From Cubist Castle 02.13.09: A Wing And A Prayer
Posted by Jon Kinsey on 02.13.2009
This week, I re-evaluate my opinion of one of the UK's most polarizing artists and take a look at Sufjan Stevens and his ability to defy a genre.
It's that time of the week again folks, so welcome to Cubist Castle. This week, I re-evaluate my opinion of one artist and look at why another has been able to defy the conventions of his genre. So, without further ado:
I'm going to make a confession. This is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to say and I know that there is a significant chance that you will feel betrayed and let down. My friends have already disowned me and there is every chance that I will ruin my reputation as a music writer before I've had the opportunity to acquire it. Nevertheless, I feel that the time is right and the thing must be said: -
I like the new Lily Allen single.
There, I've said it. Do your worst!
In truth, I'm not really sure what the name Lily Allen means to an American audience. The daughter of a pointless TV Non-entity and the step daughter of a personality almost as pointless, Allen burst onto the British music scene in the summer of 2006 with a song called "Smile", which spread like dysentery and was just as inviting. Thousands of right minded music fans took to flaying themselves alive as a more pleasant alternative to actually listening to it. It was an ill thought out, ill written song, supposedly penned by Allen as an exercise in revenge against one of any number of former boyfriends, though what connection the two co-writers had to the chap concerned is a subject of international intrigue.
She became popular for a while in the British tabloid press because of her late night antics. Her distinct appearance (she looked like a frog in a tracksuit), coupled with her staggering capacity for consuming alcoholic beverages, made her the paparazzi's best friend. She played the part of a rough, London Estate girl and the newspapers lapped it up.
The problem was, this wasn't the real Lily Allen. It was all an act. In truth, she was adopting an image in the hope that she would sell more copies of her records. Allen was, deep down, a middle class girl from Islington who was educated at the same private school as Prince Charles (wherefrom she was expelled after being caught fellating another student). While she was singing in a cockney accent, her actual speaking voice betrayed her true origins. This is exactly the sort of record company shenanigans that make me livid. When the ploy worked, and the single and album sold by the bucket load, it opened up the floodgates for a whole raft of equally facile fake Londoner female vocalists culminating in the harpy that is Kate Nash, who, if Dante had penned his Inferno in modern times, would have her own portion of hell, somewhere in the Malebolge.
So I was quite happy to go through my life disliking Allen for her treachery and heaping scorn upon her for her songs. Then something odd happened. She resurfaced a month or so ago with a new single called "The Fear". This wasn't, in and of itself, a surprise – everyone calculated that, eventually, she would lay off the booze and men for long enough to take a second stab at the pie. The really surprising thing was that the song was good. Really good. Lyrically, it is the British bastard step-child of the Nickelback song "Rock Star", which caught me equally unawares last summer (God, I've just been nice to Nickelback and Lily Allen in the same column. This must be a sign of the apocalypse or something….). In much the same way as its American sibling, "The Fear" incises and satirizes celebrity culture, with Allen taking on the role of a stereotypical bimbo woman for whom fame for fame's sake is the ultimate goal.
Much like "Rock Star", it sticks the boot into the people for whom being famous is the most desirable end product and, frankly, it matters little how they get there. The line:
I'll take my clothes off and it will be shameless
Cos everyone knows that's how you get famous
probably sums up the world's vacuous celebrity culture better than pretty much anything that has been released since the culture itself came about. Being famous for something is now an alien concept to many. Even a decade ago, the people who were in the public eye had some sort of talent. Now, you become a "celebrity" by taking your top off or making a fool of yourself on a reality TV show. This, perhaps, is a rant for another time, but I include it here because the song does such a good job of mocking the trend.
Unlike "Rock Star", however, "The Fear" takes a look at another aspect of modern living – the necessity for people to feel as if they are conforming with society's concept of physical perfection. I'm not a fashionista and that makes me immeasurably proud. I think any institution that encourages the normalization of a person's individuality is undesirable and millions of people are sanitizing their greatest form of expression – their physical appearance – in order to assuage the nebulous "Society". So many live and die in conformity, so when Allen sings: -
Everything is cool as long as I'm getting thinner
it is a clarion call. Much like any decent satire, it takes what we already know to be the case and frames it in an exaggerated way to draw our attention to the lunacy of it.
So yes, this song is good, and, surprisingly, I don't feel dirty for having said it.
The other pleasant thing that has happened in the Allen relaunch is that she appears to have ditched the Baron Greenback look and is seemingly representing herself more honestly. If this is the sign of things to come, I think that I can buy into this tiny revolution.
And The Trees Of The Field Shall Clap Their Hands
My office backs onto a Christian bookshop which, despite being called precisely that, also sells cds. They don't simply vend them, however, they also insist upon playing them. Very loudly. So loudly, in fact, that I can very often hear it through the adjoining wall. The vast majority of it can only be described, using the wonderful parlance of Alan Partridge, as "a heck of a din".
Based upon what I've heard in the past six months, I have managed to draw the following conclusions about modern Christian music: -
1. The ability to sing is not a pre-requisite to performance
There will exceptions to this rule, I'm sure, but unfortunately my beneficent neighbors seem incapable of stocking it. Their whole music catalog seems to consist of two categories of solo singer into which every artist they carry can be slotted. They are either a woman, of indeterminate age, whose singing voice is precisely analogous to the noise made by a bison in a blender, or a middle aged man with all the vocal charisma of Hepatitis. For Christ's sake, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash made gospel music cool in the 1960's, so how the hell did it come to this?
2. Christian songs are neither subtle, nor particularly well written
Again, this is a generalization based upon my enforced eves drop. While most songwriters with aspirations of glory at least make an attempt to come up with subtle, nuanced lyrics, this imperative seems not to apply when God is the subject matter of the song. In fact, being barnstormingly obvious seems to be a hallmark of Christian music. All the better perhaps, to galvanize the piety of the listener.
3. Nobody in my part of the world actually buys the stuff
This I know is not an accurate portrayal of the popularity of modern Christian music worldwide. Judging by the sales figures, there must be college campuses and old peoples homes all across the US that are absolutely swimming in it. The difference of course is that, like it or not, the USA is a devoutly religious country, whereas the UK is almost entirely secular. It is a natural extrapolation, therefore, that America would sell crap loads, while very little is shifted in this country. This is the only plausible explanation for the sad rotating rack of cds, perched inside the doorway of the shop. By my reckoning, they haven't sold a single one in six months. They just sit there in perpetuity, slowly fading in the midday sun.
With all this in mind, it's amazing that Christian leaning performers can make any sort of impact on the mainstream music scene at all. This makes the comparative success of Michigan singer and songwriter Sufjan Stevens even more impressive.
Stevens is unapologetically Christian. He seamlessly fuses religious language and iconography with his more conventional lyrics. His fourth album, Seven Swans is almost entirely dedicated to the re-telling of bible stories to music and, up until recent years, he would put out an annual Christmas album which would feature re-interpretations of religious carols, as well as his self penned seasonal songs.
I am, for what it's worth, a functioning agnostic who leans towards atheism and normally I find the concept of faith in mainstream music to be disingenuous. Yet Stevens is one of my favorite artists, a lyricist who frequently exhibits masterful delicacy and deliberation in his work and a multi-instrumentalist who plays with a passion that can break the hearts of his audience. This is true despite his use of religious tropes.
So why am I not put off by the lyrical content of his songs? I think one answer is because at no point does Stevens preach. He uses religion in a matter of fact sort of way. It is always set up in the sense of "This is what I believe and I'm writing about it in song, but if you don't agree with me, then cool, you may just like the song anyway". He lacks the obvious, cloying piety of the singers I have heard through my wall, who feel the need to re-enforce their belief by regaling it to all and sundry. Stevens seems to be comfortable enough with his own faith not to feel the need to persuade others that he is right.
The other major difference between Stevens and conventional Christian music is that, through his characters, he is not afraid to question faith. On "Casimir Pulaski Day", for instance, the narrator struggles to come to terms with the death of a close friend and finds himself questioning God's intentions
All the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see His face
In the morning in the window
All the glory when He took our place
But He took my shoulders and He shook my face
And He takes and He takes and He takes
This sort of sentiment would simply never find its way into the sort of music sold at Christian shops.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, Steven's songs are better for having their religious element. He has the reputation of being a literary, dense lyricist, whose songs are not instantly graspable, but reward the patient listener. A great deal of that depth is provided by the underlying spirituality in his writing. This is a diametric opposite to mainstream Christian rock. The reference to scripture draws you in to the song, rather than making you turn your radio off.
Stevens has bucked the trend and thrown off the stigma of singing about religious themes and, in doing so, has enriched the lives of his listeners. For that, if nothing else, I am truly thankful.
That's all from me this week folks. Join me next time when Cover of the Week will make its return and I'll be looking over a couple of bands that have made an impression on me in 2009.
