spodgod

It was the 40^th anniversary of Abbey Road, the Beatle’s last studio album in August, giving music mags and MP3 blogs a chance to review their final opus afresh.  Except, most of them didn’t really review it.  They skimmed over the first half of the disk – what used to be “side one” in vinyl days – and headed straight to the medley on side two.

If Beatle myth is to be believed the sixteen minute side two symphony was, like many Fab innovations, a happy accident.  Lennon and McCartney didn’t have much in the way of new songs, so they stitched together fragments and scraps. George Martin’s Pepperesque orchestration used “You Never Give Me Your Money” to glue this tuneful trifle together.  And, like many of their accidents (the feedback at the start of “I Feel Fine” or the backwards vocal used on “Rain”) it’s ultimately better than what most other bands do on purpose. That’s why people can’t shut up about it.  That and the fact that “The End” is the most satisfying closure to a band’s career ever committed to record.

Each Beatle gets a turn to show off in the soloing section, not in traditional Beatle style, but in the heavy rock idiom that would dominate popular music for the next three or four years.  It was like they were saying “Yeah, if we decided to keep on going, we’d totally rule”.  It finishes with all three singers in faultless harmony, followed by guitars and strings terminating in similar concordance.

It’s brilliant and thrilling – and when “Her Majesty” comes in, puncturing the pomposity of the moment with a stab of twee whimsicality, it neatly summarises the Beatle’s quixotic decade of musical innovation.

But, for all that, Abbey Road’s most famous side feels inorganic and constructed.  It lacks the spontaneity of Revolver, the scrape of plectrum against string you can hear throughout Rubber Soul. Its closest relatives are Lennon’s psychedelic patchworks of the Pepper era; I Am the Walrus, Strawberry Fields and a Day in the Life – but there’s no central thread holding it all together.  No memorable motif or narrative drive. It’s slick and beautiful and it’s The Beatles – but under duress.

And there lies the strength of side one. It’s the sound of The Beatles moving on.  Let it Be (released after Abbey Road, but recorded before) showed The Beatles trying and failing to be the same tight little R&B outfit that played Hamburg’s Star Club in ’62. On Abbey Road, side one, that pretence had been dropped.  At this stage they were three world class solo artists – and a decent drummer. And while this was nothing new (the White Album is a collection of solo Beatles performances for the most part), Abbey Road sees them accepting those roles.

It was as though McCartney, Lennon and Harrison individually realised that The Beatles would be the best backing band they’d ever have – and this was their last chance to exploit it. It’s interesting to look at what each Beatle does with his moment.

McCartney’s side one contributions are the weakest, for example. The throwaway Maxwell’s Silver Hammer uneasily fuses Macca’s nursery melodies, heard to better effect on the White Album’s  upbeat “Ob La Di, Ob La Da”,  with an outdated and misogynistic tale of serial murder.  And while “Oh! Darling” allows McCartney to channel Little Richard and do his throaty rock voice, it’s a slight construction that smacks of 12 bar improvisation. A thrilling performance saves it from Anthology 3 – where it becomes apparent that Paul was keeping his best songs (Teddy Boy, Junk) for his solo album. It could be that Macca was saving himself for side two where, apart from Harrison’s opener and Lennon’s Beach Boys and Beethoven homage “Because”, he dominates.

John Lennon memorably gets to open Abbey Road with one of his best tracks since Revolver.  “Come Together” is sex on a stick; dirty, slinky – as authentic a rock and roll song as McCartney’s “Oh! Darling” is manufactured.  He closes too with the same raunch, the same grime – in the blunt and confessional “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”.  With its apocalyptic grunge and relentless, riffing repetition, it’s a dark mirror of “The End”.  The latter pulses with exuberance and invention, the former grinds and winds on and on.  Lennon and McCartney have never seemed more bi-polar.

If anyone owns the none-medley section of Abbey Road, it’s George.  Though Allotted his customary pair of slots, he produces the album’s best known tracks – songs that would become standards in years to come.  “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun” are similar in pace, performance and production.  Mid-tempo, romantic and tinkling with delicate melody – they mediate between the metal negativity of Lennon’s heroin dirge “I Want You” and the sublimated, passive aggression in McCartney’s jovially homicidal “Silver Hammer”. In short, they play the same role Harrison played in the band.

Each Beatle sets the tone for their solo career on side one. McCartney would soon issue his home brewed, eponymous debut – similarly assembled from song fragments and half realised ideas, stitched together with a nod and a wink.  The medley structure would be one he’d return to again and again (most notably on “Back to the Egg”, Wings final album). Lennon made Plastic Ono Band next, where primal scream therapy allowed him to strip his music back to basic guitars, drums and a howl of self reflection.  As for Ringo – Octopus’s Garden sets his template.  Or maybe it was “Goodnight” on the White Album, or “Yellow Submarine” on Revolver.  His solo output sees him typecast as Ringo rather than Richard Starkey – the sad eyed clown first depicted in a Hard Day’s Night and set in stone thereafter.

What would George do next?  In “All Things Must Pass”, the triple album set he issued in 1970, he proved that the pair of perfect songs he contributed to Abbey Road were no fluke. If we exclude the final side – an indulgent jam session with his rock star mates – “All Things Must Pass” is the best and most Beatley of the solo records.  If you’re a fan of Abbey Road – which you should be despite its flaws and failings – Harrison’s first solo record comes naturally next on the playlist.

In retrospect, the running order of Abbey Road is viewed better the sides are tranposed. Side two is close to The Beatles of old, George Martin and Geoff Emerick steady at the helm as we say hello and goodbye to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Side one is a shadow of The Beatles to come; the separation after the road has been crossed. And yet, none of them would make music this complete again.

Radiohead’s former label EMI are recycling the Oxford mope rocker’s back catalogue in a manner that’s as canny as the band’s recent release of In Rainbows. That’s the album Radiohead put out as a pay-what-you-like digital download.

With the back catalogue release, punters have a choice of three formats; an old school CD boxset retailing at £39.99 for seven discs, a DRM-free digital download for £34.99 or a squee-tastic bespoke USB key version, filled with CD quality WAV files for £79.99.

Meanwhile, CNET have spun initial sales statistics for In Rainbows into a gloating story that derides the download tactic as a failure. The gist of the piece is that most people paid much less than the going rate for the album, with 62% acquiring it for free. Buried alongside this bombshell are a series of lesser numbers, which show that 38% of folks paid between a penny and 20 U.S. dollars for their download. In other words, nearly 40% chose to pay for In Rainbows when they could have had it for free…

The article fails to take into account – or even mention – that a number of people might be taking the “try before you buy” approach, saving their pennies for the forthcoming boxset version of the album. Retailing at £40 (about $80), a deluxe package with full colour artwork will be released on the 3rd of December, alongside a second CD full of brand new music. The CNET feature also neglects to mention how many downloads were recorded. That’s because Radiohead aren’t telling. British web site Gigwise (www.gigwise.com) estimated a first day tally of 1.2 million downloads, based on pre-orders. That’s about three times as many as the last album Hail to the Thief sold in its first week. Judging from comments on a number of forums, we’re betting that a large portion of those were folks who wouldn’t ordinarily buy Radiohead’s music.

To make it entirely fair, let’s factor in some of Radiohead’s savings too. There was no label campaign to fund, no posters, parties or press junkets. Every penny of profit will go into Radiohead’s coffers, instead of up some A&R man’s nose.

Whether you look at In Rainbows as an experimental act of altruism or the latest in a long line of rock follies – one thing remains certain. You literally could not pay for the publicity that the stunt has generated. That has to be worth the fluff from anyone’s pocket.

This entry will only mean something to about three people on my friends list… 

One of my great heroes, Tony Wilson – the guy who discovered Joy Division, founded Factory records and championed Manchester as a centre for culture for decades – died earlier this month.  Popbitch reports that he was buried in a coffin numbered FAC 501; Factory’s last catalogue number.

Tony Wilson; a situationist to the end.

In today’s Guardian, there’s a Q and A with Aimee Mann, which includes these reactionary snippets:

What’s the greatest threat to music?
Music downloads and CD burning.  If music is free, then the only people who can afford to make it are narcissistic jackasses who will do anything for attention.

Is the Internet a good thing for music?
It’s good for information, but pages like MySpace turn everyone into a musician, almost all of them terrible.  It’s as if people think there are bundles of money lying around, when actually becoming a musician is a drastic choice.

In other news, Kate Nash, who found pre-signing fame through MySpace, has the UK’s current number one single; “Foundations“.  She writes and records using GarageBand on an Apple Mac – an accessible sample sequencing program bundled free with the machine…  

So which camp are you in? Kate Nash or Aimee Mann?  Internet DIY or corporate grafter?

Me? I’m with Marshall McLuhan:

Professionalism is environmental. Amateurism is anti environmental. (…)  The amateur can afford to lose.  The professional tends to classify and specialize, to accept uncritically the groundrules of the environment. 

Aimee Mann peddles the old trouper schtick that if you practice hard and have talent, if you graft and put in the hours, you will be noticed.  If that happens the end result is acceptance into the old order; the corporate music industry.  To do what though?  To fit within the parameters of that industry, where deviation from set templates – the environmental rules - is allowed only in incremental degrees.

The net has the potential to allow artists to sidestep the hours, the graft and the old order.  And those artists, though ostensibly still aping the same popular idioms as their “professional” peers, don’t have to follow the same rules.  Waiting for punk to happen again?  It’s happening right now.

What music are you currently grooving to?
The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldiers, Hot Chip and, perversely, the Beatles White Album.

What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album?
REM’s Green comes pretty close. As does the The Doors eponymous debut and Echo and the Bunnymen’s Crocodiles. Oh, and maybe, White Blood Cells by the White Stripes on some days and Revolver by the Beatles on others.

What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it?
I had the David Bowie single “Rock and Roll Suicide” bought for me. It had “Quicksand” on the flipside. What an odd single release. I did ask for it though… The first one I bought with my own money was The Moody Blue’s “Nights in White Satin” from WH Smith.

Which musician have you ever wanted to be?
As a singer I wanted to be a combo of Jim Morrison, Joe Cocker and Liz Frazer from the Cocteau Twins when I was younger… Now, I’m pretty much happy as me. As a guitarist, Geordie from Kiling Joke. As a bass player, Flea from the Chili Peppers (won’t ever happen though – I don’t do slap bass) or John Entwistle. Caveat: without the unfortunate endings of any of those who had unfortunate endings.

What do you sing in the shower?
“Love Me Two Times” by The Doors. Used to drive Morticia mad.

What is your favourite Saturday night record?
The Wait – Killing Joke, followed by Complications by the same band. In fact, the first side of the first album.

And your Sunday morning record?
Time of No Reply – Nick Drake.

You stumble across some odd things on the web… This personally ranks among the oddest thing I’ve ever found. You see – this is a video for one of my songs – but I had nothing to do with it. In fact, I don’t know the people who made it, they never contacted me to tell me they were doing it and the description on You Tube doesn’t even mention me. I found it entirely by accident.

Still – it’s just about silly enough for me to willingly put my stamp of approval on it.

American readers (and that’s most of you) may be a little confused… The song’s a parody about Derren Brown, a british magician and mentalist. The video takes the parody a step further… for those trying to work out in what way it does that; that’s not Derren Brown in the clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tuPVJk0a8A