SNOBSTERISM IN ROCK WRITING

 

Of interest, I think, is a symposium of sorts about music versus lyrics and what different listeners, writers, and editors prefer. I like to think that I've been a combination of both, but it's evident in my record reviews that I like to spend some time discussing and critiquing lyrics if I think doing so adds to making a point—a hangover from my Literature grad student days. 

The reason I started writing reviews fifty or so years ago was that lyrics were coming into their own as an art form, in a way, with the arrival of Dylan, Simon, Cohen, and Mitchell on the rock side of things. It was pretty much the standard to listen to both the music and read the lyrics at the same time, and to consider that both words and music combined to make a whole aesthetic object that would be far less intriguing, provocative, worthy of contemplation, and replaying if either were missing. Rock tunes without solid lyrics and an effective singer tend to be bland and generic, grinding through simple chords, and rock lyrics on paper, read without music, don't read well and certainly don't scan well. The unaccompanied lyrics, in fact, lack rhythm and sway, have no real meter being the metronome; they sound stupid, banal, and pretentious, in large measure, without the music. So I concentrated on both and, as I delved deeper into the literary canon during literature graduate work, became pickier about what I would find merit in. My standard became so high that I dismissed nearly entire genres because the words didn't meet approval. 

I generally dislike the host of progressive rock bands like Yes, ELP, and many others because the lyrics were the worst sort of poetry—the tripe one finds in high school poetry magazines. Over time, I loosened up as my tastes in music broadened, finding merit in lyricists who had no intention of writing in a manner like Dylan. What I seek these days are lyrics attached to catchy melodies, refrains, and the rest that are direct, freshly stated, unburdened by literary freight or ready-made cliché, and which fit the expression and emotion of the tune.

ANOTHER BURKE , ANOTHER SARCASTIC VOICE

Honestly, I love critics who are smart and love the sound of their prose so much that they soak their subject in overripe, purplish grandiloquence, which makes getting to their usually inane insights a fun adventure in well-managed if excessively mannered evaluations of popular culture. The present example is the photograph accompanying his piece, a review of an Elvis Presley album by a G.C. Burke, no relation, in the May 1957 issue of High-Fidelity magazine. (My thanks to music writer Mark Miller, who posted this intriguing specimen in a Facebook group dedicated to music journalism.)

Perhaps not so oddly, I feel some kinship with Mr. Burke and wonder if he’s a distant and likely belated relation. I read John Simon for years in New York Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, and The National Review, and often marveled at how a man of such obvious erudition and flawless prose ability could be so magnificently elegant in expressing amazingly pedestrian opinions of books, plays, films, and movies. His vitriol couldn’t elevate his sour takes on the arts from the routinely knee-jerk reaction. I wager that Simon’s vocabulary and acerbic virtuosity buffaloed his readers and editors with the flashy pyrotechnics of his word-slinging; what I thought of as Simon’s conspicuous ineptitude as a critic of cultural expression was summarily overlooked.

Burke obviously wants to consider himself a public intellectual, a mission much greater than being a mere record reviewer, and here attempts to pigeonhole the ill-making cultural habits of the times that are spoiling the rest of us. Sophistry itself, this amateur sociology and such, but what fun it is to read a smart person use every weapon in his arsenal to swat a fly. But again, honestly, quite honestly, quite vainly, G.C. Burke’s makes me think that those of us sharing the last Irish-borne surname share a genetic fascination for padded hyperbole. (Forgive me my indulgence if I’ve elevated myself to the likes of Edmund and Kenneth Burke, genius scribblers both.) Obviously, it would seem, that I’m inspired to indulge my verbal excesses after reading G.C. Burke’s energized dalliance with the philosophical broadside. Perhaps I can find a collection of his further thrashings of pop musicians of his time and become insufferable myself.