I’m ashamed to say it, but sometimes John Lennon’s melodies feel a bit underwritten, while Paul McCartney’s relentless cheerfulness is depressing. The very jauntiness I used to love as a girl feels as if it’s covering up a sadder subtext. And what’s bleaker than a brave face?Actually, that sounds rather emotional.
The whole experience is uncomfortable, like realizing you can beat your own father at chess or arm-wrestling. I don’t want to go back and find that the carcass has been picked clean.
June 3, 2007
Aimee Mann doesn't want to listen to "Sgt. Pepper" ever again.
It lacks "emotional depth":
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31 comments:
Curious.
The New York Times had to go all the way to Los Angeles to find some poseur too sophisticated for the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album.
That's kinda neat, when you think about it...
"The very jauntiness I used to love as a girl feels as if it’s covering up a sadder subtext. And what’s bleaker than a brave face?"
This statement appears to demonstrate the emotional depth of the album, contrary to the author's thesis.
If you'd been excited by Beethoven in your youth, instead of these pipsqueaks, you wouldn't be shadowed by dissapointment now.
But she's not disappointed now. She's moved on to the profundity of Fiona Apple.
Sophisticated, oh please.
It's no more sophisticated than Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini or Three Little Fishies.
It's not Bach, it's not even Cole Porter, it's just slightly above average pop music.
If it weren't the pop music of the Quintessential "It's all about me" moment of the "me" generation, no one would remember it at all.
I remember one day that summer, walking several miles across the Univ of Texas campus area, a hundred open windows in the morning air, nearly every one of them--okay maybe only a few dozen--with that album's notes drifting out the windows.
I remember thinking "Cool--solidarity!" or some such numbskull miss-the-message conclusion.
What *was* the message, in retrospect? Only that The Beatles were changing (and did change) the world. For better or worse, please, don't ask.
"And what’s bleaker than a brave face?"
Nice juxtaposition to the story about Jeanna Giese. And in answer to Ms Mann's (let's hope it was rhetorical) query, the answer is easy: despair.
In the six years between 1964 and 1970 the world changed an amazing lot. The Beatles presence on the cultural scene stretched to precisely cover those years, and the Beatles were smack dab in the middle of those changes, even the catalyst to one degree or another. And in 1967 Sgt Pepper was smack dab in the middle of the middle. Some Jungian stuff going on there.
...nice one, tim--
The last time Iwas impressed by the Beatles was 1965; I was 5.
The Beatles were hype in the '60's and now are nostalgia.
Wasn't there an earlier post about how music becomes memorable for us because it reminds of things that we associate with the music?
First generation fans probably more associate the Beatle's music with old friends or 'significant others' from when the music was new. Second generation fans relate it to something Mom or Dad always played 20 years ago.
I haven't voluntarily listened to a note of Beatles, or the former members, music in 25 years. When I am forced to hear some song or the other I am once agian struck with how insipid it is.
Rolling Stone voted Sgt. Pepper #1 in its 2003 list of top 500 albums of all time.
Bit like saying 'Casablanca' or 'Citizen Kane' is the greatest film of all time.
You don't really mean the most magnificent, inspiring, awesome, life-changing cinematic experience you've ever had. [Cue Tarkovsky passim.] You're just saluting something good and lasting.
So try this: in the Rolling Stone list which artist's entire lifetime's published work is included in the top 500? Not Dylan, Beatles or any of the obvious suspects.
Clue:
He's English - very, very English. [Ha, ha, ha!] He's dead long since and in his lifetime was hardly known to any but a few wise and discerning souls. [I have all original albums needless to say ;-)]
I agree with Aimee Mann 110%. I find the defensiveness usually from the people who associate this music with a great period in their lives, or some other event. And I say to them, that's awesome.
But it doesn't mean that it makes it somehow shameful to turn to other music, or to defend Sgt. Peppers as some bastion of sophistication.
It's the beauty of subjective art. But don't start turning to aging critics at Rolling Stone to prove your point. Just turn on what you want and enjoy.
I say it's refreshing to see some folks on here be unafraid to admit they don't like it, never did.
Count me in that group. Not the end of the world, people.
I just found it ironic to the point of giggling that Aimee Mann would find "jaunty" depressing. She, according to my admittedly limited exposure to her canon, finds everything depressing. Perfect soundtrack to Magnolia (which I liked), but not something I'd pop in to while away the time or even clean house too.
The Beatles are more cultural phenomenon than musical giant though a few tunes will pass the test of time standard even after the Boomers have shuffled off this mortal coil (and we can move beyond the incessant navel-gazing) I wager.
Besides all that... who cares? After global warming destroys us who will have the techne to play Beatles music anyway? Our descendants will be huddled around the new monasteries where 22d century monks arduously transcribe the lyrics to Norwegian Wood into illuminated manuscripts for future generations. Revolver will be up there with Aristotle's "Comedy" finally. The Irish will once again save civilization protecting U2 songs from roving bands of renewed pagan and rapacious Scandinavians.
McCartney sure is dour in this week's New Yorker profile of him.
"There is an umistakable sadness in McCartney's gaze and muted manner...."
The profile also contains descriptions of creepy encounters with fans.
Stating point of view....
Well... he's lost 2 wives, a life long friend and $400 million in the past 4 years or so. Who wouldn't be a bit "dour"?
This is the one album that people always bend over backwards to criticize. Most albums are ultimately either lauded or ignored based on whether or not people have meaningful, enjoyable experiences listening to them. But Sgt. Pepper's seems to be the one album that inspires people to come up with esoteric explanations for why 99% of people are wrong to get so much happiness out of it.
It's similar to how people criticize the Beatles more than any other band, or the New York Times more than any other newspaper, or the United States more than any other country. It's always the most fun to attack the #1 [anything].
Aimee Mann is a sourpuss. Besides nothing she or any killjoy could do or say about Sgt. Pepper could ever top the desecration by the movie
Clue: He's English - very, very English. [Ha, ha, ha!] He's dead long since and in his lifetime was hardly known to any but a few wise and discerning souls. [I have all original albums needless to say ;-)]
okay, ya got us --whozit?
okay, ya got us --whozit?
Nick Drake of course :-)
I've never found criticism of The Beatles very compelling. Its usually overly technical to the point of boredom or its the sophmoric "I never got it" type. So Ms. Mann has a new twist, join the crowd.
Troy--
It's a good article because one almost never reads any celebrity profile these days that has one iota of honesty in it. Celebs have huge control over the selection of writers, photographers (and probably photo selection), where the interview (brief) will be, and probably the quotes to be used.
McCartney's had great success presenting himself to the world as this jolly, chipper, everyman's pal kind of guy. Good bit of truth in that, sure, but if you read that Beatles bio that came out a year or two ago, you realize that he has shrewdly managed his image from way back when....
Yeah, Aimee Mann isn't exactly a bundle of joy, but her music is great -- and very Beatle-influenced. Try "The Forgotten Arm," and "I'm With Stupid."
Lyrically, she reminds me of the novelist Richard Yates: Stringently bleak, because to her that seems like the only honest response to American life.
As music is different than as symbol. As others point out above, the album is important as history regardless of the music.
Mao's little red book didn't have to be literature to be important (and it didn't have to be a "good thing" to be important).
Yeah thats the ticket, just what we need. A depressed, self indulgant, whining, bleater like Aimee Mann lecturing us on the bleak brave face of jauntiness. Must all emotion hang naked and bloody for all to see to be the real thing? Where's the art in that?
George H said......"It's not Bach, it's not even Cole Porter, it's just slightly above average pop music.
If it weren't the pop music of the Quintessential "It's all about me" moment of the "me" generation, no one would remember it at all."
A VERY good point about the "me" generation. And I totally agree the Beatles were NOT Bach or even Cole Porter, but I cant understand why anyone would want or expect them to be. So, would you please lighten up a bit? And take it easy on us Boomer Beatlemaniacs? You are comparing Chess to Checkers (or maybe even Tiddly Winks), and IMO, the Beatles were the best gosh darned Checker players in the history of music - at least until they (and their "me" generation fans) started thinking of themselves as something much more than just Checker Players. Slightly above average "Pop" music you say? Grrrrrr....bah humbug!
I think Aimee Mann is really describing how evocative Sgt Peppers is - how it reminds her of an age, a feeling or a cultural event.
Which I find interesting about music. We place so much importance upon musicians in particular for their voice during periods of modern history. So we say Bob Dylan was the voice of the 60s. Or that The Clash and The Sex Pistols were a voice to the disaffected British working class. Or that Sgt Peppers defines a generation. But of course none of that is really true is it?
To me this always feels like the defining of history that historians have been rushing away from for 50 years. Meaning that history as told by kings and queens, by those fortunate enough to have left something written for future generations to find, by a narrow extraordinarily different social group to the majority population. Which historians have come to view as inaccurate. In a sense it would be as if we described the post- 9/11 world by mentioning Dan Brown.
"ricpic said...
If you'd been excited by Beethoven in your youth, instead of these pipsqueaks, you wouldn't be shadowed by disappointment now."
Exactly.
"But Sgt. Pepper's seems to be the one album that inspires people to come up with esoteric explanations for why 99% of people are wrong to get so much happiness out of it."
I think that's what bugs me the most about the Beatles - the assumption by so many of their Boomer fans that EVERBODY should love them as much as they do. To me they just sound like typical "Sweatin' to the Oldies" 60s pop.
That said, at least I can understand some people's affection for the Beatles, even if I don't share it. It's all the Dylan love that leaves me completely stumped.
John Lennon, when asked by an interviewer if Ringo Star was the best drummer in the world is supposed to have said, "He isn't even the best drummer in the Beatles" (referring to Paul McCartney's drumming on certain Beatle tracks). To me, the same might be said about Sgt. Pepper's standing among all albums-- "It's not even the best album by the Beatles." But I've always preferred the Rubber Soul/Revolver period; the songs just seem so more substantial by and large.
I wonder how much praise for it, then and now, owes less to its songs and performances than to the element of continuity between them (especially the title song) and the packaging. Indeed, those very touches may be what I've always found (relatively) off-putting about Sgt. Pepper.
Paladian and ricpic said...."If you'd been excited by Beethoven in your youth, instead of these pipsqueaks, you wouldn't be shadowed by disappointment now."
Exactly."
Yup, I can picture it now. A bunch of crazed teenagers listening to Beethoven on the Victrola (oh, wait a minute, it hadnt been invented yet) bobbing their heads, tapping their feet and spending their hard earned(?) allowance at the record shop. All the while dreaming of someday getting to experience Ludwig V and the boys live in concert. Oh, wait a minute again - Ludwig V didnt actually have a band back then. And from what I remember reading, he would not have agreed to perform his music in the presense of crazed and screaming teenagers in the first place. It would have been beneath him - which certainly could not have been very exciting for a teenager back then. Dont you think?
Actually, I DO get the gist of what you are saying, and basically agree. Guess you had to be there.
Sean e said...."It's all the Dylan love that leaves me completely stumped."
You and me both :-).
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