Former MNE writer during punk hey day learns errors of his ways, turns to Mozart, etc

[N_Singh]

http://www.theguardian.com/music/201...P=share_btn_fb

"For me, pop music is now a form of skilfully engineered product design, the performers little but entertainment goods, and that is how they should be reviewed and categorised. The current pop singers are geniuses of self-promotion, but not, as such, musicians expressing glamorous ideas."

"If you are going to go back to the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s to find music that still sounds new and challenging – because then it was an actual risk to look and sound a certain way, whereas now it is the norm – you might as well go even further back in time, to the beginning of the 20th century, to the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries. Now, with all music available instantly, and pop more a nostalgic, preservative practice rather than one anticipating and demanding change, classical music comes to fresh, forward-looking life."

"Once you make it through the formalities of classical music, those intimidating barriers of entry, there is the underestimated raw power of its acoustic sound and an endless supply of glorious, revolutionary music, all easily accessed as if it is happening now. Now that all music is about the past, and about a curation of taste into playlists, now that fashions and musical progress have collapsed, discernment wiped out, classical music takes a new place in time, not old or defunct, but part of the current choice. It is as relevant as any music, now that music is one big gathering of sound perpetually streaming into the world. If you are interested in music that helps us adapt to new ideas, to fundamental change, which broadcasts different, special ways of thinking and warns us about those who loathe forms of thinking that are not the same as theirs, classical is for you."

[Paulrus]

Hmm, he does say in the first sentence...

During the 1970s and 80s, I mostly listened to pop and rock music, when even the likes of Captain Beefheart, Henry Cow and Popul Vuh were filed under pop.

So it's mistaken to imply he was strictly a cheerleader for punk when he was certainly aware and not necessarily antagonistic toward those bands.

I don't have time to read it all, but his screed seems to have stirred up quite a bit of discussion...

[JJ88]

So it's mistaken to imply he was strictly a cheerleader for punk when he was certainly aware and not necessarily antagonistic toward those bands.

He was. His raison d'etre is giving a pseudo-iconoclastic kicking to various pre-punk stars. I gather he was at it again very recently in a Kraftwerk documentary on BBC4, making comments about The Beatles which caused a stir.

Not a writer I have much time for.

[Rick Robson]

Such a good and worth checking out Debussy's selection ! This man is stiring a GREAT discussion in the musical scene, it's just the start of it in my opinion, interesting perspectives taste-wise, too.

[The Other One]

Never could stand Paul Morley. Such a smug hipster and as irritating as ever in that recent Kraftwerk doc, so am not really interested in reading his comments on classical music, though if it has provoked interesting discussion fair enough. In his defence he did co-found the ZTT label with Trevor Horn that had some good acts on it, such as Propoganda. Mind you a lot of that was probably down to Horn, and suspect Morley's main role was supplying the pseudy sleeve notes that accompanied the records. Steve Howe played on one of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood releases on ZTT and Morley was outraged and embarrassed that a sticker proclaiming this fact went on the cover. What a muppet!

[JJ88]

Morley was outraged and embarrassed that a sticker proclaiming this fact went on the cover.

Sounds about right. I remember one of his BBC4 documentaries where members of Art Of Noise said 'Close To The Edit' was inspired by 'Close To The Edge' (rather obviously in the title) and he took great pains to point out how much he hated Yes.

FWIW, the classical I latched onto most was definitely Debussy, Satie, Chopin etc.

[The Other One]

Sounds about right. I remember one of his BBC4 documentaries where members of Art Of Noise said 'Close To The Edit' was inspired by 'Close To The Edge' (rather obviously in the title) and he took great pains to point out how much he hated Yes.

I never trust anyone who says the first record they bought was a cool one, and Morley says his was Ride a White Swan by T Rex. Mine was Snoopy Vs the Red Baron by The Hotshots!

[taliesin]

Even at the time Morley was a dreadful writer and reading this article he hasn't improved.

Smug, self-important drivel - if it has turned some people onto the pieces he discusses it's despite his writing not because of it.

[Scrotum Scissor]

People should not be allowed to dislike Yes/prog/fuck and make a point out of it, that's for sure.

[JJ88]

^Sorry but Morley deliberately baits people with what he writes and says about all music, IMHO. His comments on The Beatles' influence on music is a recent example of this.

I'm not just some raving Yes fanboy, which is what is being implied.

[The Other One]

Yeah there are plenty of other reasons to dislike Morley beyond his antipathy to Prog. A smug poseur is a smug poseur. Lester Bangs hated Prog bands like ELP but I bought his book because at least he dissed them in a witty and well written fashion.

[JJ88]

Bangs has written things I liked, such as what he wrote after Elvis died. Any good points Morley makes just get lost within his 'controversial' persona IMHO.

[Rick Robson]

Yeah indeed, now I can realize it after reading further this subject. Totally agree about his disrespectful, condescendent and even pejorative way he approaches and refers to all forms of music that he disliked either back then or nowadays. I think also that he is making a hell of a huge disservice towards Classical Music, as probably people who still don't have a clue about it would definitely lose any interest just because of his supposedly appreciation for it now

[A. Scherze]

Snoopy Vs the Red Baron by The Hotshots!

What? You got a cover version and not the original by the Royal Guardsmen?!?

[The Other One]

What? You got a cover version and not the original by the Royal Guardsmen?!?

I live in the UK and the original was not a hit there I think, as well as being a bit before my time in 1967. I actually don't mind the Hotshots ska take on it and am not embarrassed that I bought it!

[Facelift]

The whole article seems to be boiled down to the following things:

1). the writer got older (protest the reason though he does)
2). The stuff he used to follow (pop/rock music) stopped evolving.
3). Due to technology, classical music is now more accessible

That's it. And I wonder how much of it really is just due to numbers 1 and 3.

The writer only seems to acknowledge Nos 2 and 3, and that makes it problematic for me to draw the same conclusions that he does. Even if we were to accept that rock/pop music reached a creative dead end some time ago, how exactly would that make classical music more timely or relevant? In his own words, there is plenty of rock and pop music from the '50s/60s/70s and 80s that still sounds vital and challenging. He hasn't made the argument that there is anything about classical music or the world today that makes the two particularly complementary, other than that lots of classical music has become very accessible, due to streaming services. Classical music has been there - virtually unchanged - from the moment this guy bought his first record until today.

So yeah - here's a guy who thinks that pop and rock are dead and who has burned out on his older stuff from the genre, but is now old enough to have the desire to look into classical music. Great. Congrats. It's happened before.

The only thing mildly surprising here is that he didn't make a pit-stop with jazz in the interim.

[JJ88]

^I thought he might as well have called it 'Man Gets Old'.

[mjudge]

Pretty much with you on all of the above, and as somebody who used to make (very little) money with record reviews, etc., I think this all points up one of the problems with the Criticism Industry, especially in the new gig/freelance economy: you can't just write that you used to dismiss some things out of hand but now appreciate them. It's got to be "controversial" and "provocative" and a bunch of other cooked-up factitious bullshit. That's partly the fault of publications like the NME, which always made their cash with this kind of stuff, and partly down to the fact that there are so few decent writing gigs anymore, so you're expected to hustle for one-shot publication by being a fake contrarian.

[Scrotum Scissor]

but Morley deliberately baits people with what he writes and says about all music, IMHO. His comments on The Beatles' influence on music is a recent example of this.

I'm sure that's true.

[Sunlight Caller]

I was raised on the NME and it's true Morley's writing was often deliberately obtuse and would never be out of place in pseudo corner. However I like an opinionated person, it stirs debate and should not be taken personally. Why give a damn if he rails against having Steve' Howe's name on a Frankie release? He makes totally valid points about the current state of "pop".

Ride A White Swan is not that outrageous a claim as a first single. He is a couple of years older than me, and I had that one and still have the 7". It appealed to us kids back then, we were all over the cool looking Mark Bolan, David Bowie and then some of the less glamorous Glam icons.

[Mascodagama]

I think Paul Morley has actually been quite consistent, in that his main interest as a writer has always been demonstrating to the world the cleverness of Paul Morley. But I can't say I object too much - at least he has ideas along the way, and he's less boring than most in the field of 'pop criticism'.

Plus ZTT put out some great stuff in the eighties, so there's that.

[JJ88]

^Well, I do like Propaganda's 'Duel'...an act who featured his one-time wife!

[Rick Robson]

I don't believe in the apocalyptical picture he paints of today's musical scene, you can make a point about the pop music you already know but not about what's going on in the whole world. There is much more good music being made in the anonymous places by anonymous artists, the only problem is that people seems to keep their two ears turned to the fashion. My only hope is that thanks to the Internet the 'fashion' seems to lose much of its traditional strength.

[Stevie B]

Never could stand Paul Morley. Such a smug hipster and as irritating as ever in that recent Kraftwerk doc...

I watched that the other day and couldn't agree more. He's the kind of writer/broadcaster who cannot just enthuse about something...he has to denigrate everything else while he's at it, to make it absolutely clear how right he is and how wrong everyone else is. He's an arse, basically...