The NewYorker and Three Inferences

I like reading New Yorker, and particularly Sasha Frere-Jones’ columns on music. She has a very independent take, and more often than not I find myself nodding in agreement when I read her. In the latest issue, she reviews Amy Winehouse and puts the troubled singer’s music – and her 5 Grammys – in perspective.

I never thought I’ll like Amy Winehouse till I heard her. And not just rehab. In fact, the faddish frequent visits to rehab centres kind of clubs all the singers in the same bracket. I was wrong. Amy and Britney are poles apart, and thank God for that! Amy is power, Britney is puff.

Back to Black, Amy’s latest album that won her the Grammys, has sold over 1.6 million copies and counting. The numbers might have lot to do with her self-destructive trips, the constant media scrutiny and the resultant public voyeurism, her tattoos, her publicity stunts, her contrived dysfunctional behaviours, not necessarily in that order, but you just can’t take even an iota away from the power of that album.

Before I read Sascha’s column in New Yorker, I was trying to pin down the reasons why the tracks sound so good and hypnotic. I was debating between great production values and the sound of her voice in that album. But the most important USP of that album is the selection of the songs (Back to Black). I think that album works miraculously because she has chosen songs and sung them in way that reminds you of the soul era belonging to greats like Ella, Etta, Aretha, etc.

The New Yorker piece drove the point home, in no uncertain terms:

With the producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi, she made a very popular album that looks firmly, and directly, backward. “Back to Black” is a deft and convincing pastiche of the girl groups of the sixties, the jazz singers of the forties, and a variety of rhythms from the seventies and the nineties. (The eighties get a pass.) It’s an entertaining, clever album that benefits from a strategy that makes everyone who isn’t Miles Davis look good: it’s only thirty-five minutes long (and closer to thirty without the bonus track). “Back to Black” is a modified sixties soul album, with one perfect single (the ubiquitous “Rehab,” which allows Winehouse to celebrate, make fun of, and justify her own substance abuse), sung and written by a twenty-four-year-old girl from Southgate, London, who says she has the musical taste of “an old Jewish man” and wears her hair in a vertical pile she refers to as “my hive.” (…Winehouse is the Marge Simpson of junkie retro soul.)

The piece continues further..

Yet what reads as musical innovation in 2008 is blue-ribbon revivalism, a high-production-value version of the songbook logic driving current Broadway musicals. The sounds of yesteryear! Sung by today’s young people! (Who, in this case, enjoy ketamine and margaritas.) Winehouse’s music is reassuring to those old enough to remember the original and novel to those too young to know. And her music refers to rappers while simultaneously avoiding actual rapping and sounding just like the music that rappers first sampled decades ago. So many demographics united through the magic of consumption!

Sucinctly put, and this is precisely why this album works on people like us. There are many other reasons that Sascha gives and most of you’ll find yourself nodding in agreement. But that’s not the point of this blog.

There are a few extremely valid inferences that I’ve drawn. Some of them could well be pertinent for the musicians who play at Blue Frog and for Blue Frog itself.

1. There is no substitute for good production values.

Producers of albums are like nagging moms during your teens. You find her totally out of date, old-fashioned with no contemporary taste, dogmatic and so uncool. Till you start realising her contribution and her vision during the latter years. A good producer will do the same for new bands. They might totally, totally piss you off with their control, their persistence, their arrangement, but the end product is what matters. Musicians who clutch on to their creative freedom and expression rather jealously will need to let go some of their creative fiefdom to animals called producers. New talented bands who have played at Blue Frog definitely need to realise this. Something Relevant that played at Blue Frog could do with some kick-ass producer who can shape their melodies quite memorably.

2. Develop a sound that finds a resonance across generations

Music will need to include people of all generations to be able to make a mark; Its not enough to target your music to only 16 year olds or 30 year olds or to those above 45. Like Amy Winehouse, you need to make the older audience comfortable with the sound as well as intrigue the newer audience. The older audience is not always looking for retro nostalgia (though it sure has its merits), they’re perhaps seeking a comfort with a new sound that might have déjà vu-ish reckonings and yet sound fresh. The newer audiences also have respect for older sounds – after all, they have developed their own taste listening to and getting awed by the musical legends past and present – but in order to intrigue them, a band will necessarily need to judiciously use past references to create their own fresh sound. So, while electronica and thumping, repetitive drum beats are alright for parties, your music will engage your audiences only if it has elements that appeal to people of all age groups. That’s when it might stand the test of time. Ragatronics that played at Blue Frog has been able to achieve this to a great extent. They have even used electronica and comp music to create a sound that appealed to people across age brackets.

3. Do not scoff at doing covers

For young bands, doing covers is not something to scoff at. Interpret the covers your own way, but doing covers is a sure shot of getting old and new audiences sit up and take notice of the music you play. Try Sting’s Probably Me. You can interpret this track in a range of genres – from avant garde jazz, to funk to bluesy to rock, and perhaps even try electronica on this (I personally will be rather wary), but you’ll get an audience connect as well as have the opportunity to dazzle them with your brilliance. The music history is replete with examples when covers have become even more famous and popular than the originals. I have now stopped fighting with people who think All Along The Watchtower is a Jimi Hendrix song.

Chances are, you’ll discover your own sound while interpreting the covers of musicians that have survived time. Perhaps Amy found her sound through them. And won 5 Grammys for that!

Those of you who were at the Frog last night (Tuesday, 26th of Feb, 2008) might grasp the power of covers. Susanne D’mello aka Suzie Q mostly sang the covers of all time greats (Earth Wind and Fire, Blues classics, etc.) Her band of musicians were generating their own interpretations and sounds with impeccable skills – she even had someone to rap brilliantly – in the process, the band created yet another definitive sound that had audience screaming for more till the last track. The audience engagement during yesterday’s show was electric: the band on stage and the audience in the pits both fed off each other. The end product: it was one of those rare nights when without any fancy billing, Blue Frog was creaming. Another superb night at the Frog!