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[pmcd9]

One of my favorite albums from my favorite musician. It's reissue just got a super good review in Pitchfork.

My favorite bit of the review.

Critics hated "Uncle Albert". "A major annoyance," Christgau opined. Again, from the current moment we can only plead ignorance, assume that some serious shit had to be going down to clog everyone's ears. Because "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" is not only Ram's centerpiece, it is clearly one of McCartney five greatest solo songs.

I was 8 years old when it came out so I guess I wasn't subject to whatever "serious shit" was clogging everyone's ears.

[Jaded Tersk]

I've never heard this album, so I can't pass comment, though I frequently do an eBay search on what records people are buying from my saved sellers, and this seems to be selling like hotcakes.

But this makes me think of something I was musing over the other day.  It's not so much that tastes change over time - it's more like during certain periods there are weird pre-conceived notions about what categories things belong in due to what is status quo and what is predominant.  People use a lot of mental shortcuts because of what else is in the air at the time.  Argh, I'm explaining this really poorly.  I'll try to think of some examples of things where when it happened makes a critical difference in perception.

Okay, Robert Forster and Pam Grier were received well as love interests in the film, and as actors generally when Jackie Brown came out.  But if that film came out in the actual 1970's, then the conventional wisdom about what kind of films those two actors did would probably influence critics to pan it.

Similarly, at least to my recollection, critics didn't used to gush over Bill Murray.  His reputation's resurrection had to be put on hold until the memory of him being in 'that type of movie' (which weren't critics' favourites) was over.

So how it would work now is that an album which sounded right in the same field as, uhh, I dunno, whatever people have bought a lot of, say White Stripes or something, the tastemakers would be sniffy about - but if it were released ten years from now, they'd likely be more amenable.

This was a pretty shit opinion, and I regret taking so long to write it.

[theinevitable]

Jaded Tersk is right. I think a great example is that Wavves album from a few years ago that I loved. When this kind of music originally came out, in the early 90s, most in the "alternative" "indie" scene hated it. Pop-punk was everything wrong with the music industry, and represented punk selling out and going commercial. It would have been humiliating to admit to liking this music! Personally, I remember being a little into Sum 41 in 7th grade, and then being told they were fakers not to listen to them. Once I got into older/harder punk stuff, I was always annoyed by pop-punk. But then one day I heard this album, and was blown away. The music was no longer in the same moment in time, and was being appreciated/emulated by an artist I liked, and suddenly I liked it.

This has also happened with a lot of 70s/80s music for me. One day I heard Fleetwood Mac and realized that I loved them. I think a lot of my friends had the exact same experience.

And of course, fashion is also a cycle. I used to laugh at old pictures of my parents from the 80s. Then one day I looked and saw my dad in faded jeans, a tight polo, and wayfarers, my mom in high-waisted jeans and big glasses and realized this blog was all too true.

[wombat]

This has also happened with a lot of 70s/80s music for me. One day I heard Fleetwood Mac and realized that I loved them. I think a lot of my friends had the exact same experience.

Interesting. I am now contemplating the idea that perhaps only someone who didn't live through the 70s can judge 70s music fairly. For me all 70s music is tainted by being associated with a time when people (including my ignorant youthful self) had terrible taste in so many things that I totally do not want to be reminded of.

[pmcd9]

Interesting. I am now contemplating the idea that perhaps only someone who didn't live through the 70s can judge 70s music fairly. For me all 70s music is tainted by being associated with a time when people (including my ignorant youthful self) had terrible taste in so many things that I totally do not want to be reminded of.

70s music is fuck*ng awesome!

[AugustWest]

It's so hard to separate music from its cultural context and from our own personal memories and feelings about events that we associate with it.  How can we hope to objectively analyze music?  I like to try to subtract some of the cultural subtext to try to come up with genre crossing aesthetic theories, i.e. "What makes Bill Monroe and Jimi Hendrix both great musicians?  What's similar about them that I appreciate?"

[miles]

Robert Christgau is kind of a dick.

[Jaded Tersk]

Yeah, that's a perfect example, inev.

There was an album I thought was an absolute stormer from a band called Larrikin Love in I think 2004.  When I wanted to turn people onto it, more than one friend was dismissive, and I'm sure it was because it had some ska-pop-punk elements to it, and the timing was all wrong for it.

I don't know if this counts exactly the same but, as I recall it, Dexy's Midnight Runners were regarded as not too far above the level of a novelty band back home.  When I moved to the UK, I was surprised at how different the perception of them was.  Not just taken seriously, but Searching For the Young Soul Rebels is something that pops up in critics top albums list all the time.  And it is wonderful and awesome if you listen to it outside of the 'novelty' context - which I guess North Americans ascribe to it because British pop influenced by the New Wave was too predominant at the time, so why should this band be any different from Duran Duran, Thompson Twins or whoever.

[pmcd9]

Jaded Tersk, don't you think enough time has passed for you to now fully appreciate Ram?

[Jaded Tersk]

Yeah, definitely.  I plan on listening to it this weekend.

[AugustWest]

I don't know if this counts exactly the same but, as I recall it, Dexy's Midnight Runners were regarded as not too far above the level of a novelty band back home. 

I'd say more like a one hit wonder.

God, that video used to be on MTV All. The. Frickin. Time.

[Jaded Tersk]

Right, right.  So I guess the reason they're seen so differently here is that they had already had a #1 single here two years before Come On Eileen, and another top ten single, and that album went to number 6.  Then a couple of years later was Come On Eileen.  So it totally changes the perception.