Posted on

20 Years of Kid A: a Lifetime With Radiohead

In his new book, This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s “Kid A” and the Beginning of the 21st Century, author Steven Hyden celebrates and reminisces on the cultural impact of the legendary album

Radiohead’s groundbreaking album Kid A turned 20 this October, and much has been written about it, from the radical reviews published the week it came out, to the best of the decade lists it topped. It now lives high up on many lists of the greatest albums of all time, and its birthday was an excuse for fans and critics to write hundreds of articles and opinions about its impact and legacy. With This Isn’t Happening though, Stephen Hyden has written the cardinal text for the album that has meant so much to so many. Following a prologue, begins with author Stephen Hyden describing the scene before a Radiohead concert following the success of their album OK Computer. The passage details two breakdowns that lead singer Thom Yorke had before and after the show, and how they went on to inspire the album as a whole, and crucial lyrical moments. While surrounded by fans on a train, we enter Yorke’s head, as he tells himself “I’m not here, this isn’t happening,” lyrics which would become the center of one of the albums most impressive tracks, “How to Disappear Completely.” This combined insight into the meaning behind one of the lyrics of the album and the headspace of Yorke comes early into the book and establishes a running theme: that the story of Kid A is the story of Thom Yorke and the times he was living through. As such, the book works to weave context in with stories about the band and each of its members, and explains how they were connected. Though it sometimes leans too heavily into discussing context that doesn’t add much to the narrative, most of the points raised illuminate important details about Kid A and help the reader understand what makes it so important. For someone who is already a fan, the book contains anecdotes and facts to further deepen their love for the album, and the band.

Split into three sections: “Before Kid A,” “During Kid A,” and “After Kid A,” This Isn’t Happening dives headfirst into every detail surrounding the album, its production, and its impact. It is filled with quotes from interviews and analysis from Hyden on the instruments, studios, personnel, and inspirations that led to the album’s creation, while being equally devoted to recounting the social and political climate of the time. Pop culture and politics are treated with similar importance, because they were both key to understanding what Kid A could be about, and why the album sounds the way it does. The anxieties of the internet age and Y2K are repeatedly compared to the lyrics, and the description of the album as relating to our post-9/11 surveillance state is explored. Hyden also gives a lot of time to his own experiences, telling stories of what Radiohead has meant to him throughout his life and how that meaning has evolved. Amnesiac, a second album of songs recorded during the Kid A sessions that was released the next year, is given shine as well.

The insight given into the process of the creation of Kid A is enlightening, exciting, and often inspirational. The book tracks the years of writer’s block that the band faced, their conflicts and near breakup, and the ultimate inspiration that led to a burst of creativity, resulting in two albums worth of material. It theorizes about the possible meanings of cryptic lyrics, and explains the overarching meanings behind more well known ones (“yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon” is referenced often). Deep dives into the methods used by Yorke and his fellow bandmates to write and record the album are balanced by sweeping analysis of the music scene at the time of the album’s release. Putting Kid A in context against the nu metal and britpop of the time, along with previous releases from the band itself, works to place the reader in the headspace of someone experiencing the release of the album for the first time.

Most of the heavy lifting in this area though, comes from Hyden retelling his experiences growing up a Radiohead superfan. Large sections of the book are as much about the author as they are the band, with Hyden recounting his time listening to early Radiohead albums, downloading bootlegs, and hearing Kid A for the first time, along with many other stories that give the reader a glimpse into how the album was received by someone passionate about music, but not yet writing about it for a living. OK Computer and Kid A came out when Hyden was at the age where music discovery is most impactful on a person. During those teenage to young adult years, the music one discovers feels like it’s the most important art in the world, speaking to feelings and experiences that nobody else understands. Through this lens, the window into Hyden’s experiences is invaluable to someone who wants to understand the true impact of Kid A. Though many can write about sonic followers and disciples of the band, firsthand subjective experience elicits a more emotional response that carries throughout the book.

An interesting element for those interested in music criticism is the large section devoted to recounting the reviews given to the album. Reading the critical reception towards Kid A is not only useful for understanding the impact of the album, it’s also entertaining. From the famed Pitchfork review that declared listening to Kid A akin to “witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax,” to Mark Beaumont’s description of the album as “tubby, ostentatious, self-congratulatory, look-ma-I-can-suck-my-own-cock whiny old rubbish,” the critical response to the album is deserving of its spotlight. It also plays against the fact that the book itself is a critical response, giving Hyden the advantage of hindsight to be able to explore how Kid A’s influence extended even to birthing a new establishment in music criticism. 

The “Before Kid A” and “During Kid A” sections of the book were the most interesting, but as the book went on it fell into some issues with length and content choice. Context of other popular bands of the time is of course useful, but the pages given to recounting the career of Linkin Park didn’t add enough to the understanding of Radiohead to warrant the space they took up. The deep dives into Radiohead’s career after the album also went on too long, especially once the general conceit became that their work was less interesting than what they were putting out at their creative peaks. By the end, the book becomes much more about Radiohead than about Kid A, which isn’t nearly as interesting given that the amount of time dedicated to understanding or at least touching on every detail of the album takes away from the specificity than can be given to the rest of the discography. 

The main distraction though becomes how much Hyden makes the book about himself. For much of the book, his stories and opinions humanize what could have otherwise been a long research paper. His stories of listening to bootlegs and watching concerts transport the reader back to the year 2000, completely immersing them in the head of a superfan. Moments though, such as the subsection of the book entirely dedicated to Hyden’s opinion on how a combined Kid A and Amnesiac record should be sequenced, with long justifications for every choice, don’t teach the reader anything interesting. It’s a perfect prompt for fans to debate endlessly, but doesn’t work as a one-sided lecture. It would have been much more interesting to hear more about why each album’s songs ended up in their respective places, research that would have fit well next to the rest of the material, rather than a tracklist for the non-existent Kid Amnesiac, which read more like a Reddit post.

These issues, just like the rest of the book, spawn from Hyden’s love of Radiohead, and his desire to share that appreciation with the world. As such, these moments don’t come off as arrogant, but rather as a passionate fan getting a little carried away. Anyone who loves an artist or band this much can relate to that feeling and would gain further appreciation for Radiohead from reading this book. For fans of the band of course, This Isn’t Happening is a must read, even if only to relive the moments where Radiohead operated at their creative peak. Looking back on a classic album is a staple of music journalism, but providing interesting criticism and adding a unique perspective to an album while heaping reverence upon it is difficult. Hyden takes a que from Kid A, and successfully writes from a place of passion, exploring themes he cares about through entertaining stories that draw his readers in like the haunting opening notes to “Everything in its Right Place.” Once I finished the book, I complimented it with my most enjoyable listen yet of the album that inspired it. It remains as deserving of celebration today as it was when it came out twenty years ago. The pages of This Isn’t Happening are the perfect place to go for those who want to celebrate.

Posted on

Facebook is Full of Fiddling on Monday Nights, Thanks to Della Mae

Della Mae - David McClister

Kimber Ludiker (fiddler, second from right) and Avril Smith (guitarist, far left) dedicate their Monday nights to delivering a “hoedown” for their friends and fans

Desperate to find a concert livestream on a Monday night, I stumbled upon Della Mae, a bluegrass girl group that has been hosting a Facebook Live Hoedown every Monday since COVID-19 sent us all into quarantine. Founded by fiddle player Kimber Ludiker, vocalist/guitarist Celia Woodsmith, and mandolinist Jenni Lyn Gardner, the band has featured various female guitarists, bassists, and singers since its creation in 2009. According to their website, “[Della Mae’s] mission as a band is to showcase top female musicians, and to improve opportunities for women and girls through advocacy, mentorship, programming, and performance.” In a male-dominated music scene and bluegrass genre, they stand out as not only an all-female group performing traditional folk music but also as musicians who promote the well-being of women and girls all over the world. Over the past eleven years, Della Mae has traveled to over 30 different countries, performing their music and inspiring girls to follow their passions, even if it means being one of very few women in a field.

Della Mae has produced four albums and their most recent, “Highlight,” a tribute to sexual assault survivors, came out this past year. Unfortunately, COVID-19 cut their tour short, leaving them without live venues to perform after their concert on March 12th. This obstacle couldn’t stop these vibrant women from making music, though, which is what sparked Monday Night Hoedown. Inspired by other artists who were performing via Facebook Live, Kimber decided to start weekly hoedowns, playing her fiddle and accompanied by Avril Smith on guitar. The duo has persisted, not missing a week since they started back in March, performing bluegrass classics for their fans and friends on Facebook. Showered with praise from people in the comments, Kimber and Avril grinned and played requests for an hour and a half, the notes flying off their instruments as though the strings could sense the musicians’ fingers coming in for a pluck.

My experience watching the livestream was definitely unconventional – my laptop screencast to a TV in a study room on the second floor of an engineering building with one Airpod in my ear and the other in my friend’s – nonetheless, I was immersed in Kimber and Avril’s animated performance. Though talking to a computer screen, the two made me feel welcomed, as though they were treating me to an after-dinner jam session in their home. The tangy tones from the fiddle filled me with memories of campfire songs and Avril’s hearty guitar strumming kept me grounded. Even though these bluegrass tunes were new to me, I was captivated by every long note Kimber played on her fiddle, the warm sound of each pitch enchanting me as she drew her bow across the hearty strings. The two women breezed past notes rapidly, but never letting their cool demeanor fade. Kimber and Avril took turns being featured in each song, Kimber tapping her bow to supplement Avril with a beat and Avril strumming constant chords to back-up Kimber’s sprightly bowing. The music was lively, bringing just about anyone to tap their feet along to the guitar and fiddle.

Between songs, the women answered questions from the comments and greeted friends who frequent the weekly stream. The two were amicable and cheery, asking for requests from those watching and updating us on life changes – such as Kimber’s decision to participate in “Sobe-tober.” Kimber cracked a few jokes, saying that she was “just getting these fingers loosened up,” and apologizing for getting some notes wrong, while Avril reassured her that the wrong notes were simply personal interpretation of the song. The friendly exchanges between Avril and Kimber made me feel like I was part of their friend group and this was just another day with Della Mae. And just when the intermittent conversations seemed to be lasting too long, the pair would decide on a new song, strumming the first few chords and tuning the fiddle before jumping into another high-speed, high-energy number. Had I not been in a study pod, surrounded by strangers cramming for engineering tests, I would have gotten up and danced to the bubbly music that Kimber and Avril played.

One song that stuck with me was “Blue Violet Waltz,” the slowest tune of the set that had a familiar ring to it. Kimber randomly decided to play it, saying that an old friend had taught it to her, but she couldn’t remember the exact name. Luckily there were dozens of bluegrass fanatics in the comments, eager to offer the title of the song so that newbies like me could listen to it again later. The song felt like a lullaby to me – a song that I could drift to sleep to by a fireplace on a cold autumn night. The fiddle shifted seamlessly between bowed notes and plucked notes, the vibrato of the strings perfectly juxtaposed with the playful plucking that followed. While Kimber toyed with different techniques, staccato plucks, taps on the body of her instrument, and classic bow work, Avril kept a steady pace, playing sweet deep chords to cradle the fearless fiddle. Though the fiddle was notable in this piece for its versatility, Avril’s guitar was comforting, supplementing Kimber’s experimentation with gentle and familiar strumming.

Although COVID-19 has hurt performers particularly hard, Della Mae has demonstrated its resilience through their Monday Night Hoedowns. By taking what the musicians already had – a vast repertoire of bluegrass melodies, a loyal fanbase, and a solid social media presence – the band has continued to bring in revenue as well as provide entertainment for its audience. What could have been a hefty obstacle for the group has proven to be a catalyst for community, as the band has established themselves on Patreon and other streaming platforms over quarantine. Unlike a regular tour season, when the band would be on the road every day, traveling to perform for fans all over the country, Della Mae has been able to save themselves the exhaustion – and the gas – by performing on Facebook Live for fans from New Hampshire to Minnesota and beyond. While the experience is nowhere near the same as a live performance, fans get to communicate more intimately with Kimber and Avril during these hoedowns, asking questions and making requests in the comment bar. These weekly concerts provide a unique opportunity for both performer and listener, as Kimber and Avril talk openly about their experiences as musicians producing and performing music. Instead of the often disconnected ambience of a large concert venue, the Facebook Live Hoedown allows members of Della Mae to deliver beautiful songs in an intimate environment.

Della Mae has brilliantly exemplified how to perform during this socially-distant season, adapting sets to the digital age and taking this opportunity to grow closer to its audience. While more popular artists may have more listeners, Della Mae’s underground nature affords them with an intimate connection to those who listen to their music. Though I would love to hear more of their original pieces on the next livestream, the traditional bluegrass tunes highlight Kimber and Avril’s expertise in their instruments. Furthermore, newcomers like me get to hear the duo play the songs that inspire their own composition. If you’re looking for a livestream to start your week off right or just for something to dance along to on a Monday at 8, look no further than Della Mae’s Kimber and Avril’s Monday Night Hoedown.

Posted on

 You Like Jazz? Take A Chance on Ithaca College!

The Ithaca College Jazz Vocal Repertory Ensemble offers a night filled with extraordinary talent and welcomed surprises for all music lovers to indulge in.

Improvisation in every form, the performance by the Jazz Vocal Repertory Ensemble had everything one could ask for. On the 27th of January 2020 the ensemble, home to Ithaca College, put on a fantastic show that music-lovers from all walks of life could enjoy. A time when blissful concertgoers could enjoy the privilege of attending in-person concerts on a regular basis without having the fear of being infected by a deadly virus. Unfortunately, we no longer have the same privilege, but alas we have learnt to accept this change and grown accustomed to watching recorded concerts from the comforts of our own homes. As luck would have it, the performance was recorded and is accessible for all to relish on the Ithaca College School of Music 2019-2020 Archive webpage. Even if you are a casual listener of Jazz, I can guarantee you will enjoy the talent and exuberant energy the ensemble exudes. Directed by the gifted John W. White, an active and involved member of the Ithaca college community who has clearly cultivated a special relationship with his musicians, the performance does not lack in any aspect.

Allow me to preface my remarks about the extraordinary talent this ensemble possess by describing how the concert opens: Prior to the concert the conductor and his students spontaneously decided to ‘add a tune’ for the rhythm section, in light of the fact that it was a jazz concert. Of course, every jazz concert must contain at least one piece for the rhythm section, so this last-minute revelation was really no surprise. In case you are convinced that the spontaneity was a ploy to paint the musicians in a more talented light and impress the audience, let that doubt be put to rest as the piece was not even included in the program. With precise instruction to the ensemble, consisting of a piano, upright bass, and drum set, they proceed to perform ‘All The Things You Are’ perfectly, hitting every note with unmatched precision, leaving us to question the nature of their being; perhaps they are robots and the piece was programmed into their very being? This explanation may offer more merit than the idea that they are simply human like the rest of us. Each musician seems to have masterful control over their instrument, always on time and in tune. Throughout their performance, they glance at one another, as if speaking their own secret language through gestures and facial expressions, in order to communicate cues. An impressive feat given the fact that they are not paying full attention to their instrument when attempting to perform a rather musically and technically demanding piece. They casually trade improvisatory solos among themselves with such grace and ease that one can only assume they are all being controlled by a singular higher being. Every soloist has an unparalleled accuracy with pitch and sharp cut offs. Each solo speaks to the mastery and versatility of each member of the ensemble, demonstrating to the audience the immense amount of talent packed onto the tiny stage.

After the unplanned detour, the scheduled program begins as the jazz vocalists walk on, immediately commanding control of the stage. An ensemble of 10 female vocalists stand confidently in front of their music stands, ready to amaze. Starting with ‘One Note Samba’ by Antonio Carlos Jobim, the performers sway around enthusiastically to the driving beat of the music drenched in Latin flavor. The ensemble enters in unity, singing with clear diction and outstanding pitch. Sharp cutoffs and solid entrances make the performance professional-esque. Throughout the piece, they add musical variation by performing intriguing harmonies that include octaves and other, more complex, intervals. As soon as we are left feeling satiated with all the musical motifs that had been offered, a few different vocalists perform unique solos. Not just any type of solos, scat singing— vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all— a considerably harder form of singing. The soloists, one by one, walk up to center stage and start improvising their hearts out. Making up vocal melodies on the spot with an unparalleled amount of confidence and accuracy, leaving the audience in complete awe.

As the applause echo through the hall, White introduces the next song, ‘Route 66’ by Bobby Troop and promptly exits the stage. The piece opens with an emphatic bass solo, setting the tone and tempo for the rest of the performance. As the low notes reverberate throughout the concert hall, the bass is quickly joined by the drums and piano, setting the stage for the vocal ensemble to enter. Upon entrance the vocalists show off their expansive range by singing rather low notes. With fun little scoops and precise cut offs, the performance was definitely an enjoyable one. Like the last number, there was a section of scat singing once again but this time, with a surprise element. White jumps into the performance with some of his own improvised melodies from off-stage, leaving the audience completely stunned. Suddenly, there was an impromptu call and response happening between White and the three soloists on stage; it seconds the whole audience is in on it on-time claps and everyone singing, creating an energetic and delightful atmosphere. White seamlessly conducts the ensemble to end the improv section and proceed with the full-fledged chorale arrangement which is perfectly executed musicians and singers.

We then transition to the next piece, “Taking A Chance On Love.” It opens with a soloist, whose voice is strong yet tender, accompanied by lavish chords on the piano. Almost lullaby-like, the tranquil duo might just make your eyes start to fell heavy and induce a deep slumber. The jazz sound we have grown accustomed to then makes a prompt re-entry, knocking us back in our chairs. Instantly, we start to hear a chorus of voices singing jazz-like harmonies escorted by the driving rhythm section. For those who enjoy jazz and easy listening, this would be perfect to listen to. Upon completion, White converses with the audience briefly and comes up with a great segue into introducing the next song on the program, ‘There Is No Greater Love’ by Marty Symes & Isham Jones. Though the tempo seems to be quite erratic during the introduction, it seems to become steadier and easier to follow once the vocalists join in. Like all the other songs, the audience are left to the devices of the heavenly chorus accompanied with harmonies. Finally, we have a soloist perform her own vocal improvisation making use of random syllables and occasionally lyrics. From the depths of the tenor range to the sky-scarping altitude of the soprano range, her vocal scope seemed to be endless. It was so magnificent that the audience felt compelled to accompany her with claps as a vote of appreciation.

For the final number, White decided to end with an a cappella performance , Toyland by Glen MacDonaugh & Victor Herbert, in order to really emphasize the talent of his vocal ensemble. After giving a brief history lesson, and so graciously warning the audience that there would be a quiz on it, White gives a starting note and raises his hands to indicate the beginning of the end. What would easily be the most impressive vocal performance was to proceed. The ensemble had perfect diction which created a blend like no other; it was as if all their voices were combined together to form a single sound. Furthermore, they managed to remain on pitch throughout the performance, without the assistance of any external instrument, which in itself, is a spectacular feat. The melodies and countermelodies move effortlessly in unison, complimenting each other at every turn. With dynamic contrast and perfect timing, the piece had all the ingredients necessary to make it the highlight of the concert. The perfect end to a night filled with outstanding music. Whether or not you are fan of jazz, I can promise you that this ensemble will bring you copious amounts of joy.

Watch the performance here

Posted on

The Treble Chorale and Choir from Ithaca College bring a “A Rainbow During the Storm” to help lift the spirits for those stuck in quarantine.   

 From the comforts of their own homes, the dynamic choirs create a magical virtual experience for all to enjoy.

During a time where we are confined to our homes and can no longer enjoy the wonders and connection of an in-person concert venue, The Treble Chorale and Choir from Ithaca College, did an outstanding job at trying to bridge this newly found gap. The extravagant performance was conducted by the celebrated and charismatic Janet Galván. Both groups cultivated a relaxing atmosphere with their casual clothing, smiley personality, and colorful backgrounds. Close to 45 members make up each group, all of whom exuberate excitement and enthusiasm. On May 11th, shortly after the arrival COVID-19 to the US, which quickly prompted the premature closure of colleges around the country, the Ithaca Choral community nimbly adapted to the new circumstances, and came together, stronger than ever before, to put on one last concert before the end of the Spring 2020 semester—it was for the history books. The lack of in-person interaction failed to take away from a decade-long tradition where the seniors are surrounded by their peers and sung to one last time. With the use of technology, they managed to continue this tradition despite the abnormal position they were put in. Not only were traditions withheld, but so was the quality of music produced from both of the ensembles.

The concert begins with The Treble Chorale performing a breathtaking rendition of ‘Blessing’ by Katie Moran Bart. Each voice seems to blend in perfectly together to form a heavenly and calming chorus. Naturally the mixing played a huge role in creating the heavenly sounds we hear, but that should not take away from the beautiful voices that make up the inconceivably talented ensemble. If you listen closely, you can hear their individual voices, all of which are just as beautiful as the next. The control, pitch and tone are otherworldly. One may think that trying to coordinate such a large group of singers would result in timing issues and other technical issues, but the group demonstrates that it is possible to create magical sounding music using technology.

The concert concludes with a powerful performance of ‘The World, This Wall, and Me’ by Michael Bussewitz-Quarm, performed by the Choir. Commenced with a strong opening by the male voices that creates the foundation of the piece; we immediately know we are in for a spectacular performance. Once the foundation had been established, the remaining voices enter, and suddenly we are transported to a different galaxy. The beautiful counterplay between the lower and higher voices creates an exquisite sound and introduces intriguing musical ideas. Like, the last performance, all the voices complement each other perfectly, and in unison create a majestic sound that will be talked about for years after this performance. The small section with the three soloists acted as the icing on the cake, showing the audience that there are very talented individual singers that make up the incredibly talented ensemble.  

I know you may feel frustrated watching this concert alone in your bedroom under the light of your single luminescent bulb, but it may be comforting to know that the members of both Treble Chorale and Choir did not get to enjoy the benefits of performing at a live venue either. Instead, they too were trapped to the confines of their own homes, where they produced and recorded the sounds necessary to fill their part. This concert was a powerful demonstration of the beguiling music that can be created from the comforts of your own home. Grim as it may seem, perhaps this is the future of ‘live’ concerts and perhaps, we may have to get used to it—at least for the foreseeable future. Whether this may be the case or not, the Treble Chorale and Choir from Ithaca College have certainly shown that it is possible.

Watch the performance here

 

Posted on

A Virtual Virtuoso

Ben Folds celebrated his birthday with streamers, and they weren’t the kind hung from ceilings.

ben folds

In a cramped apartment strewn with paper, instruments, and recording equipment, Piano Pop prodigy Ben Folds meanders into the camera frame. Without acknowledging his audience, he silently rearranges the clutter. Suddenly, tossing an over-the-shoulder grin at the camera, he lurches toward the computer. A tap on the spacebar arouses the microphone, prompting applause from the comments section. The curtains have parted on Folds’ livestream birthday show.

While America tuned in on the of evening Ben’s big day, Mr. Folds himself was waking up to the morning after—he had been stranded overseas in Sydney, Australia since the outset of the pandemic. The September 12th show comes as the 14th show in a series of Saturday night/Sunday morning concerts that Folds held from the makeshift studio of his temporary apartment.

Embracing the eccentricity of the moment, Folds kicked things off quirkily. Moving impishly about the room, he reached first for his fuzzy Ugg boots. After removing his cowboy hat to stretch a beanie over his bedhead, he cracked open a beer—it was, after all, 6 o’clock in the states. The entire ritual was scored with a kitschy theme song dedicated to “the scrollers.”

Finally, Folds settled at the keyboard to begin his set. Starting with a relaxed ballad, his playing gradually pressurized. Arpeggios accelerated; octaves grew weightier until Folds was in the full throes of pop stardom. The light, plasticky keys barely withstood the furious pounce of Folds’ fingers.  Above the chaos, his airy voice billowed melodiously. The trembling soundscape shot through the wires, beamed up to a satellite, and descended upon the homes of thousands of fans without losing one bite of intensity.

As the night wore on, Folds canned the conventions of a typical stage show. Pulling his hands back mid-song, he frequently brought the music to a jolting halt to speak to his audience. These intimate soliloquies consisted of stories behind his songs, empathetic encouragement for our strenuous times, and even a lesson on piano technique. At times, the performance felt less like a show and more like a conversation with an erudite elder. In one seamless livestream, Folds managed to quench our desperate desire for live music and comfort us in a moment when we all undoubtedly needed it. The show appeared restorative for Folds as well. Having spent the spring and summer quarantining in an isolated apartment thousands of miles from home, he seemed eager to connect with his fans. Signing off, he confessed “It’s good to see all y’all… I like to catch up with y’all.” We sure enjoyed catching up with you too, Ben.

Posted on

“Be Happy” by Dixie D’Amelio: A poorly written, generic pop song that shows off the TikTok stars’ sub-par vocal ability.

D’Amelio’s debut single is topping billboards and crushing competition but does not offer any real musical intrigue.

 

TikTok, the sensational social media app that allows users to share and view short videos, has thrusted a host of individuals into the spotlight of fame. Among those most brightly illuminated by TikTok’s searing beam of celebrity is the charismatic and easy-going Dixie D’Amelio. She first started gaining popularity in early 2020 and has now amounted to over beam of celebrity is the 34.6 million followers on the app. Though she was first known as Charli D’Amelio’s older sister, she has, since then, has created a name for herself by releasing her own single, “Be Happy.” To date, this song has accumulated close to 40 million streams on Spotify, 80 million views on YouTube, and has cracked the top charts in the US. An impressive feat for someone who, prior to TikTok, was completely unknown to the world. Does “Be Happy” have the musical intrigue to warrant the tremendous amount of attention it has been receiving?

The song opens with an acoustic guitar repeating a simple riff accompanied by D’Amelio’s average vocals. In a flurry, the addition of snaps on the two and four along with a basic rhythm from a kick drum, a rhythmic drive takes over causing us to unconsciously start tapping our foot. We are then sent into the pre chorus where the atmosphere changes and becomes more spacious as we lose the rhythmic drive provided by the snaps and kick drum. After a short rest we are launched into the celebrated chorus where D’Amelio sings ‘Sometimes I don’t wanna be happy’ complimented by an energetic musical accompaniment. The lyrics are quite sad as D’Amelio speaks about her struggles with depression and tries to communicate this idea in a playful way, through the use of an upbeat and catchy instrumental track. D’Amelio uses the upbeat and catchy vibe of the song in order to show how our generation often deals with depression, through the use of humor or making their struggles sound more jovial than they actually are. The upbeat nature allows the true meaning of the song to be concealed underneath the music, a similar technique many individuals in our generation employ in order to conceal their depression. At best this is a mediocre attempt at creating what feels like a generic pop song. Though it has a catchy hook and has clearly been professionally mixed and mastered, D’Amelio’s vocals are quite insipid. Despite the generic nature of this pop song with no real appeal, it has managed to climb the charts and experience huge amounts of success, thus showing the power social media fame has nowadays and how it has completely revolutionized the music industry. Without the existence of TikTok, artists like D’Amelio would stand no chance at receiving the kind of success she has. In the global romper room of TikTok being followed is better – and more lucrative – than leading. Starry-eyed influencers like D’Amelio can seamlessly transition from one form of entertainment to another and experience tremendous amounts of success, regardless of whether or not they possess any real talent.

 

 

Posted on

Me: Elton John: A scathingly honest and brilliantly written autobiography of the legendary Sir Elton John.

Written to be enjoyed, the autobiography gives us stories upon stories, in lavish detail, of Elton John’s extravagant life, exploring every conceivable facet of his extraordinary existence.

Sir Elton John. A name and title that can be recognized around the world. A name that has become synonymous with talent and perseverance. A name that embodies the defiance against the status quo and the breaking of norms. Elton John is a musical genius and a trailblazer in so many facets of life. Not many artists ever get the chance to reach the remarkable stature of Elton John and only a few are knighted by Queen Elizabeth II herself. The list of accomplishments and accolades associated with his name are plentiful, leaving many to wonder how anyone becomes an “Elton John.” For those people, I would refer you to the outstanding autobiography of Elton John, Me, ghost written by Alexis Petridis of The Guardian. The incredible piece of work gives us insights into every crevasse of his life, leaving no stone unturned and, for the first time, giving us a comprehensive account of his journey. In the scathingly honest and tell all autobiography, John recounts events from his childhood in Pinner, London, all the way through to his final tour, Farewell Yellow Brick Road, and includes details that may or may not be wanted by the reader, like the use of adult diapers.

 

Elton John begins by recounting his grueling childhood years in the London suburb of Pinner. Born to a pair of abusive parents, John was frequently the victim of verbal and physical abuse, often for the most bizarre reasons. “I would get into trouble if I kicked my football off the lawn into the flower bed, but I would also get in trouble if I ate celery in what was deemed to be The Wrong Way,” the list of activities that could inspire punishment seemed never ending and each more peculiar than the last. The only approval he would ever win from his parents was from playing the piano, fostering an incredible bond with the instrument from a very young age. “But he liked music, and if he heard me playing the piano, I’d get a “well-done”, maybe an arm around the shoulder,” which may seem trivial to some but can be very rewarding for a child that generally lacks any sort of emotional support/approval. His tough childhood beckons the question: How did this kid end up turning into Elton John? Not to mention that his parents never thought that the music business was a suitable career choice for him. However, from a young age John had always possessed a phenomenal knack for playing the piano. As he relates, “if I heard a tune once. I could go to the piano and play it perfectly by ear,” an impressive talent for any individual to have and an outstanding talent for a young boy to have. Despite his awful relationship with his parents, John was able to seek comfort in his nan, formally his grandmother, “she was the person I trusted the most,” he` says. This trust is made undeniably clear as he goes on to describe how she casually helped to extract his penis from his uncooperating trousers that decided to entrap his foreskin in the zip.

 

After meeting his songwriting partner and lifelong friend, Bernie Taupin, John’s musical journey seemed to take off. The famous and celebrated song, “Your Song”, was released shortly after this brilliant duo united, almost immediately gaining worldwide recognition in 1970. The song gained so much attention that John felt that a tour in the US was obligatory, where John recounts some extraordinary stories, from stunning audiences with his extravagant wardrobe to throwing oranges at Bob Dylan when the American proved incapable of playing charades, his time in the US seems to have every type of experience conceivable. Perhaps one of the funniest stories was – “In September 1980, I played in front of half a million people in Central Park, the largest crow I’d ever performed to” … in a Donald Duck costume. In light of his lack of foresight, John was left completely immobile and incapable of sitting due to the bulky nature of the costume, creating a memorable experience, to say the least. John could, no doubt, write brilliant music but his eccentric nature and outlandish personality contributed greatly to his success and popularity.

 

Me isn’t strictly a tale of fun stories and amazing experiences, John opens up about his struggles with addiction and much more, for the first time giving us insight into his seemingly perfect life. At the forefront of his struggles was his cocaine addiction, alcoholism, and bulimia. John describes his first experience with cocaine and how, despite making him sick, he would go back for more, marking the beginning of a dark era in his life. John has never been one to do small things, its either big or go home, so it’s no surprise that he took advantage of his financial status to indulge in copious amounts of cocaine and alcohol. At the height of his addiction, he recounts a story where, after a night of drinking and doing drugs, he was escorted to a hotel room that was left in a disastrous state, almost everything turned upside down, rendering him speechless and determined to figure out who could cause such chaos. Unbeknownst to him, he was the incredible force that left the room in ruins. Upon this eye-opening revelation he finally decided to seek the help he had been denouncing for years. Another sombering moment in the autobiography occurs when John describes the AIDs outbreak and the loss of close friends such as Mercury.  “Not being that interested in having sex myself is the reason I never got HIV”— John highlights, attributing this personal quirk as the reason he lives to this day. Due to its impact on his life, AID’s has always been a very important cause to John which inspired him to found the Elton John AIDs Foundation.

 

John’s post-rehab life was draped with moments of doubt – “I thought I couldn’t make an album without drink or drugs” – but he would quickly realize that this wasn’t the case and, with the help of his brilliant musical mind, continued to create outstanding music and immerse himself in charity work. Unfortunately, tragedy always loomed close behind. John lost two of his dear friends Gianni Versace and Princess Diana, back-to-back – “I turned on the TV in the bedroom and sat there, watching the coverage, bawling”. Enough to put any ordinary individual out of commission, however, John persevered and tried to continue to do what he did best, somehow never falling back into the dark place he was in before. John reveals that his very successful tribute to the late Princess Diana, “Candle in the Wind 1997,” made him uncomfortable. “It felt as if people were somehow walling in her death,” he said, for a long and unhealthy period of time. An interesting thought that not many would have thought of but was nonetheless, the reality in John’s mind. Finally, John leaves us with one last struggle he has had to endure in the past few years: the onset of prostate cancer. Somehow, he has managed to keep his condition from the world, despite accidentally urinating on a stage in Las Vegas, in front of 4,000 fans. Only John would be comfortable enough to share such intricate details of his life, speaking greatly to the type of person he is. Despite his grueling battle with cancer, he still managed to get up on that stage and perform in front of thousands, another feat that only Elton John could pull off.

 

Elton John’s journey to paramount success was not an easy one; it took years, extensive amounts of talent and the wow-factor that seems to have been entrenched into his being to become the famous Sir Elton John. Though this autobiography does not detail the genius that went into some of John’s brilliant musical pieces, it offers never before seen insight into his life and his riveting experiences, presented in an incredibly enjoyable way. With pictures interspersed throughout the book to give life to the outlandish descriptions of his extraordinary experiences (the picture of him in the Donald Duck costume was definitely a highlight), this autobiography has everything one could ask for, making it a must read. Whether or not you enjoy his music, after reading this autobiography you will be left with a newfound respect and admiration for the legend that is Sir Elton John.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on

Bill Evans: Time Remembered

Director Bruce Spiegel mines the archives to present a tender portrait of the jazz great.


Make no mistake, this is a tragedy. Bill Evans: Time Remembered (2015) recounts the life of the inimitable jazz piano great, tracing his rise to professional acclaim and his deep personal and professional relationships to their devastating conclusion, bleeding out in a car on the way to hospital. Why this is a tragedy, Spiegel lets you decide for yourself. 

Marshaling a trove of archival footage and exclusive interviews with Evans’s friends, family and colleagues, the documentary is a collective attempt at divining the man behind the music, the soft-spoken pianist from New Jersey. From the very beginning, Spiegel, speaking through the interview of bassist Chuck Israels, gives us the answer he arrived at after eight painstaking years, “Damn if I know, really. But all the information that’s really important, it’s in the music.” 

Time Remembered is first and foremost a paean to Evans’s music. His all-star cast of interviewees, compromising luminaries like vocalist Tony Bennett and the recently deceased drummer Paul Motian, are most effusive when they discuss Evans’s work. Their praise may not be novel- many critics have extolled Evans’s expressive touch and command of harmony – but this profusion of jazz notables consistently lauding Evans’s deep connection to his music drives the point home. In the words of Marty Morell, Evans’s longest serving drummer, “He’s just so connected to his heart.” We associate genius with surpassing the common man, but Evans’s power lay in his unflinching portraiture of his humanity. You don’t need to understand bebop enclosure or modal jazz to be moved. 

Spiegel lets the music speak for itself. He intersperses discussions of Evans’s work in the context of the 1960s jazz scene with snippets of his recordings. For a full minute, Spiegel makes you sit with “Peace Piece” (1958), a delicate meditation, cradled by the same three chords on the bass clef as the melody winds its way from serenity to bittersweet longing, before it is soothed into resolution. Friend and poet Bill Zavatsky closes the segment, declaring “Bill spoke to me in a way I hadn’t heard anyone talking.” 

And Evans spoke chiefly through his music. Referring to the famous photographs of him bent in concentration over the keys, lyricist and critic Gene Lees says they were “a pretty accurate portrait of his personality”. His playing was unequivocally articulate, but he seemed to physically shrink from the world. In a clip of Evans at the piano, his lanky, spare frame is almost curled in on himself with only his arms extended, long, tapering fingers murmuring across the keys. Photographed with the famous 1961 trio, he does not wear attention with Motian’s suave polish or bassist LaFaro’s affable grin. He hangs back, nursing a nervous smile. Even further back in the archives, Evans rarely breaks with his terse professorial persona. In footage of him smoking, the gaunt planes of his face are rendered in stark monochrome, eyes shaded over by his glasses, the set of his shoulders guarded. In his childhood photos, his neutral half-smile is unreadable. 

With a suite of exclusive interviews, Spiegel edges the curtain back on Evans, the man. Brother of Harry. Mentor to Scottie and Marc. Lover of Ellaine, Nennette and Laurie. Father to Evan. The warmth of his character bleeds through in his praise for LaFaro, enthusing “he was a constant inspiration to me.” You see his deep love for his family, in the uncontrollably fond smile of Debby Evans, Evans’s niece for whom he wrote Waltz for Debby, as she recalls their trips to the beach and her uncle and father, “two jazz brothers”, in animated conversation at the piano. Through Laurie Verchomin’s eyes the audience encounters Evans, the tender romantic, as she describes visiting him in New York at the start of their relationship. But we bear witness also to the corrosive self-doubt he laboured under. Bob Brookmeyer recounts how at the Cafe Bohemian with the Miles Davis Sextet, Evans was crouched in the corner, adamantly refusing to go on, insisting “I can’t play good, I can’t do this”. We see the sensitivity of his character, the weight of his grief. In the aftermath of LaFaro’s car accident, Evans, bewildered and in denial, admits “I can’t comprehend death,” with a trailing hesitance. Evans, falling silent at the piano midsong, tears streaming down his face, on the day his brother committed suicide. Talking to Zavatsky near the end of his life, Evans admits he can find no reason to stay alive. 

But this is no Hollywood tell-all. Rooted in their deference for him as a mentor and bandleader, they keep a respectful distance from the details of his personal life, particularly its painful episodes. Discussing Evans’s addiction, they hint at his “inner demons” without pinpointing them. But there are some telling flashes of emotion. The disdain is evident in Orrin Keepnews’s, Evans’s record producer, voice as he narrates “Almost imperceptibly, he became a junkie.” Lees unblinking intones,“I think he hurt a hell of a lot of people.” 

More than reconstructing his life, Spiegel brings Evans back into conversation. Recordings of Evans talking or playing bookend each segment, and the effect is disconcerting. The audience rarely sees Evans speaking on tape, mostly encountering him as a disembodied voice floating over monochromatic stills, an echo of the past. In his taciturn remarks, we are scrying for hints of his inner world as he moves forward through his turbulent life, while we look back, knowing what comes next. Evans’s work is an uncannily prescient soundtrack to the twists and turns of his life. The tender warmth of “Lucky To Be Me” (1959) accompanies rare childhood photos of him smiling toothily, arm in arm with his beloved brother, Harry. Its bittersweet undertones almost foretell Harry’s devastating suicide, which precedes Evans’s death by a year. Spiegel opens the discussion of Evans’s addiction with a foreboding passage from “NYC’s No Lark” (1963), as his colleagues recount what Gene Lees called “the longest suicide in history.” There in the music, Evans speaks back. 

I left the documentary feeling empty, forlorn. But I couldn’t quite pinpoint what about Evans’s life was so affecting. Was it in the way he passed, the abject irony of him succumbing on the way to rehabilitation? The turmoil of his personal life? Or the cruel symmetry, between the deeply-felt humanity of his work and his self-inflicted cruelty? Perhaps it was all of these, and that we want our heroes to be happy. Even if it was just a mirage constructed by pithy one-liners, a flash of a smile in a yellowing photograph, the sigh of a melody, I saw in Evans a kind, gentle character who might have deserved that happiness. 

Posted on

A musical history of Broken Greek

Acclaimed music critic Pete Paphides’s autobiography is a vivid account of a life illuminated by music.

“Do you sometimes feel like the music you’re hearing is explaining your life to you?” Broken Greek, by acclaimed British music journalist Pete Paphides, is a love letter to the magic of those electrifying, heart-rending and profoundly cathartic moments. In equal parts an autobiography and a pop music retrospective, Paphides assembles glittering fragments of daily life – his cross-cultural upbringing, scrappy schoolyard games of English football, the wonders and anxieties of boyhood and the music illuminating it all –  into a kaleidoscopic diorama of growing up in the 1980s in Acocks Green, Birmingham. With unfailing wit, candour and compassion, Paphides pays homage to the pivotal role of music in our lives and how the personal is deeply intertwined with the larger cultural moment. 

Paphides’s debut novel is about his halting, broken greek, his displacement from the cultural world of his immigrant parents, his gruff Cypriot father, Christakis Paphides, and his doting Greek mother, Victoria Paphides, and the yawning chasm between the family dinner table and the world beyond his front door a young, skittish Paphides had to cross. But this is more than a tale of insufficiencies. Over the ten years the book covers, we watch Paphides emerge from his four year long spell of selective mutism to venture into the unpredictable, technicolour the world beyond, and find the confidence to take his place in it. 

In spite of the book’s weighty subject matter – marital rifts, cultural displacement, the history of pop music itself – Paphides is undeniably hilarious. Despite the associations of long-windedness a 600 page debut novel tends to confer, Paphides’s writing is taut with insight and humour. Testament to his journalistic training, his writing marries character with concision, interspersing the profound and even the heartbreaking with zingers on his childhood escapades. Surging from one quip to the next, Paphides hurtles over large swathes of narrative ground, his readers in tow.  

51-year old father of two though he may be, Paphides is phenomenal at inhabiting the headspace of a 7-year old. He is resonant on the fears and foibles and guileless wonders of childhood, no matter how far into their past that may be for some readers. As someone with scattered memories at best of anything that happened before I was 10, I am in awe of his childhood powers of recollection and the sheer amount of detail he marshals. He captures the almost irrational but deeply intuitive way children react to music and the world around them, recalling how at age 7, the forlorn crooning of a Greek song his father enjoyed, “Cloudy Sunday” (Sinefiasmeni Kiriaki), shrouded him in a pallor of “imminent peril,” compounded by the disquieting sense that the pagan sun on the record sleeve was staring at him. The book narrates the series of anxieties the timid but winsome younger Paphides cycled through, ranging from the inane, like children’s television star Jimmy Osmond, to the morbid, such as his parents’ abandonment. Paphides also pays homage to the enduring role of music as “a periscope into (the adult) world,” a thrilling gateway of discovery for children. With minor adjustments, the scene he recounts of himself and two others whipped into an exhilarated frenzy by cameos of entry-level expletives in “Greased Lightnin’” could have been plucked from any reader’s childhood. 

Paphides leaves no room to doubt his journalistic credentials. Wielding the language of cultural critique with panache, he traces the arc of various musical styles and their accompanying aesthetics, bursting into and trailing out of vogue, and the intricate webs of calls and responses woven throughout the pop ecosystem. Paphides is in his element writing about pop music, authoritatively capturing the zeitgeist of a musical era in the turn of a phrase. Of the 1980s English 2 Tone and ska revival bands, he writes that they were “unified by an aesthetic that felt like the logical third act in the wake of the nihilism of punk and the crafted ennui of new wave.”  Even when outside the remit of his musical expertise, Paphides is cogent on the historical and musical context of his father’s favoured Greek music. He narrows the cultural gulf by highlighting the parallels to British pop, giving us a glimpse into his multicultural upbringing where these two cultures were different, but not separate. 

Though Paphides is separately competent as an autobiographer and a music journalist, what distinguishes Broken Greek is his marriage of the two. He lifts the latch on his innermost world where the chorus of ABBA’s “Money, Money, Money” coloured the silhouette of his father, bent over a chip fryer, toiling to provide for his family, strains of David Bowie’s “Ashes to Ashes” curled themselves into the locks of his mother’s hair, splayed against the pillow of a hospital bed, and Leo Sayer’s “When I Need You” spoke for him in his petrified silence, wracked by guilt for his mutism.  

Rather than unravelling an imperial history of British pop music, developments in pop are told first through the eyes of Paphides the younger as a shortlist of potential adoptive parents from the Top of the Pops’, BBC’s weekly music chart show, to be tapped on if and when his parents abandon him. Paphides narrates the history of pop through the lens of what these songs meant to him. He describes how artists lent him the words and melodies for his nascent meanings as he navigated familial tensions and struggled with his perpetually dismal position in the schoolyard pecking order. Over the years, the varied artists gracing the radiowaves and record player were simultaneously chilling soothsayers presaging his fears for the future, spokespersons for his desires, and cooler, more confident versions of himself. Paphides pinpoints the impalpable yet powerful sense of communion we share with our music, declaring that music does not amplify our emotions, but that reality “(authenticates) the sentiments of the song.”

He is a faithful scribe not only to his own relationship with music, but also the musical obsessions of the people around him. He chronicles his brother and friends’ adolescent evolution accompanied and led by music. Writing about his brother Aki’s obsession with The Teardrop Explodes and neighbour Emily’s devotion to Adam Ant, he underscores how music could be an epiphany, a revelation not just about what music could sound like, but how you could dance, dress or talk. Who you, a hungry teenager facing the wilds of the world to come, could be. Even if Paphides does not inhabit his parent’s cultural universe, he reimagines their reality with compassion and patience. “For them music didn’t exist to enhance the present. It was a means of temporarily obliterating it” he writes. His parents’ indifference to the British pop juggernauts and his father’s insistence on Greek music are presented not as wilful ignorance, but reflections of the gruelling realities of supporting a family as immigrants cut loose from existing support structures.  

Broken Greek held my attention even though I am barely literate in the pop music canon of the 1970s and 80s, not an immigrant to the United Kingdom experiencing cultural displacement, or a fifty-something primed to gush with nostalgia by sepia-toned childhood recollections because Broken Greek was not written by Paphides the Greek-Cypriot immigrant or Paphides the music critic, but Paphides the music lover. As intimate and ephemeral as the relationship between a listener and their music is, it is also a familiar shared experience. By grounding the book in this experience, he anchors readers who might otherwise be swept away by the barrage of unfamiliar references or disoriented by the world of 1970s Birmingham.

Paphides’s focus on the inner world of his childhood and his experience of music means that a good portion of the book is devoted to his thoughts and feelings. The events of the book’s ten years are riveting, but do not command seismic degrees of drama. It can be argued he should have covered more ground, like the histrionics of late adolescence. At times the level of detail felt excessive given the repetitiveness and banality of the school-going routine he chronicles, especially in the blow by blow accounts of schoolyard soccer matches. But the authentic retelling of a life is perhaps less about communicating the sequence of events which occurred, than it is about parsing what they meant to the subject. By that standard, Paphides has authored a faithful and insightful account of his early childhood. 

But this begs the question – examining cultural eras populated by some of the most colourful public figures in recent memory, why should we care about the individual’s experience of music? Much ink has been spilt detailing the development of pop music and putting the lives of its icons under the microscope, rather than invoking them only as accessories to an individual’s bildungsroman. Yet, why is there still magic in Paphides’s worm’s eye view account?

In spotlighting the subjective experience of music, Paphides reveals how music is embedded in deeply personal realities. His most evocative writing on music is an act of imagination, rather than a dogmatic narration of the music’s factual provenance. He conjures these musicians from an age past with his childhood self’s vivid imagination, for instance asserting British pop group Racey’s Richard Gower’s “perpetually needy expression was somehow discernable merely by listening to his pleading delivery of the vocals.” Through these conjectures he locates the emotional core of the music, taking him closer to the heart of what earned artists like Bowie and The Clash pride of place in the pop pantheon for a generation of listeners than what a factual recapitulation could achieve. 

Conversely, when Paphides fails to balance factual details and his emotional relationship to the music, his critique can come across as ponderous. The anecdotal nuggets are necessary intermissions for those not intrinsically enthused by the biographical minutiae of ABBA. My attention wavers when he jumps into two page long close readings of songs, though to his credit he is discerning about which songs he spotlights. His trenchant critique and droll asides are elevated in the moments when music and autobiographical elements intertwine, speaking uncannily to each other across time and space through the tinny speakers of the household radiogram.

But more than that, the unique, subjective experience of music Paphides hones in on is precisely what makes up a cultural era. A pop cultural moment is only as powerful as its personal resonance. The cultural significance of ABBA of the Sex Pistols doesn’t derive from the millions album sales or number of weeks spent at number one on the charts. The magic of the pop phenomenon is located in living rooms and record stores, school fields and radios. It is in the raucous schoolyard debates of U2 versus Echo & the Bunnymen, a needling sibling rivalry because this was your band, so obviously your younger brother couldn’t be a fan too, in the flash of illumination, a teenager in a bedroom, listening to what feels like the anthem of his life. So why should our understanding of cultural history be limited to the bird’s eye view, looking down from the top of the chart or across the rolling expanse of the broader musical narrative? Pop has always been the music of the people, the elastic boundaries of the genre constantly shifting in response to the audience it is written for, defined only by the singular ability to resonate throughout the population; the grand narrative of pop would be incomplete without the account of the listeners at its heart. Broken Greek is not an autobiography accessorised by music, it is a sliver of musical history itself. 

 

Posted on

The Man No Fool Could Stop

Jimi Hendrix could dazzle on stage, and was an important figure in the counterculture movement. Philip Norman captures his life in Wild Child.

(Image Credit: David Redfern/Redferns)

Jimi Hendrix was one of one. During his 27 years on the planet, he became widely known as the greatest guitar player of all time. Hendrix was impossible to categorize as a musician. On stage, Hendrix pulled off stunts like no other. He would frequently play the guitar with his teeth, smash his guitar into bits, or even light the instrument on fire. His life was in some ways the epitome of sex, drugs, rock and roll – he loved all three. And yet to define him as just another Rockstar would be an irresponsible simplification of one of Rock’s great characters.

Music historian Phillip Norman’s Wild Thing: The short spellbinding life of Jimi Hendrix, is an impressive feat of historical research and writing. Norman covers Jimi’s entire life, sometimes in painstaking detail. At all turns, Norman does his best to provide maximum context, and present the different recollections of important events. Hendrix had a habit of misleading the press, which Norman notes frequently throughout the book, and for which Norman deserves even more credit for his efforts to decipher and deliver the truth.

And the truth, to put it mildly, was a long story. Born as Johnny Allen Hendrix on 27 November 1942, his name was soon changed to James Marshall by his father, Al. Hendrix had a bizarre early life, which included being adopted away from his family in Seattle to a family in southern California, only to have his father return from the Army and head down the coast to claim his three-year-old biological son. Al was a constant source of insecurity and anxiety throughout Jimi’s life. An alcoholic, Al never approved of Jimi’s (who at that time went by Buster) guitar playing. Even after finding a broken guitar in a scrap heap and learning to produce great sounds from it, Jimi had to convince his dad to buy him a proper guitar. From there, he was completely devoted to the instrument for the rest of his life. Even when his son returned to Seattle to play sold-out shows many years later, Al was unimpressed. Being the best of all time was apparently not good enough for Al, and Jimi tried and failed to make his father proud of him to the day he died.

Norman is at his best with short bursts of brilliant writing that add value to his historical record keeping. In describing Hendrix’s biggest hit, a cover of Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower, Norman writes that “a terse ‘hey!’ announces a break which, for me, surpasses any other to have been recorded since guitars had electrical wires threaded through their bodies like keyhole surgery and metal pickups and volume knobs and tremelo levers dentist-drilled into their faces.”

At other points, Norman’s writing lacks pace, and seems unfit to describe someone he defines as “spellbinding.” For example, Jimi’s early years as a musician were covered in complex detail, through his numerous adventures joining and leaving bands. Many of the events could have been summarized, and the book would have benefitted from fifty less pages. Another disappointment in the book were the spelling errors, almost 10 in total, that were unusual for a published work like this one. They were unprofessional and distracting as a reader and while likely not Norman’s fault, they hurt his writing.

For all of his greatness, Jimi’s black skin would often set him apart from other Rockstars. While trying to make it as a young musician, he had to cut his teeth on the “chittlin circuit,” a nationwide series of bars and clubs that featured African American performers. It was there that he met and played with a great number of the premier black performers of the era.

Jimi’s once-in-a-generation talent was not destined to be pigeon-holed. Norman describes in detail how the Beatles and other British groups helped to import “black” music like R&B back into mainstream American society. At the same time, Jimmy was growing bored of the same old music he was playing, and was beginning to pay more attention to new Rock groups. Norman wrote that it was difficult for managers to place Jimi, because “he wasn’t exactly rock nor pop nor soul nor R&B nor blues nor country nor folk nor jazz but a bit of everything. In a world of racialized music, Jimmy could cut through genres at will.

Put another way, music promoter Bill Graham, describes in the book that Hendrix was “the first black man in the history of this country who caused the mass of white females in the audience to disregard his race and want his body.”

 

Jimi’s biggest hits would come as a member of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, a three person band formed in Britain. Hendrix was known to play covers throughout his career, but other tunes like Purple Haze, Hey Joe, and Voodoo Child became hits as well. More than for his studio work though, Jimi was known for his incredible skill as a performer, emphasized by his frequent habit of playing in bars and clubs despite his fame, all the way until his death.

The 1960’s were an intense and violent time in the history of American race relations, but Hendrix was not initially the radical symbol of counterculture that he may be remembered as. Despite the increasing urges of the Black Panther Party for Hendrix to more directly take up their cause, it took Jimi years to fully embrace their agenda. “He grew adept at deflecting suggestions from hefty brothers in black berets and sunglasses” wrote Norman. One reason for the initial hesitancy was Jimi’s own career in the military. Norman wrote “his sympathies were as much with the young soldiers fighting a clearly unwinnable war, especially the black ones… who were allowed to die for their country yet not granted equality in it.”

Despite his initial stance, Hendrix became the target of COINTELPRO, the counter intelligence program operated by the FBI and its director J. Edgar Hoover, who used the program to target the Black Panther Party. In addition to being wildly illegal (and eventually exposed as one of Richard Nixon’s many spying ventures), the program was extremely racist. As a high-profile black person in the country, let alone a scandalous Rockstar, Hendrix was a main target of the program, although Norman describes the “findings of COINTELPRO’s sleuths proved disappointingly thin,”  proof that targeting Jimi had more to do with racism than any evidence of wrong-doing.

Despite the attention of the government, Jimi slowly became more and more engaged with the cause of Black Power, ultimately leading to his most famous performance. Hendrix waited all night to play in a muddy farmer’s field in Woodstock, New York. With an 400-500,000 visitors over the course of the weekend, the festival was the largest ever for a festival, and as Norman points out, “arguably the largest ever convened for a purpose other than fighting battles.” But the line up was so delayed that Hendrix had to wait until Monday morning to play.

In describing Woodstock and the performance on-stage, Norman produces some of his best writing. He writes that Hendrix had played the Star-Spangled Banner before, but never quite like he did that day. The performance included Jimi’s “long dying falls erupting into a feedback cacophony that somehow mimicked the war’s sounds – the whip of helicopter blades, the whistle of falling bombs, the whoomph of Napalm, the screams of its shredded victims.” Perhaps not fully on purpose, Hendrix provided the counterculture movement with its lasting moment on stage. While he hadn’t initially wanted to be a symbol of a political movement, he became one that day. A column in the New York Post would write “You finally heard what that song was about, that you can love your country but hate the government.”

In a poignant summary, Norman writes, “he walked off stage as Mitch Mitchell recalls (Jimi’s bandmate), ‘cold, tired, hungry, and unhappy with his performance.’ He would never know he had just created the defining moment of Woodstock – and, many people believe, the whole decade.”

At times, appealing to all races means appealing to none. After Woodstock, Norman writes that “performing for such a huge, overwhelmingly white crowd inevitably brought cries of ‘Uncle Tom’ from the Black Panthers (just as it brought threats from redneck whites to beat him to a pulp if he ever defiled the National Anthem like that again).”

However not long after his biggest successes and most memorable performances, Hendrix was dead. How he actually died is shrouded in conspiracy theories and changing stories. The official story is that Jimi died on an overdose of sleeping pills, taken from a young woman he was staying with at the time, German and former figure skater Monika Dannemann. Dannemann alleges that Jimi couldn’t sleep and asked for a pill, but when she woke up she found that Jimi had apparently taken nine of the tablets. However, Dannemann’s official recount of the events of that night changed some 14 times, and friends who arrived on the scene the morning Jimi died poked holes in the timing of events. Some allege that hours passed between the time that Dannemann called friends in a panic and the time that she called the ambulance. As Norman notes several times, Dannemann was a new figure in Jimi’s life, and older friends of his described Monika were suspicious. She appeared to show relatively little grief, especially considering how tragic and traumatizing the episode must have been.

Jimi left this earth far too soon. Throughout his short but massively successful career, he rubbed shoulders with many of the best guitarists and musicians to walk this planet. They almost all agreed that Jimi was the best. Eric Clapton for example, was seen to be God on the guitar. One night, Jimi sat in with Clapton’s band Cream, to play a number. ‘Halfway through the song, Eric stopped playing” recalled Chas Chandler, a friend of Jimi’s. Clapton retreated to the dressing room and said ‘you never told me he was that fu**ing good.’” Jimi would have high voltage fans for the rest of his career. A headliner for Hendrix once reported seeing many of Rock’s biggest stars waiting to see Jimi play, saying that he saw “all my biggest heroes… Pete Townshend (The Who)… Keith Richards (Rolling Stones)… Stevie Winwood… Eric Clapton, looking like “Oh my God, I’m not God anymore.”

Trying to explain the legacy of Jimi Hendrix can be tough, even with 350+ pages. Talented, unique, and short are the descriptors that best describe the man and his life. A Billboard magazine edition just after his death provided perhaps the best memorial for a man like no other.

“To a black gypsy cat / who rocked the world / when it needed to be rocked. / Sleep Well.”

Jimi faced challenges at every stage of his life. From an alcoholic, violent father, to the military, to coming up as a black musician in a still overtly racist and violent country. Eventually, greedy management, drug use, and creative burnout hurt him as well. But Hendrix was not only remarkably talented, but resilient as well. As long as he had his guitar, he was happy. And boy, did he rock this world.

Norman’s history is but one of a long line of tribute books, movies, and albums. For longer than he lived, people have been memorializing the best guitar player in history. “I still have my guitar and an amp, and as long as I have that, no fool can stop me living,” he once wrote to his father. Indeed, no fool ever could. And while a series of small pills took him away from this planet, Jimi’s legacy remains untouched as the greatest shredder to ever pick up a guitar.