Trout Mask Replica vs. White Light/White Heat - Music

mickilennial
The Most Trusted Name in News

Gender: Female
Age: 35
Location: Detroit

idk bro, your last comment kind of gives off the impression you just want comfort food in music and that rubs me the wrong way so much

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Gender: Female
Age: 38

so re: the rest of Puncture Repair's points

I hear about people all the time talking about the music that other people absolutely should be listening to. It doesn't seem any more controversial than the comment about considering this album to be an essential part of an education for a music student. Seems weird that nobody had these issues when there was that thread about the 1,001 albums you have to hear before you die. Yeah, woeful sounds goofy and 4 seems like an arbitrary number, but this shit happens all the time and no one cares so it seems kind of shitty to suddenly start caring when looking at what's going on in the music is brought up as a way to push against the idea that such a thing is impossible with this music.

And yeah the video isn't perfect, the stuff about the lyrics doesn't really matter to me, the role of the vocals in the music is ignored, but still, there is value in going over what these instruments are doing. I don't think it's his role to sell you on the why of it, or the effect it produces, because it's always going to be valid to absolutely hate this music or not give a shit at all, and it seems like if he was to say that you're supposed to feel x but you feel y, then somehow you're listening to it wrong. I don't think that would be better, or accurate. But now maybe this information can help provide some clarity to people expressing why they feel however they feel about this album (something like how there's a feeling of the track making it's own sort of sense and teaching you how to hear it, how it sounded like an atonal mess on first listen but since there is clarity to the tonality on an individual-sequence-of-notes level, and how the track eventually settles down with the majority of elements in G major, that allowed for repeated listens to lead to an intuitive if not technical understanding of the systems in place where the sensation of the tonal character of the track coming more into focus creates a sensation on the opening track of encountering some mystifying beast in the wild and being trampled by it the first time, but then later being able to hitch a saddle on it and get taken for the wildest ride. or something like that)

I would say by going over the tonalities and the variety of changes there, and demonstrating how they operate consistently within their cell, the 'jumble of tonalities' statement is more than justified.

I will concede though that the usual bounty of worthwhile contributions from viewers that you see in the youtube comment section isn't present on this video. I mean I don't know about you, but I read youtube for the comments section, it really is a great place that feels good to be, every single time, until this one video.

PurpleHazel

Tha1ChiefRocka wrote:

You know what hasn't been mentioned (and it rarely is when this mess is mentioned)? Zappa produced this album. I don't know how much he actually did, but I would bet that all of the chaos was aided by his genius, since he had already made several albums that were better anyway.

It appears that Zappa had minimal direct influence on the content of the music on TMR, though the album wouldn't exist in anything like its present form if Zappa hadn't agreed to put it on his record label and essentially give Beefheart complete artistic freedom. Beefheart composed and rehearsed most of the music with the band over several months in a rented house they lived in communally. Zappa wanted to record the album at the house as an "anthropological field recording" -- perhaps inspired by his approach with An Evening With Wild Man Fischer and the GTOs album -- but Beefheart thought Zappa was cheaping out, so only one song with the band that Zappa and his engineer recorded at the house made it onto the album. Zappa told Beefheart they'd have to record all the instrumental tracks in one late night studio session, so the band rehearsed intensively enough that they were able to perform the whole album in that time with no retakes (except for six previously recorded songs). The one song Zappa materially contributed to is "The Blimp." One of the Magic Band guitar players, Jeff Cotton, recited a Beefheart poem over the phone while Zappa recorded it, and then Zappa used a previously recorded live (?) Mothers of Invention piece (uncredited) as the backing track.

Zappa and Beefheart were friends in junior high school and played in a band together early on, but as both were control freaks they then went their own ways for the most part. Both were heavily influenced by blues, free jazz and experimental classical music, but it manifests in their music quite differently. I think TMR is a slightly more radical, consistent statement than any one album Zappa did, but Zappa made more high-quality music over many more albums, some of them also great.

Puncture Repair

Tap wrote:

I hear about people all the time talking about the music that other people absolutely should be listening to. It doesn't seem any more controversial than the comment about considering this album to be an essential part of an education for a music student. Seems weird that nobody had these issues when there was that thread about the 1,001 albums you have to hear before you die. Yeah, woeful sounds goofy and 4 seems like an arbitrary number, but this shit happens all the time and no one cares so it seems kind of shitty to suddenly start caring when looking at what's going on in the music is brought up as a way to push against the idea that such a thing is impossible with this music.

I guess it's just a way of putting it. It's a lot more inviting to say you'll be a more invested musician or music-fan if you listen to Trout, rather than saying if you don't, you're a bad one. It's thrown around a lot, granted. When it's what's said to preface a thirty minute video, I feel as though he's putting more weight behind it than a throwaway internet comment. That made me start caring, not sure if that's shitty, but it probably is admittedly a waste of time.

Tap wrote:

And yeah the video isn't perfect, the stuff about the lyrics doesn't really matter to me, the role of the vocals in the music is ignored, but still, there is value in going over what these instruments are doing. I don't think it's his role to sell you on the why of it, or the effect it produces, because it's always going to be valid to absolutely hate this music or not give a shit at all, and it seems like if he was to say that you're supposed to feel x but you feel y, then somehow you're listening to it wrong. I don't think that would be better, or accurate. But now maybe this information can help provide some clarity to people expressing why they feel however they feel about this album (something like how there's a feeling of the track making it's own sort of sense and teaching you how to hear it, how it sounded like an atonal mess on first listen but since there is clarity to the tonality on an individual-sequence-of-notes level, and how the track eventually settles down with the majority of elements in G major, that allowed for repeated listens to lead to an intuitive if not technical understanding of the systems in place where the sensation of the tonal character of the track coming more into focus creates a sensation on the opening track of encountering some mystifying beast in the wild and being trampled by it the first time, but then later being able to hitch a saddle on it and get taken for the wildest ride. or something like that)

There's definitely value in what the instruments are doing, and it's probably a much better video for someone that's convinced Trout Mask Replica is, as the guy clears up, atonal or completely improvised or just lacking any kind of structure. Like AfterHours put better than I could, it's all to the end of madness. Whether it's a work of 'genius', or as 'complex' as the guy likes to throw around, I'm not entirely convinced - but 'masterpieces' don't necessarily need to be. It's canon, and people love to justify the canon, especially eloquent pastey dudes in suits. I'm sure there's worse videos out there justifying why 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' is a masterclass in composition. I think the video presented itself as something it's not, and I think it's presenting Trout Mask Replica as something it's not.

Tap wrote:

I will concede though that the usual bounty of worthwhile contributions from viewers that you see in the youtube comment section isn't present on this video. I mean I don't know about you, but I read youtube for the comments section, it really is a great place that feels good to be, every single time, until this one video.

You got me there.

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Age: 38

What does complex mean to you, exactly? How can something with this many components crammed into 2 minutes not be complex?

Also lol @ continuing to interpret a statement that begins with "if you are a music student" as being more than that

Puncture Repair

Tap wrote:

What does complex mean to you, exactly? How can something with this many components crammed into 2 minutes not be complex?

I'm not convinced layering and sequencing simple rock sections in strange ways is complex. A plate of a hundred different foods isn't necessarily complex, and I don't know if a painting made of a million simple paintings would necessarily be complex either. They might be a great mess though.

We're both fans of Mingus' 'Let My Children Hear Music', I think that's a great example of successful complexity in music.

Tap wrote:

Also lol @ continuing to interpret a statement that begins with "if you are a music student" as being more than that

a'ight

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Gender: Female
Age: 38

Something can have simple components or be messy or not be good and still be complex. the economy is complex.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Gowi wrote:

idk bro, your last comment kind of gives off the impression you just want comfort food in music and that rubs me the wrong way so much

Good. You didn't even have to work hard to be rubbed the wrong way.

Besides the fact that you completely misunderstood what I was saying.

PurpleHazel

Puncture Repair wrote:

I'm not convinced layering and sequencing simple rock sections in strange ways is complex. A plate of a hundred different foods isn't necessarily complex, and I don't know if a painting made of a million simple paintings would necessarily be complex either. They might be a great mess though.

I don't accept the premise that all the sections are simple, but the way they're combined is definitely complex.
A painting of normal size made up of a million paintings would most likely be complex, and a dish with a million ingredients would have a complex taste -- too complex!

It's not fair to critique an album based on breaking one song into its constituent elements and playing them with a generic tone on an electric keyboard. It's like judging "Stairway to Heaven" or "Money" by muzak versions. Also a part can't be judged as simple in isolation, you have to look how it fits into the harmony, fits in with the rhythm, how it interacts with the other parts, and sometimes, whether it's a different time signature. If it's polytonal or polyrhythmic, then by definition it's complex. Also, obviously, it's not the just the notes and the basic rhythm, but how they're played. If an average musician plays the notes of a Hendrix solo or a Bootsy Collins bassline on a Casio, he's losing practically all of what makes them great -- bending, vibrato, touch, attack etc. There's a fair amount of slide guitar on TMR, utilized in a way it'd never been before. You'd lose almost all of that effect with the keyboard in the video.

Andreyev (the video guy) may be a composer, but I bet he has a postgraduate degree in musicology or something like that, because his approach is fairly typical academic analysis. Despite an occasional stray descriptor that suggests he thinks TMR was delivered by Moses from heaven, he focuses on areas that can be objectively analyzed. As others have pointed out, he concentrates on the lyrics first -- exactly what I'd expect an academic or critic to do (he sounds like he's familiar with literary theory). Then as a musician/academic he analyzes the music and its constituent parts. He doesn't discuss Beefheart's influences or why he might've made the musical choices he did -- he sticks to the "text," suggesting literary theory. Asides aside, he doesn't critique the music as a critic would, which is good or bad or both depending on your point of view. So this is academic analysis some might find dry or draining the joy from the music.

BUT... I still think the video is worthwhile. First, it's a mad, subversive subject for this type of approach -- just the contrast is a kick. Second, he discusses a two-minute song for a half-hour. I mean, if he did a half-hour on Sgt. Pepper, it'd be trite, but on two minutes of Beefheart, it's pretty rad. Third, what separates this from practically all other academic analysis is that he can put his musician hat on and perform the different fragmentary parts: that's fascinating and pretty rare, really the key part of the video. Fourth, he's good at what he does: he's lucid, articulate, methodical. Maybe most songs couldn't support this approach, but a song from an album that's confounded music fans for decades, this could be quite helpful for many. It would've completely blown my mind if I'd heard it back in the 80s, before universities started offering courses on Madonna and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If nothing else, he demolishes the notion that it's just five people who can barely play their instruments wanking off for 80 minutes.

Last edited by PurpleHazel on 02/03/2018 11:10; edited 2 times in total

Puncture Repair

I don't want to get too into the semantics. I think complexity when it comes to man-made expression is a different beast. Otherwise where does it stop - music is just 12 notes put in order, life is just particles put in order etc etc.

I've only written papers on literacy and politics, but it was driven into me from a young age that when writing anything academic you make your point, you provide your evidence, and then you justify why that evidence links to your point. Maybe music study is different, I remember my mates having to memorized long series of classical chord progressions. The guy is clearly a well studied composer, and understands musical theory well, but he doesn't justify any of his examples. It would similar to writing a paper on why Bears are scary, then showing that they are made of fur, sharp teeth, and big paws, and saying 'like I said, very scary'. Music is man-made expression, it needs human exploration. Human exploration is emotive, it's narrative driven, it's context and history driven. That's where 'complexity' is in anything subjective. It's the why and not the what.

I should hammer that I'm not critiquing the album. Does it have to be this work of genius for us to enjoy it or value it? It's crazy, it breaks the rules. It's got something loud to say and it doesn't even have to say it. We were doing that before Beefheart, and we're still doing it today. Even if it was just a bunch of dudes wanking off for 80 minutes (which I don't think it was), it shouldn't make it any more or less of an album, and it would still be deserving of actual analysis.