Ian MacDonald's 'The People's Music' essay

[Insouciant Western People]

I got Ian MacDonald's last book, 'The People's Music' last week, and read it over the weekend. I enjoyed most of it, especially the pieces on Nick Drake, Dylan, Spirit and Randy Newman, which I thought were very well-written and insightful. Unfortunately I also read the title essay, which rapidly had steam coming out of my ears and my blood pressure rising.

For anyone who hasn't read it, what MacDonald is talking about in the essay is the process by which popular music became democratised, which he identifies as having its start proper in 1963. He talks about how the beat group boom removed the balance of power from the established Tin Pan Alley style of songwriters and record companies, and how this democratisation of music and song writing gave rise to what he terms a golden age of classic pop, between 1965 and 1967. So far, so fair enough really, it seems to me that this is a reasonable enough view, if a little biased towards the music which just happened to be appearing at the time when MacDonald was in his late teens.

What really got me annoyed though, is when he starts talking about punk and its aftermath. First he claims that the rock stars who appeared after punk are in effect less interesting than those of his generation, citing the likes of Dylan, The Beatles, Bowie, Jagger and Richards etc as being far more worthy of biographical treatment than those who came after the late seventies. It seems to me that this is a ludicrously blinkered view to take, conveniently ignoring eminently fascinating artists such as Joe Strummer, John Lydon, Mark E Smith, Ian McCulloch, Morrissey and Kurt Cobain, and that's just for starters.

And then he goes on to make the even dafter assertion that 'punk eroded the skills base in British pop', although he does make an exception for The Police, because they could, like, rilly play their instruments man. According to MacDonald, the three-chord thrash style of guitar that became popularised by punk was a kind of luddite revolution that left the musicians of the eighties and nineties unable to produce anything worthy of comparison to his precious classic age of pop.

For anyone who's enjoyed the wonderful playing of the likes of Roddy Frame, Johnny Marr, John Squire, Alan Wren, Bernard Butler, Johnny Greenwood or Phil Selway (to name just a few obvious examples) his contention is patently stupid. Even the musicians who came along after punk and were admittedly amateurish on their early recordings - Joy Division, The Bunnymen - often ended up as accomplished and inventive players within a few years. Ferchrissakes even The Beatles were pretty shambolic when they started, but MacDonald again conveniently ignores this.

In the end, he comes across as some grumpy old fart, stuck in the dreams of the music of his youth and unable to see much of merit in anything created since then - and this is a pity, as he was often a perceptive and intelligent writer, as is amply illustrated elsewhere in the book.

[12xu2]

Hate to speak ill of the recently departed and all that, but all you need to know about the guy's tastes are in Revolution in the Head, where he dismisses Helter Skelter for being a bloody racket, or words to that effect. Hopefully the celestial choir know some Eagles songs

[Insouciant Western People]

Yeah, he also makes disparaging comments about electronic music in a couple of articles in the book, just vague retreads of the same tired old argument that electronic music is emotionless, and somehow not real.

[KeithPratt]

I agree with you Furious. Whilst there is no doubt that he was an extremely talented writer and critic, his barely concealed contempt for anything produced after 1974 was a little wearing. Some writers don't move with the times, and MacDonald was guilty of this I think. It's important when talking about music I think to always have a historical perspective (which he does when talking about the Beatles in Revolution in the Head), but that book, whilst being superb in places, seems to show up his age, and relative lack of knowledge of the more recent movements in music.

[bhoywonder]

Yeah, he also makes disparaging comments about electronic music in a couple of articles in the book, just vague retreads of the same tired old argument that electronic music is emotionless, and somehow not real.

YEah, as if we need to be told. It's obvious!

[12xu2]

He comes across as some grumpy old fart, stuck in the dreams of the music of his youth and unable to see much of merit in anything created since then...

What was his MoJo BB alias, anyone know??

[Leg of lamb]

I think I'd better weigh in with a defence of Macdonald, as no one else really wants to by the looks of things.

I disagree with many of the statements made in the title essay. Intensely. For someone who's record collection is vastly biased towards music made during and since the 80s, I found the assumption that all music made since the era of his heroes is a dull rehash of those golden years off the mark, but not insulting. I could feel the passion and sadness in his work, he never came across as grumpy - just lost. He seemed out of place in the modern world and most of his convictions (that pop music was technically dumbed down by punk, that electronic music lacks harmonic variation, etc) were by and large correct. His downfall came when he asserted that, just because of this, they were automatically inferior to the music of his youth. But the essay is very thought-provoking, human and, although I disagreed with his overall diagnosis, it has a lot of truth in it.

I love both Revolution In The Head and The People's Music and Ian Macdonald is by far my favourite music writer. It was a revoltionary discovery for me that a pop critic could be so immersed in the technical aspect of the music and discuss the key changes and modal improvisation in a song as much as the attitudes and cultural significance. I disagree with him on many things (his blanket condemnation of all rock music being the sorest example), but he was a staggeringly good writer - very flawed but, oh, what I'd give to have someone of his kind around at the NME today.

[Insouciant Western People]

but he was a staggeringly good writer - very flawed but, oh, what I'd give to have someone of his kind around at the NME today.

Oh I wouldn't disagree that he was a very good writer - and I said as much in my first post. His review of Neil Young's 'On The Beach' from the NME at the time is one of the best pieces of music writing I've ever read. And I thought his writing on Nick Drake in TPM was similarly acute and definitive - it is just his attitude to most stuff since 1974 that bugs me.

[Leg of lamb]

Oh I wouldn't disagree that he was a very good writer - and I said as much in my first post. His review of Neil Young's 'On The Beach' from the NME at the time is one of the best pieces of music writing I've ever read. And I thought his writing on Nick Drake in TPM was similarly acute and definitive - it is just his attitude to most stuff since 1974 that bugs me.

Yeah, agreed. I think that his writing can be separated into two sections, broadly:

1. Essays written on the artists from his "golden era". Pretty much all of this is superlative.

2. Essays mourning the demise of pop music since the mid-70s. As I said, I disagree with the diagnosis, but his convictions and intelligence are never less than compelling.

Basically, you don't have to agree with everything a writer says - I don't look to Macdonald for an incisive criticism of, say, Paul's Boutique (although I'd be fascinated to know what he thought of it). I'd dearly love a modern writer of his calibre to step up and do so, though. Someone who doesn't give a tuppenny fuck about fashion, someone with integrity, someone who takes pop music seriously ...

[Insouciant Western People]

I don't look to Macdonald for an incisive criticism of, say, Paul's Boutique (although I'd be fascinated to know what he thought of it). I'd dearly love a modern writer of his calibre to step up and do so, though. Someone who doesn't give a tuppenny fuck about fashion, someone with integrity, someone who takes pop music seriously ...

Me too. I'm surprised Charles Shaar Murray hasn't written much on hip hop, as I know he likes the music. I think he'd do a good job, if his excellent writings on Hendrix and John Lee Hooker are anything to go by.

[Leg of lamb]

Me too. I'm surprised Charles Shaar Murray hasn't written much on hip hop, as I know he likes the music. I think he'd do a good job, if his excellent writings on Hendrix and John Lee Hooker are anything to go by.

I've not read any Charles Shaar Murray. Where should I start?

[bhoywonder]

Me too. I'm surprised Charles Shaar Murray hasn't written much on hip hop, as I know he likes the music. I think he'd do a good job, if his excellent writings on Hendrix and John Lee Hooker are anything to go by.

His monthly column in MacUser is great too. This month it's about Mac clones from the mid 90s. He manages to mention Brian Wilson. Great bloke.

[take5_D]

rock and roll and technical standards, a few words about Ian MacDonald also

Earlier furious oranj wrote about Ian MacDonald's latest book, `The People's Music'. In specific, f.o. mentioned that MacDonald had reservations about punk in the 1970s because 'punk eroded the skills base in British pop'.


My two cents. I've heard this also, that MacDonald thought one of the bad influences of punk was that it somehow lessened the standards for `musicianship'.

My main criticism of MacDonald's stance (something I haven't seen articulated here) is that I think rock and roll is much more about raising questions about what technical abilities one NEED have rather than about those technical abilities in an of themselves (this opinion by the way comes from someone who does see a lot of value--although also a lot of boredom-- in diligently practising Schmidt exercises).

That is to say, to a certain extent in all music there is the mature attitude of great instrumentalists that you need to build up technique so that you can abandon it, even degrade it or fight against it. And those performers who do this to follow some greater conceptual end, such as Glenn Gould or Thelonious Monk, are held in the greatest esteem. There is suspicion of technical abilities for its own sake in all musics, not just rock and roll.

But in rock and roll in particular, this suspicion takes on a new level of fervency, I would argue. The most interesting things come about in rock and roll when it proclaims, `we don't know at all what the minimum technical threshold needs to be.' This is, in essence what the following are saying: Mo Tucker or Bob Dylan or Keith Richards' guitar playing, or especially Pete Townshend's guitar playing, or Grandmaster Flash's decision to work with sampling alone, or Muddy Waters's slide playing, or Elmore James's slide playing, or John McVie's bass playing (early Fleetwood Mac), or Jimi Hendrix's vocals (inspired by Dylan's vocals), or Poly Styrene's vocals. Even a great technician such as Richard Thompson falls within this line of thinking. he is, by orthodox standards, a great guitarist, but what truly makes him the guitarist to raise our blood pressure is the amount of noise (I mean non-harmonic sounds, sounds of fingernails, scratching, etc.) he can generate from his Stratocaster.

The demolition of technical requirements as necessary is perhaps the most important musical contribution or rock and roll. I don't mean to sound like a traditionalist here, but the fact that some punk figured some new ways to question what technical requirements are needed, in fact puts it in line with this grand tradition.

I'll have to look more closely at MacDonald's claims in `The People's Music', but if there are similar to what I've seen elsewhere, they would appear to illustrate a schism that exists in rock writing.

On one hand, we have writers who are versed in the technical aspects of musics other than rock, people like MacDonald, who can bring this knowledge to their discussion of rock and roll, but who also impose these technical standards on a music that I think fundamentally questions the whole necessity of these standards, and whose questioning is rock and roll's major contribution.

On the other hand, you have writers like Lester or Greil Marcus who are not versed in the technical aspects of musics. Because of this, they are unable to write about the music from these traditionally technical perspectives. But perhaps by default, these people are far more receptive to the idea that rock and roll is about the demolition of some technical standards. In fact they may insist upon this or root for this idea because this position emphasizes what they are strongest in by de-emphasizing those things they don't know.

What we need are those critics who have the technical knowledge of the music, but who are also open to the idea that these technical standards may be largely antithetical to rock and roll.

[rollinder]

according to googleism"the people's music is mostly congas and it all ends with tear gas and rubber truncheons"

[Magilla]

I've not read any Charles Shaar Murray. Where should I start?

He did an anthology of his best stuff called Shots From The Hip (Penguin, 1991), which collects highlights of stuff he wrote for the NME, etc, from 1971 - 1990.
It's a pretty good collection, which coverall manner of different artists, etc.

His book on Hendrix, Crosstown Traffic is supposed to be very good too.

[KeithPratt]

"Crosstown Traffic" is one of the best books ever written about music, full stop.

[Insouciant Western People]

"Crosstown Traffic" is one of the best books ever written about music, full stop.

Indeed. One of the reasons why it's so good is that it's actually a mini history of black music in America, disguised as a book about Hendrix.

CSM eschews the traditional biographical approach - the facts of Jimi's life only take up one chapter of the book - and spends the rest of the time talking about the blues, jazz and soul musicians who influenced him, black politics, gender politics, civil rights and the myth of the doomed poet dying young. Along the way he also manages to make an excellent case for Hendrix as one of the most important cultural figures of the twentieth century, AND he's a great writer, with a real knack for a well-turned or funny phrase.

His biography of John Lee Hooker is no less fascinating, and packed with even more interesting stuff about blues history, race and civil rights in the US, and some very funny anecdotes.

[beenieman]

I've not read any Charles Shaar Murray. Where should I start?

Try finding his review of The Yes Album.

He sums them up really well.

[Carlisle Wheeling]

Ian MacDonald was pretty much on the money for me. I've got albums etc by all the artists you mention and quite a few I enjoy but they're all Nationwide acts (at best) in comparison to the big guns to which MacDonald was referring. As for your great players... do me a favour! And as for that melody free rabble, The Fall, you can't be serious. And don't mention "the Brix Years".

I am 51. An old fart? Maybe. Saw Joan Baez last night - she was magnificent (Josh Ritter was very good as well). It's Magnet on Monday and the upcoming Jethro Tull on Thursday.

[Thesiger]

There's no point in arguing that Macdonald doesn't seem to rate the pop music of the eighties and nineties; therefore he's no good. He's a critic, and it's his job to hjold up for our praise that which is meritorious and to pick apart and dismiss that which is meretricious. This he does superbly, and with an intellectual depth and critical perspective steeped in the history of the medium. Importantly, he tells us why such music is great.

The golden days of pop music were in the late 50s to the late 70s. The annus mirabilis was probably 1965/66. To hold that view is not merely to show an attachment to the music of his youth, but to review the entire pop music oeuvre critically and to conclude that for all sorts of reasons, this was the peak. It doesn't mean everything which came after was rubbish - he never says this. But much of which has gone after has been (inevitably) retreads of ideas and instrumentation firstly coherently put down on tape in the mid sixties. We all tend to love what was in the charts of our teens and twenties - but that doesn't mean it was good!

And history will prove him right - the consensus of critical writings agrees with this central contention. And the atomisation of popular music into specialist camps (each with their own radio stations, heroes and sub cultures) is partly contributory. That, and the inability of very many contemporary popular recording artists to master an instrument and, through that process, to experiment and discover the harmonic, rythmic and melodic structures which underpin great pop music.

Ian Macdonald's analysis is spot on in The People's Music.