The only place I ever listen to music on the radio is in my car. I have this in common with most people. Do you remember the last time you turned on the radio in your home in order to listen to music? For most people I imagine that the radio is just something soothing to fill the silence and stem the road rage (maybe that last part is just me), but I listen to the radio to hear things that I wouldn’t pick for myself, otherwise I would just plug in the old iPod and swim around comfortably in the warm music bubble of my choosing.
Recently, while driving to pick up some lunch or dinner I was listening to the radio and “Shock the Monkey” came on. I got to my destination before the song ended, so I sat there in the parking lot, listening all the way to the end. I don’t know why that was necessary, because it’s not like I don’t know how the song ends. When it was released, it seemed like it was on the radio at least once an hour–in fact the way the top forty charts were programmed then, I think that frequency might be about right.
I wasn’t listening because it’s such a great song–though it is a pretty good song–I was listening because “Shock the Monkey” is a really weird song. It’s doubly weird if you remember seeing the video that went along with it. It sounds like Peter Gabriel had a good time recording it, without thinking about how popular it might be. Somehow he had managed to record several albums that only sold marginally well and I don’t think that he expected much else from this one. And yet, this song, which was much weirder than anything on the previous albums, became wildly popular. It was so popular it spawned some wacky covers.*
I think I’ve covered this here before, but was I don’t think I’ve come up with a coherent explanation of why it was possible for so much genuinely weird stuff to be so popular then. I can’t think of another time period when this was true. Maybe I’m being too nostalgic, but current popular music could sure use a good kick in the ass by something as weird as “Shock the Monkey.”
*Somehow that video, despite featuring animated versions of Don Ho, Jack Lord, and Tom Selleck, ends up being much less weird than the original.
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Here are some links you might enjoy:
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In the continuing saga of Johnny Mac’s theme song woes, it seems that he decided to use Heart’s “Barracuda” in honor of his new veep pick, Sarah “Barracuda” Palin. Predictably, Heart had the cease and desist out the next day. Message to Mac: I’ll up my offer if you’ll go with the Nuge. C’mon, show me you’re a real maverick.
I have to say I still can’t get with you on your curiosity of the weird. I find that PG song to be a product of its time. I mean, the whole shock the monkey bit seemed to be a play of course on spanking the monkey but also on laboratory animal abuse which was a big issue around the time that song came out. The video helped the songs popularity immensely and that was back in the Day of the Video – when all videos were weird and wildly popular (Talking Heads|Burning Down the House, Eurythmics|Sweet Dreams). The androgyny and glam of the previous pop period seems just as weird and on which this stuff is highly dependent.
But yeah, maybe weird had a run and isn’t in right now. Maybe the movie Weird Science did it in. That sort of weird, anyway, was a fad.
That being said, I don’t have cable and don’t listen to pop radio much so I am no expert as to what is popular on the thirteen year old’s radar which is what we seem to be examining here.
On the Neil Young link – I appreciated the recording description but I have to say that in my experience capturing a sparse open song like Heart of Gold should be one of the easiest things to do in a studio. Of course that is dependent on the tastes (even more than the talent) of the musicians.
What’s not to like about weird? I would much rather listen to something whose origins I can’t identify than something that sounds like dozens of other songs. And it’s even better if it creeps me out a little or makes me think about something differently.
I honestly have no idea what thirteen year olds are listening to, either. I don’t even know what radio station they listen to. Do even still listen to radio?
Capturing something like “Heart of Gold” seems like it would be easy, but it definitely does have a distinct sound. It’s not just the players. It’s that plus the dead rooms and the really compressed drums and lots of other things. If it were that easy to capture, there would me lots of albums that sound like it, but while there are lots of imitations (including Neil’s own sequel album), nothing else sounds like it.
I’ve had difficulty wrapping my head around this idea of weird or rather the complex idea of weird that you write about (you also posted about Dylan latching on to Old Weird America). Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to follow you down this path you’re sort of exploring. I just have trouble understanding it.
As far as comparing it to popular music of today – I’d look at what’s big because StM was big. I think there’s plenty of weird going on that isn’t big. I don’t know what is and isn’t big like that now but I don’t disagree with you that there isn’t as much – what would you call it? – Art Rock on that level right now.
On “Heart of Gold” – sure to recapture that classic sound would be as impossible (and undesirable) as recapturing Cowboy Junkie’s “Trinity Sessions.” I’m not saying that. I’m saying if you have an open sparse song, you don’t need a wizard of an engineer to get that thing on tape and sounding good. The instruments just don’t get in each other’s way.
The Old, Weird America of Marcus’ book really focuses on lyrical content. The songs themselves aren’t really all that unusual–they tend to be folky and often have singers with less than trained voices. If you didn’t listen to the lyrics at all, you’d probably just think it was a bad singer and a banjo and leave it at that. I’m also not sure this stuff was ever very popular. There might have been a point in the twenties or thirties that this music with weird lyrics had some success, but the music industry was new then so they had no idea what record buyers would want and, for their part, record buyers were more tolerant of whatever was on the newfangled gramophone records.
What interests me about “Shock the Monkey” is that it’s not just lyrically weird; it’s also musically weird. And the accompanying video is visually weird. Despite all these things, which must have seemed like strikes against it, the song was hugely popular. Why? Why in the intolerant Reagan eighties was the music listening public so willing to accept this kind of thing?
I was young and in my musical formative age then and I think I thought music would continue being just that weird, or maybe even weirder. It made perfect sense to me at the time, but of course, that never happened.
There certainly is art rock around now, but most of it isn’t very popular. I think Radiohead fits this description, though, and they are pretty popular. But while they may be arty, they really aren’t that weird. They never really let it get too out of control. This is a band who named themselves after a Talking Heads song and Talking Heads definitely had their weird moments. Maybe it’s just that Radiohead are British and more reserved.
I just think it would be really cool if the music listening public were more tolerant of stuff that isn’t familiar. But, as far as I can tell, the weirdest that popular music gets now is an ironic sample and a heavily Autotuned vocal. And if something is even slightly popular there a hundred imitators because nobody wants to get left off the gravy train. Anyway, maybe that explains my fascination with weird.
I love it when weird songs become popular. It makes it seem, at least for a moment, that the system isn’t totally fixed, that love for music is widespread and infectious, and people can be open minded if given the chance.
The industry has changed so much since then though, it’s really hard to compare. Kids do have a lot more choices and appear to be employing them. And don’t forget Huey Lewis was huge then too.
I was at a high school football game yesterday. Sure the kids are as self-absorbed and blunt as ever; and the few who step out of the football-dance squad-cheerleader mold still wear their “non-conformity” like a uniform. But I saw some indie label shirts, some I didn’t even recognize – the point being the kids embrace this ever thinning/spreading industry’s new face even as it is formed. And they are in a great seat to figure it all out as it comes about.
Okay you guys are now reminding me of a long lost feeling. I have become a snob. I no longer even think about the greater population’s tastes. I know that no matter what I’ll be looking for something outside of that taste zone because that will always be the challenge. If the greater population likes it then it’s too safe. I like being a snob.
Speaking of snobs and taking us back to one of your secondary themes. Does Johnny Mac’s “Country First” motto annoy anybody else? This whole thing the Repub’s do – making the Dem’s out to be snobs – seems so demeaning to the intelligence of their own base. And if Obama is a snob because he has the audacity to think the country deserves him – what is it that McCain thinks? That he deserves the country?
It’s true that it’s acceptable, even desirable, to be non-conformist in today’s youth culture, but I think that’s just a pre-packaged lifestyle choice that they buy at the Hot Topic in the mall (or the “new urban” shopping district, whichever). And even if they weren’t buying these things from major retailers, I’m not sure having a piercing or wearing black are really all that weird. In fact, if there is a culture at all built around something, it’s not very weird–or it’s not weird anymore.
And to be clear, I’m not talking about being weird for the sake of being weird or trying to shock people. I’m talking about following an idea that interests you and taking it to ridiculous places, just because that’s the natural progression of the idea’s development. I wish the music buying public would reward this kind of independent thought by making it popular more often.
The “Country First” thing does annoy me, but that shouldn’t be surprising because it’s designed to. As soon as you say that it sounds empty or jingoistic, then you are an elitist who hates his country. It’s like a political bear trap, so just walk around it.
In a similar vein, I’ve been thinking that the easy disprovable lies in Palin’s speech (which she didn’t write, but rather only read, like a good former sportscaster) were put there intentionally so that the media will do its job and make a big deal about her lying (and probably make some exaggerations of its own along the way). Then Republicans can call the media elite and have more ammunition for their “us against them” strategy. Again, just walk around it.
Fake weird, real weird… the difference can be so subtle sometimes. Trying to remember back to when shock the monkey was on the radio, it WAS weird, and i think that was pretty obvious to everyone. But i dont think there were too many other popular songs that came across as weird and that were popular not only in spite of their weirdness, but partly because of it. I remember watching that video and thinking wow, peter gabriel is a weird guy and this is a weird song. I dont think i ever thought that about say the Butthole Surfers though i did think it about the Violent Femmes. To me that kind of weirdness (Femmes, Gabriel) comes from what some might call their marching to there own drum beat attitude in its truest sense.
I think Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” was pretty weird. I remember watching the video and wondering why Byrne was floating in that blue substance and what the hell those hand gestures meant. It also predated “Shock the Monkey” and wasn’t quite as popular. Maybe “Once in a Lifetime” made something like “Shock the Monkey” possible–when the label execs realized that they could make money off of something weird they were more likely to support other things which might be even more weird.
Butthole Surfers and Violent Femmes were much more products of the time. They were both reactions against the prevailing conservative culture. They may have been marching to the beat of their own drum, but they both set out to shock the audience, rather than developing a genuinely weird idea. I don’t think either of them would be popular today, as we are pretty inured to shock now.
I’m not finding StM wholly weird, I have to say. I mean it’s based on a funky beat with string-esque synths a big fat eighties snare, flanged guitar. There’s midgets in the video. I think there were always midgets in videos. I do like the song but I find it utterly pop and likable.
I also can’t write off Butthole Surfers so easily since Paul Leary’s de-tuned guitar work was a huge influence to me. They had sonic value not just shock value.
I dont know, but i get the feeling the violent femmes (especially the first 3-4 records) would’ve been writing that stuff in any decade. The Buttholes, i’m not so sure (though this doesnt mean that they didn’t have value, cause they certainly did, shock, sonic and in many other ways).
I never thought of the Femmes as being particularly weird. Goofy maybe. I’m with W on the Paul Leary front. He wasn’t just a totally wasted showman, that guy sort of reinvented damaged guitar for my age group (1000 +).
It’s funny to consider how mercenery those accountant/weirdos were if you take into account how they mangaed their kitchen, so to speak. Azerrad covers that pretty well in Our Band Could Be Your Life.
Perhaps those of us who saw StM as being weird back then did so because we were suburban white teens (preteens, whatever).
For that matter, Gabriel was pretty damn weird. Check out those Genesis costumes. Even the other guys in the band were creeped out by him.
I also remember being baffled by that Talking Heads video. And by all accounts, Byrne is totally weird. I thought that song was way bigger a hit than Monkey though, no, Justin?
Fuck, for that matter, the 80s were chock full of all sorts of weirdness, intentional and otherwise.
But it’s pretty hard to quantify weird anymore in a world as retarded as this one.
By the way, who here detested the whole “new weird America” sham?
Palin was called “Barracuda” in part, it appears, due to her shamelss way of crushing her opponents without mercy. And that wasn’t just on the court.
That woman is scary.