"Ironic detachment" in popular music. Thought?

[Ilash]

I seem to recall an old post of mine that I made on this board a while back where I basically complained about the rise of so called "ironic detachment" within popular music and how it plays a major part in my often less than enthusiastic reception to much of post-seventies pop music. I know that Adam Crocker said that he would like to get back to that sentiment in its own thread but he never did. As such I apologize to Crocker for stealing his idea but I do think it's a topic well worth some discussion and figured I would get the ball rolling with this thread and hopefully get some nice discussion out of it.

Anyway, first off, just so we're clear here: I realize that a lot of music since the seventies haven't suffered from this "problem" and some from back then actually did but this thread isn't intended as another bashing-modern-music thread and though much of my focus will be on post-classic rock and pop for simplicity reasons, my main intention is to discuss this phenomenon in general terms.
Also, because we're dealing with emotional responses here most of what I'll be talking about is my opinion not objective fact. I say this simply because I seem to have a tendency to present my opinions as facts, which does quite understandably rile people up at times. So just consider this an advanced apology and explanation. But anyway on to the actual topic...



I don't think I'm alone here when I say the main reason I listen to music is for the emotional response it gets out of me. There is an intellectual level to it as well but emotional resonance is king as far as I'm concerned. Of course, there all sorts of different emotions that music, and specifically rock and roll, can elicit in a person both easily definable (happy, sad, angry) and somewhat more obscure ("kick ass" and the more visceral emotions). As such, I prefer The Who to Queen, as for example, in a large part because The Who's music is much more emotionally resonant to me than Queen's could ever hope to be. As a rule though, I found that classic rock simply has a lot more HEART than a huge portion of what came out of the New Wave movement and the music that followed it. The main culprit for this being, as you may have guessed, the apparent rise of ironic detachment in music.

I suppose the best way to explain this phenomenon would be that basic human emotions were being obscured by several different factors, be it the use of more impersonal synthesizers and drum machines rather than the more "human" traditional instruments like guitars and pianos; more obscure, guarded and yes, ironic lyrics; a "colder", more robotic singing style and a general attitude that seemed to treat the love song as something beneath a "real" musicians contempt. Again, yes, this is a wild generalization and their were then and are now plenty of exceptions to this but I don't think it's an unfounded generalization at that. Actually, without even looking at the New Wave scene, look no further than current modern music to see this in effect. Not so much the singer/ songwriter genre (that's always been quite exempt from this) or some indie-pop bands but those bands and artists that play "rock and roll". The only emotions that these guys really display are anger, hate, rage, moody depression and a general woe-is-me feeling and thats only if they actually bother to show emotions.

Now I may well just be an old hippy at heart but am I the only one who feels this seeming complete lack of beauty, humour (not the cold ironic type), love and oh yeah, FUN in modern popular music to be tiring as all hell and a big detractor from any enjoyment that I may get out of it. Oh and yes, I realize that I have just extended cold irony to include this complete reliance on negative emotions but I feel that they're either two very related concepts or one and the same. And yes, I realize that modern crappy bubblegum pop music is generally fairly positive (though how much of it is actually fun?) but c'mon, this music was never really meant to be listened to.

Now the big questions are:

a) Do you see this phenomenon to be as wide spread as I am making it out to be? (It is entirely possible that I am just focusing on a very noticable minority here)

b) Is it as intensely cold as I make it out to be?

c) Most importantly, even if you disagree completely with me on a) and b) and hold that I am exagerating this trend (and like I say, that definitely is a possibility), does this ironic detachment detract from your enjoyment of even the few cases that it applies to? Do you or do you not have a problem listening to a band that is almost exclusively angry, morbid, mopey and/or depressive in nature?

d) Lastly and possibly most controversially, if this "ironic detachment" is a factor in your enjoyment of a band/artist and obviously assuming it exists, does it hurt the state of music in more objective terms? Or simply, does this "ironic detachment" and negativity trend make the music worse or simply less enjoyable on a personal level?

[Adam Crocker]

I know that Adam Crocker said that he would like to get back to that sentiment in its own thread but he never did.

No I wanted to do a thread discussing authenticity in popular music and various applications. This is a different enchilada altogether.

No you just sit your pretty head down while Uncie Adam thinks of a suitable way to demol...I mean RESPOND to your thread.

[Ilash]

No I wanted to do a thread discussing authenticity in popular music and various applications. This is a different enchilada altogether.

No you just sit your pretty head down while Uncie Adam thinks of a suitable way to demol...I mean RESPOND to your thread.

Oh yeah. Actually I think you mentioned that you would start threads for both. Regardless, I'm looking forward to your response. And seeing as how you, like many others on the board, are big fans of the period of music in question I'm sure there will be a lot of dissagreeing with me here.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and please feel free to start that other thread soon because authenticity in music is one interesting and unbelievably tricky subject.

[Adam Crocker]

Oh yeah. Actually I think you mentioned that you would start threads for both.

I'm pretty sure I only said "authenticity." I might have said something about posting a fuller response later to what you said ironic detachment.

Of course this may take awhile since I need to shower and think. And I just got back from the gym.

[Ilash]

I'm pretty sure I only said "authenticity." I might have said something about posting a fuller response later to what you said ironic detachment.

Of course this may take awhile since I need to shower and think. And I just got back from the gym.

Well, take your time. It's late here so I'll only see your response tomorrow anyway.

[Jonathan Bogart]

Now I may well just be an old hippy at heart but am I the only one who feels this seeming complete lack of beauty, humour (not the cold ironic type), love and oh yeah, FUN in modern popular music to be tiring as all hell and a big detractor from any enjoyment that I may get out of it.
I've said it before, and I'm gonna keep saying it until everyone realizes it's the truth:

Rock music is not the pop music vernacular anymore. Rap is.

Rap is where the fun, the creativity, the white-hot heat of pop-cultural imagination and enjoyment are happening today.

Rock music is either too aware of its fifty-year past, too ground down to a blah generality, or too much the product of a singular (often very odd) vision to recapture the Shock of the New like it did in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s. Rock fans who hate rap today are where jazz fans who hated rock were in the 60s. The word for rock's state is decadence. The root word for that is decay. This is not an insult, just an observation. (I tend to prefer rock-based stuff myself.) It's a natural cycle, and it reinforces the idea that I always bring up in these conversations, that there are no absolute standards in pop music.

This isn't quite what you asked, I understand. (Please, please, please don't let this turn into another stupid anti/pro rap thread, for the love of God.) Of course any hip-hop fan is gonna laugh at the idea that ironic detachment isn't present in hip-hop; Eminem built his whole career on it. But the cancer has spread throughout the system. It's not music's fault: it's culture's fault.

One thing about living in the Information Age (I wanna say something in these parentheses that will ironically detatch me from that capitalized phrase, but I can't think of anything) is the numbing effect of mediated experience (paging Dr. Lacan). Jane's Addiction made the point on a record cover: nothing's shocking, not even naked Siamese twins on fire. The Age of Aquarius was a bad trip; everyone's scarred and scared of getting hurt again. Plus, there's the generational thing: whatever mom and dad like isn't cool. Well, but what if when mom and dad have good taste? So now the shaggy teenage rebels who want to be the Rolling Stones are the previous generation's marching-band dorks. How can you be special and brilliant when you sport the same ten influences as every other guitar band in the country? (Uh, we sound like the Beatles meets the Velvet Underground. Which is every indie act since REM.)

Musical revolutions (as opposed to simple evolution, which is American music from 1930 to 1963) happen due to cross-pollination: when people raised in one musical tradition are exposed to a completely different one, and try to recreate the experience. That's the Birth of Jazz simplified, and remember the quote from Brian Eno, that hearing rhythm & blues music on a shortwave radio was like hearing music from outer space? His generation (which includes everyone from the Beatles to the Pistols) transformed popular music. (It's hard to remember today, but the punks weren't the children of the hippies; they were their younger siblings.) The problem is that no one is so insular anymore; everyone's heard everything, and those people who haven't heard everything are the ones content to churn out the same old sludge because simple chord changes are always beautiful when they're new.

So we'll mashup the past and create a new world out of the fragments of the old. This isn't anything new; Dada did it a century ago. (And it's a very old game in religion.) But it'll never quite have the flavor of that dear, sweet vanished past, because too much water is under the bridge, and we have our own ways of having fun and falling in love and finding things funny today.

I could go (and have gone) on rants about how much we've lost by not playing and loving the music of the early 1900s, but that's how culture and history work. Much as we as a society love to pretend that we're at the end of history and because of this Internet thing nothing good ever has to die (it can instead be cherished forever by a small group of slightly demented enthusiasts), we're in the time we're in, and the beat the world dances to is programmed instead of live.

It's a mistake, I think, to try to talk about music in the abstract instead of tied to a specific time and place (though I'm not going to stop trying). Beauty, humor, love and fun may be eternal qualities (it's all in Plato, all in Plato), but the way a mass society responds to them and idealizes them will inevitably change, as anyone who's paged through a magazine from 1913 can see. The beauty I hear in operetta, the humor in vaudeville, the love in a Jerome Kern show tune, and the fun in New Orleans jazz are entirely unavailable to the majority of listeners, for whom beauty might be melismatic singers, humor a shock-jock skit, love an explicit ballad, and fun the whole clattering, zooming mile-a-minute production.

I mean, have you heard "Hey Ya"?

[Adam Crocker]

Damn...I'm wondering if I should even bother typing a response anymore. Bogart's post said everything far better than I could.

[Buried Alien]

Rock music is not the pop music vernacular anymore. Rap is.

Rap is where the fun, the creativity, the white-hot heat of pop-cultural imagination and enjoyment are happening today.


With all due respect, Jon, that's stating the obvious.

Rock hasn't been the runaway standard of the youth culture since the late 1980s.

But as long as I've struggled with that realization myself, I'm coming to the conclusion: so what? I'm going to be 34 years old in a few months. I've put down the youth rebellion flag for years.

I'll just love the music *l* love, teenyboppers be damned.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Harry]

Awesome thread.

That being said, I've not a whole lot to add but hey. I need to sleep soon as well, so I guess it'll be brief.

a) Do you see this phenomenon to be as wide spread as I am making it out to be? (It is entirely possible that I am just focusing on a very noticable minority here)
Yeah, I think it is, but the question is probably more, is it anymore so now than it has been ever since pop music came about? I'm pretty young but from what I've gathered the pattern has traditionally been: a handful of artists emerge from a scene - they're unique, exciting, new - a lot of young people want to be just as exciting and decide to do the exact same thing that the unique people did. A xerox of a xerox of a xerox. Music, and probably art as a whole, will always be 1% honest, brave, crazy geniuses and 99% people who wish they were honest, brave, crazy geniuses. And I guess there's also the portion who really are just in it for the money.

b) Is it as intensely cold as I make it out to be?
I guess my answer here is pretty much the same. Yes, but probably no more so than always. I don't think the correlation is with the instrumentation specifically. I think electronic music can be a justifiably passionate artform if less primal. Radiohead touch a lot of people in extreme emotional ways with a varying degree of moods, often with no more can some keyboards and a drum machine. But the most emotionally vibrant artists emerge in the smallest DIY communities, and I think that's how it's always been. The difference now is that, with the access of information there is now, it's much more difficult for a movement to remain underground now for any prolonged period of time, and is swallowed up by the corporate machine much more swiftly than in the past.

c) Most importantly, even if you disagree completely with me on a) and b) and hold that I am exagerating this trend (and like I say, that definitely is a possibility), does this ironic detachment detract from your enjoyment of even the few cases that it applies to? Do you or do you not have a problem listening to a band that is almost exclusively angry, morbid, mopey and/or depressive in nature?
I listen to a lot of music that would be considered depressive in nature - much more so than music on the radio in fact (Until Death Overtakes Me, While Heaven Wept, Katatonia, etc.). However, I don't consider that any less a valid expression than anything else. Honesty is the trait in music that's the most important to me, and for myself, as with many other people I think, depressive music is not actually a depressing experience - more cathartic. The saddest songs can be like an emotional purifier. To sum it up, I guess, I have more fun listening to sad music than I do fun music.

d) Lastly and possibly most controversially, if this "ironic detachment" is a factor in your enjoyment of a band/artist and obviously assuming it exists, does it hurt the state of music in more objective terms? Or simply, does this "ironic detachment" and negativity trend make the music worse or simply less enjoyable on a personal level?
I'm less concerned with the emotional mood of music than I am with the honesty of the artist. A contrived musician sounds contrived. If I hear a band that genuinely sound like they're have a good time I'll like them (Franz Ferdinand, The Libertines) just as I'lle like a band who sounds convincingly depressed. If the content is genuine it will click with me without me even knowing why much of the time.

[howyadoin]

On one hand, I think music should be able to express any emotion - or lack thereof. On the other, I really don't think irony and rock 'n' roll go that well together.

[Ilash]

With all due respect, Jon, that's stating the obvious.

Rock hasn't been the runaway standard of the youth culture since the late 1980s.

But as long as I've struggled with that realization myself, I'm coming to the conclusion: so what? I'm going to be 34 years old in a few months. I've put down the youth rebellion flag for years.

I'll just love the music *l* love, teenyboppers be damned.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Yeah, I'm only twenty four and I still feel the same way. Mind you, I actually felt that when I was eleven or twelve and first discovered music through the Beatles.

[Ilash]

Awesome thread.

That being said, I've not a whole lot to add but hey. I need to sleep soon as well, so I guess it'll be brief.


Yeah, I think it is, but the question is probably more, is it anymore so now than it has been ever since pop music came about? I'm pretty young but from what I've gathered the pattern has traditionally been: a handful of artists emerge from a scene - they're unique, exciting, new - a lot of young people want to be just as exciting and decide to do the exact same thing that the unique people did. A xerox of a xerox of a xerox. Music, and probably art as a whole, will always be 1% honest, brave, crazy geniuses and 99% people who wish they were honest, brave, crazy geniuses. And I guess there's also the portion who really are just in it for the money.



Oh you're absolutely right in what you're saying but it doesn't really answer the question as to whether there is more ironically detached music than before.


I guess my answer here is pretty much the same. Yes, but probably no more so than always. I don't think the correlation is with the instrumentation specifically. I think electronic music can be a justifiably passionate artform if less primal. Radiohead touch a lot of people in extreme emotional ways with a varying degree of moods, often with no more can some keyboards and a drum machine. But the most emotionally vibrant artists emerge in the smallest DIY communities, and I think that's how it's always been. The difference now is that, with the access of information there is now, it's much more difficult for a movement to remain underground now for any prolonged period of time, and is swallowed up by the corporate machine much more swiftly than in the past.


Again, I do basically agree. Yes, computerized instruments can be emotive as hell, otherwise I would hardly love 70s Who as much as I do. However, this does strike me as more of the exception than the rule because most of the electronic music I've heard is emotionally distant.


I listen to a lot of music that would be considered depressive in nature - much more so than music on the radio in fact (Until Death Overtakes Me, While Heaven Wept, Katatonia, etc.). However, I don't consider that any less a valid expression than anything else. Honesty is the trait in music that's the most important to me, and for myself, as with many other people I think, depressive music is not actually a depressing experience - more cathartic. The saddest songs can be like an emotional purifier. To sum it up, I guess, I have more fun listening to sad music than I do fun music.


Ah now here's an interesting point. While I do think that at its best music should be balanced between positive and negative emotions but the idea of negative music as a cathartic experience is both important and true. Take the blues, a genre of music that is known for its negative lyrics and yet, as Willie Dixon is quoted as saying: "The blues is happy music!" probably because of this very phenomenon. It would seem that by placing all of their demons into their songs, they would be freed of them with the inevitable result of the music coming off as anything but negative. I have found this in rock and rolll as well. If I'm in a bad mood The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again always lifts me up because of its obvious cathartic nature. The problem with ironic detachment is that it fails COMPLETELY in this regard. That's part of its nature and it's for this reason that I find it so completely troubling.


I'm less concerned with the emotional mood of music than I am with the honesty of the artist. A contrived musician sounds contrived. If I hear a band that genuinely sound like they're have a good time I'll like them (Franz Ferdinand, The Libertines) just as I'lle like a band who sounds convincingly depressed. If the content is genuine it will click with me without me even knowing why much of the time.

True. No arguments here.

[Ilash]

I've said it before, and I'm gonna keep saying it until everyone realizes it's the truth:

Rock music is not the pop music vernacular anymore. Rap is.

Rap is where the fun, the creativity, the white-hot heat of pop-cultural imagination and enjoyment are happening today.

Rock music is either too aware of its fifty-year past, too ground down to a blah generality, or too much the product of a singular (often very odd) vision to recapture the Shock of the New like it did in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s. Rock fans who hate rap today are where jazz fans who hated rock were in the 60s. The word for rock's state is decadence. The root word for that is decay. This is not an insult, just an observation. (I tend to prefer rock-based stuff myself.) It's a natural cycle, and it reinforces the idea that I always bring up in these conversations, that there are no absolute standards in pop music.

This isn't quite what you asked, I understand. (Please, please, please don't let this turn into another stupid anti/pro rap thread, for the love of God.) Of course any hip-hop fan is gonna laugh at the idea that ironic detachment isn't present in hip-hop; Eminem built his whole career on it. But the cancer has spread throughout the system. It's not music's fault: it's culture's fault.

One thing about living in the Information Age (I wanna say something in these parentheses that will ironically detatch me from that capitalized phrase, but I can't think of anything) is the numbing effect of mediated experience (paging Dr. Lacan). Jane's Addiction made the point on a record cover: nothing's shocking, not even naked Siamese twins on fire. The Age of Aquarius was a bad trip; everyone's scarred and scared of getting hurt again. Plus, there's the generational thing: whatever mom and dad like isn't cool. Well, but what if when mom and dad have good taste? So now the shaggy teenage rebels who want to be the Rolling Stones are the previous generation's marching-band dorks. How can you be special and brilliant when you sport the same ten influences as every other guitar band in the country? (Uh, we sound like the Beatles meets the Velvet Underground. Which is every indie act since REM.)

Musical revolutions (as opposed to simple evolution, which is American music from 1930 to 1963) happen due to cross-pollination: when people raised in one musical tradition are exposed to a completely different one, and try to recreate the experience. That's the Birth of Jazz simplified, and remember the quote from Brian Eno, that hearing rhythm & blues music on a shortwave radio was like hearing music from outer space? His generation (which includes everyone from the Beatles to the Pistols) transformed popular music. (It's hard to remember today, but the punks weren't the children of the hippies; they were their younger siblings.) The problem is that no one is so insular anymore; everyone's heard everything, and those people who haven't heard everything are the ones content to churn out the same old sludge because simple chord changes are always beautiful when they're new.

So we'll mashup the past and create a new world out of the fragments of the old. This isn't anything new; Dada did it a century ago. (And it's a very old game in religion.) But it'll never quite have the flavor of that dear, sweet vanished past, because too much water is under the bridge, and we have our own ways of having fun and falling in love and finding things funny today.

I could go (and have gone) on rants about how much we've lost by not playing and loving the music of the early 1900s, but that's how culture and history work. Much as we as a society love to pretend that we're at the end of history and because of this Internet thing nothing good ever has to die (it can instead be cherished forever by a small group of slightly demented enthusiasts), we're in the time we're in, and the beat the world dances to is programmed instead of live.

It's a mistake, I think, to try to talk about music in the abstract instead of tied to a specific time and place (though I'm not going to stop trying). Beauty, humor, love and fun may be eternal qualities (it's all in Plato, all in Plato), but the way a mass society responds to them and idealizes them will inevitably change, as anyone who's paged through a magazine from 1913 can see. The beauty I hear in operetta, the humor in vaudeville, the love in a Jerome Kern show tune, and the fun in New Orleans jazz are entirely unavailable to the majority of listeners, for whom beauty might be melismatic singers, humor a shock-jock skit, love an explicit ballad, and fun the whole clattering, zooming mile-a-minute production.

I mean, have you heard "Hey Ya"?

While I would like to reply to some of those points later on when I have more time on my hands, I do want to say that that is about as perfect an explanation as I could ever hope to recieve. It's also more than slightly sad because you're right, the music really is a good reflection of our times.

[Jonathan Bogart]

With all due respect, Jon, that's stating the obvious.
Well, yeah.

But since Ilash seemed to be fussed that contemporary rock is no longer sporting the classic signifiers of great pop, I just thought I'd remind everyone that that's not rock's job anymore.

Yes, I lament it too. Just like I lament the loss of jazz being the pop vernacular, and ragtime before it.

It doesn't have to mean a thing to the individual listener, unless the listener is more concerned with broad marketplace trends than with what he or she likes. Or is some kind of anthro-cultural-socio-historilogical dork like me.

Oh, and Crocker, Ilash, count me in on any discussion of authenticity you guys want to have. I've got theories.

[Adam Crocker]

Oh, and Crocker, Ilash, count me in on any discussion of authenticity you guys want to have. I've got theories.

I'll do that after I've got a proper response to Ilash's thread here done. So it might be tonight or tomorrow morning, but I'll try to make sure that it's no later. Right now I really need to get to gym.

[leonaozaki]

Ah now here's an interesting point. While I do think that at its best music should be balanced between positive and negative emotions but the idea of negative music as a cathartic experience is both important and true. Take the blues, a genre of music that is known for its negative lyrics and yet, as Willie Dixon is quoted as saying: "The blues is happy music!" probably because of this very phenomenon. It would seem that by placing all of their demons into their songs, they would be freed of them with the inevitable result of the music coming off as anything but negative. I have found this in rock and rolll as well.



I'm sorry if I come off as snarky, but this stereotype of the blues as depressing music or filled with negative lyrics is one of the most ridiculous stereotypes about popular music that I've ever heard.

Willie Dixon said the blues was happy music because an awful lot of blues music is hilarious. Take Robert Johnson. He's often perceived as this doom-ridden guy who sold his soul to the devil, and sure, you can hear some of that in some of his songs, but a lot of his songs are just rude double-entendres (sp?) about sex-- that are also wickedly funny. John Lee Hooker is a friggin' riot. The list goes on and on.

The blues cover a wide range of human emotion, and anybody that gave the music a serious listen would know that. Snark off.

rob

[Adam Crocker]

Take Robert Johnson. He's often perceived as this doom-ridden guy who sold his soul to the devil, and sure, you can hear some of that in some of his songs, but a lot of his songs are just rude double-entendres (sp?) about sex-- that are also wickedly funny.

And if you can't figure out the meaning of "squeeze my lemon until the juice runs down my leg" perhaps AC/DC is too highbrow for you.

And yes I'm working on my response, but it's hard to muscle my thoughts to their conclusions.

[Harry]

Oh you're absolutely right in what you're saying but it doesn't really answer the question as to whether there is more ironically detached music than before.
Yeah, sorry. Got a bit carried away with some irrelevent points.

I think I'm having a hard time discerning what everyone actually means by "ironic detachment." Are we talking intentional irony or unintentional?

[Jonathan Bogart]

I think I'm having a hard time discerning what everyone actually means by "ironic detachment." Are we talking intentional irony or unintentional?
I'm not entirely sure I'm getting exactly what Ilash means by it, either, but I would guess that he's talking about the tendency of most critically-acclaimed music of the last twenty years to eschew heart-on-sleeve emotion. The important word is detachment, not ironic. ("Cynical" might be better.) Whether that's the glacial robotics of certain synth-pop acts in the 80's, the way R.E.M. (along with a lot of other indie/alt rockers up to and including Nirvana) obscured meaning behind elliptical lyrics and lo-fi production, or the removal of soul music from the pulpit to the bedroom, there are plenty of examples.

But then, some of the most critically-acclaimed acts have been very direct, expressive, and unironic. The Clash come to mind.

[Harry]

I'm not entirely sure I'm getting exactly what Ilash means by it, either, but I would guess that he's talking about the tendency of most critically-acclaimed music of the last twenty years to eschew heart-on-sleeve emotion.
Well... If that's the case then I guess I disagree - not so much with it being a prevelent trend in music, but that it's more prevelent now than in the past. Led Zeppelin? They rock really hard, but most of their songs were either about Tolkein, sex or nothingness veiled in nonsensical metaphors. If anything, with emo (short for emotional after all - awww) storming the airwaves, it's now the TREND to wear one's heart on one's sleeve. And just as there are plenty of bands from the 70's and back who could be described as lyrically vacuous, there's plenty of well recognized bands from recent years who paint a very vivid mood: Joy Division comes immediatly to mind, U2, Coldplay, and even artists like Nick Cave or Billy Bragg - both critical darlings. Most of those bands, if not all, have achieved success through the heartfelt relatability of the band's voice.

[Ilash]

I'm sorry if I come off as snarky, but this stereotype of the blues as depressing music or filled with negative lyrics is one of the most ridiculous stereotypes about popular music that I've ever heard.

Willie Dixon said the blues was happy music because an awful lot of blues music is hilarious. Take Robert Johnson. He's often perceived as this doom-ridden guy who sold his soul to the devil, and sure, you can hear some of that in some of his songs, but a lot of his songs are just rude double-entendres (sp?) about sex-- that are also wickedly funny. John Lee Hooker is a friggin' riot. The list goes on and on.

The blues cover a wide range of human emotion, and anybody that gave the music a serious listen would know that. Snark off.

rob

Okay, yeah that is a fair point. Some of it still is though and I do think my overall point does still stand, using Won't Get Fooled Again as a better example of this.

And yeah, I guess I have fallen somewhat for this misconception though come to think of it, you are right, it very much is a misconception. I guess this is what happens when you don't really pay all that much attention to the lyrics.

[Ilash]

I'm not entirely sure I'm getting exactly what Ilash means by it, either, but I would guess that he's talking about the tendency of most critically-acclaimed music of the last twenty years to eschew heart-on-sleeve emotion. The important word is detachment, not ironic. ("Cynical" might be better.) Whether that's the glacial robotics of certain synth-pop acts in the 80's, the way R.E.M. (along with a lot of other indie/alt rockers up to and including Nirvana) obscured meaning behind elliptical lyrics and lo-fi production, or the removal of soul music from the pulpit to the bedroom, there are plenty of examples.

But then, some of the most critically-acclaimed acts have been very direct, expressive, and unironic. The Clash come to mind.

Yeah, that's pretty much precisely what I'm saying.

[Ilash]

Well... If that's the case then I guess I disagree - not so much with it being a prevelent trend in music, but that it's more prevelent now than in the past. Led Zeppelin? They rock really hard, but most of their songs were either about Tolkein, sex or nothingness veiled in nonsensical metaphors. If anything, with emo (short for emotional after all - awww) storming the airwaves, it's now the TREND to wear one's heart on one's sleeve. And just as there are plenty of bands from the 70's and back who could be described as lyrically vacuous, there's plenty of well recognized bands from recent years who paint a very vivid mood: Joy Division comes immediatly to mind, U2, Coldplay, and even artists like Nick Cave or Billy Bragg - both critical darlings. Most of those bands, if not all, have achieved success through the heartfelt relatability of the band's voice.

First, using Led Zeppelin to prove a point is never that good an idea as far as I'm concerned because I don't like them nearly as much as most. Nonetheless, Zeppelin's music, as emotionally simple it may well be, is hardly detached. Their ability to RAAAWWKK is their main appeal to me and however visceral an emotion that may be, it still is one. Zeppelin are simply anything but detached, their music is always very welcoming even when its complete crap.

Second, it's not so much the lyrics that I'm talking about but the general sound and approach of a band. The Beatles could be singing about Savoy Truffels or Rocky Racoons but their music was never, ever detached. Personal lyrics do help but they're not the main point here because they really are only one part of what defines the emotionalism of a song.

As for the new trend of emotionalism in music, well, lets take a look at those bands.

Coldplay: Certainly this is true, unfortunately they are so one note that I simply can't listen to much of their music in one go. Mainly of course because this one emotion that they revel in is mopiness and much like Radiohead before them and mopiness tries my patience. A lot.

U2: By far the most talented band that I flat out despise. Now I do love some of their songs but their overall message and the overall feel of their music is a total turn off. While it's not quite the same as what we're dealing with here, I find their self righteous, holier than thou, preachy and humourless approach to heartfelt music to be about repulsive as music can be.

While I haven't heard any Billy Bragg and my exposure to both Nick Cave and Joy Division is very, very limited and as such may be completely wrong but my first impression of their music is that its really quite cold and distant regardless of what the lyrics deal with. Don't jump down my throat if I'm wrong though because, as I said, I'm working of first impressions in this case.

My point is though that even if there are exceptions, and there are a lot of them, this "coldness" in music still strikes me as being far more fashionable since the late seventies than it was before that. And I for one, simply don't like it.

[Adam Crocker]

While I haven't heard any Billy Bragg and my exposure to both Nick Cave and Joy Division is very, very limited and as such may be completely wrong but my first impression of their music is that its really quite cold and distant regardless of what the lyrics deal with. Don't jump down my throat if I'm wrong though because, as I said, I'm working of first impressions in this case.

I've found Joy Division's music to be cold in that's icy, almost glacial in its sound, yet I have never found them to be distant at all. In fact I find Ian Curtis unnervingly direct as a vocalist and the music, rather than distancing him, actually serves to heighten his existential despair. If anything JD were known for putting inner turmoil at the forefront of their work.

As for Nick Cave, well musically speaking he jumps around a fair bit throughout his solo career so that might be the case. His earlier stuff is bizarre, dissonant post-punk sung in a menacing snarl, but his emotional mask is falling off with Your Funeral...My Trial and given up by 1990's The Good Son . Even if he's being darkly comic, like "Up Jumped the Devil" and "Deanna" on Tender Prey he doesn't really come off as cold or distant. On the other hand the album also has "Alice" and "Mercy."

And then there is The Boat Man's Call, which is among of the most disarmingly emotional and personal albums ever recorded.

As for Billy Bragg, he was a leading figure of the weirdly named 'anti-folk' movement of the 1980s. An English Woody Guthrie, but instead of coming out of the dustbowl and American socialism he came out of British punk and was politicized by the Clash. Which makes it kind of appropriate that when he began writing and playing songs as a solo performer, instead of playing with an acoustic, he used an electric. (Though many of his albums do make use of overdubs.) Somewhere along the way he opted to use a full band. Either way you'd at least like his most famous song "A New England."

[Adam Crocker]

Okay, this took awhile, but I fell asleep this morning. So here's my response.

As a rule though, I found that classic rock simply has a lot more HEART than a huge portion of what came out of the New Wave movement and the music that followed it.

Well as Bogart says, overall culture is simply more cynical and more receptive to irony than it was in previous eras. Though even then I think your assessment regarding emotional distancing is massively unfair in regards to Minor Threat, Durutti Column, New Model Army, the Replacements, the Smiths, Hüsker Dü, the Wedding Present, the Soft Boys, Robyn Hitchcock, the dBs, the Dream Syndicate, Galaxie 500, Tom Waits, Taulah Gosh, Fugazi, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Sufjan Stevens, Uncle Tupelo, Manic Street Preachers (oh why not most of Brit Pop except for Blur...even though Blur are frickin' awesome), Stone Roses, American Music Club, The Cure, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Aztec Camera,ew Pornographers (and their various members various solo and band projects), XTC, Orange Juice, Yo La Tengo, the Evens, Paul Weller's solo career, etc., etc., etc., etc. In fact there was plenty heart in the alternative rock underground that came out of punk and post-punk.

I suppose the best way to explain this phenomenon would be that basic human emotions were being obscured by several different factors, be it the use of more impersonal synthesizers and drum machines rather than the more "human" traditional instruments like guitars and pianos; more obscure, guarded and yes, ironic lyrics; a "colder", more robotic singing style and a general attitude that seemed to treat the love song as something beneath a "real" musicians contempt.

What robotic singing style? That went out of fashion with synth pop, and the only band I can think of as holding onto it is New Order on songs like "Blue Monday", and even that doesn't apply across the board for the band. (In fact, Summer's voice could be fairly warm on tracks such as "Temptation" which date from the same period as around "Blue Monday.") Of course the use of the drum machine pervades in hip-hop, contemporary R&B, and electronic music, but it went out of fashion in rock/pop music the moment grunge hit (if not before then). Synths are everywhere yes, but more in dance pop and hip-hop than rock/pop.

Now I may well just be an old hippy at heart but am I the only one who feels this seeming complete lack of beauty, humour (not the cold ironic type), love and oh yeah, FUN in modern popular music...

Well in the past few years we've seen the White Stripes "Hotel Yorba," "We're Going to Be Friends," and "Doorbell". We've seen The Hives, Franz Ferdinand, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps" and "Y Control." There's Outkast. (Only have Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, the latter of which is more of a modern soul record.) And then the New Pornographers and Flaming Lips. (And that's just mainstream, or almost mainstream stuff; and yes I'm mostly focusing on rock music, but Ilash has stated his disinterest in hip-hop and electronica, so why get into another argument with him about it?) Granted I don't quite keep up with a lot of new music as some people do here, so that's just what I have to offer.

Oh and yes, I realize that I have just extended cold irony to include this complete reliance on negative emotions but I feel that they're either two very related concepts or one and the same.

How? You've failed to explain this relationship and just lumped them together, seemingly for the sake of convenience because you like neither. I can understand peoples' complaints regarding the angst made commercially viable by grunge considering that most of the bands that practice are generic, talentless hacks whose anger is a forced pose driven less by actual emotions than testosterone. On the other hand I don't know how this is the same thing as emotional distancing

Of course post-grunge is dead (even Nickelback have acknowledged this sonically speaking, while still remaining fucking godawful) and nu-metal only lingers on. Instead rock culture (overground at least) has shifted back to sprightly guitar pop.

[leonaozaki]

U2: By far the most talented band that I flat out despise. Now I do love some of their songs but their overall message and the overall feel of their music is a total turn off. While it's not quite the same as what we're dealing with here, I find their self righteous, holier than thou, preachy and humourless approach to heartfelt music to be about repulsive as music can be.



I ask this in all politeness, in the spirit of my new found amiability: have you listened to Achtung Baby? Back when that record came out, critics fell all over themselves to discover U2's new "ironic" turn, but they missed the boat: Bono was writing personal lyrics in a way he never had before (and has yet to do since). Just take "One." It's very much unironic; it's a very personal statement of loss and hurt-- and probably my favorite U2 song. And it's also not preachy (not that I really understand how that criticism could be levelled at much of Joshua Tree either, but let that go).

Achtung Baby has humor, heart, and passion all expressed in some very diverse, interesting and challenging music. It's a great dance record with terrific lyrics. What's not to love?

Also, you're moving the goal posts. First you say that post-1975 bands have no passion, then when people bring up examples which challenge your thesis, you dismiss their valid points because you don't like the individual bands. Just because you don't like Coldplay (and I agree with you there) doesn't mean they're not unironic.

Really: how much of this music you're dismissing have you actually listened to? I apologize if this comes off as snarky; I'm really genuinely curious. I'm with Adam on this: I have a hard time believing anyone could listen to the Replacements and dismiss them as cynical, ironic, or whatever term you've latched onto to dismiss everything since 1975. I suppose you could label "Bastards of Young" as cynical but twentysomethings growing up in the 80's in America had a lot to be cynical about. Just listen to "Left of the Dial," and then come back and tell me that Paul Westerberg isn't bursting at the seams with passion about indie radio and the little girl who keeps growing up, playing make-up, wearing guitar.

Or Joy Division. If you're not a lyrics guy you're going to miss much of the point of that band, since Ian Curtis's personality and words are so central to its identity. Myself, I get chills up and down my spine everytime I hear Curtis sing "There's a taste in my mouth when desperation takes hold" on "Love Will Tear Us Apart" since I've been there, as cliched as that sounds.

You listen to the Flaming Lips. Are they ironic? Don't they wear their hearts on their sleeves and sing about love, albeit filtered through a lens of giant pink robots and freedom fighters named Yoshimi? Is that all that different from John Lennon and his walrus? Is "I am the Walrus" a direct statement of whatever Lennon was trying to say? Is "Tombstone Blues" a direct expression of what Dylan was trying to say?

Seriously: I understand that CDs are expensive in South Africa and that a lot of this music we constantly reference may be hard to find, but this argument would end the minute you tried out Picaresque by the Decemberists and Twin Cinema by the New Pornographers. If you can, try downloading "The Sporting Life" by the Decemberists and "Bleeding Heart Show" by the New Pornographers.

rob

[Ilash]

Okay, this took awhile, but I fell asleep this morning. So here's my response.



Well as Bogart says, overall culture is simply more cynical and more receptive to irony than it was in previous eras. Though even then I think your assessment regarding emotional distancing is massively unfair in regards to Minor Threat, Durutti Column, New Model Army, the Replacements, the Smiths, Hüsker Dü, the Wedding Present, the Soft Boys, Robyn Hitchcock, the dBs, the Dream Syndicate, Galaxie 500, Tom Waits, Taulah Gosh, Fugazi, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Sufjan Stevens, Uncle Tupelo, Manic Street Preachers (oh why not most of Brit Pop except for Blur...even though Blur are frickin' awesome), Stone Roses, American Music Club, The Cure, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Aztec Camera,ew Pornographers (and their various members various solo and band projects), XTC, Orange Juice, Yo La Tengo, the Evens, Paul Weller's solo career, etc., etc., etc., etc. In fact there was plenty heart in the alternative rock underground that came out of punk and post-punk.


Hmmm... Yes, I do agree with you about music reflecting our society. I do want to note however, how I have stated from the beginning that this is a very subjective thing and your selection of bands only proves this. I haven't heard a fortune by any of these guys but I have heard enough to say that for me, there is a very definite coldness to much of this music. You clearly disagree but while I may like a lot of this stuff, it simply doesn't strike me as warm and emotionally inviting as the stuff I normally like. As a possibility maybe this coldness is very much an actual emotion just not the sort that applies to a traditionalist like myself.


What robotic singing style? That went out of fashion with synth pop, and the only band I can think of as holding onto it is New Order on songs like "Blue Monday", and even that doesn't apply across the board for the band. (In fact, Summer's voice could be fairly warm on tracks such as "Temptation" which date from the same period as around "Blue Monday.") Of course the use of the drum machine pervades in hip-hop, contemporary R&B, and electronic music, but it went out of fashion in rock/pop music the moment grunge hit (if not before then). Synths are everywhere yes, but more in dance pop and hip-hop than rock/pop.


Actually, I was mainly referring to the New Wave period here. Sorry, I thought I made that clear in my original post. Still though I do find that a certain snarkiness in the singing of a lot of vocalists out there these days. Actually most of that stuff was admittedly more related to the 80s then now.


Well in the past few years we've seen the White Stripes "Hotel Yorba," "We're Going to Be Friends," and "Doorbell". We've seen The Hives, Franz Ferdinand, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps" and "Y Control." There's Outkast. (Only have Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, the latter of which is more of a modern soul record.) And then the New Pornographers and Flaming Lips. (And that's just mainstream, or almost mainstream stuff; and yes I'm mostly focusing on rock music, but Ilash has stated his disinterest in hip-hop and electronica, so why get into another argument with him about it?) Granted I don't quite keep up with a lot of new music as some people do here, so that's just what I have to offer.


Again fair point but, I don't know, I've heard a fair amount of these and while they are hardly devoid of the fun factor, I still feel that there is a certain... weariness to the music that still comes in. Sorry I'm not explaining this better but like I said in the first place, this is based on an entirely personal reaction that might well not be shared by a single other person.


How? You've failed to explain this relationship and just lumped them together, seemingly for the sake of convenience because you like neither. I can understand peoples' complaints regarding the angst made commercially viable by grunge considering that most of the bands that practice are generic, talentless hacks whose anger is a forced pose driven less by actual emotions than testosterone. On the other hand I don't know how this is the same thing as emotional distancing

Of course post-grunge is dead (even Nickelback have acknowledged this sonically speaking, while still remaining fucking godawful) and nu-metal only lingers on. Instead rock culture (overground at least) has shifted back to sprightly guitar pop.

Okay emotionally distant and this trend of mopiness are not the same thing at all but I group them together mainly because they both seem to be a negative reaction to the warmer, happier, more innocent music that I'm referring to. As far as the mopiness and general woe-is-me attitude that has been so in vogue for so long goes, it's like they were so desperate to seperate them from the sugary pop music that was seen as the antithesis of rock and roll by many. In a similar sort of way, I see the coldness as a continuation for the need to be edgy and biting that was such a strong characteristic of the punk movement. Or to put it simply, assigning specific emotions to specific genres. How far off am I in this anyway?

Two things that I have to admit to though: 1) Most of the music that i was thinking of at the time of my original post were more mainstream than most of teh counter examples that have been brought and 2) this trend is indeed being reversed TO A POINT with these newer retro bands.

[Ilash]

Some very interesting and often valid points brought up here, lets see if I can respond to them.

I ask this in all politeness, in the spirit of my new found amiability: have you listened to Achtung Baby? Back when that record came out, critics fell all over themselves to discover U2's new "ironic" turn, but they missed the boat: Bono was writing personal lyrics in a way he never had before (and has yet to do since). Just take "One." It's very much unironic; it's a very personal statement of loss and hurt-- and probably my favorite U2 song. And it's also not preachy (not that I really understand how that criticism could be levelled at much of Joshua Tree either, but let that go).

Achtung Baby has humor, heart, and passion all expressed in some very diverse, interesting and challenging music. It's a great dance record with terrific lyrics. What's not to love?


Nope, never heard Achtung Baby. Honestly, after being so MASSIVELY let down by the Joshua Tree, I sort of wiped my hands off these guys at least as far as albums go. "Ironic" is actually a word that I don't associate with U2 at all - if anything they strike me as being overly earnest (yeesh, there's just no pleasing me is there). Also, I actually adore the song "One", I really, really do though I think Johnny Cash did an even better job with it than U2.

Also, when it comes to U2 it's not purely their lyrics that I have a problem with - actually they're almost besides the point - it's their image. Not only their public one even but when I listen to their music all of those less than desirable attributes that i mentioned comes into my head and spoils my enjoyment. As such, while what you say about Achtung Baby may well be true, there's no guarantee that I would personally get that reaction from it. Damned biases, I tell you - they're just about impossible to beat. However, like I say I do like some of their individual songs a whole lot and I would be the last person to doubt their enormous talent because that is pretty evident but personal feeling just gets in the way too much.

Is that a clearer explanation for why I don't like U2?


Also, you're moving the goal posts. First you say that post-1975 bands have no passion, then when people bring up examples which challenge your thesis, you dismiss their valid points because you don't like the individual bands. Just because you don't like Coldplay (and I agree with you there) doesn't mean they're not unironic.


You're right. They are all valid points (Coldplay are as ironic as they are diverse) so I should have mentioned that I was dismissing them for the other pet peeve that I brought up as an aside in my original post: mopey music.


Really: how much of this music you're dismissing have you actually listened to? I apologize if this comes off as snarky; I'm really genuinely curious. I'm with Adam on this: I have a hard time believing anyone could listen to the Replacements and dismiss them as cynical, ironic, or whatever term you've latched onto to dismiss everything since 1975. I suppose you could label "Bastards of Young" as cynical but twentysomethings growing up in the 80's in America had a lot to be cynical about. Just listen to "Left of the Dial," and then come back and tell me that Paul Westerberg isn't bursting at the seams with passion about indie radio and the little girl who keeps growing up, playing make-up, wearing guitar.


See my response to Adam's above post for my response to this but yeah, the replacements are cool indeedy.


Or Joy Division. If you're not a lyrics guy you're going to miss much of the point of that band, since Ian Curtis's personality and words are so central to its identity. Myself, I get chills up and down my spine everytime I hear Curtis sing "There's a taste in my mouth when desperation takes hold" on "Love Will Tear Us Apart" since I've been there, as cliched as that sounds.


Heard some Joy Division and they weren't really to my tastes but that may change in the future.


You listen to the Flaming Lips. Are they ironic? Don't they wear their hearts on their sleeves and sing about love, albeit filtered through a lens of giant pink robots and freedom fighters named Yoshimi? Is that all that different from John Lennon and his walrus? Is "I am the Walrus" a direct statement of whatever Lennon was trying to say? Is "Tombstone Blues" a direct expression of what Dylan was trying to say?


True. Again though, I never really said that lyrics these days (and the last few decades) are cold and distant, I said the music is and yes, I probably should have clarified earlier that even that ofthen just refers to the overall sound of the music. But either way these criticisms simply don't apply to The Lips at all (The Soft Bulletin anyone?), even if others do.


Seriously: I understand that CDs are expensive in South Africa and that a lot of this music we constantly reference may be hard to find, but this argument would end the minute you tried out Picaresque by the Decemberists and Twin Cinema by the New Pornographers. If you can, try downloading "The Sporting Life" by the Decemberists and "Bleeding Heart Show" by the New Pornographers.

rob

Again, a perfectly fair point but I hope my previous replies may explain where I'm coming from a bit more. And hey, I have heard those New Pornographers and though I hardly love 'em, it's some real quality music and basically completely free from these criticisms. Actually, indie-pop is generally free from these criticism simply because I swear the musicians who play this stuff are almost as traditionalist as I am. Though for the record Bleeding Heart show is much more to my tastes than Twin Cinema.

And yeah, don't get me started on the CD prices here. I would love to pick up some Ween and Belle and Sebastian but the prices these stores charge for them are insane.

[Adam Crocker]

Just deal with a few arguments here for tonight.

Hmmm... Yes, I do agree with you about music reflecting our society. I do want to note however, how I have stated from the beginning that this is a very subjective thing and your selection of bands only proves this. I haven't heard a fortune by any of these guys but I have heard enough to say that for me, there is a very definite coldness to much of this music.

What coldness? Even the distorted post hardcore of Fugazi and hardcore of Minor Threat are very far from being cold due to their anger. (Nevermind Husker Du, or the warmer later period Husker Du.) I could see this more with the sometimes lacadaisical dream pop of Galaxie 500 and the Dream Syndicate, but I cited many of these bands percisely because they dealt with human emotions fairly directly. (Even Durutti Column, which was primarily instrumental.)

Actually, I was mainly referring to the New Wave period here. Sorry, I thought I made that clear in my original post.

You said, "of what came out of the New Wave movement and the music that followed it."

[Harry]

What coldness? Even the distorted post hardcore of Fugazi and hardcore of Minor Threat are very far from being cold due to their anger.
Yeah, if anything the punk bands of the 80s (Discharge, Conflict) dwarf most of the original 70s punk bands in the passion department. Those bands introduced concrete politicism and specific societal frustrations instead of wearing Swastika armbands and making fun of the Royal Family - and they were VERY pissed off when they did it.

I think a lot of what you think is missing from modern music, Ilash, can actually often be explained by the improvements in sound recording technology. Way back when it used to go like this: "I'm gonna press record, you guys are gonna play your song, and then we'll put it on a record." Now it's: "That guitar solo is very slightly out of time - no problem, we can splice it, rearrange it, then cut and paste it, and you won't even have to replay it! And we can do that with all the drums too!" It kind of sucks the spirit out of recorded music, and leaves it lacking that primal feeling that you miss. I've seen sooo many local young bands who are amazing, vital, unrestrained and passionate live, but when you take home their demo, it just sounds TOO perfect because everyony has access to that kind of technology now. Otherwise, my only suggestion is that you simply haven't heard enough music since the 70s, or at least haven't been hearing the right bands.

[Ilash]

Yeah, if anything the punk bands of the 80s (Discharge, Conflict) dwarf most of the original 70s punk bands in the passion department. Those bands introduced concrete politicism and specific societal frustrations instead of wearing Swastika armbands and making fun of the Royal Family - and they were VERY pissed off when they did it.

I think a lot of what you think is missing from modern music, Ilash, can actually often be explained by the improvements in sound recording technology. Way back when it used to go like this: "I'm gonna press record, you guys are gonna play your song, and then we'll put it on a record." Now it's: "That guitar solo is very slightly out of time - no problem, we can splice it, rearrange it, then cut and paste it, and you won't even have to replay it! And we can do that with all the drums too!" It kind of sucks the spirit out of recorded music, and leaves it lacking that primal feeling that you miss. I've seen sooo many local young bands who are amazing, vital, unrestrained and passionate live, but when you take home their demo, it just sounds TOO perfect because everyony has access to that kind of technology now. Otherwise, my only suggestion is that you simply haven't heard enough music since the 70s, or at least haven't been hearing the right bands.


Oh, this is one excellent point. Yes, the newer, "better" recording technology definitely plays a huge part in this and I think I have made it pretty clear in the past how much I prefer the sound of classic rock to its newer counterpart. I was going to respond to Crocker above by saying that even if those bands he mentioned do wear their hearts on their sleeves, I still feel a certain coldnes in the actual sound and your explanation for where that coldness (after all, rock and roll should be somewhat spontaneous, should it not?) may be coming from.

[Shellhead]

Ironic detachment can be fun, too. For example, the band Cake has done some amusing songs that just wouldn't be as good with ardent sincerity.

[Harry]

Yes, the newer, "better" recording technology definitely plays a huge part in this and I think I have made it pretty clear in the past how much I prefer the sound of classic rock to its newer counterpart.
I definitely agree. Digital recording is the CGI of modern music - when it's used right it's seamless, but it almost never is.

[Ilash]

I definitely agree. Digital recording is the CGI of modern music - when it's used right it's seamless, but it almost never is.

The CGI of modern music... man, that's just a perfect description for it. Nice one!