Wednesday 27 September 2017
We discussed how sonic and musical elements in songs can all carry very specific messages.
BILLIE JEAN - A Semiotic Approach to evaluation. Lecture notes based on D. Machin, ‘Towards a Social Semiotic Approach of the Analysis of Emotion in Sound and Music’, The Public Journal of Semiotics III(2), December 2011, 152-173
Read Billie Jean notes HERE
Thursday 21 September 2017
EXTRACT FROM SONGS OF FREEDOM:THE MUSIC OF BOB MARLEY AS
TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION by W. Alan Smith, Ph.D.
African slaves who were brought to Jamaica brought with them a distinctively African approach to music. The Maroons, who settled in the mountainous interior of Jamaica as essentially a sub-culture of runaway slaves who resisted the White culture and its oppression, maintained their African identities through the music of their homeland and well as their religious practices.
John Miller Chernoff explains that African music is distinct from Western styles of music in several ways. First, Western music is centered on melody and intervals between notes, with the rhythm serving to link the notes together. (Chernoff 1979, 225) As he states, “In Western music, then rhythm is most definitely secondary in emphasis and complexity to harmony and melody. It is the progression of sound through a series of chords or tones that we recognize as beautiful.” (226) African music reverses those emphases to place rhythm in the primary position of emphasis, with melody taking secondary importance. In African cultures, as well as Afro-Jamaican cultures, the drum provided the heartbeat of society as well as the ground of music.
A . J . Smith’s thesis mentioned drumming and dance as two of the most prominent elements of the African world-view, including the African religious world view. (A.J. Smith 1997, 22- 3) The drumbeat served as a form of communication for the community, but it also connected the music to the internal rhythms of the heartbeat and the rhythm of breathing as well as the “Natural Mystic” of the land. African music most frequently has at least two different rhythms going on at once, as opposed to Western music which tends to have one dominant rhythm accompanying and enhancing the melody and harmony (thus Western music speaks of “syncopation” to refer to those rhythms that differ from the “norm” of regularity in rhythmic structure.) The multiple rhythms that characterize African music begin the “call and response” character we identify with this musical tradition. One instrument or one drum offers a rhythmic statement, to which another instrument, drum or voice responds with its own counter-statement. African music is clearly untended as a conversation among those making the music. (Chernoff 1979, 227)
It is difficult to determine a solo voice in traditional African music. The call-and-response, conversational nature provides a setting for, and encouragement of improvisation on behalf of the various musicians and voices performing it. (228) A.J. Smith quotes Peter Paris, who states that the power of Black music is its ability to deviate from the constraints of Western, Euro-centric music and to give expression to the inherently sacred expression of the inner spirit. She states, once again presenting Paris’ claims, “The African legacy of call-and-response, polyrhythms, rhythmic counterpoints, melodic and harmonic sophistication, and slurred and flat notes speak the special language of Soul.” (A.J. Smith 1997, 18) Likewise, reggae music is a musical form that is dominated by the bass and the drums, rather than the guitar solo (the most prominent role for the guitar is a strumming, rhythm guitar, almost always played on the up-beat, rather than the down-beat of a song) or even the voice of the singer. […] The bass provides the main beat and the major melody of the song, with emphasis on beats one and three, while the drums counter with a heavy bass drum beat on two and four (the “one drop” that characterizes reggae music) and rim shots and use of the cymbals to drive along another rhythm that syncopates and improvises around beats one and three. The guitar plays a double stroke on the up - beats of two and four, while the voices provide yet another rhythmic statement. The tempo is not rushed, but rather laid-back and comfortable, which contrasts with the content of the lyrics, which contain a plea for action toward freedom and justice.
Reggae is music of resistance and defies the world-view of “Babylon.” It is intended to share the experience of suffering of the poor of Jamaica and the Third World and to call the “sufferahs” to solidarity with each other in the struggle for freedom, which Marley believed was the will of Jah.
[…]
Contrasts Between Music and Lyrics
One striking element of Marley’s music is that virtually all of his songs have an upbeat, happy, bouncy feel to them. When listening to his reggae one gets the feeling that God is in heaven and all is right with the world. The phrase, “No problems, mon” comes immediately to mind. It is easy to smile and nod when listening to the musical statements of his songs and to be caught up in the sheer “listenability” of the music. But when one pays attention to the lyrics of those same bouncy, happy songs, one is struck by the militancy, the calls to action, and the consistent call for justice one finds in those same seemingly benign songs. This is not happy-go-lucky, pot-induced, “safe” music; it is transformative pedagogy, intended to engage the people to take action against all forms of oppression and injustice. The primary audience for reggae was originally the residents of Jamaica’s most desperate communities , and Marley’s music became a clarion call to stand up and fight for their freedom and for their rights. One major difference between reggae and both ska and rocksteady was that the earlier musical forms tended to limit themselves to commentary on local and community-based issues, like gang warfare in the “yards” or upon “love and sex” themes. Reggae deals more intentionally with universal themes like justice, African unity, and the spiritual life celebrating the presence of Jah.
Marley’s slow musical “shuffle” is intended to tone down the often militant, incendiary content of his lyrics to achieve a kind of musical balance that one finds missing in a contemporary form of resistance music like “gangsta rap.” Reggae does not only encourage resistance lyrically; the contrast between its musical approach and its lyrical content is an intentional choice of resisting the conventions of popular musical forms.
Even as seemingly innocent a song as “Jammin’” which has become such a popular dance tune and party song over the years states “No bullet can stop us now,” with its note of defiance in the face of death. It is no accident that this was the song he was performing at the “One Love Peace Concert” in 1978 when he called the contentious leaders of Jamaica’s two major political parties on stage and forced them to join hands in a sign of unity. (McCann and Hawke 2004, 80) This performance combined the entertainment value of the tune itself with a faith in Jah, a call for personal responsibility and self-development, and an overt act of political activism.
Time magazine declared Exodus the album of the century and praised it for “drawing inspiration from the Third World and then giving voice to it the world over.” (McCann and Hawke 2004, 82) The central theme of the song is the end of the suffering of all Jah’s people. It draws on the image of Israel’s Exodus story and the formative power of that event in the life of Israel. The repeating line in the song is “Exodus, movement of Jah people. Move! Move! Move! Move!” Marley calls for Jah to send another Moses to lead the people across the Red Sea, and for Jah to “come break down ‘pression, rule equality, wipe away transgression, set the captives free.” As Gregory K. Stephens claims, “The return to Africa, in Marley’s vision, represented not a quest for racial purity, but a return to a more humane philosophy. Africa was Marley’s utopian horizon: a place to escape from the ‘atomic misphilosophy’ of the ‘Babylon system’ and a model of a sustainable way of life structured upon ‘earth rhythms.’”(Stephens 1996, 296) A part of Marley’s message, here as in other songs, is that it is incumbent upon his audience to become engaged in the movement of peace, love, freedom, and unity. He is challenging his hearers to become involved in the movement back to a metaphorical Ethiopia, if not a literal one. He drew upon his own experience of exile to create a vision of a return to the Promised Land of Zion for all “Jah people.”
“Natural Mystic”
Kwame Dawes says “Natural Mystic” is “a song that gains its mysterious edge both from the way the music snakes up on us and from the lyrical insistence that what is happening around us is something deeply mystical.” (Dawes 2002, 192) Dawes continues his discussion of the song, saying it “represents what I have now come to call the essence of the reggae aesthetic, or at least how it was explored by Marley...The mystic was that which could not be explained easily by man, and the mystic was largely locked in the natural order of the universe.” (194) According to Worth, Marley’s line: “there’s a natural mystic blowing through the air, can’t keep them down; if you listen carefully now you will hear” indicates that mystic knowledge is “ancient and enigmatic knowledge, the knowledge of Jah.” (Worth 1995, 77) One does not need the kind of intellectual, rational knowledge that characterizes Western philosophy and religion; one needs only to “listen” carefully to the kind of communication that is available only to those “with ears to hear.” One clearly does not need dogmas, “isms and schisms;” one needs to know Jah.
African slaves who were brought to Jamaica brought with them a distinctively African approach to music. The Maroons, who settled in the mountainous interior of Jamaica as essentially a sub-culture of runaway slaves who resisted the White culture and its oppression, maintained their African identities through the music of their homeland and well as their religious practices.
John Miller Chernoff explains that African music is distinct from Western styles of music in several ways. First, Western music is centered on melody and intervals between notes, with the rhythm serving to link the notes together. (Chernoff 1979, 225) As he states, “In Western music, then rhythm is most definitely secondary in emphasis and complexity to harmony and melody. It is the progression of sound through a series of chords or tones that we recognize as beautiful.” (226) African music reverses those emphases to place rhythm in the primary position of emphasis, with melody taking secondary importance. In African cultures, as well as Afro-Jamaican cultures, the drum provided the heartbeat of society as well as the ground of music.
A . J . Smith’s thesis mentioned drumming and dance as two of the most prominent elements of the African world-view, including the African religious world view. (A.J. Smith 1997, 22- 3) The drumbeat served as a form of communication for the community, but it also connected the music to the internal rhythms of the heartbeat and the rhythm of breathing as well as the “Natural Mystic” of the land. African music most frequently has at least two different rhythms going on at once, as opposed to Western music which tends to have one dominant rhythm accompanying and enhancing the melody and harmony (thus Western music speaks of “syncopation” to refer to those rhythms that differ from the “norm” of regularity in rhythmic structure.) The multiple rhythms that characterize African music begin the “call and response” character we identify with this musical tradition. One instrument or one drum offers a rhythmic statement, to which another instrument, drum or voice responds with its own counter-statement. African music is clearly untended as a conversation among those making the music. (Chernoff 1979, 227)
It is difficult to determine a solo voice in traditional African music. The call-and-response, conversational nature provides a setting for, and encouragement of improvisation on behalf of the various musicians and voices performing it. (228) A.J. Smith quotes Peter Paris, who states that the power of Black music is its ability to deviate from the constraints of Western, Euro-centric music and to give expression to the inherently sacred expression of the inner spirit. She states, once again presenting Paris’ claims, “The African legacy of call-and-response, polyrhythms, rhythmic counterpoints, melodic and harmonic sophistication, and slurred and flat notes speak the special language of Soul.” (A.J. Smith 1997, 18) Likewise, reggae music is a musical form that is dominated by the bass and the drums, rather than the guitar solo (the most prominent role for the guitar is a strumming, rhythm guitar, almost always played on the up-beat, rather than the down-beat of a song) or even the voice of the singer. […] The bass provides the main beat and the major melody of the song, with emphasis on beats one and three, while the drums counter with a heavy bass drum beat on two and four (the “one drop” that characterizes reggae music) and rim shots and use of the cymbals to drive along another rhythm that syncopates and improvises around beats one and three. The guitar plays a double stroke on the up - beats of two and four, while the voices provide yet another rhythmic statement. The tempo is not rushed, but rather laid-back and comfortable, which contrasts with the content of the lyrics, which contain a plea for action toward freedom and justice.
Reggae is music of resistance and defies the world-view of “Babylon.” It is intended to share the experience of suffering of the poor of Jamaica and the Third World and to call the “sufferahs” to solidarity with each other in the struggle for freedom, which Marley believed was the will of Jah.
[…]
Contrasts Between Music and Lyrics
One striking element of Marley’s music is that virtually all of his songs have an upbeat, happy, bouncy feel to them. When listening to his reggae one gets the feeling that God is in heaven and all is right with the world. The phrase, “No problems, mon” comes immediately to mind. It is easy to smile and nod when listening to the musical statements of his songs and to be caught up in the sheer “listenability” of the music. But when one pays attention to the lyrics of those same bouncy, happy songs, one is struck by the militancy, the calls to action, and the consistent call for justice one finds in those same seemingly benign songs. This is not happy-go-lucky, pot-induced, “safe” music; it is transformative pedagogy, intended to engage the people to take action against all forms of oppression and injustice. The primary audience for reggae was originally the residents of Jamaica’s most desperate communities , and Marley’s music became a clarion call to stand up and fight for their freedom and for their rights. One major difference between reggae and both ska and rocksteady was that the earlier musical forms tended to limit themselves to commentary on local and community-based issues, like gang warfare in the “yards” or upon “love and sex” themes. Reggae deals more intentionally with universal themes like justice, African unity, and the spiritual life celebrating the presence of Jah.
Marley’s slow musical “shuffle” is intended to tone down the often militant, incendiary content of his lyrics to achieve a kind of musical balance that one finds missing in a contemporary form of resistance music like “gangsta rap.” Reggae does not only encourage resistance lyrically; the contrast between its musical approach and its lyrical content is an intentional choice of resisting the conventions of popular musical forms.
Even as seemingly innocent a song as “Jammin’” which has become such a popular dance tune and party song over the years states “No bullet can stop us now,” with its note of defiance in the face of death. It is no accident that this was the song he was performing at the “One Love Peace Concert” in 1978 when he called the contentious leaders of Jamaica’s two major political parties on stage and forced them to join hands in a sign of unity. (McCann and Hawke 2004, 80) This performance combined the entertainment value of the tune itself with a faith in Jah, a call for personal responsibility and self-development, and an overt act of political activism.
Time magazine declared Exodus the album of the century and praised it for “drawing inspiration from the Third World and then giving voice to it the world over.” (McCann and Hawke 2004, 82) The central theme of the song is the end of the suffering of all Jah’s people. It draws on the image of Israel’s Exodus story and the formative power of that event in the life of Israel. The repeating line in the song is “Exodus, movement of Jah people. Move! Move! Move! Move!” Marley calls for Jah to send another Moses to lead the people across the Red Sea, and for Jah to “come break down ‘pression, rule equality, wipe away transgression, set the captives free.” As Gregory K. Stephens claims, “The return to Africa, in Marley’s vision, represented not a quest for racial purity, but a return to a more humane philosophy. Africa was Marley’s utopian horizon: a place to escape from the ‘atomic misphilosophy’ of the ‘Babylon system’ and a model of a sustainable way of life structured upon ‘earth rhythms.’”(Stephens 1996, 296) A part of Marley’s message, here as in other songs, is that it is incumbent upon his audience to become engaged in the movement of peace, love, freedom, and unity. He is challenging his hearers to become involved in the movement back to a metaphorical Ethiopia, if not a literal one. He drew upon his own experience of exile to create a vision of a return to the Promised Land of Zion for all “Jah people.”
“Natural Mystic”
Kwame Dawes says “Natural Mystic” is “a song that gains its mysterious edge both from the way the music snakes up on us and from the lyrical insistence that what is happening around us is something deeply mystical.” (Dawes 2002, 192) Dawes continues his discussion of the song, saying it “represents what I have now come to call the essence of the reggae aesthetic, or at least how it was explored by Marley...The mystic was that which could not be explained easily by man, and the mystic was largely locked in the natural order of the universe.” (194) According to Worth, Marley’s line: “there’s a natural mystic blowing through the air, can’t keep them down; if you listen carefully now you will hear” indicates that mystic knowledge is “ancient and enigmatic knowledge, the knowledge of Jah.” (Worth 1995, 77) One does not need the kind of intellectual, rational knowledge that characterizes Western philosophy and religion; one needs only to “listen” carefully to the kind of communication that is available only to those “with ears to hear.” One clearly does not need dogmas, “isms and schisms;” one needs to know Jah.
Tuesday 19 September 2017
Monday 18 September 2017
TWO 1977 REVIEWS OF BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS' EXODUS.
Review: Vivien Goldman, Sounds, May 1977
FROM A PURELY marketing point of view, this is the one. With Rastaman Vibration’s appearance, there weren’t many music fans on the planet unaware of Bob Marley’s existence in his capacity as reggae’s only international superstar and Rasta representative.
A heavy platform, and depressing when taken in conjunction with sales figures. The prognosis appeared to be that with all the talent, money, promotion in the world, reggae wasn’t ever gonna SELL the way that rock sells.
If any album manages to break that barrier, Exodus should be it. Karl Pitterson’s usual crisp, clean sound is calculated to be springy enough for rock fans while staying punchy enough to keep the roots fans ‘just about’ satisfied. It’s a dangerous tightrope, and Marley’s treading the same one.
One of the most obvious things about the album is the way it breaks down into a “hard” side (one) and a “soft” (two). The real heavyweights start at track three, side one — ‘Guiltiness’. The album’s finest hour, stately impassioned vocals (“these are the big fish that eat up the small fish, they would do anything to materialize their every wish…”) while the track plus the I Three sound heart-rending, so poignantly severe singing about the fate of the downpressor that I’m reduced to jelly.
Then there’s ‘Heathen’, which steps so swinging, Bob’s voice beseeching, thrillingly low on the irresistible rhythms of the chorus… Carly’s drums tinkle the sound onward and upward, Family’s bass unyielding as it dances between the notes. With a rhythm section solid as that, the Wailers have to remain superb. Then on through the sombre pared-down percussion of the title track, unswerving as it beckons Jah people to Africa. Marley’s imperious as he whiplashes out the command to move… you’d have to be deaf to resist. So purposeful; it’s all delivered with an authority that convinces. Majestic.
Side two is full of surprises. Superficially, it’s a bunch of love songs, lines like “I don’t want to wait in vain for your love” complete with crooning “ooh ooh girls”. I pictured riots in Brixton when that came out. But as Marley explained to me, the message of Rasta is there for all those with ears to receive it. When you think he’s talking about a girl playing hard to get, he’s talking just as much about unheeding audiences of Babylon as he sings oh sooooo romantically, “it’s your love that I’m waiting on, it’s me love that you’re running from…” See it deh?
Equally, the chirpy “simplicity” of the world contained in ‘Three Little Birds’, a sweetly sprightly melody in which tame birds hop on Marley’s windowsill to inform him, “don’t worry ‘bout a thing, ‘cos every little thing’s gonna be alright”, could be construed as a manic attempt to reduce his revolutionary image to nil in three little words. Not (necessarily) so, Rasta! Checking it fully, the message is about positive rastaman vibrations again, perfectly in keeping with the savage, somber exhortations of ‘Exodus.’
Yet it’s still true that side two, functioning on two levels as it does, is the least threatening side Marley’s ever cut to white western rock ears. Marley’s answer to that was: (a) Why should he stay in the same place? Why sing ‘Burning and Looting’ rehashes just to satisfy people’s expectations? (b) It’s only a return to Wailer’s roots (remember, the original Wailers cut a single of ‘What’s New Pussycat’, released on Island over here many moons ago), and© The advantage of being more accessible is that more people get to hear the message by buying the album, and there’s no harm in that…
As far as I’m concerned, it’s restricting and regressive to judge any album purely in terms of how closely it matches traditional “requirements” of its genre. If the emphasis has shifted from soul rebel street fighting man to natural mystic (the title of the mellow opening track, Marley’s voice more silken and haunting than ever before) it’s dumb to automatically register it as a Bad Thing.
Uncharitable people have been quick to view the new silver-voiced Marley as a cop-out, a hero in retreat, backpedaling furiously after the recent gunmen’s attempt on his life. That’s dumb too. Objectively, Marley’s music has shifted into new gear, moved into a new space. OK, he sings with a new suppleness that you can describe as ‘soft’, the way the lilting ‘So Much Things To Say’ merges into the ‘Natty Dread’ style Biblical blend of sorrow, tragedy and solemn pride on ‘Guiltiness’ encapsulates the point — Marley’s exhibiting a new degree of vocal control, capable of shifting emotions subtly but unmistakably as he sings one word.
While Marley’s songwriting abilities remain as powerful as they are (and remember, there’s an album’s worth of fine material left in the can), while he continues to surround himself with musicians as excellent as the Barrett Brothers, Dirty Harry and the rest, Bob Marley will continue to remain King of Reggae in the eyes of the world.
Review: Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, July 1977
There is a contradiction here between the enormous abilities of the Wailers — particularly the magnificent rhythm section of Aston Barrett, bass, and Carlton Barrett, drums, and the spidery lead guitar of Julian "Junior" Marvin — and the flatness of the material Bob Marley has given them to work with. The more I listen to this album, the more I am seduced by the playing of the band; at the same time, the connection I want to make with the music is subverted by overly familiar lyric themes unredeemed by wit or color, and by the absence of emotion in Marley's voice. There are some well-crafted lines here, but given Marley's singing, they don't come across. The precise intelligence one hears in every note of music cannot make up for its lack of drama, and that lack is Marley's.
This is very odd. From the time the Wailers' first American album, Catch a Fire, was released here, it was drama that carried the Wailers' music across the water and made it matter to people who had never heard of reggae, and who may well have had to look up Jamaica on a map to figure out exactly where it was. "Concrete Jungle" was as dramatic as Muddy Waters' "Rollin' Stone"; "I Shot the Sheriff" was a one-act play that crossed the boards in under five minutes. On the Wailers' disappointing last album, Rastaman Vibration, there was still "War," where Marley summoned up visions of eternal conflict merely by chanting excerpts from a speech by Haile Selassie. For that matter, Bob Marley onstage defines the kind of drama that grows naturally out of the music of a people who refuse to accept their native land as their true home, whose music, again and again, points them toward the temporally impossible but mystically necessary goal of a return to Africa. As with the overwhelming "Jah Guide" on ex-Wailer Peter Tosh's exciting new album, Equal Rights, Marley onstage is ominous, determined, full of barely suppressed violence. At the same time he offers a suggestion of warmth, of unshakable confidence, of an invitation to the audience to follow him on a heroic quest.
Exodus doesn't reach these heights, nor does it seem to aim for them, save on the seven-minute title performance, which sounds like War on a slow day and wears out long before it is half over. If I didn't have more faith in Marley I'd think he was trying to go disco — the tune is that mechanical. The four songs on the first side that lead up to "Exodus" — songs of religious politics — are all well made, but within the most narrow limits; the best of them is "Natural Mystic," Marley's "Blowin' in the Wind" (though where Dylan seemed to say the answers were blowing away, Marley is certain they are blowing straight to anyone whose soul is pure enough to receive them). On the second side the album falls apart; the mix of sex songs (on "Jamming," Marley sometimes sounds like an obsequious nightclub singer) and tunes about keeping faith simply do not sustain one's interest. Marley's performance never reaches out; it seems to collapse inward. There's no sense of the dangerous, secret messages one half heard on earlier albums; on Exodus there are no secrets to tell.
It is very hard to make any sort of more than superficial judgment on a Wailers album until one knows who it is made for — Jamaicans? American whites? Jamaicans in England? whites in England? Africans? — and I don't know. What bothers me is that I have the feeling Marley, likely pressed by his label to continue the search for an American breakthrough without losing his original base in Jamaica and England, does not know either. The complete lack of extremes on Exodus — of deep emotion, intensely drawn situations or memorable arrangements and melodies — does not mean Marley is playing it safe, but it does seem to imply some sort of paralysis that must be broken before he can again strike with real power.
Of course, there may be another reason for that lack of extremes: last year, Marley and his band were attacked by hitmen just before they were to play at an election rally for Michael Manley, Jamaica's prime minister. Marley and his wife Rita — she is one of the I Threes, whose singing on Exodus is first-rate — were both shot. It is a fact that Marley's music and his religion and his politics, which are hardly separable, could cost him his life. If he has pulled back from that event in his music and in his singing, then it is a withdrawal we are bound to respect; but if it lasts, Marley's would-be assassins will have gotten some of what they came for. Jamaica's most distinctive voice will forfeit its strength. I don't expect that to happen on any permanent basis, but it may be what we are now hearing.
FROM A PURELY marketing point of view, this is the one. With Rastaman Vibration’s appearance, there weren’t many music fans on the planet unaware of Bob Marley’s existence in his capacity as reggae’s only international superstar and Rasta representative.
A heavy platform, and depressing when taken in conjunction with sales figures. The prognosis appeared to be that with all the talent, money, promotion in the world, reggae wasn’t ever gonna SELL the way that rock sells.
If any album manages to break that barrier, Exodus should be it. Karl Pitterson’s usual crisp, clean sound is calculated to be springy enough for rock fans while staying punchy enough to keep the roots fans ‘just about’ satisfied. It’s a dangerous tightrope, and Marley’s treading the same one.
One of the most obvious things about the album is the way it breaks down into a “hard” side (one) and a “soft” (two). The real heavyweights start at track three, side one — ‘Guiltiness’. The album’s finest hour, stately impassioned vocals (“these are the big fish that eat up the small fish, they would do anything to materialize their every wish…”) while the track plus the I Three sound heart-rending, so poignantly severe singing about the fate of the downpressor that I’m reduced to jelly.
Then there’s ‘Heathen’, which steps so swinging, Bob’s voice beseeching, thrillingly low on the irresistible rhythms of the chorus… Carly’s drums tinkle the sound onward and upward, Family’s bass unyielding as it dances between the notes. With a rhythm section solid as that, the Wailers have to remain superb. Then on through the sombre pared-down percussion of the title track, unswerving as it beckons Jah people to Africa. Marley’s imperious as he whiplashes out the command to move… you’d have to be deaf to resist. So purposeful; it’s all delivered with an authority that convinces. Majestic.
Side two is full of surprises. Superficially, it’s a bunch of love songs, lines like “I don’t want to wait in vain for your love” complete with crooning “ooh ooh girls”. I pictured riots in Brixton when that came out. But as Marley explained to me, the message of Rasta is there for all those with ears to receive it. When you think he’s talking about a girl playing hard to get, he’s talking just as much about unheeding audiences of Babylon as he sings oh sooooo romantically, “it’s your love that I’m waiting on, it’s me love that you’re running from…” See it deh?
Equally, the chirpy “simplicity” of the world contained in ‘Three Little Birds’, a sweetly sprightly melody in which tame birds hop on Marley’s windowsill to inform him, “don’t worry ‘bout a thing, ‘cos every little thing’s gonna be alright”, could be construed as a manic attempt to reduce his revolutionary image to nil in three little words. Not (necessarily) so, Rasta! Checking it fully, the message is about positive rastaman vibrations again, perfectly in keeping with the savage, somber exhortations of ‘Exodus.’
Yet it’s still true that side two, functioning on two levels as it does, is the least threatening side Marley’s ever cut to white western rock ears. Marley’s answer to that was: (a) Why should he stay in the same place? Why sing ‘Burning and Looting’ rehashes just to satisfy people’s expectations? (b) It’s only a return to Wailer’s roots (remember, the original Wailers cut a single of ‘What’s New Pussycat’, released on Island over here many moons ago), and© The advantage of being more accessible is that more people get to hear the message by buying the album, and there’s no harm in that…
As far as I’m concerned, it’s restricting and regressive to judge any album purely in terms of how closely it matches traditional “requirements” of its genre. If the emphasis has shifted from soul rebel street fighting man to natural mystic (the title of the mellow opening track, Marley’s voice more silken and haunting than ever before) it’s dumb to automatically register it as a Bad Thing.
Uncharitable people have been quick to view the new silver-voiced Marley as a cop-out, a hero in retreat, backpedaling furiously after the recent gunmen’s attempt on his life. That’s dumb too. Objectively, Marley’s music has shifted into new gear, moved into a new space. OK, he sings with a new suppleness that you can describe as ‘soft’, the way the lilting ‘So Much Things To Say’ merges into the ‘Natty Dread’ style Biblical blend of sorrow, tragedy and solemn pride on ‘Guiltiness’ encapsulates the point — Marley’s exhibiting a new degree of vocal control, capable of shifting emotions subtly but unmistakably as he sings one word.
While Marley’s songwriting abilities remain as powerful as they are (and remember, there’s an album’s worth of fine material left in the can), while he continues to surround himself with musicians as excellent as the Barrett Brothers, Dirty Harry and the rest, Bob Marley will continue to remain King of Reggae in the eyes of the world.
Review: Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, July 1977
There is a contradiction here between the enormous abilities of the Wailers — particularly the magnificent rhythm section of Aston Barrett, bass, and Carlton Barrett, drums, and the spidery lead guitar of Julian "Junior" Marvin — and the flatness of the material Bob Marley has given them to work with. The more I listen to this album, the more I am seduced by the playing of the band; at the same time, the connection I want to make with the music is subverted by overly familiar lyric themes unredeemed by wit or color, and by the absence of emotion in Marley's voice. There are some well-crafted lines here, but given Marley's singing, they don't come across. The precise intelligence one hears in every note of music cannot make up for its lack of drama, and that lack is Marley's.
This is very odd. From the time the Wailers' first American album, Catch a Fire, was released here, it was drama that carried the Wailers' music across the water and made it matter to people who had never heard of reggae, and who may well have had to look up Jamaica on a map to figure out exactly where it was. "Concrete Jungle" was as dramatic as Muddy Waters' "Rollin' Stone"; "I Shot the Sheriff" was a one-act play that crossed the boards in under five minutes. On the Wailers' disappointing last album, Rastaman Vibration, there was still "War," where Marley summoned up visions of eternal conflict merely by chanting excerpts from a speech by Haile Selassie. For that matter, Bob Marley onstage defines the kind of drama that grows naturally out of the music of a people who refuse to accept their native land as their true home, whose music, again and again, points them toward the temporally impossible but mystically necessary goal of a return to Africa. As with the overwhelming "Jah Guide" on ex-Wailer Peter Tosh's exciting new album, Equal Rights, Marley onstage is ominous, determined, full of barely suppressed violence. At the same time he offers a suggestion of warmth, of unshakable confidence, of an invitation to the audience to follow him on a heroic quest.
Exodus doesn't reach these heights, nor does it seem to aim for them, save on the seven-minute title performance, which sounds like War on a slow day and wears out long before it is half over. If I didn't have more faith in Marley I'd think he was trying to go disco — the tune is that mechanical. The four songs on the first side that lead up to "Exodus" — songs of religious politics — are all well made, but within the most narrow limits; the best of them is "Natural Mystic," Marley's "Blowin' in the Wind" (though where Dylan seemed to say the answers were blowing away, Marley is certain they are blowing straight to anyone whose soul is pure enough to receive them). On the second side the album falls apart; the mix of sex songs (on "Jamming," Marley sometimes sounds like an obsequious nightclub singer) and tunes about keeping faith simply do not sustain one's interest. Marley's performance never reaches out; it seems to collapse inward. There's no sense of the dangerous, secret messages one half heard on earlier albums; on Exodus there are no secrets to tell.
It is very hard to make any sort of more than superficial judgment on a Wailers album until one knows who it is made for — Jamaicans? American whites? Jamaicans in England? whites in England? Africans? — and I don't know. What bothers me is that I have the feeling Marley, likely pressed by his label to continue the search for an American breakthrough without losing his original base in Jamaica and England, does not know either. The complete lack of extremes on Exodus — of deep emotion, intensely drawn situations or memorable arrangements and melodies — does not mean Marley is playing it safe, but it does seem to imply some sort of paralysis that must be broken before he can again strike with real power.
Of course, there may be another reason for that lack of extremes: last year, Marley and his band were attacked by hitmen just before they were to play at an election rally for Michael Manley, Jamaica's prime minister. Marley and his wife Rita — she is one of the I Threes, whose singing on Exodus is first-rate — were both shot. It is a fact that Marley's music and his religion and his politics, which are hardly separable, could cost him his life. If he has pulled back from that event in his music and in his singing, then it is a withdrawal we are bound to respect; but if it lasts, Marley's would-be assassins will have gotten some of what they came for. Jamaica's most distinctive voice will forfeit its strength. I don't expect that to happen on any permanent basis, but it may be what we are now hearing.
Sunday 17 September 2017
A suggested method for finding stuff to say about music other than "I like it / I don't like it."
How To “Read” Music
Approaches to evaluating music
Approaches to evaluating music
Three Elements
1.Sound
- Traditional technical reading: melody, harmony, rhythm, structure etc.
- Other ways of reading: sound production, texture, structure, etc.
- Traditional technical reading: melody, harmony, rhythm, structure etc.
- Other ways of reading: sound production, texture, structure, etc.
2. Text
- Traditional literary analysis: themes, imagery, use of literary and linguistic devices etc.
- Other ways of reading: interface of text and music, text as a sonic component, performance etc.
- Traditional literary analysis: themes, imagery, use of literary and linguistic devices etc.
- Other ways of reading: interface of text and music, text as a sonic component, performance etc.
3. Context
- Where the music sits within the historical development of a particular style or genre
- What features identify the style or genre and to what extent these genre-specific features have been combined, stretched or ignored to produce new styles and genres
- Social, political, philosophical and aesthetic influences and implications relating to a musical work etc.
- Where the music sits within the historical development of a particular style or genre
- What features identify the style or genre and to what extent these genre-specific features have been combined, stretched or ignored to produce new styles and genres
- Social, political, philosophical and aesthetic influences and implications relating to a musical work etc.
Tuesday 12 September 2017
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
