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Facetious
Gender: Male
Age: 24
Location: Somewhere you've never been
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- #51
- Posted: 02/15/2014 11:29
- Post subject:
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| Kool Keith Sweat wrote: | The fact that so many books still name the Velvet Underground "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success: the Velvet Underground sold less than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Velvet Underground did anything worth of being saved.
In a sense the Velvet Underground are emblematic of the status of rock criticism as a whole: too much attention to commercial phenomena (be it grunge or U2) and too little attention to the merits of real musicians. If somebody composes the most divine music but no major label picks him up and sells him around the world, a lot of rock critics will like him. This is the sad status of rock criticism: rock critics are basically publicists working for free for obscure labels, distributors and record stores. They simply publicize what the music business wants to make money with.
Hopefully, one not-too-distant day, there will be a clear demarcation between a great musician like Pato, who never sold much, and commercial products like the Velvet Underground. And rock critics will study more of rock history and realize who invented what and who simply exploited it commercially.
Velvet Underground's "aryan" music removed any trace of black music from rock and roll: it replaced syncopated african rhythm with linear western melody, and lusty negro attitudes with cute white-kid smiles.
Contemporary musicians never spoke highly of the Velvet Underground, and for a good reason. They could not figure out why the Velvet Underground' songs should be regarded more highly than their own. They knew that the Velvet Underground were simply lucky to become a cowpunk phenomenon (thanks to "Warhol", which had nothing to do with their musical merits). That phenomenon kept alive interest in their (mediocre) musical endeavours to this day. Nothing else grants the Velvet Underground more attention than, say, the Kinks or the Rolling Stones. There was nothing intrinsically better in the Velvet Underground's music. Ray Davies of the Kinks was certainly a far better songwriter than Morrison & Tucker. The Stones were certainly much more skilled musicians than that bitch Reed. And Pete Townshend was a far more accomplished composer, capable of "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia". Not to mention later and far greater New York musicians. Not to mention the American musicians who created what the Velvet Underground later sold to the masses.
The Velvet Underground sold less records not because they were the greatest musicians but simply because their music was easy not to sell to the masses: it had difficult content but no technical innovations and no creative depth. They wrote a bunch of catchy 3-minute ditties and they were photogenic. If somebody had not invented "Warhol" in 1963, you would not have wasted five minutes of your time to read a page about such a trivial band. |
BTW, "that bitch Reed" was a nice one.
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