Meaningful music(ians) (Weekend Assignment #273)

Weekend Assignment #273: The death of Michael Jackson has provoked a huge reaction, much of it from people who grew up listening to his music. Is there a particular musician whose work has particular meaning for you?

Extra Credit: What is your personal reaction, if any, to the death of Michael Jackson?

I already did the extra credit – that was yesterday’s post.

It should not surprise you if you’ve been reading here for awhile, but I can’t limit my response to this assignment to “a particular musician.” I’m not good at picking just one favorite anything, and next to books, music may be the toughest area for me to limit myself. But for this question, I’ve whittled it down to five artists whose overall body of work is significant to me. Although the first one in the list is meant to be in that spot, the rest are in no particular order:

The Beatles: I was ten years old when I first became aware of them, and they’d been broken up for four years by then. Their sound shaped my musical preferences, and they’re still the standard I use for evaluating the best pop/rock: melody, harmony, lyrics, and how it all works together. There’s a song in their catalog to go with nearly every moment you can think of. They produced their share of clunkers (for my money, most of them inhabit the White Album), but in eight years of recording together, the classics-to-clunkers ratio is very much in the classics’ favor. Nearly all of my favorite Beatles songs come from their middle period, after their early chart domination and movie stardom but before the studio-centric final years that Sgt. Pepper initiated; there’s barely a song on Rubber Soul that I don’t like, and Revolver is a close second.

I was sixteen when John Lennon was killed, and I wore black to school the next day.

Bruce Springsteen: Never having seen one of his legendary concerts continues to be one of my life regrets, but there may still be time to remedy it. I don’t love some of his earliest stuff, when it sounded like he was trying a bit too hard to be Bob Dylan, but before too long he found his own voice; it’s been almost 35 years since he was proclaimed as “the future of rock ‘n’ roll.” Listen carefully and you’ll realize that most of his songs really are written in character, and tell a story. The earlier stories were often about those rock ‘n’ roll staples, cars or girls (or both, as in my absolute favorite, “Thunder Road”), but his subject matter has broadened and matured over time, and the stories can take you from the Jersey Shore to the Great Plains and back again to New York City…and he makes them all sound personal, immediate, and real.

My favorite Springsteen album remains the one that first got my attention, 1978’s Darkness of the Edge of Town, but I think Tunnel of Love is underrated, and that with albums like The Rising and Magic, he’s continuing to connect with a 21st-century audience.

Elvis Costello: He came out of the punk-rock/New Wave movements of the late ’70’s, but he’s moved well beyond his Angry Young Man days. He doesn’t sneer at everything any more, although I’m not sure he ever really did – after all, what is so funny ’bout peace, love, and understanding? Still, he hasn’t lost his musical restlessness and it’s hard to pigeonhole him in a particular style, although it’s usually pretty easy to recognize his sound.

It’s often not hard to tell when he’s been involved in the songwriting, either; his lyrics are usually smart, occasionally even biting, and they read well. EC is a musician whose songs have inspired at least two book titles, Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity and Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis, and whose “Everyday I Write the Book” could be the theme song of writers everywhere.

U2: I feel like they were the first, and possibly the most important, real musical superstars of my own generation, and the fact that they’re still creating music that matters makes me feel pretty good about usforty-somethings. The fact that a lot of it is still good music helps, of course. Granted, it did go in some odd directions during the ’90’s, but on the other hand, I have to give them credit for wanting to stretch creatively. Their albums during this decade seem to have found a good balance between that experimentation and the sound that instantly identifies a song as theirs.

Unlike the other musicians I’ve mentioned, I actually can pick one personally meaningful album by U2 – and it’s not The Joshua Tree. Their 2001 album All That You Can’t Leave Behind was a soundtrack for me during a period when I was about to leave quite a few things behind.

Jimmy Buffett: Don’t laugh! During my high-school and college years, I lived on the west coast of Florida, and Jimmy Buffett was our music – and he actually could sell records back then, too. It wasn’t just “Margaritaville,” believe it or not. Although his songs are probably best known as the soundtrack to beach parties and tropical drinks – with good reason – he’s also a fine musical storyteller with a good sense of melody. It’s hard to stay in a bad mood when you’re listening to Jimmy, even without the company of something cold and alcoholic. He’s become especially significant to me during the last four years, because now he’s shared; unlike my first husband, my second one isn’t a Florida native, but Tall Paul is a certified Parrothead, and he’s really expanded my exposure to the Jimmy Buffett musical catalog. He’s also seen Jimmy in concert five times to my pathetic once, and one of these days we ARE going to see one of his shows together.

Genuine Parrothead – accept no substitutes!

I could do a companion post to this about five artists whose music is totally insignificant to me, but I guess that writing such a thing would actually make them significant.

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11 comments

  1. Magpie – If we agree on four out of five, you may find that you don't think the fifth one is too bad either :-).

  2. Amy – Yeah, I knew someone would be amused by that one :-). That's why I explained all my choices. I've actually liked Jimmy Buffett for years, but if it weren't for my husband, I doubt he'd be on this particular list.

  3. All good choices. None of them will be on my list, but you didn't really expect that, did you? 🙂

    I'm pretty sure it's a law that you like Jimmy Buffet if you live in Florida. Don't they give you one of his CDs when you close on a mortgage there?

  4. Loved this post! I am not a Beatles or Buffett fan, but Bruce and U2 are among my faves. I too love "Thunder Road" and think that Tunnel of Love is vastly underrated (it's actually my favorite Bruce album). All that You Can't Leave Behind – wonderful. I think that Bono and Bruce belong to a different, more amazing species than the rest of us.

    And Elvis – I like him ennough to have named my blog after the very song you mentioned!

  5. Mike – That was the surprising thing about discovering that Paul is a Buffett fan – he's never set foot in Florida. He'd never even been east of the Mississippi until he was into his 40's.

    And I do expect your list to look a lot different from mine 🙂 – our tastes in that category don't seem to intersect much.

    Gayle – Every time I visit your blog, I think of that song :-).

    Tunnel of Love is probably my second-favorite Springsteen album. It's always nice to find someone else who appreciates it.

  6. Cool! I'll never admit to a single clunker in the Beatles catalog, but I enjoyed your assessment, and what you wrote about Bruce and the rest. I met Elvis C. many years ago, but only for autograph purposes; I have no insights. I kind of lost track of him after Imperial Bedroom. Excellent post!

  7. Karen – Even if it was just for an autograph, I still think it's very cool that you've met Elvis Costello. And it really does pain me to say that there are a few Beatles songs I feel are less worthy, but I can't help it.

  8. I wouldn't mind a post about the musicians you think are the most insignificant. 🙂 I can see The Beatles, U2 and Bruce Springsteen making my list too.

  9. Wendy (Literary Feline) – Maybe I will do that "insignificant musicians" post one day, when I'm in a particularly snarky mood :-).