Musicians and attitudes...

[SueC]

Any thoughts?

Can't see the point in this. 

I can.  We do this to students in exams all the time. 

Can be used for creative writing jump-off, and can be used for media analysis, and also for cultural commentary, etc.  It's open-ended.

I think @piggymirror is saying, "What do you think?" in regards to things like styling, popular culture, audience positioning, personal opinion etc etc.

I could write 5,000 words on that no worries at all. 

Always looooved getting something like that to write about as a high schooler too! 

[Ulrich]

I could write 5,000 words on that no worries at all. 

Feel free to do so! No problems.

Well he asked, so I told what I thought: that I can't see the point in this post in a topic about attitudes (but each to their own etc.)!

[SueC]

When I first saw the post it appeared to be in its own topic (in the post list), using the title that's now on top of the post; then someone merged it - either he did it himself (delete / re-post) or it was re-allocated here.  It probably would have been better as its own topic but it's not totally impossible here.  Then again I take a wide view of such things. 

[SueC]

So, in response to those photos, a few more random thoughts.

{Thought 1 (reiterated):  Unless Nick Cave (and Robert Smith) slept suspended from the ceiling like bats when they had these hairstyles, this is not how they would have looked when they got out of bed in the morning (or should that be evening ).}

Thought 2:  This kind of hairstyle is not very aerodynamic.  We've seen photos of Simon Gallup from a similar era as the Nick Cave photo, with an even more luxuriant coiffure.  We understand he's quite a serious recreational cyclist, and as fellow recreational cyclists have wondered how much that kind of hairstyle took off his top speed on the road (or added to it if he had a tailwind  ).  Unless, of course, Britain also has compulsory helmet wearing on bicycles (Australia does).  In which case, we wondered if he needed a slightly bigger helmet to accommodate all of that, even squashed down.

Thought 3:  My environmental science side wonders at the cumulative impact of such hairstyles on the ozone layer before CFCs were removed from spray cans.  Did the 1980s present an especially big spike in ozone depletion because of hair fashions at the time?


I'm afraid I still don't have anything serious today about anything because my brain is still recovering from the heatwave (cool change came through today). 

[Ulrich]

To get back (at least vaguely) to the original topic, here's what famous songwriter Bob Dylan had to say about it in a recent Q&A:

What do you think about the current debate separating the art from the artist? Do you think a "weakness of character" can hold a songwriter back?

People of weak character are usually con artists and troublemakers; they aren't sincere, and I don't think they would make good songwriters. They're selfish, always got to have the last word on everything, and I don't know any songwriter like that. I'm unaware of the current debate about separating the art from the artist. It's news to me. Maybe it's an academic thing.

https://www.bobdylan.com/news/bob-dylan-interviewed-by-wall-street-journals-jeff-slate/

I'm pretty certain Mr Dylan has met lots more songwriters than I ever will... so I trust him with this. 

[Ulrich]

And another "goodie" - what's it like if "artificial intelligence" does attempt to write lyrics?

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jan/17/this-song-sucks-nick-cave-responds-to-chatgpt-song-written-in-style-of-nick-cave

Nick Cave has dissected a song produced by the viral chatbot software ChatGPT "written in the style of Nick Cave", calling it "bullshit" and "a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human".

Writing in his newsletter the Red Hand Files on Monday, Cave responded to a fan called Mark in New Zealand, who had sent him a song written by ChatGPT. The artificial intelligence, which can be directed to impersonate the style of specific individuals, was used by Mark to create a song "in the style of Nick Cave".

Filled with dark biblical imagery, ChatGPT's song included the chorus: "I am the sinner, I am the saint / I am the darkness, I am the light ..."

"Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite," he wrote. "It is an act of self-murder that destroys all one has strived to produce in the past. It is those dangerous, heart-stopping departures that catapult the artist beyond the limits of what he or she recognises as their known self.

"This is part of the authentic creative struggle that precedes the invention of a unique lyric of actual value; it is the breathless confrontation with one's vulnerability, one's perilousness, one's smallness, pitted against a sense of sudden shocking discovery; it is the redemptive artistic act that stirs the heart of the listener, where the listener recognizes in the inner workings of the song their own blood, their own struggle, their own suffering."

[Ulrich]

Thanks to an article in "Time" magazine, this book about the topic has come to my attention (I haven't got it yet, but it seems interesting):

"Monsters - A Fan's Dilemma" by Claire Dederer

Claire Dederer asks: Can we love the work of Hemingway, Polanski, Miles Davis, or Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the artist stares too long into the abyss? She explores the audience's relationship with artists from Woody Allen to Michael Jackson, asking: How do we balance our undeniable sense of moral outrage with our equally undeniable love of the work? In a more troubling vein, she wonders if an artist needs to be a monster in order to create something great. And if an artist is also a mother, does one identity inexorably, and fatally, interrupt the other? Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.

"Superb ... smart, informed, nuanced and very funny."
—Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air

"Dederer, author of the restless and lusty Gen-X memoir Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning, just keeps getting better and smarter. In Monsters, she ties herself in intellectual and emotional knots, poking holes in her own arguments with gusto. In contrast to so many nonfiction books adapted from articles, Monsters doesn't stretch a singular thesis over several hundred pages. Quite the contrary, it's absolutely exhilarating to read the work of someone so willing to crumple up her own argument like a piece of paper, throw it away and start anew. She's constantly challenging her own assumptions, more than willing to find flaws in her own thinking."

—San Francisco Chronicle

"Conversational, clear and bold without being strident... Dederer showcases her critical acumen...In this age of moral policing, Ms. Dederer's instincts to approach such material with an open mind—and heart—are laudable."

—The Wall Street Journal

https://www.clairedederer.com/monsters

[Ulrich]

Gotta admit, I haven't liked R. Waters' attitude since the late 80s, things worsened when a "friend" played me his solo album in '92 and I didn't like it much at all...

https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-02-09/the-never-ending-pink-floyd-feud.html

This is the latest episode in a feud that began in 1984, when Waters announced that he was leaving the group. Having dominated the band since 1978 with autobiographical albums such as The Wall (1979), as far as he was concerned, his departure automatically implied the end of Pink Floyd. But, to his surprise, the other two band members, Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason, decided to press on without him, even bringing back keyboardist Rick Wright, whom Waters had thrown out.

In the almost 40 intervening years, the conflict has played out through lawyers and in the media, with discussions as Byzantine as the sex of the inflatable pig that appeared on the cover of Animals (1977): since it was his idea, Waters wanted to ban its use by the new Pink Floyd, prompting his old band mates to add male genitals to what was originally a female sow. True, there have been moments of truce, such as the reappearance of the classic lineup in 2005, in London's Hyde Park, as part of Live 8, a series of benefit concerts organized by Bob Geldof for famine relief in Africa. And Gilmour was also persuaded to perform alongside Waters on a couple of subsequent occasions.
...

Waters explains that his about-turn is due to information provided by a Cypriot podcast, but also acknowledges that he felt insulted when his former colleagues resurrected Pink Floyd's name for their song Hey, Hey, Rise Up!, which features vocals by Ukranian pop star Andriy Khlyvnyuk, the proceeds of which were given to charity. According to Waters, referencing the Ukrainian patriotic song and having it performed by Khlyvnyuk is an invitation to prolong the war.

Recently, he apparently told part of his own audience to "f... off":
https://www.rollingstone.de/verpisst-euch-fans-verlassen-konzerthalle-nachdem-roger-waters-sie-beschimpfte-2649133/
 

[Ulrich]

In the book by Robby Krieger about his life with The Doors, I found these "words of wisdom" (it's about the creation of their song "Lighy my fire"):

Jim (Morrison) always told me not to tell people the meaning behind my lyrics. "Let them interpret it. Sometimes they will come up with a better idea than you had."

It was a rarity at the time to construct a pop song that way. ...
I'm glad I didn't know more about music theory at the time; otherwise I might not have had the guts to break the rules.

[Ulrich]

Another interesting thought about "songwriting" by Nick Cave (again):

Part of being a songwriter is to forever live in a state of trepidation as to what the next song may bring. Newness, authenticity, truth – each comes with its own inherent danger. What will the new song reveal about ourselves? What will it expose? This may seem odd to some, because one would assume that the songwriter has control over how the song ends up – don't we just write what we want to write? But I have come to understand that the feeling of creative control is an illusion, that the songs are predetermined and have their own destiny, that they are not our own.

Read more at:
https://www.theredhandfiles.com/what-do-i-do-with-these-songs/

[Ulrich]

Who would've thought that so much "meaning" can be put in one little song?

https://www.theredhandfiles.com/what-makes-you-decide-whether-a-lyric/

Frogs is a laudatory and epigrammatic paean to the cosmos as we sometimes find it, a cosmos tilting towards love and revelling in its own insistent beauty. The Bad Seeds captured beautifully the feeling of the joyous leap of the frog, its flippered feet and hands splayed, jumping Kermit-like toward God, only to wind up back in the gutter. Even though acts of human brokenness begin and end the song, the delighted dance of life is played out upon this substratum of suffering, the one eternally entangled with the other. This is, if you like, the meaning of the song.

Barry, you asked how I tell if a lyric is good. I find that out when I first sing the song in the studio. Frogs spoke to me through a series of deceptively simple proclamations, and as I sang it, it moved me profoundly with its meaning. Are they good lyrics? I don't know. But they feel special, urgent, and entirely new.

[Ulrich]

This is a good attitude (imho):

...what are we doing here?
That is an excellent question. Personally, I do my best to move through life with a joy that is reconciled to the sorrow of things but is not subsumed by it, that apprehends darkness and is not afraid of it. I try to receive some form of salvation in this life by paying witness to, and being lifted by, the great, uncontested value of existence. I feel duty-bound to unearth, enhance and promote the world's beautiful things rather than obsess, worry and agitate over the worst of things. I believe in creation over destruction, compassion over cynicism, mercy over vitriol, friendship over hostility, truth over lies and love over hate.

https://www.theredhandfiles.com/how-do-you-know-who-you-are/