Feeling the Music

I mentioned in my review of Locked Out from the Inside and Only Revolutions at the start of the year, that I had been doing some thinking about what I think makes music good. This is linked with my distinct apathy towards the Arcade Fire, which I talked about a bit last June. That apathy has since extended (to varying extents) to Broken Social Scene and Pavement. You would think that, as big fan of indie music who even likes Neutral Milk Hotel, I would love these bands and any more like them that I’ve not discovered yet. I alluded to the reason why in June and I wanted expand on that a little more having given it a bit more thought. Today seemed as good a day as any given that nothing else has happened of note that I want to blog about this week.

The first thing that I feel I need to make clear is that I don’t dislike any of the bands I am going to talk about, or indeed any bands similar to them, in fact I do find their music quite pleasant. I just don’t love them in the same way that people think I should. When I first started listening to the Arcade Fire I thought I was missing something because they simply didn’t stand out in the same way I thought they should. The music didn’t grab me like music from Porcupine Tree or the Flaming Lips does. It took me a while to realise why the music was little more than quite pleasant but nothing special, in fact it took until I listened to You Forget it in People by Broken Social Scene.

One song on that album stood out for me; Anthems for a Seventeen Year-old Girl, the rest was ok, but nothing special. I soon realised that the reason it stood out was because it was packed full of emotion. Perhaps it was technically less interesting than the rest of the album, the lyrics are fairly simplistic and the overall message is pretty obvious, but that didn’t matter. For the first and only time the album made an emotional connection with me. I could feel the sense of loss and of regret, it was heart wrenching and I realised what had been missing from the rest of the album and from most of what I’d listened to from the Arcade Fire. It was what had been there in the Flaming Lips and Porcupine Tree. It’s what made bands like Nine Black Alps and Biffy Clyro stand out to me. Emotion.

Art is all about creating an emotional connection between the audience and the artist through the art. Good art is deeply moving because the emotions that the artist is pouring into the art are effectively expressed. Ultimately this is more important than creating complex, intellectually interesting art; complexity has to be aimed at creating deeper, more complex emotions, it is not an end in itself. A simple painting of a sunset which inspires awe is more effective than a complicated, technically brilliant painting which loses any emotion in the complexity.

This inevitably applies to music; a good song is one which invokes strong feeling in the listener. The purpose of a piece of music is to establish that same link between the artist and the listener through the music, so when I listen to the Arcade Fire and simply shrug apathetically I know that the music has failed. There is no emotional connection, there is no passion, and there is no reason to keep listening. By contrast I can listen to the Decembrists (a band that I have not mentioned yet, but rank alongside Porcupine Tree, Pink Floyd and the Flaming Lips as one of my favourite bands) and feeling the emotions that are surging through the songs. I can listen to the Flaming Lips and get feel buoyed by the sheer joy of their music. The more I listen and the more I pay attention to the complexities of the song, the stronger the emotional connection.

When I listen to a new band I look for this emotional connection. I try to experience the emotions of the artists through the music. I don’t look for the technical quality or the lyrical complexity because that’s meaningless without the emotional connection being established. The kind of indie music which the Arcade Fire exemplifies is simply trying too hard. They over-think the music and end up sounding aloof and disconnected. The music might be technically brilliant, but it’s all for nothing because I simply could not care less. No emotional connection has been established, so all the technical brilliance is all for nothing.

Of course some of the song from the Arcade Fire and other such bands do have emotion and I can connect to them, it’s just that for the most part this is severely lacking. I am making very general statements and there are exceptions. It would also be a mistake to say that this lack of emotion makes these bands bad. I don’t dislike them; I just think they slightly miss the point.

Art is an expression of emotion, once you let technicalities get in the way of that expression; you have missed the point of what you are doing. In trying to be all clever and artsy, this particular brand of indie music has forgotten what art is. It doesn’t necessarily make for bad music, but it does make for bad art.

Only Revolution/Locked Out from the Inside

Having apparently polished off last decade a week ago, I’m now going back to it in the shape of a review of two albums which came out late last year. They’re both albums I bought with part of my Christmas fiscal stimulus package courtesy of family members close enough to feel obliged to give me presents and distant enough to have no idea what I might like. Anyway, the first is Locked Out from the Inside by Nine Black Alps, which came out in October and the second is Only Revolutions by Biffy Clyro, which was released in November.

Locked Out from the Inside is the third album from the criminally underrated Nine Black Alps. Their previous two releases, Everything Is (2005) and Love/Hate (2007) were essentially ignored despite both being superb albums and I fear the Locked Out from the Inside will suffer much the same fate. Despite this I honestly think it’s my favourite album of 2009. There has always been a strong undercurrent of anger in Nine Black Alp’s music, especially prominent in Everything Is, however this time around they have managed to channel is far more effectively than before. Everything Is was a directionless, structure less album with some great songs but very little unity. Love/Hate by contrast tried to impose a theme on the general passion inherent in the sound of Everything Is, but this was too broad and at the same too restrictive; it felt like the emotion was being restrained somewhat.

Locked Out from the Inside manages to do what Love/Hate failed to do; channel the raw emotion of the band without subduing it. If the current economic climate has been a bad thing for most people, it has actually been good for Nine Black Alps from an artistic point of view because it has given the band a clear target at which to aim their general disillusionment with society. This is especially obvious in the powerful anthem towards the end of the album; Buy Nothing. The topic of the song is clear from even the title. The album as a whole has a strong theme of disillusionment at consumerist, materialistic society. Songs like Every Photograph Steals your Soul and Ghost in the Shell have especially strong feelings of disillusionment and distain holding them together.

Musically and lyrically the album shows much greater maturity than previously, as indeed does the more unified and clear direction of the album. Nine Black Alps will never be renowned for writing great pieces of music. Their songs rely heavily on distorted guitars, heavy beats and brilliantly powerful solos, occasionally juxtaposed with a slower, more subdued sound. They lack the musical sophistication of bands like Porcupine Tree, but the simplicity of their songs are part of what makes them so powerful. Song structures are pretty typical and the lyrics can seem somewhat random; they are clearly alluding to something, but lack the sophistication to express it. Nevertheless the album has some incredibly strong lyrics which are at times deep and always enjoyable.

As I said at the start of this review, Locked Out from the Inside is probably my favourite album of 2009, simply because it is so easy to listen to and is yet something far more than a collection of catchy tunes. There is a clear agenda expressed with the full force of the band’s indignation at the state of society. While their previous albums were very enjoyable, they had clear flaws. This one has its problems, but they are insignificant when compared to their album’s strength. In many ways this is a coming of age for Nine Black Alps (to use a horrible cliché), it’s just such a shame that they have not yet achieved the success that this and indeed their previous albums richly deserve.

My second album is Only Revolution by Biffy Clyro. Their previous album, Puzzle released in 2007, remains one of my favourite albums of all time. After such a brilliant and well received album, the follow up was always going to be tricky. When I heard ‘Mountains’ a year or so back I was pretty unimpressed; the singing style irritated me too much for me to be able to really enjoy the song.

Sadly this problem is not just indicative of Mountains, but a good three or four songs throughout the album, especially around the middle where songs such as Mountains and Born on a Horse reside. Fortunately the rest of the album avoids this issue and is actually very strong. There are clear similarities to Puzzle; an album which is listened to ad nauseam when I first bought it and have kept returning to ever since. The Captain in particular echoes strongly the brilliance of Puzzle. The album does differ from Puzzle in some places; it seems to have a lot more anger, and this expresses itself in a much heavier sound. Much like Locked Out from the Inside there is a clear sense of indignation in the album, however it’s not always clear exactly where it’s aimed.

Puzzle had some truly superb lyrics and Only Revolutions is no different. Biffy Clyro have a much different style from Nine Black Alps; their songs are more sophisticated and complex. This is not to say that they’re any better, but the lyrics tend to be far more satisfying when given greater scrutiny. Songs like God & Satan for example contain some truly brilliant lyrics. Similarly the music has a little more to offer than Nine Black Alps. Sometimes the slightly more ambitious music gets in the way a little and makes the songs somewhat too obscure and intangible to be really appreciated. Disappointingly the complexity can detract, rather than add to the album.

Overall, while Only Revolution is a very good album, it fails to capture the genius of Puzzle. It is at times misguided and the sound of Simon Neil’s voice grates too much for this to be one of those albums that you just keep playing. We should not judge the album too harshly simply on the strength of its predecessor; it is very good album and well worth buying, but it has too many glaring flaws to be on the same level as Puzzle or indeed Locked Out from in Inside.

There are a couple of things regarding what actually makes for good music that I have been thinking about recently that I wanted to talk about here, but didn’t want to over burden this entry with yet more when it is easily long enough as it is. I will be putting those thought into writing at some point in the next few weeks depending on what else comes up. In the mean time buy both of the albums reviewed today, they are well worth it.