The musical blogosphere is full of whimpy critics, including me. I tend to save my critical criticism for my ARG reviews (stuff I have to write about), and usually don't bother to fill these blog pages with music I don't like.
But today I'm inspired. A set of lively discussions over at Iron Tongue of Midnight (which now truly deserves its name) about aesthetic banality prompted me to remember the music of Richard Nanes.
I first encountered the music of Richard Nanes many years ago when a package of his CDs arrived on my desk during my former life as a radio station programmer. Judging a CD by its cover (and CDs were still a novelty then), I made the quick decision to simply play one of them on the air, right then and there. I was so frazzled by the banality of the music, that after the piece was finished playing I took the CD out of the CD player and rolled my chair over it and its companion CDs, over and over again. I wanted to make sure that nobody would ever play them again. If I threw them away, somebody might have plucked one of them out of the garbage. CDs were expensive to make and buy back in the early 1990s, and there was a sense of "quality" that surround the CD back in its infancy.
I came across this 2006 Jeffrey Quick review today, and have the burning need to share it here. Quick's review is right on the money, which you shouldn't waste on any of Nanes' music, by the way. Just listen to a few clips on line, and you'll get the picture.
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6 comments:
Never having heard of Nanes, I informed myself over all of five minutes. Drivel propelled by sniveling self-serving twaddle. The problem is that offering a negative opinion of someone not Nanes -- such as a Stockhausen or Boulez -- generates gasps from a fraidy-cat, up tight music establishment hell bent on getting praise for every little avant garde fart, as if all were wondrous. Precious few are, with a wasteland in between. But dare say that at a fancy cocktail party of the in crowd, and watch the shocked faces run red with their own, non-judgmental anger. Why not have the conviction of one's own opinions about other's music? The greats of previous centuries were not shy? Why should we by?
The word "poetaster" is a beautiful one for a bad poet. I feel a neologism coming on for our field: "compotaster"? "Composeraster"? These people practice "compotasty," of course.
Then there has to be a word for the secret 2 am fear that one is a member of their company...
Oh, you mean the fear of involuntary compotasticism?
"...involuntary compotasticism?" Are we thereby joining the company of the terminology multipliers. Having has enough of serial and set theory in my past, I think "good" and "bad" function rather nicely after all. As to good, thanky-thanky to Mr. Wolson for "Older Men and Androids...."
Elaine, I was thinking more along the lines of "compotastophobia," but that would be the fear of bad composers, so I think you're right. Your way sounds like maybe one could get insurance to cover it.
Anonymous: you're welcome!
"...compotastophobia?" Why get insurance to cover it, when a wet blanket would suffice.
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