15 f Ranting & Reeling T
he unloved outside dog that is the fRoots Forum will soon be sent to the Internet’s farm in Wales. But in its final neglected days a new commenter posted their objections to a comically f-laden pum- melling of a Mumford & Sons album. In a well-argued post, our welcome newbie insisted a review should be reasoned and constructive and that the reader just wants “an idea of what an album is like”. Dismissing a record by likening it to a large coagulation of ordure was also frowned upon.
As a music critic for the last [coughs into hand] years, it’s my unshakeable opinion that this argument is balls. But it does describe the majority of reviews that arrive as frequently as trains don’t, when- ever anyone in the traditional music domain releases an album. Folk invariably gets the thumbs up whether it’s deserv- ing of such ineffectual approval or not.
This perfunctory kindness is a gift to any artist wishing to advertise their suc- cess in star ratings (fours and fives look persuasive on posters). But if everyone’s getting them then they’re worthless.
“Music critics are more bleedin’ worthless!” shouts an imaginary heckler I’ve inexplicably given a Cockney accent.
It’s a fair point. We won’t be first in the selection for Space Station Save Humani- ty. But Martin Mull’s appropriated quote: "Writing about painting is like dancing about architecture" was wrong. Because dancing is an appropriate response to the spaces others create, just as banging out words in a gush of conviction is an appropriate response to the sounds oth- ers arrange. Dance like no one’s watch- ing, write like no one’s reading (they probably aren’t).
A critic’s primary function is to inform, but also to entertain. And as we race up and down the egalitarian information superhighway, the need to deliver some- thing more elevating than a factual ful- filled word count has never been greater.
I’ll have another few vowels please Rachel (she replaced Carol). A reviewer’s role is also to excite and inspire, to irritate and anger and to ask unanswered ques- tions about the art that’s so utterly important in our lifelong struggle against hurling ourselves out of a window. Our written response to music should reflect in style, attitude and passion our emo- tional and intellectual response to what we’re hearing. And if that response is a copied and pasted biography, a cursory mention of song titles and a minor quib-
ble about the French horn then faff off.
It’s not a
critic’s job to act as salesperson for a band you don’t personally enjoy but feel some sense of charity towards. As a writer your duty is to the reader. And they aren’t served by balance and objectivity. How can they know what to think if you don’t tell them what you think? Show them your love letter or chal- lenge them to a fight. Or make ’em laugh. But do more. Speak your brains.
Whenever I have younger writers under me (perks of the job) I tell them there’s always room for a complete dis- missal of a CD you truly believe to be wor- thy of contempt. One of a thousand exquisitely formed gags in the film Spinal Tap is when the band is informed that their 1980 album Shark Sandwich received a two word review: “Shit Sandwich.”
That kind of writing means more
than stars. Tim Chipping
The Elusive Ethnomusicologist T
he question really is not “What have the Romans ever done for us?” but “What have the Greeks ever done for us?” Well, there’s the Elgin Marbles. “Oh yeah, they did those…” “The Olympics…” “Oh, yeah, and those.” Demis Roussos? “Well, yeah, obviously Demis Roussos…” And Nana Mouskouri. “What?!”
Nana Mouskouri, much maligned songstress and goddess of spectacles, delivered world music into the laps of the nation as her prime time Saturday night show beamed from the telly into sitting rooms across the UK long before Paul Simon crossed the Bridge Over Troubled Water and into Graceland and even longer before world music was labelled as such.
Thanks to Nana in glorious black and white the ears and hearts of Her Majesty’s subjects were opened to the exciting sonic possibilities of music from a whole raft of musicians from across the world. Her guests, from the aforemen- tioned unlikely (possibly self-styled) love- god Roussos to Los Calchakis and their Andean panpipes, from flamenco mae- stro Paco Peña to the Little Angels Of Korea, appeared alongside national trea- sures like Lulu. A friend of mine remem-
bers being utterly gobsmacked on seeing the amazing gypsy flamenco guitarist Manitas de Plata on his parents’ telly, whilst he was still in shorts, or possibly his pyjamas – my friend, not de Plata – given the time the show went out.
Mouskouri was riding a wave that might have risen with Jack Lerole’s band Elias And His Zig Zag Jive Flutes and their huge hit with Tom Hark, a kwela penny whistle re-working of an English tune in 1958, the same year Dean Martin had a hit with Volare. A wave that swelled with the notable success of panpipe sensa- tions Los Trios Paraguayos, and The Sand- pipers launching Cuban song Guan- tanamera into the UK/US charts in 1966. Then, unlike now, foreign languages were heard in music blaring from the mainstream media without so much as a pocket book translation.
Would the blossoming of local music from out there have flowered so prolifi- cally in the ’80s as those in their pyjamas came of age, had they not been allowed to stay up and watch Mouskouri? Would the country have been jumping to jit or township jive around the time the Bhun- du Boys hit the Radio 1 playlist, had their minds not been opened at an impres- sionable young age by the world music
acts on the Nana Mousk- ouri show?
Three
decades on from that ’80s bubble our society is even more brilliantly multi-cultural. It’s ironic then that our main- stream media
has closed the door to music not in English. Apart from World On 3 (sad farewell, wonderful World Routes), Late Junction, Jools, and a few determined musician/ DJs like Cerys Matthews and Guy Garvey on 6 Music, music program- mers on nationwide broadcasts couldn’t toe the UKIP party line more closely.
Mouskouri’s contribution has of course recently been recognised by BBC4, although elements of the world music fraternity remain sniffy about the easy-listening aspect of her output and that of her guests. “It’s not music, it’s muzak,” they say. Well let’s hear it for those World Muzak pioneers, I’m saying. We need them now.
Elizabeth Kinder
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