| | | "These kids today and their manufactured music... why in my day we paid our dues... this pop crap that pollutes our airwaves..."
God, and people say I'm a cranky old man.
Listen carefully, Beat, cos I'm only gonna say this once: 'Twere ever thus.
From its very beginnings, popular music has been imaged and manufactured, from Tin Pan Alley to the Brill Building to Nashville's Music Row, from the Snake Pit at Motown Studios to Muscle Shoals to Electric Ladyland, from Irving Berlin to Hoagy Carmichael to Joe Meek to Phil Spector to Brian Epstein to Berry Gordy to Mutt Lange to the Neptunes. Professional songwriters crafting songs for studio musicians to play and pretty singers to sell.
That's the system within which the Clash worked, and they knew it from Day One. They were as market-driven as any other band—maybe moreso, since their sales appeal rested largely on their relevance, and the notion of "relevance" is far more fickle than simple "fashion"—and so the Clash (and their label) had to work harder to get their marketing message out. And they succeeded, in spades—being known as "the Only Band That Matters" is, if nothing else, a triumph of salesmanship.
This system provided the Clash a livelihood. It's not a prison, it's a tool: the professionalist mdel, rather than stultifying creativity, provides the foundation of craft on which inspiration is supported. It is a system with plenty of room in it for journeymen, visionary geniuses, and whackos alike (see Phil Spector).
All art is product, nostalgia is poison, and crippling notions of "authenticity" are the enemy of fun. And without fun, what's the point of music at all? |
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