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I see that 18 year old Billie Eilish has won all the big awards at the Grammys. I tried listening to three of her songs and didn't get past the one-minute mark on any of them. Foggy, listless bass lines, dreary monotone vocals and I don't even want to try and suss out the lyrics. Young people seem to be in a really bad space these days.
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A lot of the criticism of the humanities programs at university these days revolves around two claims: that these "studies" programs, which seem to be always asking "questions about race, gender and social justice" are really very undemanding: all you have to do is learn the vocabulary and regurgitate it on command. And second, that graduating in these programs will make you largely unemployable. When it comes to things like music, dance and theatre, however, the first of these critiques is false. You can turn art history into social justice propaganda, but if there is no discipline in the practice of fine art, it becomes evident to the onlooker. At least you could argue that. In music and dance it is ever more stark. Yes, the "new" musicology has certainly had its way with dead, white, European composers. But they still rule the concert halls. And no amount of "wokeness" will improve your playing of Bach. Only disciplined practicing will do that. Isn't the same true of dance? But yes, making a living in the fine arts is likely harder than ever.
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Ok, let's have some music. How about a little François Couperin? This is "Le Rossignol-en-amour" from the Quatorzième Ordre for harpsichord played by Denis Bonenfant.
2 comments:
Re: Billie Eilish
Don't say I didn't warn you. The soggy rhythm seems worse to me than her vocals which are not good but not horrid. I've adapted to monotone vocals if they are sung with intensity (Lou Reed VU) or ingenuousness (Astrud Gilberto)or spookiness (Bilinda Butcher or LouLou). But you see there is a social media buzz about Billie for non musical reasons and that is what is important. People are listening to MP3 on YT or their phone so music sounds sort of dull samey anyway. Depression is the new excitement.
"Depression is the new excitement" captures it pretty well! Just read a story in the WSJ about her success that manages to almost completely avoid mentioning anything about the actual music. Her streaming and sales numbers are huge, which is really the whole story.
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