pavlov

copycat music has been around as long as music itself. the reason is simple: if something sounds good, people want more of it. take it to the extreme, what we consider genres are arguably just labels for a bunch of music that sound the same.

of course, sampling has increasingly blurred the line between allusion and straight-up xerox, but the issue here is as relevant to a sampler-wielding bedroom dj as to a guitar-strumming singer/songwriter.

biting other people’s shit is of course not cool. in addition to a little thing called copyright law, nothing fucks with your artistic cred faster than lifting other people’s shit, unless the material is shit to start with, then you got the vexing problem of being an imitator with shitty taste.

but consumers are creatures of habit and want what they have liked before. even self-anointed “tastemakers” and “early adoptors” are often embarrassingly predictable in their perpetual trainspotting and anxious bets on the “next big thing.” back in my record distributor days, barnes and noble was a very different customer than, say, watts, and i would know exactly what music would move at one but not the other. while this may sound like marketing & sales 101 (i.e. know what your customers want), it worked because people are largely predictable in their preferences, or at least can be manipulated (via marketing) to be that way.

so for a musician interested in recognition if not commercial success, the trick is to make something that’s at once novel and familiar. this of course is nothing new; this balance remains the sweet spot in music, especially pop music. as britney spears would tell ya, “pop music is the hardest shit to write.''

regardless what you think of mrs. k-fed, the point is that one shouldn’t be so knee-jerk about me-too music. they should be judged by the “how and why” as much as “what.” this is most obvious with sampling, but is equally applicable to cover songs that could range unpredictably from starry-eyed homage to blatant exploitation. in a context where the “what” is essentially immaterial, the music is deemed banal or sublime by how it’s done and the reason for doing it that way.

while not as schooled as oliver at soulsides or the tofuhut crew, i share their weakness for cover songs. it’s almost a pavlovian thing; i have bought more new music on impulse than i probably should have just because they included what sounded like interesting covers. most recently i was suckered by josé gonzález’s exquisite take on the knife’s “heartbeat,” which only made his own material on “veneer” more disappointing in comparison. similar anemic and ultimately pointless exercises that come to mind include frente and nina gordon of veruca salt’s folksy take on new order’s “bizarre love triangle” and nwa’s “straight outta compton,” respectively.

fortunately, there are also the occasional revelations like coldcut’s seminal ambient reworking of “autumn leaves” (zen, 1999), where shimmering electronics swirl around the melody like falling leaves, or the angular geometry that monk brings to gershwin’s “nice work if you can get it,” defining new musical architecture for the old standard.

i flip-flopped a couple of times on barefoot’s interpretation of “white lines” (barefoot, one two, 2006). the idea of a lounge version of the flash classic just seems too calculated and marketing-driven to be taken seriously. at the same time, however, i found myself smiling at the clever arrangements and the sense of humor that permeates the whole endeavor. there is no ambiguity when it comes to r&b legend bettye lavette’s cover of joan armatrading’s “down to zero” (i got my own hell to raise, anti, 2005). working with producer joe henry, lavette infuses the emo-flavored lyrics with soulful turns and gravitas.

strictly speaking, “let’s get down” by yay area soulmen tony! toni! toné! (feat. dj quik) (house of music, motown, 1996) is not a cover. but listen closely and you’ll hear the melody from nirvana’s “smell like teen spirit” being channeled through new lyrics, offering a perfect example of how wholesale copying can be both creative and fun.

Posted by cellpharmer at February 28, 2006 02:26 PM