Media Culture

The Importance Of Achieving Imperfection

[Orginially posted on 04/03/10 at roundonefight.co.uk]

 

I will start of this post by saying, I do not know who this is aimed at, it could be artists, it could be producers, it could be the BBC, but all I will say is that this post was inspired by two things - the band 'Title Fight' (who I gushed over yesterday), and the closure of BBC 6 Music. 

This blog post could have been a lot longer, but I would rather debate than try and tie everything up in one long block of text.
 
As I explained yesterday, The Title Fight are pretty young, but what they lack in age they make up for in passion, enthusiasm and talent. 
 
Their debut album is the sound of youth, and as such, it is far from perfect. 
 
The mix is a bit shoddy in places, the vocals are a tad strained and sometimes don't quite hit the note, and the guitar work is sometimes slightly sloppy. 
 
But you know what? These imperfections make the album 10x more brilliant. Instead of sounding like another indentikit-emo-punk-band-straight-off-the-production-line these kids sound like kids, like human beings, like a band, like a gang. 
 
This music sounds real. It sounds like it will be important. It sounds fucking vital.
 
My immediate reaction to seeing the band live and hearing the album was to think of the early works of bands like The Get Up Kids, At The Drive In and Cap'N'Jazz. The similarities those 3 bands share? Their early recordings are sloppy, imperfect, and utterly vital to the creation of an entire scene. Those 3 bands are what we in the business of "talking shit about music" call 'seminal', 'game changers' and 'genre defining'.
 
This is no coincidence.
 
Recording a perfect track with every note in place, with every beat time stretched to hit at the right time, with every vocal sang line by line to ensure maximum 'breath allowance' may make for nice daytime radio fodder, and it might sell you some records, but imperfect records make people want to start bands of their own.
 
You hear a band like this, you love it, and then you say "shit, I could do this!". You realise that these guys are real kids playing real music just like you.
 
I could not imagine somebody hearing the over produced, note perfect, pop masquerading as punk, records by Youmeatsix and thinking the same thing.
 
Perfection may sound good on the radio, it may sell, but imperfection inspires.
 
I suppose you could ask where 6 music comes into this equation? Well, for me 6 music is the station where this imperfect music can find a voice and find an audience.
 
I shared a story on another blog recently regarding Steve Lamaq's old evening session on Radio 1, where I heard a track by a band called Serum called Know How. Now, I would wager that no more than 100 people in the country have heard this song, but it remains in my top 5 songs of all time.
 
And it is just bass and vocal. Imagine that being played on Radio One these days at 8pm of an evening.
 
In the days since Lamaq left Radio One and since John Peel sadly left us all, Radio One's alternative programming has been slowly but surely brought in to line with the mainstream, with any true alternatives relegated to the graveyard shift. But that was ok, because the alternative moved to 6 Music. 
 
With 6 Music now going, where will our alternative go? I can't see it going back to Radio One in the way it used to be, and anyone who argues that 'specialist DJs' such as Zane Lowe offer a real alternative are either being deliberately obtuse or are simply wrong.
 
I will say it again; Perfection may sound good on the radio, it may sell, but imperfection inspires.
 
The BBC should have a duty to inspire, so where will we find our imperfections now?

This is hardcore - The importance of (sub)culture in music.

Last night I travelled to Leeds to see a triple bill of Polar Bear Club, Shook Ones, and The Title Fight play in a small dingy side room at the Cockpit (which itself is small and dingy).

I went to shows like this all the way through my formative years, and never thought anything of it, but now, a good few years since I last went to such an event, standing at the bar feeling decidedly 'too old for this shit' (Glover, 1987), I could think about the subculture that I know as 'Hardcore kids'.

The first thing that struck me that evening was the huge mix of ages, both on stage and in the crowd, and how young and old appeared to be 'as one' with no divide.

And by 'as one' I mean they were ALL going "fucking mental".

If you have never witnessed a mosh pit at a hardcore show then it is a bizarre mix of violence, anger and camaraderie. Arms are flailing and fists are clenched, with all the intent that suggests, but if somebody hits the deck they are immediately picked up and offered a consolidatory arm around the shoulder and quick singalong before festivities resume.

It's the closest you'll ever get to a real life fight club, set to fast punk rock music.

Violence at gigs isn't really my thing, but I get it. It's loud angry and incendiary music that is made for the kids, by the kids. No matter how old those kids get. The Title Fight and Shook Ones looked like they'd entered some sort of elaborate 'father and son band competition', with the former band making me feel decidedly old as their youth was only overshadowed by their brilliance. However, once Shook Ones burst into life onstage they were ageless. The power that music has means that you never need to grow up, not if you don't want to.

The sense of equality and togetherness did not end with the blurring of age gaps. Each band on the bill talked of the role that the crowd plays in not only the show, but their careers and also the scene as a whole. 
The Title Fight appealed from the stage for somewhere to sleep that night, and by the time Shook Ones made their plea, the request had already been answered. Fans flocked to the merch stand knowing that their purchase would keep the bands, and the scene, alive for a bit longer.

In this scene it is not 'us and them' it is not 'the band and the crowd' it is not 'old and young'. It is 'us', it is 'we'. The whole of the room that night was a gang.

For me, it is 'they', as I was only ever on the peripheries of this culture when I was younger, and have only moved further away from it as I have grown up. 

But I still love the music, and there is a huge part of me that wishes I was fully immersed in the culture of the hardcore kid, because then I would simply never have to grow up. 

For now I will leave you with Neck Deep from the awesome Title Fight

Stuart Hall - Notes on deconstructing 'The Popular'

In this chapter, Hall discusses the notion of 'popular' when applied to culture, and raises the issues and problems with the different definitions of the term.

Hall argues that culture is structured into the domains of 'popular' and 'non-popular' and "from period to period the contents of each category change. Popular forms become enhanced in cultural value and move up the cultural escalator - and find themselves on the opposite side. Other things cease to have high cultural value, and are appropriated into the popular, becoming transformed in the process".

An example used by Hall is "Today's rebel folk singer ends up, tomorrow, on the cover of the Observer's colour magazine". Here Hall shows how sub-cultures and high cultures can through time be absorbed into popular culture.

The dividing lines of these categories, Hall argues, are maintained by institutions such as education, and scholars. A very Marxist approach.

Hall call's popular culture a 'battleground' where cultural power and domination has "real effects, despite being neither all powerful or all inclusive".

Due to Hall's view that cultural power and domination is never all powerful or inclusive, despite having an effect on popular culture, I tend to agree with his writings in this chapter. I believe that culture is something that is born of what we as individuals in society do on a ground level, and these sub cultures then grow and evolve as they are absorbed into the mainstream.

Radical movements in art, media or politics always begin in niche forms before becoming popularised. This is why Hall's idea of contents of cultural categories constantly changing holds so much weight.

 

Representin'. I be mixin'.

My first problem with nominating a media text that represents 'my culture' is that I don't really feel that I have a strong cultural background that I can draw upon. I am a white, straight, lower middle class male. The definition of an average background.

The one area that I feel defines me is music.

My initial reaction to nominating a media text was a mix tape. There were several reasons for this. Firstly, the cassette tape is from my 'era' (as I am a student who verges dangerously on the cusp of being officially 'mature'), secondly the majority of my life is spent talking about, listening to and sharing music that I love with people, and finally the 'mix tape' is a very important item in my own life, with many tapes made and also received that represent certian times and people in my life.

Unfortunately the mix tape misses one huge part of my life: the act of creating music. This led me to evolve my choice to simply a blank cassette tape. This represents the opportunity to create music, share existing music, or receive new music. The perfect representation of how I live my life, and my culture.

I did worry whether a blank tape counted as a 'media text', so in a final twist I nominate the book 'High Fidelity' by Nick Hornby. In the book the main protaganist Rob lives and defines his life through pop music and the production of mix tapes. If someone were to write a book about my life, this book would be pretty much 90% accurate, so I can't think of a better text to put forward.

Now, I'm off to enjoy a nice mix tape I've just been sent. Very apt.