The post of two days ago, Music and Criticism #1 "Become a Music Snob in Five Easy Steps," may have been written by Ira Brooker in fun, but it outlines a serious approach to music – illogical but seriously so.
It is not enough to defend Phil Spector stoutly. It is not enough to point out that the methodology of the snob is wrong. It is almost enough to infer that to "Become a Music Snob in Five Easy Steps" is itself a joke, a parody of musical culture vultures.
Joke or not, there’s an entire solar system of cognitive bias involved. The companion blog ("Quiddity") discusses the errors in musical analysis and music business management (especially symphony orchestras) in Quiddity blog entries 5 through 17. Entries 14 and 15 relate specifically to the situation we are dealing with in the case of the apprentice music snob.
Furthermore, music snobs actually exist; in fact they are endemic to rock, punk, rap and "serious" music.
The American Symphony League insists that host personnel turn the Muzak off at every hotel where it holds its conventions. During the League’s Fiftieth annual get-together, at the Washington Hilton, one official petulantly explained to the St. Petersburg Times, "We want to be sensitized to music, not desensitized to music."
-- Joseph Lanza, Elevator Music, p. 5
This represents an heroic level of institutional snobbery. It should be pointed out, here, that Muzak has been around for over 70 years. The days of special Muzak-recorded versions of music without any bass or volume are long gone. Muzak as heard today represents actual recordings of actual artists, the sort of easy listening music that can be purchased by the consumer.
There is an entire music market out there that the American Symphony League doesn’t want to hear! The argument isn’t that it is a synthetic product of other genres, mixed together because it sells (a sound line of reasoning for opponents of, say, country music), but that that Muzak’s selection desensitize music professionals to music.
And this isn’t all of the hatred directed against elevator music:
Heavy metalist Ted Nugent hates Muzak so much that he once made a $10 million bid to buy the company – just for the pleasure of erasing the tapes. A man who has taken rock music to its most aggressive extremes, Nugent was savvy to reinforce his rowdy image by using Muzak as a scapegoat for all things uncool, unrebellious and (worst of all) unloud.
-- Joseph Lanza, Elevator Music, p. 203
Lanza notes that elevator music and rock "…were developing a backroom affinity. Elvis Presley eagerly mugged it up at a photo-op with Liberace. The "King" would eventually embrace some aspects of Mantovani’s "gush of lush," using a chorus and full-string orchestra for songs like "Suspicious Minds."
So we can easily and correctly imagine that there was a fight going on backstage in the music business when Phil Spector added strings and chorus to "The Long and Winding Road."
There is no end to this quarrel! A respectable and knowledgeable supporter of Mantovani wrote a scathing review of Elevator Music for Amazon.com because of inaccuracies about Mantovani – which is a little overblown, because the book isn’t about any one particular easy listening master.
Les Baxter, a giant of American easy listening music in the 1950s, was still alive when Elevator Music was published in 1994. His comment on the back cover: "Lanza’s book is the most informed and insightful of the writing on mood music I have read so far. A must!"
I agree. Lanza offers a compelling and fascinating history of what has come to be called elevator music. It’s the capitalistic answer to a long-asked poetic prayer of the west – a Greek chorus for everyone, Gregorian chant for modern life, a mood and a song all the time. It’s living real-time in the middle of your own soundtrack.
It’s a mistake to wall oneself off and pretend it isn’t there. For example, it may be a mistake to takes sides between the 1970 Let It Be album and 2003’s Let It Be – Naked.
My own view is that easy listening music is a peculiar and perhaps necessary blessing. It’s a monastery, walled off from the hideous academic music of chaos and discordance. It’s a citadel offering ritual prayer to melody and thus directly to the nine Muses. It’s also a sanctuary of talent. The index of Lanza’s Elevator Music is an honor roll of many of the musicians I personally have responded to – Nat "King" Cole, Carmen Cavallaro, Peter Nero, Angelo Badalamenti [Lanza’s summary of Badalamenti’s soundtracks for David Lynch is ingenious – a must-read], John Barry, Percy Faith, Morton Gould, Bobby Hackett, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Henry Mancini, Sergio Mendes, Jim Morrison, Simon and Garfunkel, Max Steiner, Teddy Wilson, Hugo Winterhalter, and Victor Young.
Personally, put on an easy listening station and I will only truly enjoy about one song in 15 and feel uplifted by about one song in 30. But, one time out of thirty, my heart is lifted. At that moment, as lyricist Johnny Mercer once wrote, "And the angels sing."
It is not enough to defend Phil Spector stoutly. It is not enough to point out that the methodology of the snob is wrong. It is almost enough to infer that to "Become a Music Snob in Five Easy Steps" is itself a joke, a parody of musical culture vultures.
Joke or not, there’s an entire solar system of cognitive bias involved. The companion blog ("Quiddity") discusses the errors in musical analysis and music business management (especially symphony orchestras) in Quiddity blog entries 5 through 17. Entries 14 and 15 relate specifically to the situation we are dealing with in the case of the apprentice music snob.
Furthermore, music snobs actually exist; in fact they are endemic to rock, punk, rap and "serious" music.
-- Joseph Lanza, Elevator Music, p. 5
This represents an heroic level of institutional snobbery. It should be pointed out, here, that Muzak has been around for over 70 years. The days of special Muzak-recorded versions of music without any bass or volume are long gone. Muzak as heard today represents actual recordings of actual artists, the sort of easy listening music that can be purchased by the consumer.
There is an entire music market out there that the American Symphony League doesn’t want to hear! The argument isn’t that it is a synthetic product of other genres, mixed together because it sells (a sound line of reasoning for opponents of, say, country music), but that that Muzak’s selection desensitize music professionals to music.
And this isn’t all of the hatred directed against elevator music:
-- Joseph Lanza, Elevator Music, p. 203
Lanza notes that elevator music and rock "…were developing a backroom affinity. Elvis Presley eagerly mugged it up at a photo-op with Liberace. The "King" would eventually embrace some aspects of Mantovani’s "gush of lush," using a chorus and full-string orchestra for songs like "Suspicious Minds."
So we can easily and correctly imagine that there was a fight going on backstage in the music business when Phil Spector added strings and chorus to "The Long and Winding Road."
There is no end to this quarrel! A respectable and knowledgeable supporter of Mantovani wrote a scathing review of Elevator Music for Amazon.com because of inaccuracies about Mantovani – which is a little overblown, because the book isn’t about any one particular easy listening master.
Les Baxter, a giant of American easy listening music in the 1950s, was still alive when Elevator Music was published in 1994. His comment on the back cover: "Lanza’s book is the most informed and insightful of the writing on mood music I have read so far. A must!"
I agree. Lanza offers a compelling and fascinating history of what has come to be called elevator music. It’s the capitalistic answer to a long-asked poetic prayer of the west – a Greek chorus for everyone, Gregorian chant for modern life, a mood and a song all the time. It’s living real-time in the middle of your own soundtrack.
It’s a mistake to wall oneself off and pretend it isn’t there. For example, it may be a mistake to takes sides between the 1970 Let It Be album and 2003’s Let It Be – Naked.
My own view is that easy listening music is a peculiar and perhaps necessary blessing. It’s a monastery, walled off from the hideous academic music of chaos and discordance. It’s a citadel offering ritual prayer to melody and thus directly to the nine Muses. It’s also a sanctuary of talent. The index of Lanza’s Elevator Music is an honor roll of many of the musicians I personally have responded to – Nat "King" Cole, Carmen Cavallaro, Peter Nero, Angelo Badalamenti [Lanza’s summary of Badalamenti’s soundtracks for David Lynch is ingenious – a must-read], John Barry, Percy Faith, Morton Gould, Bobby Hackett, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Henry Mancini, Sergio Mendes, Jim Morrison, Simon and Garfunkel, Max Steiner, Teddy Wilson, Hugo Winterhalter, and Victor Young.
Personally, put on an easy listening station and I will only truly enjoy about one song in 15 and feel uplifted by about one song in 30. But, one time out of thirty, my heart is lifted. At that moment, as lyricist Johnny Mercer once wrote, "And the angels sing."
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