The Velvet Underground & Related

[larsvsnapster]

I don't mean to imply that I think you only like avant-garde stuff, just that from what you've posted it does appear to me that you have a more obscure, niche and eclectic taste in general. Nothing wrong with that, I'm sure we have plenty of overlap in our tastes.

I actually have been making monster hit packs monthly for over 25 years.  They're generally 500-700 songs, everything in every chart I can come across for the current month.  In two days I'll be doing it for November 2023.  I hear far more mersh and top 40 stuff than the esoteric stuff in regular listening.  After 1988 or so everything gets a chance as long as I keep names and artists out of it so that I can listen without prejudice.  Believe it or not the most cutting edge techniques are in the hits, although I can't say I like the current trends of whispering and cursive singing.  I could do without all the epithets in trap as well, but I still give it a chance just to be musically knowledgeable.  I have heard damn near every Rihanna or Taylor Swift song that's ever been on the charts, but the big thing I notice about them is that they do not have anything to suggest their tunes are theirs -- they fit in so well with everything else that it does blur. 

[Marie Monday]

Sure.  I had my epiphany on a trip to Japan.  Naturally I turned on pop radio to check it out.  I was familiar with YMO, Sadistic Mika Band, and a few others, mostly from the glam and early techno eras.  I was listening to a flashback type show, with about 20% of the selections being older than 4 years.  They played Yoko's "Josejoi Banzai" -- which didn't get released in the West for years.  It fit in with everything else perfectly -- time frame was early 80's, when odd singers were all over the place.  I remember the next song they played after Yoko was Lene Lovich "Lucky Number" and I couldn't believe how well they fit in sequence.  Apparently the focus of the show I was listening to was hiccupy singers who make odd animal noises frequently -- yes they played the B-52s too. 

So I started thinking of Yoko's vocalese and when I listened to Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band and Life with the Lions with free jazz ears, they made absolute total sense.  Although she wasn't doing anything all that new in that context, she instantly became better than that other group with the guy she was married to in it.  And then I started hearing her everywhere else, including all those people I mentioned.  Especially Marc Bolan.  Here we've got the UK just going gaga over him and he's up on the stage going "AEiAEIAIEIAEIAEIAEIEEEEEE!!" just like Yoko! It took a bit to work out the gravity of what I was perceiving, but it was like this big flashing neon sign that said HYPOCRACY becoming permanently burned into my brain.  It's intensified to the point that if I ever look at other music forums that's all I see.  This community is a little different, and my concern is to keep it that way.

but where do you think those double standards came from? her being 1.eccentric 2.a woman 3.japanese, all of the above, or something else? Maybe part of it is also that she took this type of vocal to a slightly more intense level than those other artists; I mean that they stayed just on the safe side of the line and she was the one who took a tiny extra step to make it daring and exciting. Most of those other singers still try to please the listener; for instance, they try to keep it more or less 'sexy' in the conventional rock star way but Yoko, while still keeping it sensual, does so entirely on her own terms without trying to keep the listeners comfortable

[Lexi Darling]

damn near every Rihanna or Taylor Swift song that's ever been on the charts, but the big thing I notice about them is that they do not have anything to suggest their tunes are theirs -- they fit in so well with everything else that it does blur. 

I agree, and I would say the exact same thing about most music in most genres. Like ambient drone and 90s death metal aren't exactly known for every artist having a particularly unique stamp.

Pop music is mostly a producers and songwriters game anyway, you very much can spot their hallmarks and idiosyncrasies more so than the singer a lot of the time.

[larsvsnapster]

but where do you think those double standards came from? her being 1.eccentric 2.a woman 3.japanese, all of the above, or something else? Maybe part of it is also that she took this type of vocal to a slightly more intense level than those other artists; I mean that they stayed just on the safe side of the line and she was the one who took a tiny extra step to make it daring and exciting. Most of those other singers still try to please the listener; for instance, they try to keep it more or less 'sexy' in the conventional rock star way but Yoko, while still keeping it sensual, does so entirely on her own terms without trying to keep the listeners comfortable

You think so?  I don't hear it that way.  Like everyone else I first heard her doing her thing through Two Virgins and that one's fantastic for simply being a document of two people falling in love as they're actually doing it.

I find Patty Waters far more extreme than Yoko with the vocalese purely because she focusses on dynamic extremes, but Dick Higgins took that quite a bit further.  That danger music series from Higgins was meant to be conceptual rather than actually performed but there are somewhat painful videos and recordings of people attempting to realise the vocal shredding ones in particular, and in some cases injuring themselves permanently.  Yoko knew Dick Higgins very very well, and they worked together, so I'm sure that's part of where it came from.  Diamanda Galas emerged about 15 years after Yoko did, and by that time the vocalese had its own tradition as part of the set of extended techniques for the voice.  That that vocalese still has the ability to shock and repel 50 years on -- but only if it comes from Yoko -- that seems super dodgy to me. 

The only plausible explanation that I can think of about the anti-Yoko thing doesn't have anything to do with whether she's eccentric -- I find her down to earth but willing to express herself like a child, and if that's eccentric so be it.  I find it to be racist rather than sexist.  That she's Japanese has something to do with it, but nothing she ever did sounds that far off from other pop music in Japan.  She grew up with the same formative eastern influences that everyone else did, and so it wasn't really all that much of a surprise that even though she sounds a lot like John when she's doing her pop stuff, someone like Cui Jan (from China, whose entire musical influence seems to be Lionel Richie) can be played right upside her and it still has a certain homogeneity that music from East naturally carries.  I've looked for the weirdness in her stuff for years, and I just simply can't find it.  Everything she's ever done I can find some sort of precedent.  She smashed out of nowhere to Beatles fans, and I don't have to tell you how prejudiced that lot can be. 

[Marie Monday]

not lacking precedent doesn't mean it's not weird. It's hard to explain what makes her 'weird' to people but I suspect you don't see it because your view of music may be rather clinical. I agree that racism is probably a factor

[Guybrush]

So, uhm, someone made a cute video for After Hours.

I like the song even if the bass is a little weird.

[Lisnaholic]

With VU, I always considered John Cale and Nico to be the more interesting artists, so they are the ones whose post-VU careers I have dipped into occasionally. Here's just a couple of tracks I've enjoyed:-

Catchiest track from John Cale's 1996 album, Walking On Locusts:-

Here's the great scene-setter for Nico's live album, Behind The Iron Curtain, 1986. Maybe it's the song title, but doesn't it evoke those cold dark plains of Northern Europe when all you want to do is get out of the wind? Her band at the time was called Faction, so a lot of credit to them for this atmospheric gem.
 

[Guybrush]

Yes!! That's the stuff, @Lisnaholic 🙂

I enjoyed both those songs and agree with you about Cale and Nico. Both are interesting and I know some of their stuff, yet I haven't taken the deep plunge with either.

Thank you for sharing!

[Lisnaholic]

^ Thanks, Guybrush ! I'm glad you liked those tracks and I'll be happy to hear what material you come across if you do "take the deep plunge".

If you haven't heard it already, Church Of Anthrax (1971) will be a real highlight, I think. It's the only album John Cale and Terry Riley made together, and what's strange is how it sounds so little like either of them! It's intricate, and fast-paced, except for one track that really shouldn't've made it to the final album, imo.

 

[Lexi Darling]

Only post Velvet Underground thing I've heard besides the odd Lou Reed solo track is the recording of Nico's performance with Tangerine Dream at the Reims cathedral in 1974. Fascinating story behind that show actually.

But honestly the VU themselves were really hit or miss in my book. Well, maybe not miss exactly but a good amount of their stuff is not really my thing. But the songs of theirs I do like, I really like. Venus in Furs and All Tomorrows Parties rule.

[Marie Monday]

^ Thanks, Guybrush ! I'm glad you liked those tracks and I'll be happy to hear what material you come across if you do "take the deep plunge".

If you haven't heard it already, Church Of Anthrax (1971) will be a real highlight, I think. It's the only album John Cale and Terry Riley made together, and what's strange is how it sounds so little like either of them! It's intricate, and fast-paced, except for one track that really shouldn't've made it to the final album, imo.

 

good stuff