Could the arts exist without alcohol?

Image from Flickr

This week, I'd like to continue on the topic of making money in music. In the past, I've blogged about music funding after labels, and writing Christmas music straight for TV, because it's one of the few protected revenue streams. This week, I'd like to speculate: Would the arts be able to survive without alcohol?

If you are wondering about the connection between the two, while musicians usually don't make money directly from alcohol, a lot of the musical performance infrastructure is built around alcohol revenue. Venues often don't make very much money from renting out their spaces to acts; instead, they use alcohol (and to a lesser extent, other concessions) as their main income stream. And not just popular music, but classical, opera, and jazz. Early jazz was funded almost entirely by alcohol (1). Without revenues from alcohol, many venues probably wouldn't be able to stay in business, making it hard for musicians to perform. This is especially true for small clubs, often the only place starting acts can play. And since live performance is about the only way musicians make money anymore, cutting off alcohol revenue could be disastrous to musicians (2).

Why would I ask this question? After all, alcohol's connection to music will not end in the foreseeable future. Well, first, I'm a teetotaler myself, and if I ever became a popular performer or started a music venue, I might feel a little uncomfortable paying my bills with alcohol sales, even though it's the customer's choice. Second, music's dependency on alcohol makes me wonder how little our society values most music. Many people don't want to pay for music (except for maybe a few big live performance acts), yet they feel okay paying high mark-ups for alcoholic drinks all the time. Do we really value music so little? I realize that the immateriality of music is partly to blame (it's much easier to charge for a product than something ephemeral you hear), but I think the point stands. Without alcohol, it would be almost impossible to fund almost ANY type of music without state funding, private donors, or an attitude change where people paid as much for music as they would for alcohol.

Are music and alcohol consumption so different? They both give pleasant sensations and help people have a good time. They both can be in the foreground or the background of a social experience. Music when consumed to excess, however, is not as dangerous.

So, do you think arts can survive without alcohol? How? Is this a silly question to ask? Would our culture ever pay for music as much as they would for alcohol?

Vocab: venue

(1) Even today, you often don't pay for the music when you go to a jazz club, but instead you pay a "cover charge," which pays for one alcoholic drink.

(2) Finances aside, alcohol is also an important part of some music cultures. Irish folk music comes almost entirely out of the pub culture, where musicians meet and play their tunes together and swear that they play better when they're a little "greased up."

More Parody: Fallon as Morrison

Continuing last week's subject of musical parodies, I stumbled upon this last week (yeah, I know it's from last year): 

Who is that, strutting around in leather pants and singing like Jim Morrison? It's Jimmy Fallon. While Weird Al did pretty good at Jim Morrison, I think Jimmy Fallon does it better.

While Fallon changes the melody of the Reading Rainbow theme, we can still recognize the song because the rhythm remains basically the same. Fallon also gets Jim Morrison's delivery just right, with the swagger, understated beginning, and musical build up to a screamed repetition. And of course, the musical lull for poetry in the middle of the song.

Fallon's choice of lyric was also inspired for this parody. As the Door's songs were often thinly veiled treatises on drug use, the words of "Reading Rainbow" could come straight out of a book of psychedelic imagery. For example, the first line: "Butterfly in the sky, I could go twice as high." In one blow, Fallon manages to poke gentle fun at the Doors over-serious antics and the strange lyrics of the Reading Rainbow theme.

Fallon never ceases to surprise me with his musicality. Either with his acoustic classroom instrument versions of pop songs, or his imitations of famous musicians, usually doing famous TV show themes (Check out Fallon as Neil Young singing theme song of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). I hope his quirky, gently parodic musical numbers continue as he takes over the Tonight Show.

Do you have a favorite Jimmy Fallon musical vingette?

Vocab: lull

Concert Review: Weird Al's Alpocalypse tour

Weird Al polkaing to the Biebs

Last Wednesday, I had the pleasure of going to see Weird Al live in Raleigh. I can't say I follow his career and music religiously, but I grew up listening to him and occasionally keep up with what he's doing. It's equally weird to try and imagine popular music without him AND that he's still putting out new music and comedy thirty years on.

Weird Al puts on a good show. He has done so many live shows that he has them down to science. He knows when to pull out the new stuff or satisfy with the tried and true, and when it's time for the big finish. I was surprised by the number of costume changes and the virtuosity of his musicians. Al and his backup performers play in so many varied styles, it's kind of mind-blowing. In order to kill time during the costume changes, they played videos, sometimes a collection of pop references to himself or other comedy bits (my favorite was  awkward celebrity interviews with himself spliced in as the interviewer). In reality, he's equally a music performer and a comedian.*

This was not your normal rock-concert crowd. For one thing, there was whole range of ages, including children. Weird Al's music invites children in. Kids' continued affinity to his music also lets him continue to be popular, while the audience of other 80s rockers continue to get older and grayer. Because of that, I think he'll still be popular for years to come. He also inspires more fanaticism than most: I've never seen so many T-shirts bought and worn per capita at a concert. Even though the venue wasn't filled, everybody there was pretty excited.

I think the main thing Weird Al does is make fun of rock and roll performance. For example, holding an his accordion up like it's some symbol of power, making fun of the way rock performers hold their guitars. Or flailing around on stage in a way that's completely awkward, yet eerily similar to what more serious performers do. Sometime the critique finds its way into the music itself,  like in "Smells like Nirvana" (parody of "Smells like Teen Spirit"), where he performed dressed as Kurt Cobain and parodied the band, with remarkably few lyric changes. Another great performer critique song was this, although it is really creepy to have Al's face spliced onto someone else's body:

I bet Weird Al's so thankful that Lady Gaga came into the scenic. I mean, "Polka Face"? It's like a gift to him from a higher power.

Weird Al's spot-on Jim Morrison impersonation made me realize that Al actually has quite a good voice. I guess that makes sense, since he's able to sing all of those shows and stay vocally healthy. He's got quite a range, too. That also means that he sings and speaks in a high, nasally voice because he chooses to; it accentuates his character as a prankster.

If there was one thing I would change about the concert, it's being able to hear the words better. Most of the time, unless I knew the words already, I had a hard understanding what he was singing. This is a problem when the strength of parody comes form the words. Occasionally, there were helpful accompanying video animations, but these did not replace being able to hear the words. Actually, this is a problem with many rock concerts I have been to, which is puzzling. Maybe other people care less than I about being able to hear the lyrics. Or maybe it's just the venues.

Do these people just tour with him? We couldn't decide.

Why does Weird Al survive in the parody market while others fall? Perhaps because he doesn't really injure anyone with his parodies. They aren't malicious and probably advertise the original songs as much as make fun of them. Some of his parodies might be more popular than the original songs (as in the case of "White and Nerdy"). Or maybe he just knows how to exploit his fans. Anyway, he's good at what he does.

Favorite new song (to me, anyway)? "Party in the CIA."

Vocab: parody

*Of the people I follow on Twitter, he has the most consistently funny tweets (@alyankovic).

Album Review: Ben Folds Five Sound of the Life of the Mind

I'm finally getting around to reviewing Ben Folds Five reunion album Sound of the Life of the Mind. Although I've never counted myself a Ben Folds fan, I've had friends who were, and a few years ago I got a used copy of Whatever and Ever Amen for cheap and liked most tracks. I felt a little more invested since I moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where the band got its start.* You gotta hand it to a group who believed in acoustic piano rock enough that they used to personally haul a grand piano around to all their gigs (not to mention the drum kit). Not many proponents of that genre out there anymore.

Overall, I think the album was worth listening to. The music is, for the most part, inspired, exciting, and memorable. It's different than most contemporary pop and varied within the album. Folds' music improves with the contributions his old bandmates. One musical complaint: though I enjoyed the power sound, sometimes the group concentrated too much on trying to make a big sound with just three people (lots of quickly repeated, loud piano chords, bass distortion, and cymbal overdrive), as if they felt they had to prove themselves. All the extra white, unpitched noise obscures the words at the wrong moments.

Then again, the words aren't really something that redeems this album. There's often a mismatch between grand music and trivial lyrics. "Draw a Crowd" is an example of where the music is strong and catchy but the lyrics just don't live up to the music. I'm left feeling guilty for liking the music (though this track isn't exempt from the previously-mentioned noise-overload, either). It's like they're saying "If I shout and play loud, I'll make it important."

Their shouting and fist-shaking was important to their original college-band ethos, a point discussed in this intriguing essay on Buzzfeed: "Ben Folds Five Reunited and I Broke Up with Them" by Rachael Maddux. Maddux tells her story of how the group (and their fans) haven't really changed since they broke up, except everyone is older now; and that's a bad thing: "They’re as sturdy and stubborn as they’ve always been. They never changed. I did." Listening to the album, I think Maddux has a point: the group's lyric focus is still "me, me, me," when maybe I hoped that the group would have matured a bit as they aged.

The highlight of the album is "Being Frank," sung from the point of view of Frank Sinatra at the end of his life; the lyrics and music unite to tell the story, a story deeper than mid-20s angst from middle-aged men. They aren't trying to wow us, and the music doesn't stay loud and big for too long. "Hold That Thought" also comes close to this ideal, too. "Thank You for Breaking My Heart" works too, though still a little too "this is about me and not you" in the same way as their most famous hit, "Brick."

In conclusion, Sound of the Life of the Mind is worth a listen, especially for Ben Folds fans. You might also consider just (legally) downloading a few of the better tracks.

Vocab: distortion, unpitched

*A new music video with Fraggles didn't hurt, either.

Explaining (away?) the humor: Rickrolling 5 years out

April 1, 2013 marks the fifth anniversary of the height of Rickrolling, or the the willful misdirection of Internet users to various versions of British singers Rick Astley's 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up." 5 years ago today, Rickrolling was the joke du jour. The question that I want to ask today is: Why did “Never Gonna Give You Up” become so popular as an Internet video prank? Three reasons explain its appropriateness: popularity, incongruity, and catchiness. (1) 

Popularity: He's never letting us go

The first is the song’s recognizability and popularity. When "Never Gonna Give You Up" was released in 1987, it catapulted the Astley from relative obscurity to international stardom, topping the charts in numerous countries on both sides of the Atlantic. It has a catchy melody and a beat designed for dancing. The song has continued to be played with relative frequency on eighties radio stations across the United States, becoming associated with the eighties in general.

Incongruity: A duck with wheels?

 

Additionally, like it's predecessor duckrolling, the video of “Never Gonna Give You Up” itself is incongruous, and so lends itself to being used to accentuate humor incongruity. Rick Astley’s deep voice seems strange coming out of his young, Caucasian body. His idiosyncratic dancing and the outdated, seemingly exaggerated eighties clothing and hairstyle add to the humor of the video’s unexpected positioning. Even the music itself, with its proliferation of dated synthesizers and synth-drums, seems out of place in contemporary popular music. Thus, when the Internet user is confronted with an incongruous video with incongruous music in an incongruous situation, the experience is so unexpected that it becomes humorous.

Catchiness: a technical term

Many eighties’ music videos appear dated to the point of absurdity to us in the twenty-first century, but “Never Gonna Give You Up” combines this dated appearance with music that continues to be catchy. The features that make it catchy and musically popular also make it a good joke. Both its introduction (the first thing people being Rickrolled hear) and its chorus can be categorized as “earworms,” a term made popular by David Levitin to describe the psycho-acoustical phenomenon of how your brain will repeatedly replay brief snippets of music (2). Because the brain involuntarily replays the music, it can continue to annoy someone for long periods even after only one hearing.

An earworm is more effective for pranks as its music is more easily remembered, and “Never Gonna Give You Up” is full of short, repeating motives (or short, recognizable music units) that serve this purpose of easy, unconscious memorization. The introduction begins with a short three-note motive played on a synthesizer that is immediately sequenced (or repeated at a different pitch level). At the same time, the rhythmic bass line also begins with a motive that is also immediately sequenced at a higher pitch level. These two integrated sequences return several seconds later. The chorus functions in the same way—the vocal line is constructed of a seven-note melodic phrase that is sequenced three times. Immediately, these three iterations are repeated (with some alteration to prevent boredom). To complete the artful construction, the chorus vocal melody is layered on top of the introduction melody, making the whole chorus a construct of three different short sequencing motives heard many times in the short fifteen-second time span of the chorus, the perfect length for an earworm. This fifteen-second chorus is played six times within the three-and-a-half minute span of the song (not including the introduction), making it even easier to remember after only one listening.

Teaching new meaning to old dogs

To understand about how these features, the incongruous images and catchy music, can gain new meanings, let's look at the original Grand Theft Auto prank, where Rickrolling got its ignominious start. As those looking for the video game trailer are misdirected to a new music video, they feel disappointment at not viewing what they expected. They now associate this disappointment with what they see now, the video of “Never Gonna Give You Up” (3). Instead of the song’s original signification and content, a pop song about love, the song now signifies being misdirected. Instead of an enjoyable event that one experiences by choice, hearing the song or viewing the video becomes a disappointment or punishment. The incongruous elements embedded in the video, which were unimportant to the original intent, are exaggerated and foregrounded along with the song’s ability to replay inside one’s head long after the initial exposure. Internet communities have been successful in imposing this new meaning.

The lyrics of “Never Gonna Give You Up” facilitate its transformation into a subversive prank. The lyrics contain a wealth of data for manipulation and reinterpretation. For example, the initial lyrics of the chorus, “Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down,” can now be interpreted to mean that Rick is pervasive and ubiquitous on the Internet. Once he has found you in cyberspace, you cannot escape from him. He will always show up when he is needed, i.e. when you are searching for information and need misdirection. In accordance to this new interpretation, after a subject has been Rickrolled multiple times, he or she may exclaim in exasperation “I wish you would give me up, Rick!” The Internet prankster may also take this meaning to heart and try to plant Rick in as many places as possible to prove that Rick will never “give [us] up.”

Well, not all that disappointing

Despite the new meanings the song has easily gained, Rickrolling as an annoying prank is problematic—some people enjoy being Rickrolled. As pranks go, this is not a malicious one. It does not contain a computer virus or material that some would deem inappropriate. The lyrics to the song are clean and inoffensive. Someone being Rickrolled for the first time might not even realize that they had been purposely misdirected or that the experience was somehow undesirable.

The music itself could be blamed for this lack of annoying power. Evidence suggests this song is still enjoyable to many people now, twenty years after its release. In April 2008 after YouTube’s April Fool’s joke, in which the video of “Never Gonna Give You Up” received an estimated 6.6 million views in one day as the site linked all of the videos on its main page to the song, enough people bought a digital copy of the recording to raise it to number 77 on Amazon's downloads (4). Some people were happy to hear this music. This popularity might be related to eighties nostalgia—the generation of people most comfortable with the Internet right now grew up in the eighties, and to that generation the period and its music may now signify a happier and simpler time. The video’s first use as a prank in place of the Grand Theft Auto trailer may have been celebrating the song’s twentieth anniversary. Or perhaps the song is constructed well enough that it has found a new audience that did not hear it during its initial popularity.

Well, I hope in my attempt to explain why something is popular and funny, I didn't suck the enjoyment out of the joke. Happy April Fools!

Vocab: earworm, motive, sequence


1. This post is excerpted and adapted from a paper I wrote for an Ethnomusicology class.
2. Daniel J. Levitin, This is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession (New York: Penguin, 2006), 151. 
3. This appropriation through placement in what Roland Barthes calls second-order signification, or De Certeau's textual "poaching."
4. Katie Hasty, “Rick Around the Net,” Billboard: The International Newsweekly of Music, Video and Home Entertainment 120 (12 April 2008): 44.