Newspaper Page Text
obsessed with historicism over engagement with
the work at hand, lazily using mentions of often
obscure songs or groups in place of real descrip
tion to make shallow critical comparisons. The
book is too tied up with the past to apply its pas
sion to what other people are passionate about
and too tied up in similarity to really examine the
differences. But at the same time, it insists on
taking pop music (as explicitly opposed to rock
music) seriously, which requires the playfulness
Mortey does so we'l For every eruption of cyni
cism, there are countless moments of optimism;
for every failure to address pop as music in the
same manner as the Lucier piece (in contrast to
the intense technical focus on "Room," Mo Key's
description of the genesis of "Head* is almost
mystical); and for every misunderstanding of the
pop pleasure principle, there's a wonderful recog
nition of the importance of context
To a critic, the peculiar triumph of pop music
is that it expresses amazingly complex ideas in
ways with which other people actively desire to
engage, and it's one of
the particular joys of
criticism to parse these
ideas, to draw them out
and make connections
and express them in
one's own language.
The form of criticism
Morle/s pointing
toward is modeled after
pop, which is to say it's
both all-inclusive and
endlessly energized; a
hallmark of traditional
rock criticism is the
latter, and pop criticism
has slowly engulfed the
former by broadening .
its scops. However,
often when it swings
towards the energy of
Bangs, it too easily
embraces his inheritors'
restrictive rage. We can
and will find a way to
talk about pop the way
it talks about itself, in
a voice that never
limits and only enables.
So what do we
want? Something that,
instead of trying to dis
till pop's purity of
essence, seeks its end
less expansion; some
thing that internalizes
the lessons of the post-
structuralist theorists
its more highbrow *
adherents constantly
reference, accepting
their invitations to
play. Something that is
not merely a slowly
decaying grumble about
its practitioners'
inability to rouse them
selves in their middle
The fact that Paul Models Words and Music A
History of Pop in the Shape of a City (University of
Georgia Press, Athens, 2005) has already been
embraced by musk geeks around the globe should
come as no surprise. The book's aim to make its
creator into the Lester Bangs of his generation is
self-apparent, from a section devoted to why he is
the best music writer ever to the laughably enor
mous scope of his musical references to the styl-
great diversions as: a complete, albeit selective,
timeline of the Earth's existence (arguably the
book's highlight); a list of other possible song
pairings the book could have been based on; a
great interview Mortey did with Jarvis Cocker. (I
must admit I skipped over the Fad Gadget liner
notes, though.) He does this by also including
great investigations into the high-art context of
‘’Room" and Minogue's own career as a tri-
umphalist narrative, to say nothing of his
own (nearly failed) audition as Minogue's
biographer.
Morle/s point if I'had to pick just
one, is about the way the seemingly
simple and limited world of a pop song is
actually immensely complex. He does
prove, sort of, that Minogue's song is
related to Lucier's, and that partkular
reduction is useful as are the endless
connections he draws. But the best fea
ture of Words and Musk is the way Mortey
manages to declare so much (but leave
istic experimentation
that would seem to be
a requirement for any
"serious" book of rock
criticism.
But, to his credit,
all these are explained
or explainable. The
"Greatest of All Time"
thing is winning and
ultimately self-effacing
while still being cocky,
a reflection of our
desire for music writers
to be a nerd variant on
the rockstar persona.
The abundance of refer
ences and lists is fully
explained at the end as
an endless and ulti
mately futile attempt
to map our world, to
reduce the totality to a
comprehensible scale, 1
even if the explanation „
doesn't really hold
water. And the style is *
a gamble that pays off
Paul Morley
Paul Morley
in fulL
Words and Musk, published in England in
2003, but only recently issued domestically by the
University of Georgia Press, purports to be an
investigation into the connections between two
pieces of music Alvin Lucier's experimental art-
music composition "I Am Sitting in a Room' and
Kytie Minogue's electro-pop masterpiece 'Can't Get
You Out of My Head," all within the narrative
framework of a automobile trip to 'a history of
pop in the shape of a city," as the subtitle puts it
Mortey admits up front that this framework is
likely to break down, and its no giant whoop
when it does, but nevertheless, he manages to
stay remarkably coherent while wedging in such
even more up in the air) by constantly doubting
himself and showing where things in the book
itself could have gone differently, presenting it as
simply one option among many, de-canonizing the
text (He even admits he may not have actually
heard "I Am Sitting In a Room'!) This playfulness
is a breath of fresh air in the accuracy-obsessed,
self-righteous, geeky world of rock criticism, and
by itself says a lot more about pop musk than
many critics' entire corpora.
Morle/s book is both a failure and a triumph
because it reflects everything musk writing cur
rently is and represents much of what it could
become. On the one hand, it is frustratingly
age to the chemically-
induced summits of yore and instead seeks to
understand the pleasures of the new young on
their own terms by refusing the temptations of
doubt and too-qukk dismissal Something that
doesn't settle for the shallow, automatically-gen
erated critiques inherited from our rockcrit fore
bears, dusted off and mapped onto an unwilling
new context Something not only as pleasurable
as pop, but as intelligent a criticism worthy of its
subject Words and Musk is an incomplete
roadmap, but it takes us a little closer to where
we wanttego.
Michael Berthel
FATHER'S DAY
SUMMER
WEDDINGS
YOUR
DESTINATION
FOR SUMMER
GIFTS WITH A
PERSONAL
TOUCH
DOWNTOWN 355*3161 •
Frankenstein:
Peretratirg tfe Secrets of A/afwre
an exhibition and program series through June 10
at the Athens Clarke County Library
Sunday, June 5 *t 3:00 p.m.
Cloning and Genetic
Engineering
with Dr. Steve Stice
■PtoCnu dtdtt
f l iiiiii
Franaerutein: fVnetrnting the Stems ofAC*turt utr; develop*d
by the National Labnsry of Mediant in collaboration with the
Amerit art Library Aaocuttion. It has been made pom hie by
major grants from The National Endowment for the
Humanities, Washington. D.C.. and the National Library of
Medicine. Bethnda. Md Programming event! are funded by the
Georgia Humanities Council
Yes , we’re on the
Eastside
where a coffee and fresh bagel
is just S2.7S all summer long.
Coffee and Tea
Zims Bagels
Big City Muffins and Scones
Cakes by Cecilia
Marti's Salad Cups
Lattes and Mochas
Milkshakes
( ups Coffee Cafe'
IV! I Barnet! Shoals Ril
Oreen \crc> Sbo) t
JUNE 1, 2005 • FLA6POLE.COM 11