editors

[rone]

You'll hear grumbling about certain authors growing too big for their britches and essentially doing away with their editors.  You don't hear this about music, though.  The Mars Volta's Frances the Mute strikes me as the sort of album that desperately needs an editor to slice through the fat and wank (The Mars Volta guys seem to be the sort of artists that need a strong hand at the reins, judging by their Web site (Flash)).  Now, some of you might be thinking, "What the fuck, you're a King Crimson fan.  They're, like, the kings of wanky music."  If you are, come here so i can give you a good slap.

Anyway, Frances the Mute has a lot of really good music in it, as well as ornate lyrics that tell an alien story, and it won't sound like anything else you've heard.  The best word to describe it is "frenetic".  But there are stretches where nothing is happening.  Calling it "minimalist" isn't fair to minimalism; it's just minutes of a repeated phrase of music or, worse, noise.  TMV goes out of its way to shun the strictures of pop music in as many ways as it can, including offering an inaccurate track listing; some of the tracks are shown with sub-track listings, but the first four songs are tracked in toto, whereas the final song is cut up into 8 tracks which do not correspond to the sub-track listing.

I guess this goes back to my obsession with objecting to things that aren't exactly tailored to suit my taste and insisting that they be adjusted, instead of taking them as they are.  But i feel that, buried under this merely remarkable album, is a work that could've been truly great, had the artists and producers worked with the music in mind, instead of trying to make the music serve their ego.

Comments

You don't hear this about music?

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

You obviously don't talk to anybody about Todd Rundgren, the god of studio noise and overdub degradation.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Hmm... Rundgren. Wasn't he some one-hit wonder in the `80s or something?

[nosrialleon.livejournal.com]

You think they need an editor on record, you should see them live. Now THERE'S 2 hours of my life I'll never get back...

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Heh. I looked at one of their videos (the only one that worked, i think) on their site and it was just like their music... solid performance marred by bouts of self-indulgent excess. "Look at me, i'm freaking out!@#!@! OMG!!!$#@" They're trying really hard to be different, i guess. "LOOK AT HOW DIFFERENT WE ARE!" It's their not-a-gimmick gimmick.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

The analogue for recorded music is the producer.

And it looks like one of the band was producing an album for the first time... Yeah, that can be a recipe for wankery. "Ha, no producer to tell me to HIDE my BRILLIANCE!"

Sometimes it works out and you discover that the musician really knows what he's doing and is a good producer after all, but... not always.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I thought of producers more as that guy that helps define the musicians' sound; i don't really think of editors trying to set the tone for a writer's book, but maybe they do that, too.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

It depends on the musician and it depends on the producer. Defining and refining the sound is all part of it, though.

Editors can set the tone as well-- think about books of short stories edited by Isaac Asimov, or magazine editors working with writers to refine stories. A good editor (with time to do so) will help with this as much as a producer will help with a recording...

[bebopmonkey.livejournal.com]

thats one of those balancing act i think, because writing music takes some ego. but too much and it becomes masturbatory.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I'd say that any creation requires some ego, since you're putting yourself into your creation.

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

You *do* hear this about music, though. The folks in question aren't called editors, though; they're called producers. The ones who spring to my mind are Steve Lillywhite, Brian Eno, Butch Vig, and of course the inestimably great Rick Rubin.

I'd like to hear what Rick would do with the Mars Volta. I enjoyed Comatorium for the guitar wankery, but there were spots where it could've been tightened up/saved from terminal bombast. By your account, then, the new one is worse? (and does that mean I'll probably like it better?)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I only listened to Comatorium once, so i can't really make a judgement either way.

[baljemmett.livejournal.com]

The one that springs to mind here is Bob bloody Rock. *shakes head dismally*

[baljemmett.livejournal.com]

Uhr, I meant as an example of a producer who really isn't all that great. Because that's the exact opposite of wha -- you know what, never mind. I'll try and work out what the hell I meant after I've had some coffee. It did make sense at one point, I swear!

[dagbrown.livejournal.com]

I did enjoy the way that Bob "bloody" Rock made cute Canadian boy band The Moffatts sound exactly like alternarockers The Age Of Electric.

Let's not forget

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

Hugh Padgham who became kind of a counterpoint to Lillywhite, Tony Visconti and who I think of as his antithesis, Giorgio Moroder, and performer-cum-producers like Robert Fripp, Ian MacDonald, Ric Ocasek, and Rupert Hine (also none of the Talking Heads are any slouches behind the board). Then there are the great art-rock producers whose names we forget because their touch was so gentle: John Anthony, David Hitchcock, Eddie Offord, Terry Ellis, and I'm sure there must be others I'm forgetting. All these guys definitely got their fingers into the actual arrangements of the songs they produced to some extent, whether horizontally or only vertically.

Also, despite the noisiness that others decry and despite the crappiness of his recent all-digital self-production, I personally like Rundgren's production (even of his own work, before the digital crap) a lot.

[j4.livejournal.com]

You don't hear this about music, though.

You'd hear it from me! Though I don't think it's limited to just a few successful/egotistical musicians, I think it's a more general trend towards sagginess and woolliness and laziness. I mourn the death of the 3-minute pop song -- which not only died but then came back as a REANIMATED CORPSE, so that all songs now go "verse-chorus-verse-chorus-wanky-bit-chorus-more-wank-STAGGER-AROUND-LIKE-A-ZOMBIE-FOR-ANOTHER-3-MINUTES" rather than just "verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle-eight-chorus-END". Even most of the good music out there needs to be tighter, needs to have some editorial wassname exercised on it. I blame the fact that you can get more music on a CD. Or, um, television! Yes, I blame television. Or the parents. Or something.

(Sorry, I shouldn't comment on people's journals before I've finished the first coffee of the day.)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Well, i do like music where there's room to roam, but making a nice tight song that doesn't feel extruded is definitely a lost art.