands outside the jam band scene, too, continue to learn from the Dead. Animal Collective released an album in 2009 entitled "Merriweather Post Pavilion," as a tribute to the Columbia, Maryland venue where the Grateful Dead played many shows. The improvised and psychedelic ethos of the Dead is important for music in any genre.
The Grateful Dead changed the live rock concert forever while still playing classic American music. Additionally, they were the first rock band to incorporate jazz music into a genre that had otherwise avoided jazz completely. The band defined a generation while continuing to inspire fans to the present day. The Grateful Dead belongs on the list of great live acts with The Who, Bruce, the Allmans, and the Stones. Whether you love the Grateful Dead or not, you should realize how critical the band has been in the development of American music.
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