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good music bad music
Okay, this'll perk things up a bit...
Last night I was channel surfing and ran across something pretty interesting. I don't know what the deal was but Celine Dion was doing someting on VH1. Her talking caught my ear and I listened to her perform one song - Robert Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". I am quite fond of Ms. Flack. Quite fond indeed. I think she has the greatest voice to ever grace popular music. Therefore I get quite nervous when folks cover her stuff. (That Fugees thing a few years ago made me puke.) That being said, I was quite taken with Ms. Dion's performance of this song. It was quite loveley and blissfully unadorned by her usual vocal gymnastics. It was as if she actually respected the song more than her own voice.
As I was watching this, a question came to mind that has been plaguing me for some time now. Why is it that those who fancy themselves as some sort of music critic seem to have great problems with melodic music. It seems that anything that is nice, sweet, musically well organized, positive, romantic, or whatever is suspect. It started in the 80's with Christopher Cross and Toto being panned by critics. I saw another show on VH1 in which a "critic" was complaining that the Carpenters ruined the face of popular music because they helped bring about the transition from the angry folk music or acid rock of the Vietnam era to the more musically mature and complicated stuff we began to see in the 70's. Rags such as Spin and Rolling Stone constantly pan artists such as Jewell for being too sweet, while championing curmudgeons such as Kurt Cobain, Rage Against the Machine and Korn. I'm sorry, but musically these folks don't deserve to stand in the shadow of Roberta Flack or Toto!
!
. Why is it that we are supposed to buy this idea that for music to be ligitimately good it must be angry, edgy, provocotive, or even ugly? Why can't good music be nice? Why is it that if I say that I appreciate the Backstreet Boys because they are like the last bastions of melody/harmony/song structure in top 40 music, I all of a sudden lose my credibility as a music lover? I just don't get.
Maybe someone can help me out here...
"Bye, bye, bye..."
Kelvin
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