Dancing About Architecture

Writing about music, said Elvis Costello, is like dancing about architecture. Extra points go to whoever can figure out what the hell that means, and further points go to whoever can get me a sample of the clearly potent and very likely lysergic acid-soaked hashish Costello was smoking just before he said it.

Here’s the best guess: Costello is implying that it’s impossible to use one art form to convey the messages of another; just as one can’t execute a pirouette reminiscent of, say, the Sears Tower, one can’t write an essay or an article or a review that adequately conveys the nuances of tone and lyric and scale. If you think this makes sense, remember that Costello also once thought putting Daryl Hall and John Oates in one of his videos would be the epitome of hipness.

If it’s not already too obvious, I should note that I don’t agree with the fatalistic, don’t-bother nature of what Costello said (he said it as part of a greater speech I can’t recall right now verbatim). If we assume that writing is art just as music, dance and architecture are, we can assume that writing can draw its inspiration from similar sources. And while each art form represents that inspiration differently, I think it’s possible to convey similar emotions and ideas that

“But Kev,” you’re saying, “isn’t this supposed to be a music article and not a philosophy article? Also, shouldn’t you have some pants on?”

As to the first question: Yes, and I’m about to get on with it. As to the second: Mind your own damn business.

We’ve all read the articles and reviews in magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin (we’ve at least looked at the pictures). And I think the writers for those magazines do a good job of not only writing comprehensive artist biographies and articles about the music industry, they also manage to flavor their magazines with the taste of modern rock in general, and the moods and emotional minutiae of the artists and their music in specific.

As well, there are plenty of good sites on the Web where the discerning music consumer can watch talented reviewers perform the equivalent of a Bob Fosse-inspired ode to Bauhaus. That’s what I’ve been looking into, just for you.

Let’s talk about a few.

UNDERCOVER. I was thinking to myself one day, “You know, there aren’t nearly enough music news websites with an obvious Australian flavor that are informative and hip, yet not so hip that they’re inaccessible to those of us who still occasionally like to watch Barney Miller reruns.”

Funny thing — soon after that, I discovered Undercover, a fun little Aussie netzine with a great collection of news articles about a wide variety of pop, rock and rap stars from across Australia, the UK and the States. There’s no shortage of diversity among the articles, which range from coverage of Stereo MCs to Ozzy Osbourne to Britney Spears (three musical acts that are unsuspiciously lacking from my collection, but hey). Of course, Undercover is produced Down Under, which pretty much means there are a lot of articles about Midnight Oil, and comprehensive coverage of Kylie Minogue’s last bowel movement.

Interviewer Paul Cashmere does a nice job of holding that diversity in place in the site’s interview section; this month, he interviews Live bassist Patrick Dalheimer, skate guru Tony Hawk and British punk founders The Damned. The interviews are cohesive and Cashmere does a nice job of putting his subjects at ease. Good stuff.

The site’s only real failing is its review section. While Cashmere and fellow interviewer Hector the Rock Dog choose a variety of discs to match the rest of the site, the reviews fall short of doing what Costello says writing can’t do; when I’m reading the reviews, I don’t get a feel for the music I haven’t heard. If I didn’t know who Tom Waits was and I hadn’t seen India.Arie on MTV (I’m still wondering if they get the irony of playing that video) , I wouldn’t get anything out of the reviews. I’d rather trust my friends. But hey, reviews aren’t easy. It’s not as if I can write them myself.

SONICNET. An artist spotlight on Alicia Keys! Wow! I can’t remember the last time I heard anything about Alicia Keys! It’s a good thing I have SonicNet around to introduce me to these great new artists!

OK, OK, so the Alicia Keys train left the station about a month ago. It doesn’t mean SonicNet is a bad site. Indeed, its heavily marketed reputation is fairly well deserved. The site features a nice selection of articles, written compellingly, about modern music, from blues to rock to pop to jazz.

I guess what bothers me about SonicNet is that it features a search engine that pulls up reviews of a given artist’s latest disc, but there are a few artists in my own Archive of Personal Taste — such as John Mayer, who I’m listening to as I write this, and a few others — that aren’t possible to find in SonicNet’s archives. I’m willing to admit that Mayer isn’t exactly Christina Aguilera in terms of having a widespread audience, but Five For Fighting is on the front page, and the two could likely share an audience.

SonicNet seems to base its content on heavy album sales and little else, which makes it a bad bet for finding new music. It’s got some genre variety, but that variety is hampered by the fact that every artist with a focus seems to be the Gwen Stefani or Shania Twain of his or her field. And there’s plenty of Stefani and Twain, if you’re interested and the only media you have access to is SonicNet.

This is balanced somewhat by the downloads section of the site; I’m not entirely familiar with DJ Krush or Grant Lee Phillips, so it’s nice to see the site balancing its celebrity worship with some new offerings.

Speaking of which:

THE WASHINGTON POST. This is a wonderful thing. No reviews, no articles, nothing like that, so Elvis Costello can calm down for a second. The Post’s music site simply offers self-posted mp3s from artists in the DC metro area.

Really, it’s what the Web was meant to do for music, and it might be the sort of thing that Hilary Rosen and Shawn Fanning can enjoy together, assuming they’re not busy throttling each other.

Think about it: You want to go out to a show, but you’re concerned that the band might suck and you’ll be forced to sit around with your friends playing the “what-do-you-want-to-do-I-don’t-know-what-do-YOU-want-to-do game” until the bars close and you wind up eating a turkey reuben with too little sauerkraut at a Greek diner somewhere. So you decide to end the argument before it begins: You fire up the Web connection and download a track from the Post’s mp3 site. The band doesn’t suck, you have a blast at the show, and the night becomes one for the books. Of course, the sandwich could still use a little more sauerkraut, but nobody said the Web was perfect just yet.

Like I said, this site is low on the text end, but there are a list of editor’s picks, and when you’ve got the music sitting right there, why bother reading what someone else thought of it, you know?

Man, that Elvis Costello was a smart guy.