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

[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.