Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.
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| 21 foot tall statue of Shakira unveiled in her hometown in Columbia |
- Figure out figured bass for Schoenberg quartets
- Write a symphony for ukeleles
- Learn to appreciate Taylor Swift
- New strings on my guitar
The Beatles achieved something close to perfection from 1963 to 1969, gradually expanding out of entertainingly scrappy R&B into grand psychedelic vistas, then into strange, personal and oblique miniatures. They achieved this while maintaining a level of global popularity that is hard to imagine today. In a ridiculous American TV series from 1965 and a wonderful film, Yellow Submarine (1968), they appeared as cartoon characters, as instantly recognisable as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. But in 1970, the year they split up, they spoiled the picture. Their final album, Let It Be, consisted mostly of bad songs, recorded for a ‘back to basics’ project which they had abandoned a year earlier, releasing the far superior Abbey Road (1969) instead.
Money can’t buy you love, but in 2023, what it can buy you is AI-assisted time travel. Now in his eighties, Paul McCartney increasingly resembles one of those lost characters in a 1960s Alain Resnais or Chris Marker film, repeatedly thrown back into the past to re-experience a traumatic event; or perhaps the protagonist of J.G. Ballard’s Atrocity Exhibition, constantly re-enacting the assassinations of famous people so that they might ‘make sense’. As a piece of music, the ‘new’ ‘last’ ‘Beatles’ single, ‘Now and Then’, is of very little interest, but as a phenomenon, it is highly symptomatic. McCartney’s project of going back in time to the 1960s and 1970s and using advanced software to scrub the historical fact of the Beatles’ shabby, acrimonious end and replace it with a series of warm, friendly fakes is proof of another of Ballard’s claims – that the science-fictional future, when it arrives, will turn out to be boring.
And here is a delightful critical summary:
As a song, ‘Now and Then’ is generic late Lennon, one of many ponderous piano ballads. Its weary verses do have a certain poignancy, but the chorus was evidently an afterthought, now bloated into overemphasis by a pompous string arrangement. The result, despite a lovely, subtle backbeat from Starr, sounds a little like Coldplay, a terrible end for a group who once had the daring to try and emulate Little Richard, Ravi Shankar and Stockhausen all at once.
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Is the only reason Slipped Disc runs a lot of pieces on Yuja Wang to show off photos of her concert attire? YUJA WANG PLAYS BOULEZ IN CHINA
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An indispensable harpsichord man: Andrew Wooderson
You won't see him on stage unless it's before or after a concert, or during the interval, but many concerts couldn’t happen without him. If you don’t know him yet, meet Andrew Wooderson, maker and supplier of fine harpsichords! Relied upon by a wide array of period-instrument ensembles for their performances of baroque and classical repertoires, we see Andrew and his wife Naomi, a recorder player and teacher, at concerts everywhere. His keyboard instruments are individually hand built to order from carefully selected materials, based closely on surviving original examples. Andrew comments: “my instruments are an expression of my love for harpsichords and passion for fine craftsmanship.”
I'm always fascinated by fine musical instruments and the folks who make them. I recently started thinking about acquiring a vihuela and have contacted a builder.
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I'm trying to decide what I think of this story: Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s $190 Million Malibu Buy Topped the Real-Estate Charts in 2023.
There are fewer than 20 homes in the U.S. designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, and entertainment power couple Beyoncé and Jay-Z now own one of them. (Rapper and designer Kanye West also owns one that he’s now trying to sell.) The pair shelled out $190 million in 2023 for an Ando-designed mansion in Malibu, Calif., solidifying the architect’s cultlike status among celebrities. Neither Beyoncé nor Jay-Z responded to requests for comment.
I guess we should be happy for their success? It's nice that musicians can afford to purchase homes just under $200 million? So why am I uncomfortable? I suppose it depends on how you view, not success, but rather creativity? What are the sources of creativity? I think I have always suspected that hardship, at least the right amount of hardship, was an important engine and motivation of both the energy to be creative and also part of the content of the work as well. But many of the most prominent musicians of today seem to have goals other than the creation of something artistic. Which is fine, by the way. But working it in reverse, if you end up a billionaire with a house worth $200 million, maybe that was your goal? I don't quite see how you set out to be musically creative and end up a billionaire (as always, Paul McCartney excepted)? Wasn't it rather that you actually set out to be a billionaire and just found a productive avenue for that, which happened to be music? It could have been bitcoin or inventing a new video game. Just some thoughts...
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Now this is something I never suspected would occur: US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken singing some Muddy Waters while playing a left-handed Strat:
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